We’re talking about a vacation this summer so we can plan ahead. My mother (who will pay for it) said she’d love to go to Yellowstone, but it looks like it’s about a 24-hour drive for us. Still, I like the idea of going to a national park. We’re in Indiana, so this image shows about the limits of where we’re willing to...
Shenandoah is really nice. None of the East Coast parks are going to be as mind-blowing as the famous ones out west. And you can also go to the Great Smokey Mountains area if you plan the route correctly.
Aristotle was obviously a great teacher and philosopher but he ended up being wrong about a lot. Like he thought the “elements” were earth, wind, fire, and water and that all objects want to be in their “natural” place. So, if you drop a rock, it tries to return to the earth. Fire goes up because it’s trying to get to where it “wants” to live.
He thought eels didn’t procreate because no one had ever seen it happening. (They go out to sea to fuck.) He was into bees and correctly noticed that there were workers and drones and that young bees grow out of the honeycomb. But he just assumed the Queen was a King and that worker bees were out collecting tiny baby bees from flowers. (He thought the air just blew pollen around and the honey naturally appeared.)
He had a lot of ideas that were just ideas but he was so influential and his writings were preserved and translated. It took a shocking number of years for people to question if Aristotle was full of shit.
I’m still trying to de-Google my life, little by little. I don’t trust Bing for similar reasons. DDG is feeling shady of late. What’s the search engine you all recommend that I can inject into my daily life? Is there perhaps a search engine that is focused on code, or have we just all moved on to AI for searching?...
I use startpage.com on desktop. They provide Google results (sort of like DDG uses Bing results) so it’s not some autonomous magic privacy thing but it’s what I want from a search engine.
Feynman Diagrams blow my mind sometimes. Like, his drawings to simplify a complex subject were basically a new form of math. But also…isn’t all math just drawings to understand a complex subject?
I always wonder how close to South America they actually made it. I went to the Galapagos a couple of years ago and there’s no evidence of human settlement there dating back that far. But Easter Island is not that far west in terms of longitude.
It just doesn’t seem like human nature to get all the way to Easter Island and then stop. Maybe something happened and the entire society was like, “I’m never getting in a fucking boat again.” But if I had to bet, I’d put my money on people reaching the mainland and just not succeeding and creating a permanent presence. Why would Easter Island be the last stop?
He did a series of lectures aimed at undergraduates that CalTech recorded and made available: www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu
It’s not “general audience” but you don’t need a doctorate to enjoy them or anything. It’s a Nobel Prize winner explaining something he’s struggling to understand at times so don’t expect to get it all on your first go but he’s about as good a science communicator as you can realistically ask for.
I think the best thing you could do with that amount of money would be to start a community organizing non-profit. Things like registering voters, tenant advocacy, helping people gain access to benefits, etc. etc. Basically, just organizing and connecting people to the system.
If you’re restricting things to just electoral politics, though, I’d say focus on close elections at the state level. A half billion dollars isn’t much in the context of a modern presidential election but it’s an absurd amount for state legislature elections. You’re probably not going to turn Mississippi blue or Massachusetts red (or whatever your goal is) but control of a swingy state like Virginia usually comes down to a handful of close elections. You could probably make a meaningful difference in 20 states just with get out the vote funding.
I’ve been reading Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey E.F. Friedl, and since nobody in my life (aside from my wife) cares, I thought I’d share something I’m pretty proud of. My first set of regular expressions, that I wrote myself to manipulate the text I’m working with....
EDIT: Let’s cool it with the downvotes, dudes. We’re not out to cut funding to your black hole detection chamber or revoke the degrees of chiropractors just because a couple of us don’t believe in it, okay? Chill out, participate with the prompt and continue with having a nice day. I’m sure almost everybody has something...
I’ve always thought the classic Hunter - Gatherer gender division of labor was bullshit. I think that theory has gone out of fashion but I always thought it seemed like a huge assumption. It seems so much more plausible to me that everybody hunted some days (like during migration patterns) and gathered others. Did they even have the luxury of purely specialized roles before agriculture and cities?
Another reason I think that is because prehistoric hunting was probably way different than we imagine. Like, we imagine tribes of people slaying mammoths with only spears. It was probably more traps and tricks. Eventually, using domesticated dog or a trained falcon or something.
I’m from New Orleans and I had seen flurries before but the first time I saw snow that stuck to the ground was in Las Vegas of all places. We visited some relatives and drove to the mountains to see snow.
I eventually lived in a city that got snow regularly and learned it’s only charming for a day or two before it’s just gray mush. But I do miss that first few hours where it’s a winter wonderland.
I ll start : I have been following a pretty known tech/Linux journalist, and always found he is a fun dude to listen to, with interesting tech takes...
This might be overkill for your needs but you should see if your local library has Lexis-Nexis. It’s a research tool rather than a public search engine but it’s pretty comprehensive.
In fact, everyone should see what kind of random services their local library provides. I was shocked when I did that and found out we can checkout small power tools and stuff like that.
I’m not as strict as some people here but I rarely blanket allow notifications and I aggressively manage the settings. Like I allow some apps to show temporary banners if I’m using the phone but don’t allow badges or access to the Notification Center or Lock Screen (or my watch). And I’ll occasionally allow an app like DoorDash that has in-app notification settings where you can turn off non-essential ones.
Basically, I treat my Notification Center as a place for time-sensitive, actionable alerts. If an app can’t stick to that, I’ll either kill notifications for it or dive into the settings.
I also use Focuses (foci?) to limit things to just essentials (like messaging, phone, etc.) further if I’m working or at dinner or something. Like my “At Work” focus lets through work emails and essential Teams chats.
I’m boycotting Sabra hummus until Israel gives us a motherfucking ant-colony-level Hamas bunker under that hospital. We were promised a whole ass command center and got a wack ass video of one hole. I want to see the secret lair.
I was the first person I knew who cut the cord because Comcast was so obnoxious. They made a deal with my landlord so we could only use Comcast and then they charged $30 more a month than the apartment complex across the way. The FCC (or whichever regulator it was) made that illegal at some point. But competitors slow-walked competing for years. I’m sure it was a backroom deal since AT&T had similar deals with other buildings.
I still needed internet so I angrily paid for that but I sailed the high seas for years just to avoid giving Comcast one extra nickel more than was necessary.
I ran Manjaro Linux as my daily driver a few years ago but slowly phased it out for Windows for some reason, and I’m finally back using Linux (currently Linux Mint). I gotta say, I don’t know why I ever switched back to Windows. There’s just so much freedom Linux gives you right off the bat that Windows is just plain...
I rarely use Windows but I have a dual boot situation on my desktop PC for the odd game that acts up on Linux or to recreate bug reports. Every time I boot into Windows, I’m like, “Damn, people live like this?” Why does every single thing ask for a reboot? I know the reason but why can’t that be fixed?
Which of the U.S. national parks in this image do you think is the most worth visiting? There are three exceptions. (lemmy.world)
We’re talking about a vacation this summer so we can plan ahead. My mother (who will pay for it) said she’d love to go to Yellowstone, but it looks like it’s about a 24-hour drive for us. Still, I like the idea of going to a national park. We’re in Indiana, so this image shows about the limits of where we’re willing to...
Ancient wisdom often sounds like common sense now that it is commomly taught. What is some ancient wisdom that we no longer teach because it was wrong?
This question inspired by this post..
What search engine do you recommend that isn't Google or Bing?
I’m still trying to de-Google my life, little by little. I don’t trust Bing for similar reasons. DDG is feeling shady of late. What’s the search engine you all recommend that I can inject into my daily life? Is there perhaps a search engine that is focused on code, or have we just all moved on to AI for searching?...
Who are your favorite overlooked historical figures?
Lots of people were way more important than history books give them credit for. Do you have a favorite?...
Lottery winner
If someone won $500,000,000 in the lottery, what would be the most effective way to spend it to change the political situation in America?...
My First Regular Expressions
I’ve been reading Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey E.F. Friedl, and since nobody in my life (aside from my wife) cares, I thought I’d share something I’m pretty proud of. My first set of regular expressions, that I wrote myself to manipulate the text I’m working with....
What is Something Scientific that you just don't believe in at all?
EDIT: Let’s cool it with the downvotes, dudes. We’re not out to cut funding to your black hole detection chamber or revoke the degrees of chiropractors just because a couple of us don’t believe in it, okay? Chill out, participate with the prompt and continue with having a nice day. I’m sure almost everybody has something...
I was just telling someone about how the loyalty plan for groceries was that you got the next letter's edition of the encyclopedia.
I remember Funk and Wagnall’s at A&P but was that universal before we got computers?
Do you have a story about when you saw snow for the first time? (kbin.social)
Care to share it with us?
What groups you are unwillingly associated with? How you handle it?
I ll start : I have been following a pretty known tech/Linux journalist, and always found he is a fun dude to listen to, with interesting tech takes...
Is there a search engine for news? (kbin.social)
I used to be able to use Google to search for topics and find old articles, but it’s so enshittified that it’s useless for that now....
Stalin the Tankie Engine (lemmy.world)
I had Midjourney make Stalin the Tankie Engine.
Just about every Windows and Linux device vulnerable to new LogoFAIL firmware attack (arstechnica.com)
Do you disable notifications for all your apps?
let them all in or only allow for some specific apps (if so which ones)?
What companies have made your blacklist?
What companies will you never give another dollar to?...
Steam Linux Marketshare Surges To Nearly 2% In November (www.phoronix.com)
store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
I finally switched back to Linux as my daily driver after a couple of years of being on nothing but Windows.
I ran Manjaro Linux as my daily driver a few years ago but slowly phased it out for Windows for some reason, and I’m finally back using Linux (currently Linux Mint). I gotta say, I don’t know why I ever switched back to Windows. There’s just so much freedom Linux gives you right off the bat that Windows is just plain...
Document Management System for Linux? (kbin.social)
I'm looking to organise my paper mail with the help of a scanner and some document management system for Linux....