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NonWonderDog [he/him]

NonWonderDog@hexbear.net
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The weight classes used to be round numbers, but they changed them all up or down a couple kilo in 1992 after a doping scandal in order to reset all the records.

And then they did the same thing in 1997, for the same reason.

And then they did the same thing in 2018, for the same reason.

It’s very silly, but I guess it means we get more world record attempts?

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Depending on atmospheric conditions bullet contrails can be very visible. Looks real to me.

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To be fair, the criteria are very precise, they’re just only vaguely related to reality.

My favorite is the double-barreled 1911 pistol. It has two triggers, because if it only had one trigger it would be a machine gun (it would fire multiple bullets with one pull of the trigger). But physically it would never work if it didn’t always fire both barrels at exactly the same time, so it only has one slide and both hammers are connected to each other. But because you have to drop two sears with two triggers before it will fire apparently it’s totally legal.

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Caught NPR this morning as they brought someone on to tell us:

  • Raisi was the hardest of hard liners
  • He hated America
  • He even opposed the assassination of Suleimani, in an example of how hard-line he was
  • He was actually just a puppet of the supreme leader
  • And everyone in Iran hated him anyway

So I guess it was an assassination then?

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It’s actually a film from 2020, about film during the cultural revolution.

The magnet links should work without signing up, so in decreasing order of quality:

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6288206

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6071969

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6072852

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Three working torrents at rutracker.org (search “one second 2020”).

I found a few Chinese torrents on BT4G searching “一秒钟”, but I don’t have a way to connect to Chinese peers.

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Iskandr and Kinzhal don’t follow that ballistic missile trajectory, though. Neither does ATACMS. These are all semi-ballistic missiles that follow something closer to the “hypersonic glide vehicle” trajectory in your drawing (without the little skim maneuver, though, probably).

The real difference here is range. Things called “hypersonic glide vehicles” are intercontinental. Iskandr is “just” a missile that flys a low trajectory really fast.

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spoiler / Japanese lesson

It’s the Q thing, but it’s pointedly not qqq.

Numbers in Japanese are weird, and have multiple readings. There’s a native Japanese system (“koko” for 9) and a more common Chinese-derived system (“kyuu” for 9), but the number 9 actually has two Chinese-derived readings (the second one being “ku”).

Different readings are used in different contexts. “kyuu no [thing]” is always a valid way to say 9 of something, but “ku” is used with some counting words and there are plenty of old-fashioned words and phrases using the native reading (“koko-no-tsu” is a very common way to say “9 [things]” or “9 [years old]”).

The Japanese title is 極限脱出 9時間9人9の扉, with the subtitle pronounced “kujikan kunin kyuu no tobira”. That’s really the only natural way to write it, so you don’t notice anything weird, but it’s definitely a choice.

The 「の」 particle basically turns the preceeding noun into an adjective, and nouns can be either plural or singular based on context. Taking those together 「9の扉」(kyuu no tobira) means “9 doors”, but it can also mean “the 9 door”. “The kyuu door.”

In contrast, 9時間 (kujikan) and 9人 (kunin) are compound words that unambiguously mean “9 hours” and “9 people”.

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Loved these, and played 999 side by side in English and Japanese. Have to say it’s much better in Japanese, though, and

Japanese-version puzzle spoiler

the title pun

is permanently seared into my brain.

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