CorrodedCranium

This is the kind of bar of soap I am talking about. It's kind of a contoured oval.

I know there are copyrights on soap shapes. I've read several soap shape patents like Theodore G Brown's hollow bar of soap designed to contain slivers of old soap and Douglas Lee's helical soap.

I've tried to go through Conopco Inc's list of patents (the trademark holder for Dove) but I can't seem to find much. They also own a plethora of other companies though so it's been challenging to swift through.

On that note I also looked for subsidiaries of Unilever (they own Dove) to see if any of them make similarly shaped bars of soap but it doesn't seem like it. Brands of soap outside of Unilever such as Irish Spring (owned by Colgate-Palmolive) do sell contoured/"dog bone" soap but I don't recall seeing any that match Dove's design.

I did find a book called Chemical Product Design: Towards a Perspective through Case Studies from 2007 and chapter 9 is titled "Design of the Dove Beauty Bar" which sounded promising but it seems to be mostly about the chemical composition and reducing soap scum in bathtubs. This is also apparently one of the theories as to why they are branded as beauty bars instead of soap. The other theory being it was an advertising tactic by David Ogilvy to appeal to women.

Someone on Reddit claims their grandfather invented the shape of Dove soap and posted the original wooden models. They backed up their claims by getting into contact with Unilever. I couldn't find any useful information in the comments.

I could probably go to a grocery store and see if any other brands have similarly shaped soap and cross reference that with the release of that style of soap by Dove to see if the copyright has lapsed but that would probably mean looking for old advertisements.

For context I was in the shower thinking about different shapes of soap and it made me wonder if that specific design (contoured oval) was originally chosen primarily to either:

A) Minimize the amount of contact on surfaces after being used to limit residue build up and prevent it from becoming stuck to tubs, shower, sinks, and so on.

B) Work better with the human body by maximizing the area that comes into contact with skin and wearing more evenly.

I imagine these days Dove would say both but that feels a bit like saying the stay-on-tabs you find on canned drinks were designed with a hole to hold your straw in place or keep bees out of your drinks during the summer.

All of this made me wondering if there was a patent somewhere and I've now spent about two hours looking for it. I don't really know why I became so invested in this. I suspect there's going to be a simple answer.

I feel like having the early access label makes me more apprehensive about buying a game because of the amount of abandoned early access titles I own and being wary of it not having an ending. In the case of No Man's Sky I feel like I would be less grateful for all the content adding updates. I might view it as just working towards a completed project rather than doing something nice for the community or doing it out of passion.

Buying a broken game does make me a lot less likely to buy new games from a developer immediately after the release.

Other examples could be Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 76, Halo MCC, and the remastered Grand Theft Auto trilogy.

I was reading about the history of the paper clip and was thinking about butterfly-style paper clips and their history. Does anyone know when and where they were created or any other details?

I know novelty shaped paperclips are a thing but I've seen this design produced by different companies which makes me think it isn't a novelty thing.

When searching for it online I either get product pages or hair clips.

I'm going to start off by saying I would recommend watching The Gorge as blind as you can. The trailer doesn't spoil much but it does reveal the framework and direction of the story. If you like the 'vibe' or setting of Annihilation though you may like it.

If you don't mind a bit of a reveal this is what I mean by the last part:

Here's what I liked and disliked about the movie (real spoilers):

• IMDb page for Annihilation

• IMDb page for The Gorge

I'm using a PSVR headset with iVRy but I haven't gotten controller tracking working. I'm wondering what games or applications I can use in the meantime while I work on this.

If I recall Trover Saves the Universe has what I'm looking for where you can use the headset and a typical game controller.

EmuVR has controller support. So does VorpX but I don't know if motion controls are needed for accessing menus and what not. I imagine Skybox would be fine.

I've tried searching Steam for controller friendly + VR but I am not sure how many games are coming up because they have a full VR mode that would require motion controllers. It seems like several driving and flight simulator games would work just fine in this configuration.

So far I have my original PSVR headset connected to my PC and I'm using the premium version of iVRy. This allows me to use the actual headset but I don't have any body/control.

I believe the PS Move controllers can be used if I pair them with Bluetooth and using "iVRy PSMoveServiceEx for SteamVR on Steam" but I think this gives me button input, momentum, and rotational support. No tracking.

I own both Xbox 360 Kinect and PS4 camera to USB adapters. It seems like both work with Driver4VR but a lot of the setup videos are dated. Using the PS4 camera configuration option causes the application to crash and the UI has changed for example.

K2VR, now known as Amethyst, says it can do lower body tracking but people seem to recommend it for overall tracking.

iVRy seems to recommend dual PlayStation Eye cameras which I do not have.

Right now I have everything setup through iVRy and I believe I have Amethyst setup correctly. My test game was Arizona Sunshine and my hands are appearing as in my head and not moving. The game says to stretch out your arms and press both triggers but this doesn't seem to work. I don't know if it is a button input thing or the fact that the game detects my hands as not moving.

I'll probably find another game to narrow this down.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I've been reading a lot guides but they're mostly from 5 or 6 years ago. Many projects have ceased development or rebranded. Most posts now are about the PSVR2.

I'd be happy to try and answer any questions from people who want to try this out themselves.

I'll start by saying I had a bit of trouble wording the title but I'll try to elaborate on it. I find it can be a bit daunting at times figuring out what a decent entry point is in a series of video games without searching online first. Sometimes there will be ten games released across three different generation of consoles with reboots, prequels, and remasters and you can feel a bit left out of the loop if you start with the most recent release.

I'm wondering where people would recommend starting in other popular series like Nier, Final Fantasy, Armored Core, Ace Combat, Assassins Creed, Metal Gear, Metroid, Resident Evil, and so on.

It might make for a fun bit of Friday discussion and encourage some people to try out some new games.

Here's my example:

With the Fallout series I'd say you could easily start with any game because you have a new protagonist each time and a lot of the lore is reintroduced. The exception being Fallout 2 because it feels a bit more like a direct sequel to the original.

I would probably recommend Fallout New Vegas as a starting point because it's the fan favorite, has a few quality of life upgrades over Fallout 3, Fallout 4 adds a lot of extra mechanics to the game so going backwards in the series if you wanted more Fallout could feel a tad awkward and take some readjusting if you are accustomed to them, and the classic Fallout games can be a bit of a challenge if you aren't used to old school RPGs.

Between Microsoft killing Windows Mixed Reality in November 2026, the lack of replacement parts for things like the Rift S's cable and PSVR 2 replacement controllers, and Meta's quick discontinuation of the Quest Pro and pushing software updates that cause issues with legacy headsets it feels like most headsets are destined to quickly become paperweights.

The situation reminds me a lot of feature phones with their proprietary connectors, how useless they are without a cellular network, and the lack of a strong modding community.

Things do seem to be getting better, I haven't heard a lot of complaints about the Valve Index, but it's a bit disappointing to see so many posts and comments talking about how much potential different headsets had.

Might seem like a silly question but I'm curious.

Maybe a movie with a lot of action or decent soundtrack for example

Call me lazy if you want but I don't think someone should need to look up a guide on how to buy a video game without feeling scammed. I feel like I've been seeing this more and more lately with abstractly named tiered bundles, complete editions that don't contain everything, and remasters of games that feel like they should have been updates.

I've listed a few examples below but can you think of any others?

Examples:

The photo I attached is a buying guide for Hitman 3. A game that still confuses me. For those that don't know Hitman 1 and 2 can be played in Hitman 3 but the game is sold in bundles. I believe part one contains missions from the first game but the standard edition, the next level up, does not contain all the levels for Hitman 2 but does have all the levels for Hitman 3. The deluxe edition has all of Hitman 2 and a good chunk of the small DLC like cosmetics and challenge missions but not all of them.

Before Hitman 3 was rebranded as World of Assassination I believe you could avoid repaying for the games you already own (at least on Steam) but I don't think that's the case any more.

So as someone who owns the original Hitman I believe I essentially need to rebuy it as part of the deluxe edition if I want to play Hitman 1 and 2.

Intravenous for example was released in July 2021 and from my understanding is being remastered with features from the sequel, Intravenous 2 (released August 2024), as a DLC for the sequel under the name Intravenous IV2.