I always forget this wasn’t a thing everywhere but my high school had a fun and innovative way to torment us in PE. They got heart rate monitors. It was this awful strap that went under the bra line and paired to a watch. The first day was great cause we got to set our resting heart rate. We did this by laying in a dark room and napping.
But then once a week we’d have to strap on these monitors and go running. The monitors were old tech and didn’t always pick up your heartbeat, so you’d have to use cold water between it and your skin to get a better connection, gods know why. Warm water never worked. After the day our watches would be collected and our efforts recorded.
The idea was that if your heart beat too fast you were supposed to stop, and if it was too slow you’d speed up. In practice this was ridiculous, staying in the green zone all class was ridiculously difficult.
Even people like me who were stubbornly resistant to running the mile couldn’t stand the horrific constant beeping and made attempts to placate the reviled machine. It was always fairly miserable. I had PE first thing in the chilly morning, dashing cold water on my skin before running around half awake was the low point of my week.
But for some unknown reason, the teacher insisted that no play could happen on these days. We were given the freedom to run all over campus but woe betide us if we tried to make a game that actually made this enjoyable.
We’d initiate games of tag only to get yelled at for not just… running. Any kind of play was forbidden. On one memorable occasion someone got a kickball and we started an impromptu soccer game with it.
If someone’s heart rate got too high they’d drop to their knees to wait out the shrieking of their watch so an extra element was added to the game of trying to win without going too hard. I remember being absolutely delighted, the thrill of that game still lives in my heart, hoping I could score a goal before my heartbeat betrayed me to the hated watch.
When the PE teacher found us we were soundly scolded and the ball was confiscated. Our happiness burst like a soap bubble and we turned our back to the enchantment of the green field and resumed slogging along in a grey haze as expected.
At some point in the future I want to have a Hays Code costume party. Everyone has to dress as something with at least one Code violation.
There can be a costume contest, and the more Code violations, the more points you get. The judge is a drag artist done up like a caricature of a Hays-era censor.
Then everyone eats a shitton of popcorn and watches Frankenstein.
Hundreds of people are about to board a flotilla and deliver urgent humanitarian relief to Gaza. Please share this video and follow Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The more people watching, the safer the participants.
I can’t believe “fake gamer girl” was an actual concept guys thought existed literally the most unfuckable guys who have ever lived were convinced girls were faking being interested in loser nerd hobbies to impress them
My solution for bloatware is this: by law you should hire in every programming team someone who is Like, A Guy who has a crappy laptop with 4GB and an integrated graphics card, no scratch that, 2 GB of RAM, and a rural internet connection. And every time someone in your team proposes to add shit like NPCs with visible pores or ray tracing or all the bloatware that Windows, Adobe, etc. are doing now, they have to come back and try your project in the Guy's laptop and answer to him. He is allowed to insult you and humilliate you if it doesn't work in his laptop, and you should by law apologize and optimize it for him. If you try to put any kind of DRM or permanent internet connection, he is legally allowed to shoot you.
With about 5 or 10 years of that, we will fix the world.
Shibam - This ~1,700-year-old walled city in Yemen is considered to be the oldest vertically constructed city in the world. Its trapezoidal buildings (most were built in the 16th century) are made of mud bricks and need constant maintenance due to rain and wind erosion.