Notices by myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win), page 31

A big part of programming is boring details, language idiosyncrasies. For example, I wanted a java program to tell me the coordinates of the last mouse click. In Swing presents more options than I want— it’s too much control. So I have StdDraw to make the graphics & UI options less complicated: even then it wouldn’t work until I added pauses— This took like an hour.

How do I teach this miserable skill whatever it is?
You know it can be done, you keep isolating & eliminating until it works.

E-bikes are very cool and I'm glad they are getting popular.

However.

There is a big difference between a crash at 12mph and one at 20mph.

Your ebike can give you injuries normally only found in motorcycle accidents. And there isn't enough advice on what constitutes sufficient maintenance for ebikes.

If you don't get balding tires fixed on a regular bike you could fall off and bruise or break a leg.

At ebike speeds that same fall will shatter your leg in dozens of pieces.

BE CAREFUL

When colonies are small they are nervous. Here is the young queen and her 23 daughters are gathered close to her frozen in fear as I feed them and collect the little trash pile they made. When their numbers pass some tipping point they will stop cowering like this and grow bold. I wonder how each ant decides if she should be brave or hide? how do they know the size of their colony?

The bald eagle could have easily gone extinct. But we did all sorts of "woke" things protecting it legally, ran conservation and study programs, banned DDT (that was good for other reasons too) and in 2007 they were removed from the endangered species list.

Likewise pine forests could be dead from acid rain.

The ozone could have a huge hole.

We CAN take care of nature when we want to. And the successes have been worth it.

I feel like we forget this, you know?

It's the same picture.

https://www.rawstory.com/ron-desantis-mask-order-2654942318/

There are a lot of people online who will say they have been doing "research" and it's true they have read, and watched many things. But they have no questions, no, threshold for answering those questions. It's just "spooky browsing"

And I like getting creeped out too as much as anyone. But that's just not research.

Research means formulating a question. Sketching the kind of evidence you think would provide answers to the question and then dispassionately looking for that evidence and either answering the question or determining it can't yet be answered.

Falling into an internet rabbit hole and stimulating your sense of fear or wonder reading the strangest things you can find that creep you out isn't research. It's fun maybe, but it's not research.

Yes both involve searching and reading but ... come on.

I often brag on tumblr about how "on the fediverse I never have to ask people for image descriptions, why is tumblr so terrible at this?" etc.

But, I've made the mistake of re-sharing a few images without descriptions recently! I was lulled into thinking it was not a problem.

Just FYI I'm going to get strict again about not re-sharing undescribed images. (You should too, it keeps the feed readable.)

If you forget? If this is new? Don't feel bad, just stop doing that.

https://www.tumblr.com/aspirationatwork/750857131588304896

A benefit of giving my Camponotus nicobarensis colony a room with dirt to play in has been finding out that they will quickly bury large food items. I gave them a huge dubia this morning... which normally would keep them busy for about two days, in an hour it disappeared it into the ground.

I'm glad I can feed them in a space with a hard surface too... since if they bury food it will be hard to know when they have eaten it all. (which can make the tank too dirty)

Still I'm amazed!

They dug a pit under it, then it sunk down... then they tugged it off into a side tunnel.

I want my funeral to work like that. It was awesome.

In a few days I'll try to get a time-lapse of them doing this... if I can just keep them from sticking dirt on the the front glass... this is why I didn't want to give them dirt. They are very creative and have made all sorts of abstract mud sculptures and curvilinear forms tufted with moss. Who knows what lurks in the ant mind!

I just got my fixie out of the shop and was able to ride it again. I forgot how much I loved this bike. When I went to pick it up the bike shop guy was like "um did you know one of your tires is off of a wheel chair?"

... I did not... but I guess it was strange that it was gray. I used to get my bike fixed by a guy in the park who worked out of his van BEST prices in the city. ... but yeah, IDK where he got his parts... LMAO

I almost wish I could be a messenger again. It was a life.

If it's a problem that a judges daughter works for Democrats it's a problem that a judge was appointed by the defendant.

Trump has said FOUR times that he will withhold federal funding from schools that require vaccines. Not just COVID. ALL.

This is most schools. This is hitting me where I work. This will lead to children dead from measles. It's obvious, inevitable.

Someone on here said they just couldn't bear to vote for Biden to keep Trump from office since at least under Trump there were better masking rules.

I hope that person sees this.

Worse is worse.

edit: because I don't know measles from smallpox

@Takiro

I think the bulbous roots are long gone... and many members of this family are poisonous... though I have no idea about this one.

yeah moss is great but how about a vascular plant that has basically ... gone back to the way of the moss...

Azorella compacta

It's... it's a carrot that has given up on having leaves...

Imagine a hostile planet with plants like this... could you tell that they once grew in less cold and arid climates? What if flora of the twilight days of a planet look like the earliest life... but when you look closer there are abilities, and structures that tell their history....

If we have so much good AI tech why can't anyone make a spell check that I can't stump?

A few times a week I must go to the dictionary (like a cavewoman!) or search the web since I've mangled some word in such a way that there are no suggestions. It's just "wrong" what's wrong with it? Who knows!

Could it be a scientific name and just not in the dictionary? Maybe! Could it be an obscure word with a pretentious UK spelling? Probably! Could it be wrong? Also probably.

Do this first AI lords.

The second thing that still can't be done is more of a general issue:

Ask Alexa to add an event to your Google calendar? Can't be done.

Ask Siri the author of the last audiobook you listened to? Can't be done!

Ask Google when your package will arrive from Amazon? Can't do it!

If you think "Well of course you can't do that, what company would aid the competition?" That's just my point.

Meanwhile the databrokers have a profile of you that includes all of these things.

@cyberlyra I thought about the data safety aspect— but in the end it’s not really a secure wall just an inconvenient one: Nothing is stopping some company from using the last book I listed to to serve me ads: *so why can I get at least the same benefit from my own damn data* ?

@sysfrank

"Fascists aren't against their own education"

I don't think this is true. It's that "The Secret" mentality: you need to believe in your own reality to shape it. And further they aren't curious people, they aren't interested in the way things work, or why contradictions exist.

This is what distinguishes fascism from other forms of authoritarianism. IMO

@FlashMobOfOne @ServerWrestler @Jorsh

Who do you want to win the election?