excalculus

machines and monsters

[excalculus]

I've been here for a long time and will probably continue to be here until it actually 404's. That being said we've been getting concerning news about both our glorious CEO and tumblr's long-term prospects for years now, so I'm setting up some alternate options to try out. Some other places to find me if tumblr goes down for good:

Wordpress blog - made this back around the time of the NSFW ban for updated edits of my longer biology posts, which I... never fully finished doing. Oops. Given the current problems are Automattic related, I no longer consider this to be a fully separate backup and may or may not continue to work on it.

Dreamwidth (excalculus) - newly made and currently blank, but likely this is where longer form things will be posted in the future.

Bluesky (excalculus) - also newly made and currently blank.

Mastodon - I'm still looking at servers but will be making an account soon. I'm going to be trying both this and bluesky for shorter stuff and socializing.

[literallymechanical]

Talking college experiences at work and casually mentioned "one of those semesters where you're so overloaded that you're basically living off gummy worms and five hour energy" and a younger coworker was like wtf why would you do that and I am absolutely heartbroken that the COVID-remote-college generation never got to experience the mid-November double-all nighter on campus slamming weird snake-themed energy drinks from Hmart debuggin gyour FUCKING robot that won't turn left. Tragic!!!

[excalculus]

Or that biomechanics final project that we only finished through the power of spite and dumpster donuts.

[eebie]

The apple they fed to snow white wasnt poision at all it was just a red delicious

[excalculus]

Anyways the reason I derailed into damage calcs last night is I was looking through my craft supplies a while back, realized I had most of the parts for a really, really stupid piece of fanart, and recently got my hands on the rest.

I'm waffling on which fish pendant to use and whether to include the black beads - I like the lighter one better on its own, but I'm worried that without specifically a goldfish this goes from mostly incomprehensible to nobody will get the joke ever.

[excalculus]

I thought I'd have a stronger fish opinion by the time I finished the rest of it, but no. If anyone else has thoughts feel free to say something.

[retrogamingblog2]

Gameboy Color Charms made by WoupsShop

[excalculus]

Anyways the reason I derailed into damage calcs last night is I was looking through my craft supplies a while back, realized I had most of the parts for a really, really stupid piece of fanart, and recently got my hands on the rest.

I'm waffling on which fish pendant to use and whether to include the black beads - I like the lighter one better on its own, but I'm worried that without specifically a goldfish this goes from mostly incomprehensible to nobody will get the joke ever.

[gravytoons]

Chi-Yu is the perfect dark herald

[excalculus]

After the hotfix, Chi-Yu has a base Special Attack of 135.

The ability Beads of Ruin lowers the Special Defense of everything on the field (except for Chi-Yu itself) by 25%.

This is the main part of Pokémon's damage formula from gen 5 onwards:

Everything after the big brackets is modifiers like STAB, critical hit, weather, etc. so I'm ignoring it for the moment. Power is the move's base power, A is the relevant attacking stat, and D is the target's relevant defensive stat.

Beads of Ruin acts on D (target's Special Defense). To do the same amount of damage to the same target with a neutral ability, damage stays constant and there are no changes to other modifiers. All we care about is the A/D term: A[effective]/D = A/(0.75D), so A[effective] = 1.333...A.

Here's how actual stats are calculated for anything that isn't HP:

Basically this whole thing is A from the the previous equation. I want to know the effective base Special Attack because that's more straightforward to compare with. That means we can set this up as 1.333...(calculation done with Base=135) = (calculation done with Base(effective) which is unknown). EVs, IVs, level and nature are the same on both sides.

At this point I wrote a spreadsheet formula so I could check it with the other constants across their normal ranges - base stat is the biggest contributor but the EVs and IVs do also have an impact.

So after all that, if I haven't botched my math, its ability gives Chi-Yu a minimum effective SpA of base 182. (0IV, 0EV, any level over 3)

The highest SpA of anything that's ever existed is Mega Mewtwo Y with base 194.

Second highest is a 3-way tie at base 180 between Primal Kyogre, Mega Rayquaza, and Deoxys-Attack. But here's the thing: Deoxys-A is crazy fast and crazy strong, but has base 50 HP and 20 in both defenses so it dies if you sneeze on it. Both Rayquaza and Kyogre have to hold a specific item that does nothing other than let them go super mode.

Chi-Yu does not give up its item slot. Chi-Yu can hold an item like, oh, I don't know,

those funny glasses that prevent you from switching moves but give you +50% Special Attack

[d0esery]

update from massachusetts :)

guess who's trying to pass age verification ! and here i thought we were smarter than this </3 https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/HD5696

I swear all of the states are falling to this online "safety" stuff 🙄😒. MASSACHUSETTS THIS ONE IS FOR YOU! 🇺🇸

Bill HD.5696

The bill creates a new law regulating social media use by minors in Massachusetts.

Link: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/HD5696

What does it do?

- It bans anyone under 16 from creating or maintaining social media accounts.

- Platforms must verify users’ age using ID when accounts are created.

- Existing accounts belonging to users under 16 must be terminated.

- Companies must delete ID data after verification and cannot reuse it for other purposes. (This will not happen they store this data, and we saw this with Persona! Persona literally put their info through a government database in the US!)

The Massachusetts Attorney General is responsible for enforcing the law. The law would take effect immediately once passed.

⭐️🇺🇸MASSACHUSETTS CONTACT YOUR REPS! START/SIGN PETITIONS AND START PROTESTS! 🇺🇸⭐️

(Thank you, Anon, for the news :) ❤️🙏!)

[massachusetts-official]

Official Post of Massachusetts

[excalculus]

I'm trying to learn the jewelry making technique where you tie knots between each bead in a string, which needs tweezers or an awl to get the knots right up against the beads. It's mostly working out but I got like ten minutes into mental complaining about "why are these tweezers so shit" before realizing that the memory of Good Tweezers was from lab and was therefore of titanium watchmaker's forceps that I'd spent hours meticulously sharpening, versus the bargain bin ones picked up somewhere on a whim.

[sketchupnfries]

I finished reading Project Hail Mary, and this idea got mangled in my brain

[excalculus]

Pokémon Champions is a thing and I have friends getting into it, so I think I need to get back on competitive but like... correctly this time. Wish me luck I guess.

[certified-linguistics-moment]

[changes]

An update for users in Brazil and the United Kingdom

To continue our commitment to user safety and to comply with local laws, we will start using age groups to determine access to certain experiences.

People in Brazil or in the UK, who are 18 or older, will soon need to verify their age to change content label settings and view mature-labeled content. Until then, the settings will be locked to hide.

As a reminder, verification is handled by our age-assurance partner, k-ID. Tumblr won't have access to the information you submit, just the final age-verification result. Documents are deleted after confirmation, and facial scan data never leaves your device. 

Questions? Contact Tumblr support or learn more about these changes here.

[literallymechanical]

It would be useful to clarify whether this is a "mandated by UK/Brazil to be legally allowed to operate in those countries" thing or a "first stage in global rollout" thing. Or both.

[excalculus]

It had better be a legal thing because if they roll this out globally without fixing the insane false positive rate on their content filters it's going to be a bloodbath.

[excalculus]

BALANCE YOUR FUCKING CENTRIFUGE

[excalculus]

In a typical biology lab that isn't working with anything too exotic, a centrifuge (even the little benchtop guys) is one of the only things that can kill you on the spot in more or less normal operation. The sample tubes themselves aren't so bad, though if you place them wrong they can get rendered into soggy plastic gravel which is a huge pain to clean up.

The problem is that if the rotor (or any part of it) breaks loose, it's going to try to leave the instrument at high speed and has a decent chance of succeeding. Obviously this can happen quickly if you do a truly dogshit balancing job or put in an incompatible attachment. A less serious mistake can still damage various components in a way that does nothing in the moment but worsens with time and use. A centrifuge can decide to become a missile launcher even if you personally did absolutely nothing wrong, so do not do anything to increase the chances of this because while it would be rare and unlucky you will not survive a multi-pound chunk of metal through the head.

This is like the fourth thing undergrads are taught when they get into wet lab. Sir, what the fuck.

[excalculus]

[thecatscan]

Dingle (Siamese. No surprise)

[excalculus]

BALANCE YOUR FUCKING CENTRIFUGE

[excalculus]

In a typical biology lab that isn't working with anything too exotic, a centrifuge (even the little benchtop guys) is one of the only things that can kill you on the spot in more or less normal operation. The sample tubes themselves aren't so bad, though if you place them wrong they can get rendered into soggy plastic gravel which is a huge pain to clean up.

The problem is that if the rotor (or any part of it) breaks loose, it's going to try to leave the instrument at high speed and has a decent chance of succeeding. Obviously this can happen quickly if you do a truly dogshit balancing job or put in an incompatible attachment. A less serious mistake can still damage various components in a way that does nothing in the moment but worsens with time and use. A centrifuge can decide to become a missile launcher even if you personally did absolutely nothing wrong, so do not do anything to increase the chances of this because while it would be rare and unlucky you will not survive a multi-pound chunk of metal through the head.

This is like the fourth thing undergrads are taught when they get into wet lab. Sir, what the fuck.

[red-rover-au]