Someone told my ex-dad (not a sex thing; he just disowned me) that I’m trans and now he’s threatening to come to work and make a scene, and I know I should be upset, but like. What’s he gonna say exactly? And to whom? Because imagining a haggard and likely shitfaced Pennsylvania construction worker barging through the grocery store like, “HEY!!! THAT BROAD-HIPPED 5’3” EFFEMINATE KID WITH THE CONSPICUOUSLY BIZARRE NAME WHO SPEAKS IN A CARTOONISHLY AFFECTED CARICATURE OF MASCULINITY AIN’T GOT NO DICK!!! YOU GONNA BUY SCRATCH OFF TICKETS FROM SOME KINDA DICKLESS ABOMINATION??“ is wild. What’s it going to accomplish? Or is he gonna call my manager? “HELLO, I’D LIKE TO REPORT A FRAUD IN YOUR DELI DEPARTMENT. THERE IS NOT SAUSAGE AS ADVERTISED.” What the fuck.
Odds are he’s more embarrassed of having a trans ex-kid than I am of being outed at work, so what if I go to his job and tell everyone I’m trans first? What then, coward?
We live in a world where, in 2001, Singer and Nintendo just teamed up and made a sewing machine one day, and called it the Singer Izek. (Well, that’s not totally true. Details to follow).
Gameboy connection cable’s just hardwired into the side. It’s got a little compartment to protect it, and when I opened this compartment at the thrift store and saw a link cable in it, I knew I was getting this machine, because that’s just TOO WEIRD. (This image is also proof that I take pictures as I write the posts)
The cartridge is an officially licensed, real GBC cart. Got the Nintendo seal and everything.
For those of you who have blocked out all your childhood memories of playing Pokemon Yellow in the back of the car at night and waiting for streetlights so you can see what you’re fighting, or for y’all whose first handheld was the GBA SP or later, I need to remind you that the gameboy color doesn’t have a backlit screen, so all the pictures I take are going to be with the flash on, and that’s going to be kind of tough to see. It’s a lot easier to actually read the screen in person, but it does make me have minor Oracle of Seasons flashbacks every time I forget and move away from my desk light.
The software’s pretty cool. It’s got several different patterns, including dogs and stars. Unlike my other computerized machines, it lets you flip the patterns vertically. You can also program in words, and it’ll embroider the whole word in one go. The jump threads are a bit of a pain to clip, and some of the letters are indecipherable. The cart’s got full sound, though it’s GBC sound, so it’s nothing special.
This machine thinks it has a one-step buttonhole in five shapes, though the actual execution is questionable. If you’re only making one buttonhole, and you don’t really need to worry about if it’s in the right place, well, it’s a great buttonhole. Otherwise, you might be better off just zigzagging it.
The machine’s got a weird housing, which it shares with the Japanese Jaguar machine line, which also ran off Game Boy.
The whole machine’s summed up with the phrase, “functional, but weird.”
So, the real answer to the great question we never thought we needed to ask: Why did Nintendo and Singer, of all companies, team up and make a Game Boy Color controlled sewing machine?
So, this machine is actually a really cool little piece of sewing machine history, because it’s actually the first commercially made computerized machine available for the domestic market. All previous computerized machines were either specialty made one at a time, or industrial.
Singer wanted to bring the computerized machine to the home market, but developing their own computer that could do everything they wanted a computerized machine to do and could fit inside the machine was going to be too expensive for it to be accessible by the average domestic sewing machine buyer.
But Nintendo already had this cool little handheld computer thing, and Nintendo was pretty cool with letting Singer design software for their sewing machine that could run on the Game Boy.
Due to inflation and the fact that it was more than 15 years ago, it’s kind of easy to forget that the Game Boy Color was incredibly cheap compared to today’s consoles. It was $70, which I think is like $100 price-adjusted to today. If Singer put in an internal computer in the Izek, they’d have to source and assemble a lot of hardware and figure out how to fit it into their weird bulbous machine. However, building the software for the Game Boy didn’t require assembling any hardware, and sticking a Game Boy in the box with the machine only added $100 to the price, making it the most cost-effective way to get a computerized machine into the domestic market. And Singer got to slap their name on it and comment FIRST! in front of everyone else in the sewing machine game.
Unlike the Jaguar, which was the Japanese sewing machine that used the Game Boy and the same housing, the Singer Izek wasn’t marketed at gamers at all. There’s no way to embroider Yoshi on things with the Izek, unfortunately. The Izek was aimed at Singer’s usual market, and they just used the Game Boy because it was convenient and cheap.
There’s a high school robotics contest called FIRST Robotics where thousands of student teams compete to build and program huge robots to compete in robots sports. Each team (in addition to, y’know, building the actual robot) has to pick a name and develop their marketing brand. This is undoubtedly the most difficult part of the entire competition and I am here to help.
Thanks to Kendra from the Aluminum Narwhals (which is an awesome team name in itself), I had a list of 6,197 names of teams that have competed in the past. I fed this list to a recurrent neural network, which is a type of machine learning algorithm that learns to imitate the examples it sees. I’ve used programs like this to generate new names for guinea pigs, halloween costumes, and pies, so I had no doubt it could deliver a few suggestions to help out future generations of robotics teams.
First, the names that I was actually surprised didn’t exist. I think nobody would bat an eye at these.
Atominators Golderbots ROBSTERS The Attac Kings Rust School DangerBots RoboTippers Wormbots
This next category, though… Eyes might be batted. There might even be a slow blink of confusion. Take advantage of that confusion and CRUSH your enemies.
Panthering Roobodas Bobilian Engineeriators Bagbotics MERM! Power Scare School Eye Knights Meghanic Panthill Green Obscurum Jacket Devils Robo Bots The Junky Doltimes Voltum Beaminators Electric Sunphonge Robot Robotics of the Robotics Combotical Spiderbot Dragon
With a name from this third category, you will strike true fear in the hearts of your adversaries. For who but the most competent, most valiant team would be bold enough to name themselves “CHARD”?
Eagle Slurg Scone Ham & Panthers Thumper Birds Linda Cows Team Squotz The Wolvesdog Planking CHARD Nutcornets Robot Horse Blue Robotics Splord HALAFSS SQLASH Code No Bots
And then, just to see what would happen, I trained a neural network on years worth of Night Vale transcripts and then trained it ever so slightly on the list of robotics transcripts. It shouldn’t have worked. I have no idea how it worked. I think joining these teams is compulsory.
Exists BOOP I am projects The Glow Wingers Station Flynn’s Bears THREAT The Faceless Secretly Robotics Does Bears Team NOT Robotics Some Blinkin Robotics WALKS THE MEATS
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“Pikachurin is an extracellular matrix-like retinal protein first described in 2008 in Japan by Shigeru Sato et al., and named after Pikachu, a character of the Pokémon franchise. The name of this “nimble” protein was inspired due to Pikachu’s “lightning-fast moves and shocking electric effects”.”
IM GONAN FUCKIN
Osmosis Jones was released in 2001. Ozzy and Drix was released in 2002 and ran for 2 seasons. Pikachurin was discovered in 2008.
The animators just threw in a fucking pikachu and got lucky.
“Free market” capitalism does NOT care about raging forest fires, it does not care about endangering firefighters, it does not care about people dying due to lack of healthcare insurance. Unregulated capatilism cares only about making profits, apparently at any and all costs.
Idealised vehicle for anatomically improbable fetish who developed a personality when you weren’t looking
Hypothetical Dungeons & Dragons character you’ve never actually gotten to play because none of your friends can coordinate for shit
Self-insert who sort of gradually mutated into an original character due to art style drift
Literally just Twilight Sparkle
Additionally:
Anthropomorphised version of real-life pet
Spent so long tinkering with your character’s appearance in a video game that you unwittingly got invested
Unintentional plagiarism of character from something you saw once when you were eight and have no conscious memory of, and which you’ll be totally thrown for a loop by when you rediscover it in a year or two
Well known public domain character, like Sherlock Holmes or Dracula or whatever, but you’re calling them something different because fuck you
Started out as AU version of popular media character, only once you were done changing all the things you weren’t happy with about them, you realised that all the things you weren’t happy with was everything
Calling them an OC because you’re not ready for the emotional commitment of acknowledging that they’re your fursona
