atx_aquarian
@atx_aquarian@lemmy.world
- Comment on Time to yeet your smartphone into the long grass 1 week ago:
There is just something really amazing about being able to communicate directly between two points on the planet by bouncing EM waves off layers of the atmosphere. Like, imagine two people hundreds of miles apart are shining flashlights (or torches, if you prefer) at the distant sky, just above the horizon, and seeing the sky glow from each other’s beams signaling each other. At the right frequencies and with the right conditions, certain atmospheric layer boundaries become reflective, like the boundary between air and water, so imagine that distant sky looks a little glossy up there, like water’s surface reflecting your beam.
But then run that light source through a machine that does that flickering signal fast enough to encode your voice in the pattern of flickering that’s glowing in the sky over someone else’s horizon.
That’s pretty closely analogous to what amateur (“ham”) radio operators are doing when they play with the HF range of the radio spectrum. The electronics are less sophisticated than cell phones, but our usual gadgets rely on many other devices to relay info across the Internet (which is also amazing, in a different way). Ham radio, on the other hand, is like a fancy version of talking through two cans on a string, sometimes up to thousands of miles apart, but using fast flash lights instead of string and cans.
- Comment on We are so cooked 2 weeks ago:
The inherent problem with that is how few there are.
- Comment on Anon experiences freedom 1 month ago:
Nowadays, there’s not much to learn. For user-friendly OSes, just install the VPN app, sign in like any other service, and, at a minimum, hit “go”. Most people will want to scroll through a list of locations of where they want to appear to be, choose a location, then hit “go”.
- Comment on Why do so many UK electrical sockets have an on/off switch next to them? 2 months ago:
I think you meant to write “anything”, but I have to laugh anf think this could be another internet moment like what started “Karen” or “Chad” or “Stan”.
- Comment on At 4AM this New Year's Eve, play the Ramones track "I Wanna Be Sedated." 5 months ago:
You’ve been waiting for this moment…
- Comment on Be happy if you woke up today and your throat didn’t hurt. 5 months ago:
One of the best feelings I ever felt was laying in bed the night after a car accident earlier in the fay. It was enough of an accident that I was glad to reflect on it not being any worse, but it also wasn’t bad enough to injure anyone.
When I climbed into bed that night, I was seriously doing that thing dogs do when you take them outside and they flop and wallow around on the grass with their feet flailing carelessly in the air. That bed felt so damn good that night, and I try often to remind myself that it’s the same comfy and safe bed now that it was that day.
- Comment on How come people who are against abortion are in favor of the death penalty? Kind of seems like a contradicition/ 5 months ago:
This is exactly how I used to see things when I grew up in a conservative echo chamber.
And now that I recognize a person’s right to choose and tend to think capital punishment should probably* not be legal, I’ll add that it’s not that my underlying beliefs changed, just how I now understand things. Some people do deserve capital punishment. And innocent people should be protected. But personhood doesn’t start at conception, a person conceiving has a right to decide what happens to their body, and the state can never be trusted to administer capital punishment.
*I say “probably” because I also think it might be necessary to allow it in extreme cases. My reasoning is that if people don’t believe the justice system will adequately punish, they have incentive and no ultimate detergent for taking justice into their own hands.
- Comment on Bread 7 months ago:
Yeah, good point, but that article isn’t talking about what’s in this picture.
Store-bought sandwich bread usually can be kept in the fridge without much change in texture. That’s because it often contains additives and preservatives that keep it fresh longer.
- Comment on 7 months ago:
That’s a big motivation for me, too, but I’d say it’s about equally that I want archival of the best stuff for when rights holders pull their catalogs from the services I stream. I used to think that was mainly for the more obscure stuff, like local bands’ early albums that I can barely find anymore, but recently I’ve noticed albums missing from main services (Tidal and Spotify, in my case) for bigger acts, too.
- Comment on Animal Attacks 8 months ago:
I’d had this over my front door for however long it took for them to build it. My pest control service said the size of the nest can affect how aggressively defensive they might respond to perceived intruders. I guess maybe I was just lucky we caught this one before it got any more developed.
- Comment on I never thought of it that way before... 10 months ago:
Could have little tiny proto shrew cheese curds.
- Comment on Eating your veggies 10 months ago:
Part of it, too, is selective breeding (aka genetic modification, but that’s a dirty word).
- Comment on How typical 10 months ago:
Combine that with the stupid piped-in engine noise (through the sound system) and you can make anyone feel right at home in last century’s technology.
- Comment on What happens to my domain, website and email when I die? 10 months ago:
If they control the domain, they can see all incoming mail delivery attempts to sniff for addresses that were used. They’d still have to know the domain of the email address for the login they were attacking, which might not be super useful if they’re going after a certain login. But, going the other direction would be more fruitful: buy a domain, dump all incoming mail into a catch-all box, and start looking for bank alert emails or other periodic/promo emails. You might find services that just use email addresses for a login name, or ones that have a “forgot username” feature that only uses email for recovery. Multi-factor auth spread across multiple services (email, SMS, authenticator codes…) would help mitigate significantly by making them also have to take over a phone number or get an old device. Not impossible, but then you’re making them work harder for it, and when good account recovery services heavily mask the available targets, it makes it harder to know what else to acquire (e.g., a specific phone number) even if they get as far as full email domain control.
- Comment on PSA: Don't eat cicadas if you're allergic to shellfish... or at all 11 months ago:
I feel so lucky to have been here for this discussion today.
- Comment on [deleted] 11 months ago:
“it’s a car, not a church.”
- Comment on Guys will meet him and just say "hell yeah!" 1 year ago:
I remember seeing a documentary or news piece or something about a woman who pivoted hers to “BISCUIT!” I really hope that was real. But I don’t remember how she got there, like if she had to trick herself that “biscuit” was offensive.
- Comment on RIP in pieces 1 year ago:
But is it a dead name? Last I looked, the URL was still “twitter.com”.
- Comment on Our god is ever hungry 1 year ago:
Cookie Monster in a toilet.
- Comment on Okay, but Mötley is a pretty awesome name. 1 year ago:
Always has been.
- Comment on Okay, but Mötley is a pretty awesome name. 1 year ago:
Many people dislike their own names, but I think SomeGuy69 is an awesome name, too. Cheer up!
- Comment on Science bro beatdown 1 year ago:
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton knew that knowledge evolves. He wouldn’t be an adversary to progress, as he saw its natural course, himself.
- Comment on The four houses dads belong to. 1 year ago:
We’re talking about Dads here.
- Comment on CyberPunk Santa is coming to town 1 year ago:
This is a masterpiece.
- Comment on Comment any opinion and I will disagree with it, no matter what. 1 year ago:
strokes beard
Well played.
- Comment on Comment any opinion and I will disagree with it, no matter what. 1 year ago:
Stores shouldn’t play Christmas music all year.
- Comment on Careful when skiing 1 year ago:
Um, is…um… w- what??
- Comment on a classic issue... 1 year ago:
I think eating a chunk of raw onion was about the only time normal food made me feel as bad as if I’d drank too much crappy liquor.
- Comment on Radiatori 1 year ago:
Fun info about that for meme aficionados:
- Comment on again and again and again... 1 year ago:
I hear it feels better than getting kidney stones.
Go forth, drink water, and pee clear.
