u/Sorry-Rain-1311

Thoughts on the way to bed:

My 8yo son is obsessed, so he and I are trying to design our own BattleBot. We're settled on tracks with fully modular weapons packs for a half-track type layout.

I'm trying to brainstorm various weapons platforms, and my pet project right now is an idea for a long tungsten spear that can precisely penetrate armor or weak points to destroy innards. 18 to 24 inches of tungsten that extends up to a foot. I'm stuck on the best way to power it.

My first thought was pneumatics, like an extended piston of sorts; likely a I know a little bit about pneumatics (pretty rusty, but I can relearn it fast) so I'm confident I can work it out. I'm just not positive I can get the power out of it we need, and have a fast reliable "reload" time when retracting the spear for the next shot.

The other idea is go old-school with multiple arm crossbow type mechanism. It definitely would take longer to "reload" because it'd require a secondary motor to pull back again, but it might be more reliable, and generate the forces needed with less complex engineering.

In both cases I'm confident I can enclose them for protection. I already gave up on railgun style electromagnetic propulsion as too complicated and heavy, and my wheel lock concept just feels to fragile.

So are either of these viable, and which one is best in your opinion? What other holes do you see in this concept?

Outside with Boyd. He's not even 10 months old yet, but starting into his teenage phase, and doesn't like to listen, especially if there's something to chase.

So we're outside together for my bedtime cigarette, and he takes off down the block after something. It's about time to go in for the night, so I call him back, but he's bouncing in circles barking at something. I walk down to take a look, and finally spot what's got him riled up- Something black, very fluffy, and tale stuck straight up in the air. 😳

It took a stern voice, and few tries, but he finally broke off, and came close enough I could get his collar, and walk him back to the house.

No skunks for Boyd tonight! He got lots of praise, and a whole handful of treats as soon as we were inside.

I know- it's stupid simple- but given Anatolians' reputation for terrible listening skills, and the awful day I had, I am absolutely stoked that my punk ass dog chose to listen to me tonight.

That is all. Thank you for your time. Good night.

This is a constant part of discussions all over the place now days. Accusations of AI slop thrown all over; how to tell; how to avoid looking like AI, etc. You name it, and it's up for debate. With summer break ending, and my kids going back to school, I've actually felt the need to prepare for teachers accusing my kids of using AI (it's happened before), so I've been reading up. I thought I would share some of the resources I've found with you all in hopes of putting some of the debate to rest.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477388025000131

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2024/12/06/can-humans-detect-ai-generated-text-on-their-own/

https://originality.ai/blog/can-humans-detect-ai-content

I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on these. If anyone has their own links, please share.

https://www.reddit.com/r/thirdpartyroundtable/s/ylpEp5FLrW

Was reading this article, and thinking about all the little ways The Two Parties here in the States try to interrupt the progress of other parties. There are several fairly obvious methods, but often little things like suing over names, or obscure technicalities, or whatnot are used to limit ballot access all together. This might not be the greatest example out there, but it's still an example.

I thought it was pertinent to discussions here because it doesn't really matter what other election reforms we might succeed in if we don't also ensure diverse ballot access. So what practical concerns do you have regarding ballot access, and are there any potential solutions you've come upon?

I have an Anatolian Shepherd who at about 9 months old is already about 100lbs/45kg! He's a great dog so far, working constantly and consistently on behavior, and socialization since any mistakes automatically become REALLY BIG ones.

My kids are all old enough to start some real backpacking trips, so we're working up to that, but dang does this dog requires allot of food. He needs his own pack, but finding something that I can be certain will fit his monstrous ass right now is tricky, not to mention a year from now.

Are there any suggestions for brands that might work for him? I'd like to start training him on it now so he doesn't fight with it in the future, but he already out-sizes the majority of models I've seen. I'd like 3 or 4-point adjustments, and a durable build is a must.

Thanks!

I got sick of every writing sub either being highly specialized, or overrun by hack wannabe novelists who take themselves way to seriously.

So I made a new sub where specializing is a joke, and we can take our writing more seriously than ourselves!

r/WritingGeneralists knows that sometimes the best way to learn what you're doing is to do something entirely different. Dissatisfied with your novel's dialogue? Try scriptwriting to reframe it. Your history lacks that dramatic punch? Write that one event as a piece of flash fiction. Are your business emails rambling in circles? Turn it into a news article.

Every form of writing has something the others can learn from, so let's trade notes!

Also, I have no idea what I'm doing; I just know it needs done. COME SAVE ME!

A while back I finally filed a MH claim for PTSD. I got rated at 30%, but I feel it should be at least 50%. Went back to my county VSO to talk about an appeal, and the gung-ho coasty I talked to railroaded me into filing for an increase in stead before I realized what was going on. Got 30% again.

My question concerns what the two different examiners said each time after my C&Ps. The 1st one recognized that my ability to maintain employment was impaired because I could only do part time gig work on my good days, and symptoms had cost me jobs in the past, but didn't really note some of my other symptoms. The 2nd one seemed to think that the same part time gig work was my chosen profession despite me specifically explaining the same things I said to the 1st one, but noted other symptoms.

Now, the county has someone new in the VSO office, and I have updated screeners from my therapist, so was going to try again. If we decide that an appeal of some sort is the best course of action, can I point to the discrepancy between the two examiners, and that fact that no significant change in symptoms were noted between the two times, and say there's a mistake here?

I've been interested in the publishing industry for a very long time, but life just never worked out that way for me. Both the publishing industry itself and then related job market are completely saturated.

Still, I'm not inclined to let go of a dream so easily, so I been thinking on how I might make my own small time independent press stand out from the crowd. I have some thoughts of my own, but many of you folks have way more insight than I could get from just doing market research, and brainstorming.

I'd like to hear about small presses you've encountered that have a unique model, or specialty. Anything really that makes them significantly different from how we usually see things done. From financial management,or rights management to genre/style specialization, or distribution, and marketing. Anything goes.

Thanks!

Describe a moment of failure you have experienced, and what it taught you.

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Reminder, 500 word limit. That's the limit, not the goal. Use as few words as you want.

Also, there's no excuse for rudeness. Comments should be supportive or reasonable critique.

I know this can vary widely, and there's a level of maintenance you have to do to keep things lively, but I'm wondering what others have noticed.

About how many people joined your sub before you noticed you no longer had to make regular posts yourself to keep things going? Maybe you define it differently, and it's when you have enough posts coming in that you spend more time modding than participating.

What is it for you, and about how many community members did you get before you felt like your sub wasn't on life support any more?

Exactly what are the limits on the remote controls? In the rules it says regular industry manufactured remote controls, but exactly how is that interpreted?

Does it have to be standard multichannel radio frequency controls like we've had for decades? Or is digital/Bluetooth considered ok, because those are fairly standard now days?

I understand the FCC requirements that necessitate the rule here, but it seems like I should be safe if I operated a bot with an old game controller or my phone.

I know this seems like a pretty dumb question, but my 8yo dismantled every motorized toy he had to build a bot with the parts, so now I feel obligated to learn and make damned certain it's all going to work out.

It seems like there should be some options here, but but I'm not having much luck finding anything I'm confident in on searches.

The kids (4 in total, 8yo through 17yo) and I are trying to do more backpacking trips, and more year round camping. Here in southern Colorado it's been ridiculously hot in the summer, and avoiding it means high altitude and/or the off season. We're in good shape if we were car camping, but nothing packable.

So I'm looking into tent options that might be more practical for our situation. Seems like there'd be some sort of modular style tents where you can join two together or use them separately. I know things like that existed when I was in the army 20+ years ago, but those were huge heavy canvas things. Doesn't necessarily have to be anything like that, so any suggestions, hacks, or ideas are welcome.

I'm also hoping to find a packable tent stove to go with it. I've been shopping around for one of the collapsible titanium ones, but for the price (upwards of $500) I'd really like to hear other's experiences with them first.

Thanks.

Tell us about something you (or someone you know, or a fictional character) do routinely now that you, or anyone who knew you before would find hard to believe.

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First time doing this, so please allow for the learning curve. If you have suggestions for a prompt that works across multiple forms of writing, feel free to tag me, and I'll add it to the list.

Reminders:

Please state which form/genre of writing (fiction, poetry, journaling, history, etc) at the top of your comment, along with a title of some sort.

Word count limit is 500 words. I am not able to place a counter or anything on comments at this time, so this is sort of an honor system thing. Take a moment to find an online word counter if you need.

Remember, if you comment on someone's response to ENGAGE THE WRITING. If you cannot control yourself, just keep scrolling.

Started yesterday for me. The page loads, but then I can't click on anything, and sometimes won't even scroll. I just sent feedback to them about it.

Just now realized that it's only been Reddit, so it could be on Reddit's end. I usually use a browser for it because this Reddit app is not great at all.

The US has had 4 sitting presidents assassinated throughout its history, and 4 others that died of natural causes- that's 17% of all presidents- but not a single instance led to regime change. The government continued on in exactly the same form it was before with no real efforts by anyone at changing that.

In my personal quest to understand the mechanics of what makes America different from other nations- especially its survivability- I'm always looking for examples in history to compare to, but when comes to this one I can't think of anything at all. In many cases through history the untimely death of the highest leadership tends to prompt would be tyrants to action, or cause other major unrest, and in every case of assassination I'm aware of that's the intent.

I also know that my knowledge is extremely limited, so I'm hoping folks here can give me some comparable examples of times when the sudden/untimely death of a leader led to exactly nobody making a serious attempt at regime change, with particular attention to assassinations.

I'd like to skip some of the debate by acknowledging certain caveats/exceptions, like FDR might not count because the administration knew he was dying, and prepared ahead making it the smoothest transition in American history; just like Queen Elizabeth doesn't count as the sort of examples I'm looking for. I also know the Constitution of the US has certain measures in place to mitigate instability, but that hasn't seemed to help other governments avoid it. I have some theories of my own regarding all the above, but this isn't the time or place. I'm just looking for comparisons.

Editing for clarity: In the US all presidential assassinations were carried out by US citizens, but without any intention of regime change, and no one has ever attempted to take advantage of a president's death for that purpose. So things like an assassination in relation to some sort of conflict or dispute may also not count, just as an assassination in conjunction with a failed coup attempt or the like wouldn't count because failure in the attempt does not negate the attempt.

Edit 2: I guess I'm looking to make a side-by-side comparison of what makes one predisposed to sudden regime change while another is not, but specifically in the context of dying leadership. Hope that clears it up.

A discussion of the philosophy of writing themes.

In particular with this question, I’m asking about themes, including questions of morality, politics, and philosophy. The question came from seeing a quote from a successful writer (I can’t remember exactly, but I believe it was Nolan). The writer said that it is up to the audience to draw their own answers from a piece of work, obviously drawing from the idea of the “death of the author.” It is also an obvious challenge to movies and media that come across as quite preachy in their morals.

I remember agreeing very strongly with this at the time. However, I have also been reading some stories, from Frank Herbert, LeGuin, and Asimov, each of which could be considered “preachy” by some people’s standards. Yet those stories worked.

Instead, I’ve drafted my own hypothesis. That agrees with the original conclusion, but with a caveat. You have to ask questions, but the way you write those questions will naturally align more with certain types of answers, provided enough of your soul is in your writing (apologies, I am quite a spiritual person 😅).

For instance, in Dune, one of the (many) questions Frank Herbert asks, “Does the Hero’s Journey only create heroes?” The way he writes it implies an answer (“no”), though there is arguably some ambiguity over whether Paul is an antihero, a villain, or even by some, a hero.

What do you guys think? Both of my hypothesis and the title question?

I'm going to link to a post over in r/writers on this subject.

https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/s/lyKXuFxEOw

While OP didn't express it particularly well, I think they're getting at the crux of why I feel r/WritingGeneralists is an important community. Medium matters.

If all forms of writing are related, and each provides something the other forms can benefit from, then part of that is choosing the right form to express your idea.

Now, I left my own thoughts under the original post, but I'd love to see others' ideas on how medium can impact expression.