#screenshots are not transparency

[sab-cat]

Feb 17, 2025

Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud, but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies.

COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it.

Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the "Convention du Mètre."

These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150....

The database Musk took the screenshot from listed almost 400 million people, which is more than five times the number of people receiving benefits in 2024, according to the SSA’s own website. It’s also significantly more than the entire US population.

The fact that the Social Security system contains millions of entries from people who are dead is likely distinct from a potential COBOL-caused error, and also not news. A report written by the SSA’s inspector general in 2023 found that 98 percent of those aged 100 or older in the Social Security databases are not in receipt of any benefits. The report added that the database would not be updated because it would cost too much money to do so.

“DOGE going into all these agencies with largely unfettered access with a wrecking ball and no understanding of the business logic and structure behind the code, database and configured business logic, related payment systems, and integrated decision trees, poses real risks to the privacy and persona-level data of millions of people across all of those records,” Thomas Drake, a former National Security Agency executive-turned-whistleblower, tells WIRED.

[albaharu]

bg3 the princess bride au ⚔️ no idea who vizzini would be

[melioristicbeast]

And I really just want- oh god oh god oh cut, cut Derek! Derek: What happened, Stiles? Stiles: Oh it's a fucking tragedy over here

Listen brad has more golden retriever energy compared to stiles’s feral cat vibes - but late 20s/early 30s stiles with the chaos, the tangents, the interactions with the rest of the staff, calling his editor all kinds of variations of his name/nicknames, derek with the sass in the edit notes - you see the vision

(screenshots from 1st ep of It's Alive with Brad Leone - an iconic opening)

[vynnyal]

I've been having a delightful time stumbling over my emojis being used in random servers, so here's more

[elemental-daddy-neos]

Heartshipping or whatever

I spent way too much time on this just take it

[khlacnh]

[eveningrainstorm]

the father and daughter of all time <3

[kirbyfigure]

acnh pngs🍉🌈☁️🧃

[gelarshiesprofruitboarder]

more home movies box set scans ,,,, plus some discs and the cd and the box itself bc why not @myxomato515

[nanavuu]

i'm a diiirty rooootten giiiiirl ily tadhse gangle

alt version of the body pillow bc i didn't know who to put on there (ft. @mcphooey's emim + a transparent version, go crazy)

also a bonus meme

[nyaskitten]

"You could be something special, too bad the ninja hold you back."

(Reference under the cut)

[spasmoticchainsaw]

Figuring out how I wanna draw everyone since my art style's developed

Individuals:

[xigrif]

Come here. I think we need to spend a few more minutes looking at this file, cuz it's nuts.

It originates from a program titled 'Charlie Dimmock's Water Garden Designer', which, for me at least, is equal parts delightful and busted:

'Thanks Charlie, please don't display this again'

It's cool, right? Well what if I wanted to get it into a state where I could do perverse modern things to it? Some files will be normal about this, or just a little fcked up. But Charlie Dimmock's Informal Pond? I think it got too riled up. I think it was like a tasteful, earth-toned moth, itching to go sicko mode and turn into the wildest butterfly u ever seen. That had to be what happened here:

But br0 we've only just started - this program is literally intended for this shit. While I did figure out how to get it to display correctly (by opening the original .vrt with superscape vrt rather than the exported .svr in superscape Do3D. You know how it is!), exporting it to .wrl via either route results in the same epic shitshow:

It actually rules. (It is also an .obj by this point but dw about that. I hope u never have to spend a single moment worrying about these things. No one should have to.) There is a whole lot going on here but mostly its just that the textures have lost their transparency*** along the way... mostly. What I really want to show u is that for some freakin reason the lily pads and stepping stones have been assigned these unrelated images of a [I have no idea] and 'SURF - HI'. And honestly, why shouldn't they be? Surf-hi:

But we've got to zero in on the true point of this all now. The lilypads. Cuz due to the way the texture is mapped… well just go look. Just go over there. Go over to the water and look down.

Absolutely ghoulish. A tubby toast graveyard. Perished potato smiles. Mother honking fck

[trauma-bot]

post series uzi ref i made for me and my friends' md au <3

[razzberrydazz]

Some edits of the mashed BG3 animated stills of Lae'zel and Shadowheart, made transparent and added some details and personal touches, free to use as icons, in edits, as free emotes/stickers, etc, just as all my other BG3 edits and emotes and meme redraws are free to use. You can tell what parts are my edits cuz my lineart line weight is thicker than the original Mashed version, and if I edited the color scheme slightly to fit my personal headcanons.

[khlacnh]