I have a question for folks here, mainly around English linguistics but would love to hear of parallels in other languages. If you're not big on cats, just skip the next paragraph, which I've include for the context to be clear and show why I have provided the picture.

This morning, one of my cats was acting up a bit, hopping on the table where I have an electronics project, and searching for something to pilfer. In order to halt this behavior, I distracted him with a good deal of play with his toys (he is very athletic, so, lots of tossing a toy mouse for him to chase, then walking over to where he's left it because he doesn't fetch anymore). The image is of the culprit now that he's worn out.

While trying to achieve this state, I had a modified aphorism occur to me:

Idle cats are the Devil's playground.

It occurred to me then that I'm not sure if there is an extant term to describe taking an existing aphorism and modifying it while still conveying the same or similar meaning. For those not familiar, the original aphorism is "Idle hands are the Devil's playground" (apparently of biblical origin), meaning roughly that busy people don't often get into trouble or conversely that bored people will get into mischief.

There is a term, if informal, to describe, often intentional, mismatch of parts of aphorisms (ex. "Not the sharpest egg in the attic"), malaphor. Can anyone think of a similar extant term for a modified aphorism? If not, after trying multiple prefixes, I think that the least clunky seems to be "transaphor" (trans- meaning to change).

Anyone have thoughts on the matter?

Hello folks!

I'm still rather in the "shallows" as of yet, I have a handful of pens (Lamy, Platinum Preppy, Donegal Pens) and only a couple of bottles of ink (I rather like Noodler's 54th Mass.). One of the areas in the hobby that I'm least knowledgeable in is paper. So, I'm hoping that you folks have some recommendations, both for myself and my sibling who is a bit of a fountain pen enthusiast but has sensory sensitivities.

What are you favorite papers, both loose leaf and bound, for texture, color, and any other properties? Preferably, nothing too bright/with fluorescent pigment.

Bonus question: I really like muted colors (desaturated in digital-speak but I think that doesn't write mean the same with inks). Any suggestions for good inks on that category?

Lads, ladettes, and enbies, I come to you seeking advice. My wife and I are just back to County America after visiting her family in the North. Upon discovering that our tea jar was empty, she proceeded to order some Barry's. Am I now legally required to file for divorce?

More seriously, what is everyone's favorite tea (and why is it Lyon's)? And favorite thing to go along with it?

I'm ridiculously excited. After being held up in customs for a few days, my FW16 DIY Edition (no GPU) has finally arrived. Unfortunately, I've got the rest of the workday to finish before I can get started.

For "vitamins", I grabbed a 1TB SK Hynix P31 Gold m.2 2280 (still deciding what 2230 to get) and 32GB (2x16GB) of G.Skill Ripjaws DDR5 CL40@5600. I haven't had anything so modern in decades and am incredibly excited to see what fun I can get up to with so much RAM.

First order of business, after doing hardware tests to ensure that nothing needs an RMA, and updating any firmware, is to install my NixOS base system and get it setup as a QEMU/KVM hypervisor so that the real fun of trying out the list of recommended and esoteric distros that the Linux community suggested can start. Once I get bored of that, it'll be time to start designing the parts to transform the machine into a hardware hacking/tinkering cyberdeck.

What are you folks doing or planning to do with yours?

Hello folks!

I'm finally close to finishing up some home projects and am going to try breaking out the old Singer 99k for some summer clothing as it's starting to warm up here in California. Something that I've wanted for ages but haven't found reasonably priced is a summer weight robe for around the house.

I'm leaning towards a linen or cotton-linen blend for airiness and cost-effectiveness but am open to other recommendations. I'm generally not a huge fan of waffle weave but could see utility in the back and seat to promote airflow.

So, the main question is: Anyone have recommendations for a good pattern (doesn't need to be free - professional pattern designers deserve to make a living) for a men's or unisex robe that would fit the bill and be possible with a straight stitch machine (I didn't yet have a zigzagger)?

Hey folks! I think this request is right up this comm's alley. I'm sure that we all know bogo sort but, what other terrible/terribly inefficient algorithms, software architecture, or design choices have you been horrified/amused by?

I, sadly, lost a great page of competing terrible sorting algorithms, but I'll lead with JDSL as a terrible (and terribly inefficient) software architecture and design. The TL;DR is that a fresh CS guy got an internship at a company that based its software offering around a custom, DSL based on JSON that used a svn repo to store all functions in different commits. The poor intern had a bad time due to attempting to add comments to the code, resulting in customer data loss.

Hello historians!

I have a question, specifically intended for those who are academic experts in US history. It is a bit of a "hot-button" topic, so I understand if you folks wouldn't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. I did study early US history briefly in undergrad but would defer to those who have dedicated far more energy and study on the topic.

The issue of contention here is this: To my knowledge the Founding Fathers (writers of the US Constitution) were vehemently opposed to a professional, standing army, believing it to be a tool inevitably used for tyranny and oppression. Instead of this they envisioned a militia-based system for national and regional defense, as well as enforcement of laws, when force was required (ie forming a temporary posse to defend against brigands or bring violent criminals to justice).

My further contention is that this belief is clearly reflected in the wording of the US Constitution and its context. For example, the 2nd Amendment, which specifically mentions militia, bring intended to ensure that all citizens could be armed in case a militia needed to be raised, whether for defense against an external threat or an internal one. Or Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 being specifically introduced in an effort to prevent standing armies from bring raised.

The context around my questioning here is that anothet commentor has posed the assertion that the US Constitution was written TO enble a standing army. This seems rather contradictory to what I recall on the topic.

Could some scholars shed some light here?

(Please note: I am not intending to say whether or not the 2nd Amendment is valid, or call judgment upon ethics or morality of firearm ownership, or get a "gotcha". Just the context around its writing and wording.)

Contemplating getting a K1 or K1C in the nearish future as it looks to be the most cost-effective core-XY platform that allows open-source firmware. All I've found are compensated reviews so far so, figured I'd see if anyone on Lemmy has a less biased experience.

Any thoughts on these or suggestions for alternatives. Would like to move away from bed-slingers.

Here's the carnage! Was running a long print and saw this when I went to check on it. Was running the stock Ender 3 hotend with a Capricorn tube fix for nearly 5 years. Served me well. I haven't yet been able to remove the white PLA. To see the full damage but, I'm pretty sure that the threads are gone.

Guess it's time to upgrade the hotend.

Hello folks. I'm wanting to learn a bit about computer hardware and firmware design, the ultimate goal will be a fully open-source hardware computer (I don't expect that any time soon). I'm familiar with PCB layout and design already as well as MCU and general programming.

Does anyone have suggestions for Off-the-Shelf CPUs that are supported well-enough by Linux and have useful documentation and datasheets available? I'm not looking for high performance, running a GUI, or anything like that. I'm literally just interested in practicing the board layout and figuring out how to extend core/libreboot to support it (out implement my own firmware) and get a terminal session.

Hey folks! I'm getting a fresh laptop for the first time in about a decade (Framework 16) in a couple of months and am looking forward to doing some low-level tinkering both on the OS and hardware. I'm planning to convert into a "cyberdeck" with quick-release hinges for the screen since I usually use an HMD, built-in breadboard, and other hardware hacking fun.

On the OS, I'm planning to try NixOS as a baremetal hypervisor (KVM/QEMU) and run my "primary" OSes in VMs with hardware passthrough. If perf is horrible, I'll probably switch back to baremetal after a bit. But, I'm not likely going to be gaming on it so, I'm not likely to have much issue.

Once the hypervisor is working in a manner that I like, I should have an easy time backing up, rolling back, swapping out my "desktop" OS. I've been using Linux as my pretty much my only OS for over a decade (I use MacOS as a glorified SSH client for work). Most of my time has been on distros in the Debian or RHEL families (*buntu, Linux Mint, Crunchbang, CentOS, etc) and I pretty much live in the terminal these days.

With all of this said, I am coming to you folks for help. I would like you folks to share distros, desktop environments, window managers that you think I should give a try, or would like to inflict on me and what makes them noteworthy.

I can't guarantee that I'll get through suggestions, as my ADHD has been playing up lately, but I'll give it an attempt. Seriously. If you want me to try Hannah Montana Linux, I'll do it and report back on the experience.

EDIT: Thank you all for your fantastic suggestions. I'm going to start compiling them into a list this weekend.

I felt like sharing but don't have many foljs about to share it with, much less people who would understand.

I have been having a lot of trouble with initiation this year both in work and home life. My wife asked me to do a minor remodel of one of the bathrooms - tiles, new toilet, new vanity, nothing requiring a permit. I got started about the beginning of November or so, but between getting sick one week and my ADHD acting up a bit, what should have taken about a week has nearly taken two months.

In the last week, I have managed to succeed in climbing my ADHD "wall", getting the tiles cut, laid with thinset, and, just tonight, grouted. The hardest parts are all done.

This means that I am set to finish it up before Christmas. Which means that I don't strain my marriage with another unfinished thing and I don't increase my anxiet, or risk beating myself up due to an incomplete thing that I know needs to be done. I'm extremely proud of myself after a challenging year.

I hope you all have some victories to celebrate too (to be fair, if you say otherwise, I won't believe you). Happy holidays and keep on rocking.