#for xyz coordinates

[trickinabucket]

I bootlegged an array in blender’s material node editor. Idk if a pro would look at my shit and sth or whether im actually clever.

[unluckysatellite]

…

Li Zeyan/Victor 🤝 Xia Yizhou/Caleb

Getting wildly fucked over by their english localization (in different, completely stupid ways) and being hated for being “abusive” by the western fanbase and thusly continuing my curse of only loving cn otome men who are always gonna be hated on hahahahha

But also: the 哥哥 to 哥哥 connection is real (if you know you know) hahahah

[truecorvid]

my petty #badleftist take for today is that i actually fully hate the chants that seem to inevitably start at any given protest/demonstration these days. stop coming up with twee rhyming couplets i don't wanna be here anymore

[torchickentacos]

I think that the right way to be in a fandom is to talk about your blorbos enough that people go 'oh yeah, that's the [blorbo/ship/etc] blog'.

[thelastlaff]

i constantly think about making a “which manager’s fight is harder: chainsaw consultant or pacesetter’s” poll but i fear for my notifs if i do

[sw5w]

Are You Sure You Have the Right Coordinates?

STAR WARS EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones 00:34:08

Also it appears that Jedi Master bust #4 in this shot and previous ones might be the easter egg of George Lucas!

[eemoo1o]

P-ing on X waiting for the L count to move the axis of my P so far it’s on the other end of the room

[lurkiestvoid]

It's absolutely a deterrent especially for folks who've never been to a protest. There's this idea that you have to Gear Up And Prepare for ANY action even just like, a simple picket or march, so folks think protesting is Always some violent dystopian Struggle with severe risk of personal harm and arrest. And while yeah, sometimes they do go badly and these things do happen, it is NOT the majority of action and most events are relatively boring risk-wise.

Like, no you don't need full black bloc gear to hold a sign for a permitted 2hr sidewalk protest, and you don't need shields and gas masks and jugs of milk for daytime local-issue demonstration of civic dissatisfaction. PLEASE just show up. If there are risks, the organizers will be able to tell you what they are and how to prepare.

The most 'risky' protests I've been to have all been either systemic, ongoing, and/or continued into late evening after sundown. They were still all highly organized, and the leading experienced activists were very clear on strategy and risks. Typically, any policing threats were made obvious by the cops changing from 'standing around looking bored' to 'organizing into groups/lines', so if you're not prepared to Resist for any reason -- zero judgement, there are so many reasons and they're no one's business but yours -- that's when you leave.

For now we still have the right to protest, and the majority of action will be calm and organized. There will be lots of in-group mediating and de-escalation if folks come in looking to start shit, and just showing up is an EXCELLENT way to meet local activists and justice groups/networks, many of whom work together on many different issues.

Even if you cannot stay or participate there are other ways to help, like delivering/dropping off water (or snacks!), donating to involved groups or bail funds, donating/lending canopy tents and seating for elderly and disabled activists, and volunteering labor like childcare, transportation, distributing materials/info, making signs and posters, translating/interpreting, and more.

And most modern protests work hard to make their actions more accessible or will work with you to ensure you and others like you can access them! If you cannot or do not want to march a route, there is still much more work that can be done both before and after, and not every action is a march!

Just please show up whenever and however you can, whatever that means to you and your circumstances.

i also think that the way people on here talk about protests is sometimes needlessly fearmongering like it's always good to have your wits about you and be aware of dangers from cops or counterprotesters but also i feel like a lot of people on here have become convinced that by going to a large peaceful protest march they are taking their lives in their hands which is just simply not the case (the point of those events is optics and showing that a lot of people are willing to show up for the cause) and i'm worried it might be deterring people from actually showing up to protests

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

cnetizens' reaction to love and deepsapce is probabaly about to release caleb in January, the fifth main character

(The meanings of caleb's chinese name 夏以昼xia yizhou include summer, universe, XYZ coordinates and daylight) (memes by 无事小神仙 and 五七摧毁好莱坞)

lmao (the glasses man is yao runhao, CEO of papergames that has developed Mr. Love: Queen's Choice, Love and Deepsapce, Infinity Nikki etc. he has so many memes made by players)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for basically gaslighting my dad?

My (20X) dad (late 40s M) was diagnosed with brain cancer after they found a golf ball sized tumor in his head. They operated to get it out. For a while he was doing good, recovering shockingly well. Then the radiation therapy and chemotherapy happened, and it definitely had an ill effect on him.

Except... That's not what my mom (late 40s F) and I say to him. Obviously whenever he brings up things like struggling more with coordination, losing his apetite, or being fatigued, we take note of it — it would be stupid not to. But to his face, we downplay it. Things like "you need to rest more and you'll feel better". Or telling him his coordination isn't any worse than last week (sometimes this is true, sometimes this isn't). Or he'll bring up "I was able to do [xyz] last month", and we'll act as though he was already struggling with it sooner than he actually was, just to make it seem like he's not getting a lot worse recently.

I know it's fucked up. I can't speak for my mom, but I'm doing it because I don't want to discourage him. He's obviously dying, brain cancer is terminal and the odds were never in his favour — but I don't want to speed it up by affirming his fears and reducing his will to live. Assisted dying is legal where I live, and even though I'd support him if he chose it, I don't want to have to.

I don't know. I feel like I'm justified, but at the same time, my dad has the right to decide if he wants to keep living. And it's definitely fucked up that we don't validate the symptoms he says he has (we will always accommodate for them, but we don't necessarily verbally acknowledge them). AITA?

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies

* * * *

Disrupting "business as usual"

April 1, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

We have many positive developments to discuss, but I want to start with a weekly reminder:

Virtually all of the cuts and layoffs imposed through Doge violate the Constitution and federal law. We must not normalize them by simply saying, “Doge ordered 10,000 cuts in XYZ Agency.” Rather, we must say, “In violation of the Constitution, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and congressional appropriations, Doge and Trump illegally terminated / cut etc.” Or some shorter variation of that statement.

If Congress were a functioning constitutional entity, Trump would have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office by today, April 1, 2025. The only reason that Trump is able to continue his unlawful rampage is because congressional Republicans are cowards and collaborators who refuse to hold him to account for his violation of the Constitution.

This is not normal, legal, or constitutional. Don’t allow the extraordinary assault on the Constitution to become “business as usual.” It is not.

As I write on Monday evening, Senator Cory Booker is conducting a one-person filibuster, holding the Senate floor as long as he is able. The point of Senator Booker’s disruption is to remind us that we cannot act as if a rolling coup is “business as usual.”

In our own way, each of must disrupt “business as usual” in order to save the rule of law.

So much losing for Trump—and, sadly, for the American people.

In a moment, I will review Trump's legal losses, which continue to mount by the hour. But it is important to recognize that Trump's legal losses are occurring in a domestic dumpster fire of self-inflicted pain and misery because of Trump's obsession with tariffs. Sadly, every American will share in the pain inflicted by Trump's lunatic economic policies.

The stock markets have had their worst quarter in three years. The last time this happened was when the combined effects of post-pandemic inflation and oil disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the markets. See WSJ, U.S. Stocks Post Worst Quarter Since 2022 on Threat of Trade War.

Indeed, Trump's erratic tariff proclamations are making the European stock markets look like a safer alternative to the US stock market. Per the WSJ article,

“For the first time in a while, you can have a conversation about: Might European equities be the best place to be for the next two or three years?” said John Porter, chief investment officer at Newton Investment Management, which has been buying European stocks in many of its strategies in recent months. “You can have that conversation for reasons other than they’re cheap.”

In a truly breathtaking development, two US allies and major trading partners—Japan and South Korea—are coordinating with China on an economic response to Trump's Tariffs. See Business Times, China, Japan, South Korea Agree on Joint Response to U.S. Tariffs, Eye New Regional Trade Pact.

Trump is literally driving our allies into the welcoming embrace of our enemies!

And lest you accuse me of focusing on issues that most Americans do not care about, they are paying attention to the economy. Consumer confidence in the economy hit a twelve-year low—as in a “twelve year low”—in March. See CNBC, (3/25/2025) Consumer confidence in where the economy is headed hits 12-year low.

Per CNBC,

[T]he measure for future expectations told an even darker story, with the index tumbling 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest reading in 12 years and well below the 80 level that is considered a signal for a recession ahead. The index measures respondents’ outlook for income, business and job prospects.

There is no joy or satisfaction in reporting on Trump's damage to the economy. But we should take confidence from the fact that political gravity still exists and that Trump will pay a heavy price for his unlawful rampage. The anger and anxiety you feel burning in your chest is shared by tens of millions of Americans—or more. Trump is sowing the seeds of his own political demise and the destruction of the GOP as a political party.

Legal landscape

The legal community continues to push back against the Vichy-style surrender by Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps. (Say their names to shame them until they realize that the cost of complicity is greater than the price of courage.).

A group of Georgetown Law students withdrew from a Skadden Arps-sponsored event hosted in its DC office to recruit students interested in energy law. See Above the Law, Georgetown Law Student Group Calls Skadden Cowards, Opts Out Of Recruitment Event.

Ouch! It has to hurt when a group of students looking for jobs at firms like Skadden can demonstrate more courage and dedication to the rule of law than one of the most powerful law firms in the US.

Charlie Sykes has penned an essay on his Substack blog that lets us know how he really feels about Skadden Arps and Paul Weiss. Sykes writes like Molly Ivins and swears like Lyndon Johnson, so don’t read his essay on your computer screen while at work. See Charlie Sykes, To the Contrary, The Quislings and Cowards of Big Law. (Note: Charlie uses strong language that might offend some readers.)

If you can’t quite find the words to capture your contempt for Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps, let Charlie Sykes do it for you. He writes of Skadden,

Actually, no “strong-arming,” was required at all, was it? You folded like a limp dish rag. You didn’t wait for an executive order. You didn’t join with your fellow lawyers at Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie, or WilmerHale in fighting back. You didn’t stand on any principle. You embraced your ignominy with enthusiasm. You pathetic Vichy flunkies. You tell your clients that you provide fearless advocacy, but in the pinch, you scattered like bloated, terrified rats, too afraid to litigate or fight, even when it was obvious you would win.

I digress, but I confess to vicarious pleasure in allowing Charlie Sykes to say things that I would not include in my PG-13 newsletter.

Trump administration continues to suffer setbacks in court.

US District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco blocked Trump's plan to end temporary protected status for 350,000 Venezuelans in the US. See AP News, Judge pauses Trump administration plans to end temporary legal protections for Venezuelans. (“Temporary Protected Status was set to expire April 7 after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reversed protections granted by the Biden administration.”)

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal refused to stay an order by US District Judge Settle that blocks implementation of the ban on transgender people in the military. That was a confusing sentence. The effect of the Ninth Circuit ruling is that transgender people can remain in the military—for now. See Reuters, Appeals court won't delay block on US military's transgender ban.

In a state law action, a federal judge blocked the implementation of an Alabama law that seeks to prosecute people who help Alabama residents obtain abortions outside of the state. See Chris Geidner in Law Dork (Substack), Breaking: Fed court rules Alabama AG's threatened abortion-fund prosecutions unconstitutional

New lawsuits challenging Trump executive order on elections

A broad coalition of Democrats has sued the Trump administration to block his executive order that purports to regulate how states run federal elections. See NYTimes, Democrats Sue to Block Elections Order They Call Unconstitutional. (Accessible to all.)

Per the NYTimes (whose headline deserves an award in the category of “Most Gutless Reporting in the Both-Sider Category of Cowardice):

The 70-page lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., accuses the president of vastly ovCdenialism, nowhere does it (nor could it) identify any legal authority he possesses to impose such sweeping changes upon how Americans vote,” the lawsuit says. “The reason why is clear: The president possesses no such authority.”

The lawsuit was filed by the Elias Law Group on behalf of the DNC, DSCC, DCCC, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries (among others). See Democracy Docket, Democrats Sue to Block Trump Bid to Control Elections.

A second lawsuit was filed by League Of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and others that raises many of the same issues. The complaint was filed by Norm Eisen of the State Democracy Defenders Fund.

The LULAC Complaint is here: LULAC v. Office of the President. I recommend reading the first few paragraphs to get a flavor of the constitutional issues being challenged in the lawsuit.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[starfiresky]

Ok, so my little brothers are big into Pokemon Horizons, I’m not really all about it because I grew up on Indigo League, Black & White, and XYZ! I loved Ash, Pikachu, THE BATTLING, and just everything about mainly XYZ! So I’m not huge on Horizons, y’know.

Don’t get me wrong, but I’m over here watching Horizons with my little bros and I’m thinking “MAN, why is Friede so cool??? Why is he not the main character???”

His design is sick, he color coordinates PERFECTLY with Captain Pikachu! The bond he has with Cap is adorable and super full of life!!! He’s an extremely OP trainer, he’s unnecessarily attractive, has funny character quirks 😅 GUYS, Pokemon should have aged this man down to like, 15 or 16, make the series more geared toward teens, and have Friede and Cap be the MC’s! It would be so enjoyable!👌 I watch Horizons pretty passively, but I actually get into it when Friede is battling and interacting with Pikachu! ⚡️

They’re just super cute, idk 😭 when I see them, I feel like I’m missing out on a super fun potential series where I can watch an alternate universe where Friede meets Cap at a younger age 😔

[elbiotipo]

VERY VERY rough geography and geopolitics of my Spelljammer setting

The "Known Spheres" are usually defined as one of the arms of the Galaxy, usually called the "Starpath". In practice, it often means the constellations that were once conquered or influenced by the great Star Khaganate, the largest interstellar empire before it dissolved.

The galactic directions are "coreward" and "rimward", that is distance to the Core, and "spinward" and "trailing", that is, towards or opposite the direction of galactic spin. XYZ coordinates are used in navigation, though most people describe the spheres by constellations (groups of stars) and the currents between them.

Coreward, of course, there's the Core, a restless swarm of stars, awash with the light of strange radiations, untamed aetheric currents and perpetual storms. Very hard to navigate, it's widely considered a natural barrier. A few spheres here, however, hold spiritual significance. The nature of the Center itself is unknown.

The Spinward Spheres, sometimes known as the 'Old Worlds' are dominated by the Elvish High Admiralty, which has a few ancient, rich core worlds, and outposts and ports everywhere there are elves, an archipelago so to speak, created to "protect the interests of Elfkind" whatever they agree or not. There are also fiercely independent dwarf clans, as well as many other 'Free Spheres'… principalities, merchant republics, Giff legions, and so on…

The Trailwise Spheres are dominated by the more centralized Scro Order, which has taken a good portion of the former Star Khanate, united by an ideology of strength through state building rather than individual. Of course, there are plenty of split hordes and principalities from the former Khaganate, as well as many other Free Spheres

The Rimward Spheres are just being 'integrated' to coreward routes. Many remain unknown to the 'known spheres', including many independent civilizations spread across whole constellations. Their goods and culture are making way to the core, especially by the way of free ports such as the Rock of Bral, which are on key aetheric currents. The Admiralty and the Hegemony are of course competing to spread the control before the other gains the upper hand.

There are very few attempts at outright land conquest and colonization because of the logistics of interstellar warfare, but there are plenty of attempts of imperialism by economic control and vassalage. The Admiralty and the Hegemony, having fought two wars already, are in a cold war with each other, with the Admiralty a naval and trade power and the Scro a centralized and industrial power.

The 'Known Spheres' of course cover a quarter of or so of the galaxy, presumably one of many. Exploration is still ongoing, and rumors of other great civilizations abound.

[modormouth]

do u have any tips for a ps1 style workflow?? i wanna make shit like that but i struggle with making it look cool so if u have any good tutorials or plugins or whatever pls pls pls lmk

Here's some pointers off the top of my head

--256x256 or 128x128 textures! no more than 256 for that crunchy 32 bit goodness.

--limit your color palate too (indexing color)! especially works if you're trying to shoot for horror.

--turn off anti aliasing if you're doing texture painting since it has that pixellated ps1 look.

--if you're really trying to go for a ps1 aesthetic rather than ps1 inspired keep ur models between 350-500 polys. there's only so much the ps1 can handle at once! (on that end pre-render bgs for games=less strain on the hardware)

--vertex jitter is another known facet of the ps1. displacement + noise texture will help here. you need a noise size of around .1-.25. make the coordinates rgb to xyz and also make them global since the jitter is based on cam movement.

--sickly wizard has some excellent tips on ps1 stuff, especially if you're making things that are vertex or texture painted!

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

So we know Sawyer left Kalos at the end of XYZ, and Serena went to Hoenn. Since Sawyer is originally from Hoenn, I think it's actually pretty probable that they reunited there. It would have been so awesome to see them traveling together there, Sawyer earning Gym Badges to participate in the Hoenn League and Serena Coordinating. There's also so much they could have learned from each other.

They're such an underrated friendship.

[readingloveswounds]

THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER

explanation:

i completed my concentration in 2023, prior to my prospectus defense

i thought everything was cool and fine

after the Great MPhil Debacle, I checked my grad status for the PhD and noticed my concentration wasn't listed

applying to grad opens

i want to get my concentration listed before i apply

i ask the concentration coordinator, she says the department handles this

i ask the dept assistant in mid november 2024, she says she'll email people

no response

further emails in january and february. i loop the DGS in. nothing from the registrar

i apply for graduation because i need to graduate

some updates, most of them being no information (feb-may)

the day before all university commencement (mid may), the (current) concentration coordinator emails me asking if i've heard anything. i tell him that i know nothing and everything i've done. he says he's working on it with registrar, graduation services, the grad school

prior to leaving on vacation (late may), i notice that my grad status is now 'needs action' - i email my dept assistant about this, assuming it's about the concentration

she confirms this, says she'll look into it. i am on vacation.

she says she thinks she's found the issue asks me when i started it, i ask if i should've filled out forms (undergrads have to). i am on vacation and panicked. (early june)

she gets back to me, says no, i'm all good, she's fixed it, i'm approved for grad + she had to do some extra things (?????) and that my concentration status was some weird thing that doesn't exist and that's partially why there was an issue. i am on vacation and somewhat less panicked. (mid june)

i check my grad status today: degree awarded. i am no longer panicked. i now get to worry about my diploma getting mailed correctly, but at least there's a record of my status

now, admittedly, I should have checked about the concentration process more than I did and certainly earlier, but I thought everything was recorded and chill. HOWEVER, the fact that fucking NO ONE at the registar's office could go 'xyz is missing/weird' and NO ONE got back to even my DGS about this is INSANE.

but hey, now i can put a med-ren concentration on my CV