zdl

zdl, 13 days ago

@jens Another one I'd like to see is tackling that nonsense about how ancient peoples couldn't see certain colours in the blue spectrum because they didn't have words that separated green from blue.

These statues are a strong item of evidence that runs counter to that ludicrous belief since many of them had complex patterns (like checker board patterns) of ... green and blue. Which would be really hard to make if you can't tell green from blue...

zdl, 13 days ago

@jens Oh, right! Since humans of the time couldn't see blue, they had to be aliens! And aliens fucking humans shortly before the modern age is why we can see blue now!

It all makes so much sense!

zdl, 13 days ago

@jens My personal theory is a variant of one I took from Calvin & Hobbes.

In the past people couldn't see blue because blue as a colour didn't exist. Nothing was blue. Over time the universe itself started having blue show up, so things that were "black" or "wine" or "green" started to change into blue.

zdl, 13 days ago

@confluency @jens From what I understand it was done by professional restorers. The issue wasn't the skill of the restorers, it was the paucity of the pigments they could recover to paint with: hundreds to thousands of years of weathering is a real bitch. And since they're trying to restore, not speculate on what it might have looked like, their hands were pretty much tied.

zdl, 13 days ago

@thatkatharine Best invocation of the Safety Dance I've seen in ... ages now.

zdl, 13 days ago

@session Wasn't this the promise made about the Internet at first? (Hint: yes, it absolutely was.)

What is going to be made differently this time to stop the same increased centralization from happening again?

zdl, 13 days ago

@session Oh, just hit "blockchain".

It's a grift.

zdl, 13 days ago

What I found intriguing about this is that this is technology, available in the 1950s, that was superior to its competition (78 RPM records): more durable, better-sounding, more convenient storage ... and yet it was incredibly short-lived while the lameness of flat disks with small amounts of music taking up more space and wearing faster dominated the music world for so long.

This is the power of marketing over technology, sadly.

zdl, 13 days ago

@jemmesedi Isn't he just sparing himself some humiliation by not standing?

zdl, 13 days ago

@jemmesedi Farage and his ilk are my reminder of why I feel so comfortable so far away from the nation of my citizenship.

We've got a Farage in Canada. His name is Pierre Poilievre and there's a very good chance he will be our next prime minister (for very much the same reason that I'm pretty sure Trump is going to win 2024 in the USA).

zdl, 13 days ago

@jemmesedi 🤷‍♀️ I'm a realist. I called Trump when most conventional wisdom said he was a clown who was going to make the Republicans lose in 2016. (Specifically when he survived the first round of "debates" in Republican circles I predicted with 90% certainty that he'd get the Republican candidacy and with about 80% certainty that if that happened he'd have the presidency.)

I was about 75% certain that Biden would win in 2020.

And now I'm about 90% certain that it's Trump 2024.

🧵 (1/2)

zdl, 13 days ago

@jemmesedi For Poilievre I'm about 80% certain he's our next Prime Minister (and I'm looking forward to having my vote removed from me yet again by a Canadian prime minister).

So what's my secret to these predictions? It's easy. I assume the worst of my fellow human beings and am rarely left disappointed. It doesn't help that in the USA the Democrats are going out of their way to alienate the youth vote while in Canada Trudeau seems incapable of making even his fans excited.

🧵 (2/2)

zdl, 13 days ago

@jemmesedi You'd think the "Euro" in "Eurostar" would be the clue that post-Brexit Britain isn't properly a part of it any longer?

zdl, 13 days ago

@judisohn Green tea, to avoid the acrid bitterness, has to be "washed". By which I mean you pour hot water over the leaves, swirl it around a few seconds and then pour the liquor off.

Washing tea improves, in fact, most teas, green or black. but it is essential with greens for most people.

zdl, 14 days ago

@cstross Literally the last thing I would want "connected" is a sex toy. With the almost daily tedium of reading about Yet Another Data Breach in some online service or another, why would I want something as intimate as a sex toy up for grabs?! 🤯

zdl, 14 days ago

@klausfiend @cstross Nope. I can do without that knowledge. 🤣

zdl, 14 days ago

@cstross Maybe it's my age talking, but as soon as I hear "Internet-connected" for any device that's not a computer or phone I say "no thanks" and don't buy it. I don't have a "smart" TV. A "smart" fridge. A "smart" kettle. A "smart" stove. A "smart" voice assistant. A "smart" ... well ... anything. Except a computer (from which I'm typing this) and a phone.

I'll try to live with the disappointment of not being humiliated, threatened, attacked, or manipulated on a daily basis.

zdl, 13 days ago

@cstross I don't think of it as an attack surface thing, though. I just say "why would I want <some device> connected to the Internet?" and can't find a good reason. 😆

The safety issue is something that came up years after I'd decided I'd not buy any "smart" device.

zdl, 14 days ago

@jemmesedi If the music doesn't grab me, the lyrics never reach my ear, so music.

zdl, 14 days ago

@jemmesedi I think Greenpeace should disband. They succeeded in their original goal; they should stop trying to remain relevant by killing people.

zdl, 14 days ago

@jemmesedi GM crops are like any technology: can be used for good and for evil.

The approach of using GM to make crops resistant to poisons so you can pour a thousand times more toxic chemicals on them, thus guaranteeing they show up in resulting foods, is flat-out evil. (The "Round-Up" approach.)

In this case, it's an unequivocal good. Greenpeace needs to shut the fuck up and step the fuck back over this or they'll have literally tens of thousands of deaths on their hands.

zdl, 14 days ago

@Alice I have met so many people who use "complete 360" as if it were TWICE as "complete 180" that I appreciate your clarification that you're not in that group.

zdl, 14 days ago

@mxtthxw Wait, you mean boomers didn't absorb all the lead?

I'm going to have to come up with a new explanation for Trump and his ilk.