#C programming examples

[hob28]

Advanced C Programming: Mastering the Language

Introduction

Advanced C programming is essential for developers looking to deepen their understanding of the language and tackle complex programming challenges. While the basics of C provide a solid foundation, mastering advanced concepts can significantly enhance your ability to write efficient, high-performance code.

1. Overview of Advanced C Programming

Advanced C programming builds on the fundamentals, introducing concepts that enhance efficiency, performance, and code organization. This stage of learning empowers programmers to write more sophisticated applications and prepares them for roles that demand a high level of proficiency in C.

2. Pointers and Memory Management

Mastering pointers and dynamic memory management is crucial for advanced C programming, as they allow for efficient use of resources. Pointers enable direct access to memory locations, which is essential for tasks such as dynamic array allocation and manipulating data structures. Understanding how to allocate, reallocate, and free memory using functions like malloc, calloc, realloc, and free can help avoid memory leaks and ensure optimal resource management.

3. Data Structures in C

Understanding advanced data structures, such as linked lists, trees, and hash tables, is key to optimizing algorithms and managing data effectively. These structures allow developers to store and manipulate data in ways that improve performance and scalability. For example, linked lists provide flexibility in data storage, while binary trees enable efficient searching and sorting operations.

4. File Handling Techniques

Advanced file handling techniques enable developers to manipulate data efficiently, allowing for the creation of robust applications that interact with the file system. Mastering functions like fopen, fread, fwrite, and fclose helps you read from and write to files, handle binary data, and manage different file modes. Understanding error handling during file operations is also critical for building resilient applications.

5. Multithreading and Concurrency

Implementing multithreading and managing concurrency are essential skills for developing high-performance applications in C. Utilizing libraries such as POSIX threads (pthreads) allows you to create and manage multiple threads within a single process. This capability can significantly enhance the performance of I/O-bound or CPU-bound applications by enabling parallel processing.

6. Advanced C Standard Library Functions

Leveraging advanced functions from the C Standard Library can simplify complex tasks and improve code efficiency. Functions for string manipulation, mathematical computations, and memory management are just a few examples. Familiarizing yourself with these functions not only saves time but also helps you write cleaner, more efficient code.

7. Debugging and Optimization Techniques

Effective debugging and optimization techniques are critical for refining code and enhancing performance in advanced C programming. Tools like GDB (GNU Debugger) help track down bugs and analyze program behavior. Additionally, understanding compiler optimizations and using profiling tools can identify bottlenecks in your code, leading to improved performance.

8. Best Practices in Advanced C Programming

Following best practices in coding and project organization helps maintain readability and manageability of complex C programs. This includes using consistent naming conventions, modularizing code through functions and header files, and documenting your code thoroughly. Such practices not only make your code easier to understand but also facilitate collaboration with other developers.

9. Conclusion

By exploring advanced C programming concepts, developers can elevate their skills and create more efficient, powerful, and scalable applications. Mastering these topics not only enhances your technical capabilities but also opens doors to advanced roles in software development, systems programming, and beyond. Embrace the challenge of advanced C programming, and take your coding skills to new heights!

[isat-script-project]

Your amazing work here has inspired me to want to try doing a script project for DQB2 and I was wondering if you had any advice for me?

I'm gonna assume that's some sorta dragon quest game?

Well, ISAT really is a blessing in this regard, because the game is not encrypted at all. Accessing files and all text via rpgmaker MV and VSC is incredibly easy.

okay this got really long i'm putting it under the cut.

But before you get started, there really are some things you need to ask yourself first:

How am I going to get the text from this game?

If your answer is "write it down by hand as I play" then already know that there HAS to be a better way. If you're choosing that method, get yourself emulation, save states, or endless patience, because hooh boy, I've done a little bit of that for a different project (no, I will not elaborate) but save scumming on original hardware to get different dialogue options is agony.

Is there a text dump for your game? Is there a file dump or decomp for your game? Do you have the technical know how to access it? If not, are you confident in your knowledge of the game to accurately identify where all dialogue may occur? If not, are you satisfied missing out on nothing lines and just focusing on the non-optional? Is your game linear enough to not need a closer look at the code to figure out what happens when, as isat does?

2. What's my scope?

Again, do you truly want every line from this game, or just what's "important"? I personally cannot rest until I've exhausted the fucking Menus (which is why there's a script page for those, too) because I'm a completionist with delusions of grandeur, but some people are satisfied transcribing the cutscenes and nothing else (MUCH TO MY ANNOYANCE WHEN I NEED THE OTHER STUFF.... nobody cares about the optional collectible npc dialogue BUT I CARE!!! I CARE!!!!!)

Anyways, what exactly your scope is is gonna significantly influence what your next step looks like.

3. How am I going to present this?

Making the isat script project an individual website mainly came down to how finicky the dialogue in isat is. There's conditionals stacked on conditionals and I wanted a space where I had total control over how to present these factors without influence.

For more linear games, like, say, that time I made all the fewiki scripts for Fire Emblem 6 from chapter 12 onward, it was easy enough to present the scripts on a wiki page just because the game is much more linear, there's less dialogue to begin with, and all conditional text could be nicely divided up into similar groups, like boss dialogue where the condition is just "fight boss with x character".

isat script project would not exist without my fire emblem fixation, fun fact. other fun facts include that as a child i attempted to novelize Mario Party DS by transcribing all story mode text into a booklet by hand, and I did not finish this for reasons that are hopefully obvious.

This is, as you may figure, way easier to do. There is significantly less burden on you to actually understand how a website works - I cannot stress enough that the current state of the script project is only possible thanks to Gold, and without them, we'd still be at all dialogue being formatted as <p><b>Siffrin:</b> Says some text.</p>

For a lot of older games, you can also find whole game scripts being put up into a single document. Tis common on gamefaqs, I've used those plenty. There I believe you're just working with plain ol txt.

The rule is always though look at examples and if they do something cool figure out whether you can copy it. i did not create the website layout myself, i used a base and fiddled with it for a whole weekend until it stopped exploding.

Again, like, using an existing structure like a wiki or gamefaqs or just google docs or a spreadsheet is a significantly eased burden. One of my favorite things ever is actually a text dump on github, of all places. For this one, the person putting it up chose to leave all text in as close to original state as possible, doing no trimming of things like character emotes and leaving in all original string titles of every line. This is also incredibly useful, even if it is more difficult to use for your average schmoe! (This has fucking saved me doing wiki stuff for engage. engage text dump i ADORE you)

Do you want to be as accurate to the code as possible, or as accurate to the game? Do you have the time, energy, and skills to make the visual presentation nice? Or do you want to keep it rudimentary to streamline your process?

If you ARE doing something like making your own website, it is crucial that you figure out your visuals early, lest you be like us, and be stuck in Reformatting Hell for several months, because someone figured out how to make a thing prettier and nicer to read, and now you need to update the 100+ pages you've already created.

Reformatting code like that takes just as long as making a page in the first place, by the by, because you're just not getting around copy-pasting everything line by agonizing line.

This stuff takes HOURS. If I went at it alone, I doubt I'd have finished by now, or within the next like, two years. This is a really time consuming hobby, and I love doing it a lot, it scratches my exact fixation itch, but if your game is huge, consider seeing if people would be interested in joining you? I will also say being autistic about your game of choice is also a bonus in the sustainability department.

Many a times there were just no updates (as they are now) cuz I am just. Distracted by something else. Like yes on one hand I'm going to uni now and have less time but it's not really less time if I can still put 17hrs into a new video game in three days.

Stuff like this is ALWAYS a long-term project and you WILL need to take time off from it or else you'll start seeing html in your dreams and get burnout.

STREAMLINE YOUR PROCESS!!! FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THIS WITH AS LITTLE EFFORT AS POSSIBLE!!!! Gold introduced me to Espanso, which is a program that lets you set up keyboard shortcuts to insert phrases, which was a MAAAAAASSIVE time saver in the html department, as it allowed me to just rapid fire paste in all the many html classes we stacked for the presentation of the site. even if you are doing a script on a wiki where everything does look like ['''Siffrin:''' says a thing] you will still be doing yourself a favor if you can shorten that '''Siffrin:''' to just typing :s .

As a side note, I also wanna say like. The popularity of isat script project is a complete outlier. Other game scripts may be used by a maniac like me to overanalyze the plot structure of Sonic 06, but you're very likely not going to see that recognition. I love doing this, because I want these resources to exist for myself. I don't do this for the good of the fandom, but because it is useful to me. I started this because I was writing isat fanfic, and got tired of looking up dialogue on youtube or booting up my own game.

Do I know if anyone found my FE6 scripts useful? No. Do I know if anyone is going through Veyle/Quotes and appreciating that I transcribed all the fucking battle voice clips? No. Do I know if someone appreciates me accurately labelling all voice lines from the ring polishing minigame in engage? Hell no. I don't know, I'm never going to get feedback on that. Those are wiki pages, anyone can edit them, they don't have viewcounts or comments I can look at, and the fandom just isn't as prone to taking screenshots and posting about them line by line as isat.

Isat blew the fuck up on tumblr. I'm not saying you'll get no recognition at all, but if you are relying on external motivators, you are probably going to peter out. There are pages I've worked on for other script things that I've genuienly not touched in two years because I just didn't feel like it, and that's also okay.

TLDR:

Figure out how to get the text you need with the least effort possible (and figure out whether doing that is even possible at all!), figure out what scope you're actually willing to put up with, and present it with the least effort possible, because everything else just isn't sustainable. Streamline streamline streamline. Be prepared to spend hours on this and maybe like find a new favorite podcast to just copy paste text to, because honestly, doing this is also pretty zen.

And most importantly, sparkle on, don't forget to have fun! Even if it seems big and intimidating, you can still make it just a fun side project, and slowly chip away at it over time. Rome wasn't built in a day, and with all the advantages going for isat script project (additional manpower, unencrypted files, easy tools for game examination) it still took over a year to complete.

(loop voice) Don't make the same mistakes I did, okay?

oh, yeah, one last thing, if you're not putting it on a wiki and ARE making your own website, ABSOLUTELY PUT IT ON GITHUB!!!! setting up so any changes to the main branch on github get reflected onto neocities is pretty easy and you only need to do it once, and what this allows is to just have random strangers show up and fix your problems for you. sometimes someone will just show up and fix five bajillion typos and then leave. or they'll stick around and help with more stuff and wowie you have a semblance of a team now.

if you're doing it on a wiki, find like, the wiki discord, if someone is interested in chipping in. if you're doing your own website, put it on github. do it. do it do it do it.

[vanillabat99]

I got told I'm "one of the good trans people" by a bunch of cisgender people today. Feels disgusting. I have decided I am going to become more annoying about my pronouns and presentation so that this never happens again.

[oekakidogarchive]

Hiiii ! Hope this blog isn’t dead — I just wanted to ask what the differences were between posts that are tagged Oekaki and Not Oekaki — does it depend on the forum it was posted on, or the art style? It’s a little confusing to me since I haven’t heard this term before. ^^

Hi, the tags "oekaki" or "not oekaki" are how we categorize which pieces were drawn on an oekaki using the java applet drawing programs. Oekakis were online message boards that provided onsite drawing programs for you to draw on, which was often the next most accessible drawing program at the time next to MS Paint.

For the time period we focused on, the only available java applet drawing programs on oekakis were OekakiBBS (basically superceded by PaintBBS), PaintBBS, and ShiPainter. They all had little their little quirks and techniques that are visible on finished drawings drawn on an oekaki. If we can tell from these quirks that the drawing was likely drawn in an oekaki applet, we tag it as Oekaki.

Cy

[gothpony666]

people on ravelry have terrible senses of what colors go together.

[herovired12]

Hero Vired comprehensively explains binary search in C programming with relevant examples. The tutorial covers implementing and applying the binary search algorithm, making it easier for learners to understand and apply the concept in their coding projects. For More Information, Please Visit The Blog.

[staff]

We Asked an Expert...in Herpetology!

People on Tumblr come from all walks of life and all areas of expertise to grace our dashboards with paragraphs and photographs of the things they want to share with the world. Whether it's an artist uploading their speed art, a fanfic writer posting their WIPs, a language expert expounding on the origin of a specific word, or a historian ready to lay down the secrets of Ea-nasir, the hallways of Tumblr are filled with specialists sharing their knowledge with the world. We Asked an Expert is a deep dive into those expert brains on tumblr dot com. Today, we’re talking to Dr. Mark D. Scherz (@markscherz), an expert in Herpetology. Read on for some ribbeting frog facts, including what kind of frog the viral frog bread may be based on.

Reptiles v Amphibians. You have to choose one.

In a battle for my heart, I think amphibians beat out the reptiles. There is just something incredibly good about beholding a nice plump frog.

In a battle to the death, I have to give it to the reptiles—the number of reptiles that eat amphibians far, far outstrips the number of amphibians that eat reptiles.

In terms of ecological importance, I would give it to the amphibians again, though. Okay, reptiles may keep some insects and rodents in check, but many amphibians live a dual life, starting as herbivores and graduating to carnivory after metamorphosis, and as adults they are critical for keeping mosquitos and other pest insects in check.

What is the most recent exciting fact you discovered about herps?

This doesn’t really answer your question, but did you know that tadpole arms usually develop inside the body and later burst through the body wall fully formed? I learned about this as a Master’s student many years ago, but it still blows my mind. What’s curious is that this apparently does not happen in some of the species of frogs that don’t have tadpoles—oh yeah, like a third of all frogs or something don’t have free-living tadpoles; crazy, right? They just develop forelimbs on the outside of the body like all other four-legged beasties. But this has only really been examined in a couple species, so there is just so much we don’t know about development, especially in direct-developing frogs. Like, how the hell does it just… swap from chest-burster to ‘normal’ limb development? Is that the recovery of the ancestral programming, or is it newly generated? When in frog evolution did the chest-burster mode even evolve?

How can people contribute to conservation efforts for their local herps?

You can get involved with your local herpetological societies if they exist—and they probably do, as herpetologists are everywhere. You can upload observations of animals to iNaturalist, where you can get them identified while also contributing to datasets on species distribution and annual activity used by research scientists.

You can see if there are local conservation organizations that are doing any work locally, and if you find they are not, then you can get involved to try to get them started. For example, if you notice areas of particularly frequent roadkill, talking to your local council or national or local conservation organizations can get things like rescue programs or road protectors set up. You should also make sure you travel carefully and responsibly. Carefully wash and disinfect your hiking boots, especially between locations, as you do not want to be carrying chytrid or other nasty infectious diseases across the world, where they can cause population collapses and extinctions.

Here are some recent headlines. Quick question, what the frog is going on in the frog world? 

Click through for Mark’s response to these absolutely wild headlines, more about his day-to-day job, his opinion on frog bread, and his favorite Tumblr.

✨D I S C O V E R Y✨

There are more people on Earth than ever before, with the most incredible technology that advances daily at their disposal, and they disperse that knowledge instantly. That means more eyes and ears observing, recording, and sharing than ever before. And so we are making big new discoveries all the time, and are able to document them and reach huge audiences with them.

That being said, these headlines also showcase how bad some media reporting has gotten. The frogs that scream actually scream mostly in the audible range—they just have harmonics that stretch up into ultrasound. So, we can hear them scream, we just can’t hear all of it. Because the harmonics are just multiples of the fundamental, they would anyway only add to the overall ‘quality’ of the sound, not anything different. The mushroom was sprouting from the flank of the frog, and scientists are not really worried about it because this is not how parasitic fungi work, and this is probably a very weird fluke. And finally, the Cuban tree frogs (Osteocephalus septentrionalis) are not really cannibals per se; they are just generalist predators who will just as happily eat a frog as they will a grasshopper, but the frogs they are eating are usually other species. People seem to forget that cannibalism is, by definition, within a species. The fact that they are generalist predators makes them a much bigger problem than if they were cannibals—a cannibal would actually kind of keep itself in check, which would be useful. The press just uses this to get people’s hackles up because Westerners are often equal parts disgusted and fascinated by cannibalism. 

What does an average day look like for the curator of herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Denmark?

No two days are the same, and that is one of the joys of the job. I could spend a whole day in meetings, where we might be discussing anything from which budget is going to pay for 1000 magnets to how we could attract big research funding, to what a label is going to say in our new museum exhibits (we are in the process of building a new museum). Equally, I might spend a day accompanying or facilitating a visitor dissecting a crocodile or photographing a hundred snakes. Or it might be divided into one-hour segments that cover a full spectrum: working with one of my students on a project, training volunteers in the collection, hunting down a lizard that someone wants to borrow from the museum, working on one of a dozen research projects of my own, writing funding proposals, or teaching classes. It is a job with a great deal of freedom, which really suits my work style and brain.

Oh yeah, and then every now and then, I get to go to the field and spend anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months tracking down reptiles and amphibians, usually in the rainforest. These are also work days—with work conditions you couldn’t sell to anyone: 18-hour work days, no weekends, no real rest, uncomfortable living conditions, sometimes dangerous locations or working conditions, field kitchen with limited options, and more leeches and other biting beasties than most health and welfare officers would tolerate—but the reward is the opportunity to make new discoveries and observations, collect critical data, and the privilege of getting to be in some of the most beautiful and biodiverse places left on the planet. So, I am humbled by the fact that I have the privilege and opportunity to undertake such expeditions, and grateful for the incredible teams I collaborate with that make all of this work—from the museum to the field—possible.

The Tibetan Blackbird is also known as Turdus maximus. What’s your favorite chortle-inducing scientific name in the world of herpetology?

Among reptiles and amphibians, there aren’t actually that many to choose from, but I must give great credit to my friend Oliver Hawlitschek and his team, who named the snake Lycodryas cococola, which actually means ‘Coco dweller’ in Latin, referring to its occurrence in coconut trees. When we were naming Mini mum, Mini scule, and Mini ature, I was inspired by the incredible list that Mark Isaac has compiled of punning species names, particularly by the extinct parrot Vini vidivici, and the beetles Gelae baen, Gelae belae, Gelae donut, Gelae fish, and Gelae rol. I have known about these since high school, and it has always been my ambition to get a species on this list.

If you were a frog, what frog would you be and why?

I think I would be a Phasmahyla because they’re weird and awkward, long-limbed, and look like they’re wearing glasses. As a 186 cm (6’3) glasses-wearing human with no coordination, they quite resonate with me.

Please rate this frog bread from 1/10. Can you tell us what frog it represents?

With the arms inside the body cavity like that, it can basically only be a brevicipitid rain frog. The roundness of the body fits, too. I’d say probably Breviceps macrops (or should I say Breadviceps?) based on those big eyes. 7/10, a little on the bumpy side and missing a finger and at least one toe.

Please follow Dr. Mark Scherz at @markscherz for even more incredibly educational, entertaining, and meaningful resources in the world of reptiles and amphibians.

[unnonexistence]

have just discovered that the other half is hunting down bugs

i think about half of learning to code is sitting around puzzled by something going "there HAS to be an easy way to do this" until you remember the right term to google

[blergityblargh]

The fate of the NDP in the Canadian election is such a clear example of where lesser-evilism gets you.

The NDP is the labour party equivalent in Canada. They had socialism in their constitution until about 15 years ago. The most successful federal election for them ever was in 2011 when people were sick to death of the Liberals and turned to the NDP as the most radical thing available.

Now they've lost so many seats that they've lost official party status. Because they tied themselves to the Liberals, they propped up Trudeau, they aligned themselves with the establishment. So in the election, anyone who wanted the Liberals voted for the Liberals, and anyone who was sick of the establishment voted Conservative.

The NDP lost the youth vote for the first time in forever. The NDP is the party founded by unions, and they lost the union vote. And they lost both demographics to the Conservatives! Because Poilievre was the one actually talking about the working class and the cost-of-living crisis. Now they don't have official party status anymore, which means they lose funding, and they don't get the same rights in Parliament.

Jagmeet Singh, the (now former) NDP leader, said about propping up the Liberals, that he could have brought them down and gained a lot of votes, but that he put the fate of the country ahead of the fate of his party. Insane thing to say. If you actually believe that your party has the right ideas then it's your duty to win the widest layer of the population over to them as possible. He fucked up deeply and destroyed his party for what?

Carney's agenda is virtually indistinguishable from Poilievre. He's going to do the same tax cuts. He's going to carry out the same attacks on social programs. He's already making major cuts to supports for Indigenous communities. He's been sending arms to Israel, while lying about it. He's going to be syphoning money off into the military. The literal only difference between them is that the ruling class is more comfortable with Carney because they know him, while Poilievre used anti-establishment rhetoric to get popular and they weren't a fan of that.

People always argue that lesser-evilism is about "choosing which enemy you'd rather fight." I've seen people say that they have an easier time fighting under the Liberals than the Conservatives. When a) there is so little daylight between the two. b) The Liberals are literally nicknamed "the ruling party of Canada". They've been in power most of the time. They're the preferred representatives of the ruling class and the main enemy.

And c) most importantly. Will the NDP have an easier time fighting after supporting the Liberals? No, they've totally undermined their ability to fight. They've dramatically lowered their capacity to get anything done. Because lesser-evilism is not about "choosing your enemy" it's about aligning with the enemy in the eyes of the people you're trying to win over. You're not better able to fight the establishment because the people who actually want to do that see you as part of the establishment. You've cratered any credibility you might have had as a fighter.

You've sold tomorrow for today, and not for a very good today either.

[herpsandbirds]

Tool Use by New World Halichoeres Wrasses

Juliette Tariel-Adam, Jaqueline G. Toledo, C. E. O’Brien, et al.

ABSTRACT

A diverse array of animals has evolved the ability to use tools (e.g., primates, parrots, octopus, crabs, and wasps), but the factors leading to tool use evolution are poorly understood. Fishes could provide insight into these factors via comparison of ecological and morphological differences between tool-using and non-tool-using species. Anvil use is one example of tool use by fish: the fish holds a hard-shelled prey item in its mouth and strikes it onto a hard surface (anvil) to open it. To date, anvil use has been described in 26 of the > 550 described wrasse/Labridae species. Through a community science program called Fish Tool Use, 16 new observations of anvil use were collected in five species of a monophyletic group of wrasses called the New World Halichoeres. These new observations provide the first evidence of anvil use by Halichoeres brasiliensis, H. poeyi and H. radiatus, and the first video evidence of anvil use by H. garnoti and H. bivittatus.  They extend the geographic range of known anvil use by wrasses to a new region, the western Atlantic, making this behaviour even more widespread than previously reported. Video analysis revealed that wrasses are flexible in their anvil use: They did not have a preferred side of their body, they cracked open a diverse array of prey on a variety of anvil types, and often used many anvils and striking points for the same prey item. More observations are needed to determine the evolutionary origin of anvil use behaviour, its ecological drivers, costs, and benefits.

Read the paper here:

Tool use by New World Halichoeres wrasses | Coral Reefs

[creature-wizard]

Is the spiritual person a conspiracy theorist? A list of red flags

They talk about a shadowy group of people supposedly manipulating everything behind the scenes. They might refer to them by terms such as globalists, bankers, international bankers, secret rulers of the world, the elite, the cabal, Kabbalists, Talmudists, satanists, satanic pedophiles, pedophiles, generational satanists, satanic bloodlines, the Illuminati, the Babylonian Brotherhood, lizard people, Reptilians, Orions, regressives, regressive entities, Khazarians, Marxists, cultural Marxists, or leftists. Sometimes, very rarely, they'll just come right out and say "Jews."

They claim that the conspiracy has been working to conceal historical and spiritual truths from humanity.

They claim that the conspiracy uses stuff like food, entertainment, and medicine to control the masses. For example, "additives in food suppress our psychic abilities" or "Hollywood films contain subliminal messages" or "COVID vaccines were actually created to alter your DNA to make you more docile."

Also, claims that the conspiracy controls people via spiritual or technological implants, 5G, or alter programming, with or without explicit mention of Project Monarch (a conspiracy theory promoted by far right cranks such as Mark Philips and Fritz Springmeier, who used hypnosis to respectively convince Cathy O'Brien and Cisco Wheeler that they'd been put under mind control by a global satanic conspiracy).

They claim that this conspiracy is controlling the media, has fingers in every institution they disagree with, and is generally behind everything they disagree with. (EG, the conspiracy created the Catholic Church; that other New Ager they disagree with is actually controlled opposition, etc.)

They claim that the conspiracy is trying to keep people in fear.

They claim that the conspiracy harvests something from people. Blood and adrenochrome are common ones. Loosh is somewhat less common. Expect to see something else pop up eventually.

They claim that the conspiracy practices genetic engineering; EG, creating animal/human hybrids, using vaccines to genetically sever people's connection to God, etc.

They claim that true spiritual wisdom can be traced back to places like Atlantis, Lemuria, or Mu.

They claim that world governments have secretly been in contact with extraterrestrials for years.

They appeal to known frauds and cranks, including but not limited to Erich Von Daniken, Zechariah Sitchin, David Icke, David Wilcock, Graham Hancock, Jaime Maussan, Bob Lazar, Steven Greer, Richard C. Hoagland, Fritz Springmeier, and Drunvalo Melchizedek.

Appeals to forged documents, including but not limited to the alleged diary of Admiral Richard Byrd, The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, and The Urantia Book.

Appeals to channeled information, such as that provided by Edgar Cayce, Carla Rueckert, or George Van Tassel.

"But all of this has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?"

Oh, it all comes from somewhere, all right, but the where isn't what most people imagine.

A lot of the stuff above is just a modern spin on the content of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian hoax created to justify violence against Russian Jews. The Protocols itself was plagiarized from a political satire and incorporated a lot of the post-French Revolution conspiracy theories about Freemasons and Jews being behind the French Revolution. I wrote a summary of the conspiracy tropes found in The Protocols over here.

The stuff about Satanic sacrifices and the consumption of blood, adrenochrome, loosh, or whatever are simply just variations on blood libel, an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims Jews practice ritual cannibalism. Blood libel can be traced back to ancient Greece. (With the Greek version, I really can't help but notice the similarity to modern urban legends of gangsters kidnapping random people for initiation rituals.)

Many of these tropes can also be linked back to the early modern witch hunts. It was believed that witches sacrificed babies to Satan, practiced cannibalism, and put people under mind control by way of diabolical magic. It was also believed that some witches didn't even know they were witches; they'd go off to attend the Devil's Sabbath at night and come back in the morning without remembering a thing. In the late 20th century, this witch hunter's canard would be reinvented as the alter programming conspiracy theory when media such as the 1973 book Sibyl and its 1976 television adaptation put DID (note: the woman who inspired Sibyl did not have DID) into the public consciousness. For a more complete list of witch panic and blood libel tropes, I wrote a list over here.

Lemuria was a hypothetical landmass proposed to explain the presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India while being absent in continental Africa and the rest of Asia, because if lemurs evolved naturally, they wouldn't be in two separate places with no connection to each other. The discovery that India and Madagascar were once connected not only made the hypothesis obsolete, it precludes the existence of Lemuria.

The whole notion of Mu began with a horrendous mistranslation of the Troano manuscript. A man named Augustus Le Plongeon would link the mistranslation with the story of Atlantis, and use it to claim that Atlantis actually existed in the Americas. (For Plongeon, Mu and Atlantis were one and the same.) And then other people (like James Churchward) got their hands on the whole Mu thing, and put their own spins on it, and the rest is history.

Le Plongeon's ideas influence modern Atlantis mythology today; EG, the idea that it was in the Americas. Another guy who helped shape the modern Atlantis myth was Ignatius L. Donnelly, an American politician. Dude claimed that Atlanteans spread their oh-so-superior culture far and wide. He also claimed that Atlantis was the home of the Aryan people, because of course he did.

The idea that all of the world's wisdom can be traced back to Thoth/Hermes goes back to Hermeticism, a product of Greco-Egyptian syncretism. Hermeticism produced a fascinating body of mythology and an interesting way to consider the divine and its role in shaping human history, but that doesn't mean it was right. And the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean is a modern text that has fuck-all to do with ancient Hermeticism and more to do with HP Lovecraft.

This idea that the conspiracy uses pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines for evil also has roots in Nazi Germany. The Nazi government, wanting to reserve real medicine for their soldiers, told the general populace that said medicine was the product of evil Jewish science and prescribed alternative healing modalities instead. (Said alternative healing modalities did not particularly work.) It also echoes the old conspiracy theories about Jews spreading the Black Death by poisoning wells.

The idea that the conspiracy uses genetic manipulation to create subhuman beings or sever humanity from the divine is a permutation of the Nazi conspiracy theory that Jews are trying to destroy the white race through race mixing. The idea of evil reptilian DNA goes back to the ancient serpent seed doctrine, which is indeed old, but no less pure hateful nonsense for it.

"But there's got to be somebody up to something rotten out there!"

Oh sure. But these people aren't skulking around in the shadows. They're acting pretty openly.

The Heritage Foundation has been working to push this country into Christofascism since the early 1970's. They're the ones responsible for the rise of the Moral Majority and the election of Ronald Reagan. They're also the ones behind Project 2025, which intends to bring us deeper into Christofascism. (Among many other horrible things, they intend to outlaw trans people as "pornographic.")

The Seven Mountains Mandate is another movement pushing for Christofascism. They intend to seize the "seven spheres" of society, which include education, religion, family, business, government/military, arts/entertainment, and media.

There's also the ghoulish American Evangelicals who support Israel because they think that current events are going to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus and cement the formation of a global Christofascist empire. Don't let their apparent support of Jews fool you - they believe that the good Jews will become Christians and the bad ones will go to hell.

All of these people are working toward monstrously horrific goals, but none of them are part of an ancient megaconspiracy. In fact, these are the kinds of people pushing the myth of the ancient megaconspiracy. From the witch hunts to Nazi Germany to the American Evangelical movement, if history has taught us anything, the people pushing the conspiracy theories are always the bad guys.

[simplyanjuta]

Enhancing Sims Thumbnails 🖼️🔍👀

So I have received some questions regarding this post and had another look at the ThumbnailConfig.ini file to see if there is anything else worth tweaking to enhance sims thumbnails.

I also decided to share my settings (though not sure if this is a good idea, I'll see how it goes). Disclaimer, that what works well for me/on my screen, might not be the best solution for you and you might be better off with the default settings. Also remember that generating higher resolution thumbnails can slow down your game. I think that visually the settings (only) make a big difference if you play on a larger screen and/or with an upscaled UI (game accessibility settings).

You can try my settings or use the info shared below (I might update it in the future) to experiment with the settings yourself. You can find examples on how to edit the file in my previous posts here and here and you can use any text editor like Notepad or Notepad++ to do so.

Download and details below the cut ⤵️

Below you can see what I changed (marked in green) and for what purpose as well as what resolution settings there are in general. I only looked at sims thumbnails and ignored everything else. I also think some settings should not be messed with, like the ones affecting pictures that are uploaded to the Gallery (exception is if you wanna extract these pictures for editing purposes) and there are a few settings that are not relevant for gameplay. Some settings I'm not sure about (feel free to share any info).

📥Download:

Sim File Share Last updated: February 27th, 2025

📒How to install:

This override does NOT go into your mods folder. Instead, you need to replace the original game file with it which you should find somewhere along a path like this:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 4\Game\Bin\res

The path might be slightly different for you and depends on where the game is installed on your computer. You can check the location in the EA app. To do so, select The Sims 4 ->  “Manage” -> “View properties” (there should be a similar option on Steam):

Locate the file ThumbnailConfig.ini as described above.

Save a copy of the original file somewhere on your computer in case you need to go back. (However, you can also run a game repair to restore the settings if needed.)

Replace the original file with the override (either with my file or with your own version).

Delete the file localthumbcache.package (see info here), so that the game can generate new thumbnails, then restart the game.

Note that you will need to repeat the steps/redo the changes whenever this file is overriden or updated or by the game.

Current game bug (not a mod/config issue):

It seems that the game currently is regenerating thumbnails each time you restart the game, even when the thumbnails already exist in the file localthumbcache, thus unneccessarily slowing down the game and bloating up this file. I tested this with no mods, with basegame only, in a fresh save, with the thumbnail config file reset to factory settings and it’s still happening. Also added my findings to this bug report. If you noticed the same issue, please hit “me too”.

[heathensimmer]

3T2 TV CHANNEL - with 3T2 Trait Support

Fishing Fracas

Hello! I am deciding to release some 3t2 tv channels one channel at a time since instructions are kinda involved.

This is a custom TV channel called "Fishing Fracas" straight from Sims 3 and it even plays the actual footage and audio from Sims 3!

This TV channel raises Nature enthusiasm and Sims will also gain the Fishing badge very slowly. Sims with the Angler 3t2 trait love this channel regardless of age.

If they Love the Outdoors (3t2 trait) their interest in Animals may increase if it's below 5 points.

If they have no traits, there is a tiny chance that they will increase their Animal Interest.

In this ZIP file, you will find the mod itself, a PACKAGE file, and a .AVI video file.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

Place the PACKAGE file that I will link below into your Downloads. It has a unique GUID and shouldn't conflict with anything else. If it does, let me know! The GUID is 0x00895008

Go into Documents/EA Games/Sims 2/Movies/Broadcast (Note this is NOT in your Program Files (C) directory!)

Create a new folder within "Broadcast" simply called "Fishing"

In that folder, you will place the .AVI video file in my link below. It is the Sims 3 Fishing channel video provided by @earlypleasantview. DO NOT place in any SUBFOLDERS. Simply stick the video file straight into the "Fishing" folder or it will not work. It should be Movies/Broadcast/Fishing/ straight AVI file (not in a subfolder)

Now go to the Sims 2 folder in your Program Files (Disk C usually). The directory should look roughly like this: Program Files/EA (or whoever you got files from)/Most recent expansion (or Mansions and Gardens stuff for UC players)/TSData/Res/UserData/Config.

Copy and paste the "Broadcast" file that is inside "Config" to somewhere safe for editing. Back it up too. Open it with Notepad!

At the end of the list of stations at the top of the Notepad editor, add my fishing channel (It will say [Broadcast] to denote this list). Ignore the custom movies in my list, this is an example: .................. 18=tvmovie_fetch 19=tvmovie_mimecat 20=tvmovie_pooltable 21=tvmovie_weather 22=tvmovie_werewolf 23=tvstation_fishing

Don't italicize it, but that's where you need to add it. At the very end of the list of channels that the game pulls from. The number will obviously be different depending on if you have any other custom tv channels

8. Scroll to the end of the Notepad editor and paste in the following:

[tvstation_fishing] Folder=Broadcast/Fishing

Make sure the term after the slash mark and after the underscore is the exact name of the folder that you made in Documents!!!

If you want commercials to run, paste the following after that

CommercialInterval=60 CommercialFolder=Broadcast/Commercials

9. Paste Broadcast back into UserData/Config in Program Files, overriding/replacing the Broadcast file that you copied

Happy Simming!

Credits: @earlypleasantview

This mod and its creator Bubblebeam

[eretzyisrael]

With the news that the US has put USAID under the control of the State Department, it is worthwhile to look back on USAID support for Palestinians over the years.

USAID was ostensibly funding humanitarian and democracy-building programs for Palestinians in the territories. It took pains to ensure that any infrastructure projects it built in the territories were only for Arabs, not Jews. (In at least one case, a road that they built for Palestinians ended up also benefitting Jews, much to the consternation of Haaretz.) 

There have been many bumps along the way. For example, the head of a Palestinian "refugee" agency that USAID funded was a raging antisemite. But in general, USAID would attempt to ensure that the funding they gave did not go to terrorists, at least not directly.

In more recent years, however, USAID (like the EU) has been actively trying to give Area C land, under Israeli control, to Palestinians. The Biden administration supported USAID building an entire Palestinian university as well as other Palestinian projects on Area C lands.

There is another angle to this which is rarely reported. When USAID attaches strings to its programs to minimize the chances that they will be used for terror, Palestinian leaders fume.

As early as 2011, Palestinians warned about the evils of USAID requiring recipients to sign statements that they oppose terrorism. In 2012, Palestinian universities were urged not to accept USAID money because they would investigate whether professors were terrorists. 

In 2019. the PA itself told USAID to stop all activities out of fear of terror-related lawsuits. The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA), passed by Congress and signed into law by then-President Trump allows Americans to sue those receiving foreign aid from their country in US courts over complicity in "acts of war" and the PA did not want any money under those circumstances.

The major reason given for US foreign aid is to be "soft power" to promote pro-American and pro-democracy thinking among the people. However, Palestinians - and Arabs altogether - never got that memo. 

Millions of dollars were given in private, without publishing the recipients and with no transparency, apparently because of fear that there would be backlash from Palestinians for accepting money from the US. 

What kind of "soft power" is it when the US cannot even make the names of the recipients public because they hate the US so much?

USAID has clearly not come close to achieving its stated goals in the Palestinian territories. It has not advanced democracy, it has not dissuaded terrorism, it has not improved Palestinian governance or reduced corruption. The Palestinians want all of the funding but none of the responsibility. 

 An Egyptian cleric once said that he considered all US funding of Egypt to be a form of jizya tax - something the dhimmis owe their Muslim masters. This is exactly how the Palestinians have treated US funding from USAID - it is something they feel they are owed.

As with UNRWA, over the years USAID itself has internalized that thinking and throwing money away on Palestinians without expecting anything in return became the entrenched mentality of the agency.

That is all the evidence you need that hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted over the years. 

[hillbillyoracle]

When cell phones and internet go down...

If you're in one of a myriad of marginalized groups who know they can't count on the government to help them, then this post is for you.

I feel like I'm cramming messages into bottles from my fairly niche interest (radio, emergency comms) and chucking them into the sea of Tumble in the hopes it reaches people it can help. What happened in Spain and Portugal recently and some of the cell outages we've seen in recent years - they're is a great example of why back up communication methods aren't just for doomsday preppers.

If cell phones and internet (and possibly power) went out, how would you communicate in an emergency?

Note: this is geared toward the US. It's where I am and it's all I know.

If I only had ~$25

I'd grab a Beofeng UV-5R ($18-$25) if I thought I might study to get my ham license eventually ($15-$25 test fee + $35 FCC fee),

OR

If I knew I didn't want to test for a ham license and thought I might pay $35 for a GMRS license eventually, I'd pay a little extra up front and get a Beofeng UV-5G plus GMRS radio (~$35)

While this would not allow me to transmit usually, this would allow me to:

call for help in an emergency - the license requirement for transmission is lifted in the event of a genuine emergency

listen to weather frequencies - it will not turn on and give you the alert but if you know bad weather is coming, you can turn it on and listen for alerts as they come in. Weather stations give alerts for a fairly broad area so you'll be able to hear about any significant storms as the move into and through your area.

listen to local repeaters - repeaters, in my experience, are kind of a combination of a megaphone and an internet chat room. You set the frequency and the PL tones (password sounds your radio sends) for the repeater and then you can hear people from much further away. This is one, just fun to listen to on a given day but two, a great way to find out information if your area is experiencing an event but you don't require help. Some even have EAS weather alerts (thought this still won't turn your radio on if it's off in an emergency). Use repeaterbook to look for repeaters in your area and use CHIRP to program them into your radio - tutorials abound.

For ~$15 more you can upgrade the UV-5R to a bigger battery and USB-C charging (UV-5G comes with USB-C charging).

This can be thrown in a go bag if you need to evacuate or your housing is unstable. You can have your handheld radio monitoring a local repeater while you have a car or portable radio listening to commercial or public stations for updates.

If I only had ~$100

I would get a GMRS license ($35) and a Beofeng UV-5G plus (~$35) and a single Meshtastic node (~$25).

If I had a little extra, I'd grab a second Meshtastic node for a roommate, partner, family member or nearby friend.

This would get me the ability to not only monitor frequencies but the ability to talk on them in non-emergency times which would be helpful practice. Some GMRS repeaters have regular "nets" - it's basically a meeting on air where someone invited folks to tell them/radio in their call sign (radio license ID basically) and then they confirm they heard you. This gives you a chance to test your equipment.

The GMRS license covers your family so they can pick up a radio as well and then you'd be able to communicate with them as well (as long as they're close enough; 1-5 miles but varies by terrain, more range if using a repeater). It's not a phone so the conversation would be heard by other people but this is great for wellness checks or a quick check up.

Meshtastics add the ability to text people and share GPS coordinates with people near by - encrypted if you so desire. The range is much less (I've only tested it to about a mile currently though with tweaking more is possible). This adds an important link in your communication plan - asynchronous communication. As long as the device is on and paired and in range, you'll most likely receive a message. It does drop occasionally but that's pretty rare. My nesting partner and I often have to rely on them because the internet and cell signal is so poor up here but they serve us incredibly well for that. Beyond the Emergency Comms use, it's just nice for morale to be able to text during an event. Best part is, if you're in an area were other people have them too, you can bounce your signal further for no additional power.

Past this amount of money, I'd still get my GMRS license and encourage my friends and neighbors who didn't want to study for the ham license to get theirs. Then I'd get my ham license and buy the best handheld I could afford - probably one of the value Yaesu models - so I have several ways to both coordinate among my loved ones and get any needs to a net in the area during a disaster.I'd get and pass out several meshtastic devices to people who were within range that I might want to commincate with. I'd look into back up power for recharging (I like my Jackerys).

Amateur radio is a deep well and this barely touches on it of it. Don't let how vast it is keep you thinking it's too complicated for you. I promise it's not. I'm very much a noob myself but I'm happy answer any questions that I can.

This is part of self care - ensuring you can care for yourself during chaotic events and emergencies to the best of your ability. Even a little bit of preparation can keep something like storm outbreak or power outage from turning harmful or even deadly. Learn what you can. You've got this!

[herovired12]

Hero Vired offers various examples of different types of functions in C programming. These include built-in functions, user-defined functions, library functions, recursive functions, and inline functions. Each type serves a different purpose and helps organise code for better reusability and readability. For More Information, Please Visit The Blog.