Believe the repliers: I created an account in May 2024 and I have not added a phone number. Here's a screenshot from my settings: https://imgur.com/a/Q7kJpDv

But also, your eyes aren't lying to you: some servers require accounts to have confirmed phone number in order to join. So there is probably a lot of people who have had the experience of creating a Discord account, trying to join a server / accept an invite, and immediately seeing a "you must provide a phone number" prompt.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/musicians-algorithmically-ge...

They did this in 2020. The article points out that "Whether this tactic actually works in court remains to be seen" and I haven't been following along with the story, so I don't know the current status.

Wow, you weren't kidding - it's basically a note-for-note cover of the whole album. Thanks for sharing the link!

Deep Work by Cal Newport focuses on these ideas pretty heavily, and he cites plenty of studies to back up his arguments. Like the author of the blogpost says, "There’s no guarantee that what works for them will work for you", but I found my productivity increased noticeably after I applied some of the advice from the book.

> As of September 2023, The Fall had been unavailable on streaming services or rental services, making it notoriously difficult to access with secondhand Blu-ray copies of the film being very expensive.

But apparently that isn't the case anymore! MUBI bought the rights earlier this year, and it looks like I can watch it through Amazon Video if I sign up for a MUBI trial.

EDIT: I maybe should have visited https://mubi.com/ before commenting - clips from The Fall is the very first thing they show.

I'm not very smart, but I don't think you need to worry about drones using the linked flamethrower attachment: in order to buy from the website, the terrorist needs to click the "Agree" checkbox that says "I understand that operating a drone or UAS in the US with this attachment would require a Part 107 Waiver."

This page has some information about operating drones over people: https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/operations_over... . That page says "the remote pilot must take steps using a safety risk-based approach to ensure that ... the small UAS is not operated in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another (§ 107.23)". So IIUC, I think it's likely that the FAA would deny the application for the Part 107 Waiver, and the terrorist wouldn't be able to use it.

Hope that helps!

(EDIT: if his name sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because he is the author of https://interpreterbook.com/ and https://compilerbook.com/ )

> Ah there's so much I want to say, where to begin? Well, soon after finishing the 34x34, I notified Greg, who immediately notified me about the 49x49. At that point, Preston had already checkered the 49x49, so I did not consider the 34x34 a world record. It seems nobody noticed this, but nowhere in any of my videos did I claim the 34x34 was a world record :lol: But still, everyone just assumed it was :lol:

I've also configured my text editor to be very "static": when I type, the only things that can happen are the cursor moves, or text is inserted. I have to manually trigger things like the autocompletion popup, LSP checks, or highlighting the symbol under the cursor.

    2048: 24s
    4096: 1m 37s
    8192: 4m 53s
    16384: 13m 34s
    32768: 55m 24s

    if (some_condition) {
      // do stuff here
      return;
    }
    // do other stuff here

    if (some_condition) {
      // do stuff here
    } else {
      // do other stuff here
    }

Reminds me of this scene in Wag the Dog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwgPnYVg74Y

"The war of the future is nuclear terrorism. It is, and it will be against a small group of dissidents who, unbeknownst to perhaps their own governments, have blah blah blah blah blah. And to go to that war, you have to be prepared."

That was my first thought too, but I don't know if it's true because of the strings they are attached to. The striking conker is at the end of a taut string the entire time, but the receiving conker is hanging loosely and bounces around after being struck. My guess is that the taut string helps with energy dissipation after a collision, but I could be wrong. And either way, it might be a negligible difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2k-BNySLI