I do love weaponized autism.

I could do the various incarnations of the Doctor in Doctor Who. An example info-dump from memory without looking stuff up:

So the first Doctor was played by William Hartnell, and later Richard Hurndall and David Bradley after Hartnell passed away. Second Doctor was Patrick Troughton who (tangent incoming) originally pitched playing the second Doctor in black-face which thankfully got nixed. Third Doctor was Jon Pertwee, Fourth was Tom Baker who is still the longest-running Doctor by episode count, Fifth was Peter Davidson, Sixth was Colin Baker, Seventh was Sylvester McCoy although (tangent 2) he also played the Sixth Doctor for the regeneration because Colin Baker got fired and refused to film his last scene so the Sixth in that scene is just McCoy in a wig. Eight Doctor was Paul McGann who was the longest-running Doctor chronologically even though he's only been in one full episode (the 1996 TV movie) because the show didn't come back until 2005. He's done some cameos in the show since though. Ninth Doctor in canonical order is John Hurt, although he was added in retroactively during the 11th Doctor's tenure so he's referred to as the War Doctor instead of the Ninth. Tenth Doctor canonically is Christopher Eccleston, who is referred to as the Ninth Doctor because of the aforementioned retconning. Then it gets complicated. David Tennant is the Eleventh, Twelfth and Sixteenth Doctor because he regenerated into himself and then came back again later on, which we'll get to in a bit, but he's referred to as the 10th and 14th Doctor. Thirteenth Doctor is Matt Smith, who's referred to as the Eleventh. He was also supposed to be the Doctor's final life because Time Lords are only supposed to have 13 of them, but then he got a new cycle of regenerations because it would be silly to end the show because of some arbitrary plot point from the 1970s. So then Peter Capaldi was the Fourteenth (or First if you want to start counting again from the new cycle, which nobody does) and is called the Twelfth. Fifteenth (or Second) was Jodie Whittaker, who in the show is called the Thirteenth. She then regenerated into David Tennant again (hence him also being the Sixteenth/Fourteenth) for a couple of specials, and then he split into two separate Doctors, the other one being Ncuti Gatwa who is the Seventeenth or maybe co-Sixteenth or maybe Fourth but is referred to as the Fifteenth in the show. He then (SPOILERS if you haven't caught up to the last episode) regenerated into Billie Piper, who played Rose Tyler previously in the show and also a sort of sentient bomb called The Moment and who might not even be the Doctor at all, we don't really know yet. There's also all the Timeless Child stuff which throws off the numbering even further, and Jo Martin who plays the Fugitive Doctor who is possibly some sort of pre-First Doctor Doctor but the show never really explained it. There are also some other pre-First Doctor Doctors shown in flashbacks and things in The Brain of Morbius and The Timeless Child, but who knows if they're even real or not. There's also another David Tennant who is a sort of human clone of the Doctor who lives off in some parallel universe, and another Tom Baker who is a character called the Curator who seems to be some far-future retired version of the Doctor who revisits some of his old faces.

I could go on but you get the idea.

Sadly phone scams are the 3rd most profitable bussinesses in the world. They aren’t going anywhere unless we give up having a phone or our phone carriers do their fucking job on actual scam prevention

I just yell at them in a bizarre mix of English, Latin, and random archaic Germanic words. I've been told I sound like a Icelander with issues when I do that.

For people who think they're winning by fucking with scammers, unless you are tying up hours of their time, you are doing the opposite by engaging with them. And even if you tie up hours, they aren't really losing.

Obviously, falling for the scam is their ideal outcome, but ANY engagement beyond silence, a generic VM, or a disconnected/fax line marks your number as 'active' which can then be sold to other scammers.

So they still get a profit, and your number winds up on more scamming lists.

We are also getting close to the point where it won't even be an actual human you're talking to, it'll just be some AI, making engagement even more useless.

If you get a call from an unknown number and you don't have call screening, answer and SAY NOTHING! Not hello, not "may I ask whose calling", mute your phone so they don't even get background noise. The only numbers they can't get anything out of are the ones that are brick walls.

Nobody wants my info dump. I know way too much about networking and computers. The topics are massively deep, like iceberg levels of deep. One for each topic.

I could lecture for an entire day on the nuance and considerations of picking a Wi-Fi channel, or you can ignore me and just hit "auto" which may or may not take some, or all, of my considerations into account when selecting a channel.

If anyone is keen to hear some generally good advice about home networking, here's my elevator speech:

Wire when you can, wireless when you have to. Wi-Fi is shared and half duplex, every wired connection is exclusive to the device and full duplex. If you can't Ethernet, use MoCA, or powerline (depending on what internal power structures you have, this can be excellent or unusable, keep your receipts). Mesh is best with a dedicated backhaul, better with a wired backhaul. Demand it from any system you consider. The latest and greatest Wi-Fi technology probably won't fix whatever problem you're having, it will only temporarily reduce the symptoms and you won't notice it for a while. Be weary about upgrading and ask yourself why you require the upgrade. Newer wireless won't fix bad signal, or dropouts.

For everything else, Google. That's how I find most of the information I know.

Good luck.

I'll be around in case anyone has questions. No promises on when I'll be able to reply tho.

what? actual human calling? sounds like something an ai would say.

When I was in graduate school, I used to call the 700 Club's prayer hotline and talk about my dissertation. To their credit, those people were remarkably patient and would only occasionally attempt to steer the conversation back in the direction of Jesus and his need to have some of my money. "Oh, I don't have any money. Anyway, it turns out that there's a perfect correlation between the giving of dowries and engagement in plow-based agriculture." Completely true but for some reason they didn't really care.

Is this the weaponized autism I keep hearing about?

Retired moderator on Encyclopedia Titanica here. Whaddaya wanna know?

I can only info dump when I'm prompted to start talking about something now. I have special interests, but I have no interest in talking about them with people that I can feel aren't really engaged. And the only people who ever engage eventually do get worn down after a while, or they're more knowledgeable than me about something and that makes me fall in infatuation with them.

So if anyone wants to talk about modding video games and get married, hmu. Modding specifically is my special interest, and the games I mod include:

Elder Scrolls series (primarily Oblivion/ Skyrim but I have played some modded morrowind within the last 5 years)

Fallout series (all of them! Ok, I haven't played 2 or the offshoots, but... shut up. New Vegas is my favorite :3)

Stardew Valley (I have 2700 hours in stardew :3 burnt out rn tho lowkey)

Dark Souls 1/3, Elden Ring

Baldurs Gate 3

Dragon Age (mostly origins, it continuously went downhill from there for me. I have done a couple modded replays of inquistion tho)

Minecraft

If you were to ask me what I could go on for the longest about? Probably New Vegas? Especially since I recently put in a fresh 200 hours. I finally got into TTW (a mod for new vegas that utilizes your copy of Fallout 3 goty to combine both games into a single experience) and installed it alongside some modernization modlists and HOLY SHIT.

I hadn't played since 2021, an era that seemed like New Vegas was dying. People had long moved onto Fallout 4, quest mods weren't coming out at the same frequency, etc

There was a total renaissance right after I left. If you haven't played new vegas in a while: consider coming back and finding a guide or using a program like wabbajack to mod your game.

I personally followed the Viva New Vegas guide, then after deciding to jump into TTW, I found that the VNV people have a guide for a TTW list called TBoT (The Best of Times). Both of these lists are,'in my experience, more stable than the base game. A lot of important performance and configuration mods came out.

Then, there's another list called WSG that I followed (wasteland survival guide), which added new content to the game and made it more hardcore.

If you made it this far and you really want to hear more, ask me a question. :3

Except now they record your voice and use it to train voice ai and scam you harder. My coworker's ex-husband got a call from their "daughter" distressed "kidnapped" needing money for ransom. Sent it and called the ex-wife. Daughter was sleeping at home.

Actually makes me wish I had kids, this is brilliant.

I've been getting a lot of spam calls lately. Eventually said fuck it and screwed with them as much as possible. The best times were where I had something to do that didn't require much brainpower but had to be done. I eventually was able to keep them on the phone for up to a half an hour by pretending I was following their instructions until they realized I was bullshitting them. Everything from the internet being slow (and going on a rant about "ever since I moved to [made up town] I've had to deal with this shitty Internet, and they promised it to make it better X years ago") to fake accents and changing my voice, or sometimes just not having a clue if I have an iPhone or Android and getting walked through how to figure it out. Once they figure out I'm bullshitting them they get furious. Absolutely hilarious.

Unfortunately for the fuckery with the scammers I don't have as much brainless stuff to do at the moment. Though I still do fuck with them, I keep it short. Some things they really hate:

• go into the bathroom, and when they're explaining their stuff flush the toilet so they can clearly hear it

• answer in a voice like you're getting off. Instead of "yes" answer "Oh God yes". At a fitting moment say "Oh God I'm going to cum"

• go really far away from the microphone and speak softly, and when they ask you to speak louder tell them you're already speaking loudly, something must be up with the line. They'll most likely turn up the volume. Once the conversation goes to their scam and they're not thinking about it anymore, scream as loud as you can into the microphone.

• "How would you like to get fucked in the ass?" (Works best with men, considering those men often seem to be pretty prejudiced)

• in a crazy voice: "HEY, WHAT DO YOU WANT, I'M TAKIN A SHIAAAAT"

• "You say you're from [insert company they're pretending to be from]? Shit, your ex was right, you are a liar!

• "you work for [insert company they're pretending to be from]? Is that what you tell your mother?

• "Hey [insert their fake name they gave you, the way they pronounced it], if you're going to use a fake name, at least learn to pronounce it right"

• if you recognize the name from an earlier call, reference what happened in that earlier call and rile them up further about it

• when they're about to hang up: "don't be a chicken, don't hang up! I have a bet going with my friend here, if you hang up, I win!"

• after getting insulted because you told them you know they're not who they say they are: "you're insulting me, which means I'm right, thank you!" [Proceed to laugh loudly]

Anyway, I have more, it's just not popping into my head at the moment. But creativity is the key here, and it's fucking entertaining.

Twice we got scammed. Well once for real, I caught the second one. I only realized the first one after my parents were already gone. My brother went on a solo psycho-journey when I was like 14, trans-Siberian railway through Russia and Mongolia, ended up in China. He was perhaps 19 at the time. A couple months in we got a call from China. Chinese embassy say my brother is in trouble. They read back his information, everything on the passport, is this him? Yes, it is. Keep in mind this was in the 90's when international calls to the other side of the planet cost actual money by the minute.

My parents spoke very broken English, and I was too young to speak properly to handle something like this, so there was a bunch of back and forth over several days, but it was clear to all of us that he was in trouble, and needed us to send money to get him out of whatever it was. China, ffs. I don't remember, shit I don't know even how much they ultimately sent, but it was likely by my estimates around $1500- a very solid chunk of change for our not necessarily struggling but not exactly thriving family either.

He came back a year later or so, and I don't know why but the whole debacle kind of never came up at the dinner table, until just like a year or so before my mom and dad both passed. We were all sitting after dinner, drinking and telling the usual family stories, and it came up, and we all laughed about how crazy that shit was to deal with back home when he was on his crazy first trip of his life and had to send money to China. He didn't laugh. He hadn't any clue what the fuck we were talking about, and nervously laughed it off.

At the time I just shook my head, of course he wouldn't remember when someone else bailed him out and saved his ass, narcissistic piece of shit as he is. Only after they passed did I realize, oh shit. There was no embassy, there was no emergency. Some entrepreneurial Chinese hostel manager just took down his info, somehow tracked down our parents (likely he had just straight up given them their contact information, just in case), and scammed us out of a decent amount of money.

My parents were hard working, we never wanted for anything, and they never let on we were actually not particularly well off and struggled at times. If they were alive, I still don't know if I would tell them. What was, was. What good is that heartbreak gonna do anybody thirty years after the fact? Anyway, that moment has passed either way, and well, we survived anyway, but damn it stings being the only one knowing this such a long time afterwards. My brother stayed a piece of shit and our remaining family have all gone no-contact with him, so even he doesn't know, it's just me.

Answer the phone like you are a business receptionist.

"Hello, this is Fronz Frunickal with Yogurt O’ Try-it Froyo, how can I serve you?"

It's funny listening to them silently process what they just heard before hanging up.

The only good weaponization of science.

I am into old back-of-the-archive Korean historical dramas. They're lost? Even better. I've been scouring old newspapers for plots of old dramas (mostly dailies because they were the popular format in 70s SK) and plying them on an equally old forum dedicated to the topic. I've also been cataloguing them and trying to identify the oldest ones (TV guides between 1964 to 1970 didn't always list the name of the program, sometimes they'd just list it as "historical drama"). So far it seems I have the plots to most of the 70s historicals, which then opens new realizations that a lot of the more popular 80s shows are remakes of the 70s dramas. And those 80s dramas were then remade into 90s/2000s dramas and the occasional 2010s drama (there's been a major artistic shift starting from the Korean wave in 2003 that's stopped this cycle in TV dramas though). I can post the plots to a lot of these dramas and even started subtitling the ones that are more complete.

If you ask, I'll post a plotline here!

~~Edit: I didn't realize this was a science lemmy, might just delete soon lol~~

A drop of water falls in an endless, still lake. The ripple spreads out, leaving a circular wave spreading out endlessly. Tiny disturbances create their own ripples; one side travelling with the main ripple, causing wonderful interactions in the wavefront; but the main ripple grows faster than these disturbances spread across it.

The beings of the ripple look across the main ripple, seeing the disturbances as their interactions propagate across the main ripple. Looking back far enough to the earliest disturbances, one thing becomes clear; the entire ripple comes from one drop, and most of the ripple is moving away faster than a disturbance can propagate.

An expanding universe where every point of the universe started from the middle is pretty easy to conceptualize with the right analogy.