• 20 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Not quite. If you are in so deep that you are worried about color you already past the executive order that defines the layout of the flag as you know it.

    If you notice all the flags in the video has a singular blue area. This one has two. Whether that is valid or not dependa on how you interpret “union of the flag shall be forty-eight stars, white in a blue field”.

    If you think that means the blue area must be contiguous then this flag does not meet the definition. If you think the blue area does not need to be contiguous then this flag may meet the definition.



  • So I had a conversation on this in a different community. I’m going to summarize my conclusion here.

    Sadly the flag code defines the flag as having a singular blue fied.

    I tried to get a good definition of what exactly a field is. Here we have the definition “The backdrop color to a flag. Ex: On the Arkansas state flag, it is the red part.”

    I’m not actually finding a better definition and am starting to question if the canton in the US flag counts as a field in vexillology terms since it isn’t a ‘backdrop’.

    A better way, and perhaps the more accurate, is to ask how we would construct a flag. The red field in the Arkansas flag is one piece of fabric. The blue canton is one piece of fabric. Two blue stripes could be once piece of fabric with everything else sewn into of it. But I think the better construction would be two pieces of fabric sewn on to the outer two stripes.

    But I wouldn’t worry about it since section 5 codifies “existing rules and customs pertaining to the display and use of the flag of the United States” by using an existing executive order. That order’s attachment basically defines the flag as you know it.

    Of course none of this is actually has a mechanism of enforcement so you can fly just about anything and just call it the American flag.


  • Ok here’s my take from someone who hasn’t played them in probably close to 2 decades, didn’t actually own them but just played with a friend who owned it. But I did love the series at least enough that I still have impressions of my feels from over 20 years ago.

    I remember loving playing Twisted Metal 2. I can remember sitting in front of the TV plating the single and multiplayer. I can’t remember the specifics of much more beyond very basic mechanics but there is a very positive emotion. My memory of Twisted Metal 3 is just disappointment and blandness.

    I didn’t get much time with either game but I remember having the choice between them and choosing 2 over 3 consistently.

    If a large chunk of people are in a similar situation as me, only vague limited impressions from long ago, give their opinions you their opinion over more than a decade you build a very negative image.

    Throw in people just discovering the games and being told 2 is good and 3 is bad. They then compare maybe minutes of the gameplay before deciding which to play and reinforce the narrative. You can end up with a fan base with an unjustly harsh view.

    I can honestly see 3 being just kind of mediocre and just being judged awful because of how good 2 was.













  • “Oil deliveries to Pakistan have begun. There is no special discount; for Pakistan, it is the same as for other buyers,” Russian state media quoted Shulginov as telling reporters on the sidelines of an international economic conference in St. Petersburg.

    That’s not what economists are usually talking about with discounts in this context. When talking about oil, or any commodity discount, it typically means against a baseline product. For oil you compare to the price of Brent. Think of it as the price difference between buying generic vs name brand at a grocery store.

    There’s no details on the actual trade in the articlebut comparing Urals vs Brent shows it’s still trading at a roughly 20% discount today vs the ~2% discount preconflict.

    I actually think the article titled misses the bigger part of the story.

    agreed to accept Chinese currency as payment

    I would expect increased trade between the three countries of this becomes the norm.







  • “I refuse (voiceover) work that states they’ll take my voice and make an AI model from it,” voice actor Brad Ziffer told CNBC. “The best way to protect myself is to just stay away.”

    As you should. There is a big difference between narrating and giving away personality rights.

    But the article kind of negates the title.

    However, experts say seamlessly replicating the way a human talks with AI is still a ways away. Human beings offer unique intonation, cadence, and emotion when they speak.

    Voice artist narration for big title releases isn’t going away anytime soon. And if it does the job is going to be replaced with technical/artistic jobs fine tuning the generated narration.

    What I actually see happening in the short term is it becoming profitable to do generative narration of smaller authors and books that would be profitable using traditional voice work.

    In time I could see this working it’s way up the budget ladder into larger projects but that’s still a way off.