adespoton
@adespoton@lemmy.ca
- Comment on Windows 11 user has 30 years of 'irreplaceable photos and work' locked away in OneDrive - and Microsoft's silence is deafening 3 days ago:
This is why I run my own NextCloud instance that backs up locally and via offsite rotation.
Sure, I could still lose it all, but it would be 100% my own fault if I did.
- Comment on Why is there such a negative connotation with the poos of horses, bulls, and bats? 4 days ago:
Horses, because they used to be everywhere. Step in the street, and you were likely to step in some.
Bull, because it’s very big and smelly and there was usually some around (steer manure is still prized for gardening).
Bats… because it rains from above and is really gross, and you’ve got a high likelihood of getting really sick from it.
Why we don’t go on about pigeon and seagull guano though? I have no idea.
- Comment on In this day and age is it possible to create a commune? With majority of vegetables coming from one acre and all put in to get wifi to our subdivision? So the bill is not that high? 6 days ago:
Usually in the US they call it a co-op instead of a commune, but yeah, things like that are already done.
- Comment on Spicy food never affects my gut and everyone thinks it's really weird. How unusual is this and what could be happening to explain why spicy food doesn't affect me? 6 days ago:
Most people have taste receptors in their gut as well as on their tongue. It helps regulate how quickly your muscles contract to move stuff along through your intestine.
Some people don’t have as many, and some people build up a tolerance to capsaicin (in both their mouth and gut).
- Comment on How would I pop a bag of popcorn on the microwave? 1 week ago:
Dump it out and use it like any other popcorn. It’s pre-salted and the bag contains the oil you’d otherwise need to add.
But don’t put it in an air popper; the oil is likely to catch fire or just cause the kernels to burn.
- Comment on What water bottles are completely free from the problem of weird chipping/shavings of the material which could put material in the water, even when dropping it or when using Bottle Bright tablets? 1 week ago:
Been using them for 15 years; the bottles get a few dents in them, but I’ve even been able to hammer most of those out.
Haven’t used a plastic water bottle since the early 90s.
- Comment on If we replace most plastic with a non plastic alternative and would that really be better? 2 weeks ago:
The solution isn’t so much to replace plastic as it is to eliminate “single use” from our way of life, except as needed for emergencies (eg, situations where the only way to be sanitary is by destroying the object after use).
If you eliminate the majority of non-reusable stuff from your life, the rest becomes much easier. The volumes of plastics would be much lower such that much of it could actually be recycled at least once.
The second bit is to always incorporate end of life into a product’s lifecycle. Shrink what’s allowed to go in landfills. Provide a system to reclaim and often re-use damaged or worn out materials. Design things so they can be easily parted (broken up into parts) so that if a battery dies, you take the old ones in for servicing and either get them replaced or refreshed, instead of tossing the entire device.
Groceries? I no longer use bags; I get the store to give me the flats it gets its stuff in, and I fill those up with my groceries. General shopping? I have a set of cloth bags that stay in my car and another I can shove in my pocket when I’m walking.
I’ve got a metal water bottle I take with me when I go places.
Rejecting single use will get us much further than rejecting plastic.
- Comment on Is there a more convenient way to do this? 3 weeks ago:
If you have an iPhone, it has a built in translation app too, that does voice to voice with written summaries.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 weeks ago:
It’s like switching from cigarettes to chickory.
- Comment on Has the use of a comma instead of the word "and" in English news headlines always been a thing? 5 weeks ago:
Eats Shoots and Leaves
- Comment on will i fit in more with china/japan or russia or their communities in terms of acceptance/blending in? 5 weeks ago:
East Asian people tend to be more racist than Russians; the Rus themselves tend to feel superior to other Russians, but aside from that superiority, they’re likely to not care much about race.
Chinese and Japanese? Very insular.
Of course, if you’re living outside China/Japan/Russia, you’re going to have different interactions with people from there, many of whom will have left because they rejected the culture.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 weeks ago:
No lol about it. That’s either a thinly veiled death threat, or someone saying that they will keep bullying and harassing until the person goes away.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 weeks ago:
The content is open to interpretation based on context, but the «» indicates that English is likely not the quoter’s primary language.
So based on that, I have to ask: are you asking specifically about the nested idioms in the sentence?
- Comment on (i feel really stupid asking, but what the hell!) could i be of french descent? 5 weeks ago:
Most likely you have ancestors who lived in what is now France. Either that, or you have ancestors whose descendants moved around, and some of them settled in what is now France.
This could have happened before or after France became a nation.
Then again, it’s pretty likely that you have ancestors who lived in Africa.
- Comment on How are roundabouts made? 5 weeks ago:
Where I live, it’s all planned out in CAD, and then the inner concrete curb is calculated and broken up into sections, according to the plan.
Then the intersection being replaced (because that’s almost always the case) is dug up in the center and the concrete forms put in place and the center backfilled with gravel and dirt.
After the concrete has set, the asphalt machines re-level and pave the surrounding area. After this, brick is often added inside the concrete to provide an extra driving surface for large vehicles. Then plants or statues are added to the centre.
After all this, the lines and markings go on, and they’re just offset from the concrete curb, so nothing fancy needs to be done; the paint truck just has a little arm that stays over the concrete.
- Comment on Why do we tolerate it that Luigi Mangione is being held in prison. We know its absolutely the least safe place he can be? 1 month ago:
The guards and administration want him alive.
People like Epstein die in prison because showing up in court runs the risk of taking down powerful people. People like Luigi always have their day to be dragged through the mud in court before they rot away forever in jail, with random reminders that they’re still alive and suffering.
- Comment on Versant is New Name for Comcast Spin-Off 1 month ago:
What exactly does “spun off” mean here? Doesn’t Comcast still have a stake in the new org? Isn’t this just changing the lipstick color on the pig?
- Comment on Why I Believe Printers Were Sent From Hell To Make Us Miserable - The Oatmeal 1 month ago:
I’ve got an ancient laser printer. Toner is cheap and it just works. Anything more complex? I send it to a print shop and let THEM deal with the suffering. I just get the results I’m expecting when I expect them, without wasting time and money on printers and ink and all the things that can go wrong with them. Works for me….
- Comment on Why do we tolerate it that Luigi Mangione is being held in prison. We know its absolutely the least safe place he can be? 1 month ago:
Why are people generally in prison? Usually because they’re violent, drug addicted or at odds with the status quo.
Luigi is in prison accused of killing a man responsible for getting people hooked on drugs, marginalizing the already marginalized and poor, and ruining the lives of millions.
I think the inmates would be more likely to treat him like a hero.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Disqualifying? No. However, he’d run up against similar prejudices that make it difficult for a woman to win the presidency.
Remember that Pete Buttigieg was in the running at one point.
- Comment on Why is my community modding everyone who comments? 1 month ago:
Just so you know, I’m a fellow Voyager user on lemmy.ca and I don’t see that anywhere I’m not a mod.
- Comment on How would you run a society? 1 month ago:
I wouldn’t. I’d set up at least four groups and let them run autonomously from each other. I might not even let them know that there’s other groups on the planet.
More chance of survival if there’s different groups trying different things. Strength in diversity.
- Comment on Does anyone else hate knowing stuff and looking "smart"? 1 month ago:
You missed “make my computer work” and “get me movies for free”.
- Comment on Does anyone else hate knowing stuff and looking "smart"? 1 month ago:
Knowing stuff can be a curse, especially when you’re 10 steps ahead of everyone else in the room and you know they’re just going to need the time to figure it out on their own.
But being smart means you know how and when to apply your knowledge. So you can provide the information when it’s actually useful and not when it just gets blank stares.
And knowing stuff but NOT talking about it all the time, and not using “told you so” means that when you DO speak, anyone who matters will listen and take you seriously.
I find that slipping useful knowledge into self-deprecating jokes is a useful way to get people to listen to it.
- Comment on Why does it seem like everyone is so good looking and beautiful nowadays? 1 month ago:
Of course not. That would be wasteful.
- Comment on Why does it seem like everyone is so good looking and beautiful nowadays? 1 month ago:
Germans don’t smile with their mouths; they generally do smile with their eyes. People who only look at mouths generally miss that.
- Comment on Why does it seem like everyone is so good looking and beautiful nowadays? 1 month ago:
Part of what it points to is what you’re currently paying attention to. You don’t notice all the people who aren’t what you consider “good looking”.
Later in life, you’ll notice how many people have children in strollers, or drive fancy cars, or can afford houses. You may start noticing how many people own dogs, run regularly outside, or never look up from their phones.
It’s a form of selection bias; you tend to see the people that are most likely to catch your attention, and ignore the rest.
Try an exercise: start checking to see how many people you see in public smile with their eyes.
- Comment on how do I avoid becoming conformist, lazy and completely incapable of learning something new? 1 month ago:
This is important. Learning involves change based on a balance of positive and negative feedback. Be comfortable making mistakes and learning not to repeat them in other contexts. Also learn how to use mistakes to improve on methods that didn’t seem like mistakes at the time.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
“Oh yes, officer! This is my washer and dryer from home… I just felt like they needed a bit of fresh air!”
- Comment on What would the world look like if every worker got together and Unionized for a universale wage that helps everyone? Instead of one country trying to screw over another? 1 month ago:
Well, you could argue that China already has the structure being described here. How does it work out there?
I was assuming a union system similar to what is currently used in the US. If it’s not democratic, you’re going to have other issues.
Of course, ranked choice could mitigate some of the issues, but you can’t get away from the power imbalance problem.