pahool (u/pahool) - Readit News

pahool commented on Sci-Hub has been blocked in India sci-hub.se/sci-hub-blocke... · Posted by u/the-mitr

kleiba · 4 days ago

Replace "paper" with anything else you consume in your everyday life. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but to me, if there's something offered to you for a certain price, and you're not ready to pay that price, the alternative should be to either get something comparable that's cheaper (hardly possible with scientific papers) or, unfortunately, abstain from getting that thing at all.

I don't see how "what they're charging is ridiculous, and the money isn't even going to the authors, so it's okay for me to get the papers through sci-hub" is morally justified.

Independent of the above: if it's for work, your employer should pay for the paper access (unless you're self-employed, of course).

pahool · 4 days ago

Just because something has a price associated with it, that does not make the pricing model inherently correct or just. The majority of research papers, at least in the U.S., are (or historically have been, I don't know the data now under the current administration) publicly funded, one way or another. Publicly-funded research should not be behind paywalls.

https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb202326/funding-sources-of-acad...

pahool commented on The Onion buys Infowars nytimes.com/2024/11/14/bu... · Posted by u/coloneltcb

djfobbz · 10 months ago

I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but this is fake news. This deal is not final. The judge in the liquidation case is holding an evidentiary hearing next week to understand how and why secret bidding was set up and why it was not open to the general public. Sounds like a BIG loss for The Onion, not to mention the potential defamation cases that could arise from news outlets publishing an unverified story about a sale that isn’t final.

Source: https://x.com/behizytweets/status/1857195724242329997

pahool · 10 months ago

do you have a source other than a tweet from the Twitter account of a political hack?

pahool commented on Crokinole pudding.cool/2024/10/crok... · Posted by u/Tomte

pahool · 10 months ago

Generally, crokinole is a much less punishing game than carrom, if we're talking about Indian carrom boards. American carrom boards, that were really popular in after-school programs when I was growing up, have relatively HUGE pockets than the Indian boards, in addition to being smaller boards. American carrom is like playing 8-ball, Indian carrom is like playing snooker.

I like carrom a lot, but I'm terrible at it. I'm at least a reasonable player at crokinole, and it's a lot easier to introduce others to the game without them getting too frustrated by it.

pahool · 10 months ago

Also, a lot of American carrom boards were produced with a checker board one side and a crokinole board on the other side.

pahool commented on Crokinole pudding.cool/2024/10/crok... · Posted by u/Tomte

Taylor_OD · 10 months ago

Crokinole is so much fun. I wish boards were not so expensive and difficult to keep nice or I think it would be much much more popular. It inspired me to try a whole slew of other tactile/physical "board" games.

pahool · 10 months ago

Have you tried Flickwars? I don't own it, but played a demo version at a board game convention maybe five years back. I still keep wanting to pull the trigger on buying it but I've been trying to reel in my boardgame-purchasing problem a bit.

Most flicking/dexterity games are pretty abstract: lightly themed, if they're themed at all. And a lot of the ones that are themed, somehow don't get it "right". Flickwars is pretty cool in that it's got a light space battle theme with asymmetric team powers. It also has a neoprene board which, while not being as satisfying as polished wood, makes a surprisingly satisfying flicking surface. There's a modular setup to the game, where players place obstacles on or (because of the neoprene surface) UNDER the board. This meshes nicely with the space theme as you can consider these obstacles as gravitational anomalies. All-in-all, it's a pretty lightweight game, but it's a fun diversion from heavier board games.

pahool commented on Crokinole pudding.cool/2024/10/crok... · Posted by u/Tomte

pahool · 10 months ago

Almost twenty years ago, I brought a crokinole board into my work and it became a very popular diversion. We came up with a cutthroat version where four players could play individually rather than the more traditional 2v2 four-player variant.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/192278/awesome-four-player-...

pahool commented on Crokinole pudding.cool/2024/10/crok... · Posted by u/Tomte

rendx · 10 months ago

I played both and own a Crokinole board, but strongly prefer Carrom. It's similar but still quite different.

pahool · 10 months ago

Generally, crokinole is a much less punishing game than carrom, if we're talking about Indian carrom boards. American carrom boards, that were really popular in after-school programs when I was growing up, have relatively HUGE pockets than the Indian boards, in addition to being smaller boards. American carrom is like playing 8-ball, Indian carrom is like playing snooker.

I like carrom a lot, but I'm terrible at it. I'm at least a reasonable player at crokinole, and it's a lot easier to introduce others to the game without them getting too frustrated by it.

pahool commented on Crokinole pudding.cool/2024/10/crok... · Posted by u/Tomte

ZeWaka · 10 months ago

No, it's basically covered in extremely small sand particles that make the pucks glide - like table shuffleboard.

pahool · 10 months ago

Often in tabletop crokinole play, the "sand" isn't even used. Modern boards are often slick enough to get away with playing without it, and if it's a board that you roll out regularly, you may not want the cleanup overhead associated with using shuffleboard "sand."

Also note that you'd never use actual sand on a crokinole board or tabletop shuffleboard. Sand, wax, or powder is what the shuffleboard products are referred to as and are made of specially formulated silicone beads (much less abrasive than, say, beach sand) or cornmeal, or even sometimes ground walnut shells.

pahool commented on New startup sells coffee through SSH terminal.shop/... · Posted by u/ethanholt1

pahool · a year ago

$25 for 12 oz? Yikes!

pahool commented on Duolingo Cuts 10% of Contractors as It Uses More AI to Create App Content bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/leotravis10

madjam002 · 2 years ago

Are there any better apps for learning a foreign language?

pahool · 2 years ago

I prefer Mango Languages, which I get for free through my public library. The progression feels better to me, it's not as gamified (sorry for using that word), and there is some (though not a ton of) actual lesson content in there. For example, learning Spanish, it gives some context on the different usages of "Ser" vs. "Estar" for "to be", and it includes discussion on gendered nouns. DuoLingo may have gotten to some brief lesson content at some point, but for me it was too grating to continue with and I quit before I made much progress with it.

pahool commented on FTC judge rules Intuit broke law, must stop advertising TurboTax as “free” arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/thunderbong

pahool · 2 years ago

Cool. Now can we get wireless carriers to stop advertising their bandwidth-capped plans as "unlimited"?