StringTheory @ StringTheory @beehaw.org

Fun with strings! Ukulele, knitting, physics!

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Joined

2 yr. ago

Nice to see that Divide And Conquer propaganda tactics are still going strong. Aleksandr Dugin would be so proud.

“Ok, fellow kids! Let’s all blame our own parents and grandparents, not that tiny population of oligarchs!”

Aunts and Uncles (genetic or not) are of huge benefit to children. maybe you don’t have kids. But if your best friend has a kid and you become Uncle Meow for that kid, you’ve just increased the security and stability of that kid’s life. You now are another adult in their life who can protect that kid from social and financial disasters.

Maybe the way to look at it is “we all have fewer kids, and invest ourselves in the welfare of the kids around us.”

That makes it better, but I don’t want his normal cold, either. We all have a few masks lying around and tucked into pockets here and there these days. If one feels a cold coming on, toss a mask over your pie hole in public!

From the other side… If you are a woman with cancer, you quickly discover that everything is aimed at breast cancer patients. Women’s support group? Sorry, only for breast cancer patients. Women’s retreat weekend? Breast cancer patients only. Class on how to stay beautiful while you hair is falling out? For breast cancer patients.

The loss of a (limited usefulness) boob is seen as far more devastating and worthy of care and support than the loss of a lung, lobe of liver, bone, rectum, patch of skin, eye, etc.

And every damn thing - cards, flyers, books, pamphlets, posters - for women with any cancer is pink.

Darn Tough makes a black calf length “dress” sock, a bit thicker than regular dress socks. It has minimal logo stuff going on, the only visible one will be a small one up at the very top of the cuff.

Almost all my socks are Darn Tough now. They do tend to run slightly small, so if you are between sizes I would recommend choosing the larger size.

https://darntough.com/

Yesterday while grocery shopping two men walked by as I was contemplating bread choices. One of them was saying, “yeah, it’s ok, I’ve got the sore throat but I don’t have the rest of the Covid symptoms yet.”

At that moment I really wished both he and I (and everyone else in the store) were wearing masks.

My teeth sucked, too. If I could have had them fixed as a kid it would have saved me decades of jaw pain and cracked teeth.

Perfect teeth tracks with the sense that everything must be eternally perfect and sterile and flawless. Not just people parts, but objects as well. Read reviews of people furious that the Apple Watch they bought developed tiny scratches after a year and Apple refused to replace it for free. Or the people pissed that their white shirt was stained after they spilled wine on it and demanding a refund, or that their 2 year old fleece sweater has pilled so something must be wrong with it so throw it away.

And yet these same people are struggling with the anguished desire to be unique and special. A crooked tooth is unique. A cleverly embroidered shirt hiding a stain is special. De-pilling a sweater takes work, but now you invested your time into your object and increased its value to you.

Is it a money thing? Only poor people have flaws? Only poor people own objects that show signs of wear or age?

This reminds me of an article about journalism and the internet, from ages ago. A class was asked how they would research for a topic (it was some recent political event, I don’t remember). The class confidently answered “the internet.” The professor struggled to get them to understand that wasn’t enough. Yes, there is all kinds of stuff about this event on the internet, but how did it get there?. And more importantly, what is missing?

Sure, all the sexy AI stuff gives us goosebumps and sounds great. But how did it get there, and what is missing? Someone somewhere has to do the actual original work first, or it’s just making collages from the same library over and over and over again.

If you or your family are in danger, you might think about leaving. The fever of fascism is like being in a house that the residents are setting on fire. They don’t care if it burns them, they don’t even think far enough ahead to realized that it will burn them. They just want to burn you. The residents inside with the lighters and cans of petrol aren’t listening to you. And spitting on the flames isn’t enough. Sometimes the best you can do is to get out of the smoldering house and pour water on it from the outside.

Edit: grammar

I don’t understand how it is more ethical to create an embryo from a stem cell than to create one from a sperm and egg. Both are viable, neither is a person. How are they different?

(Keeping the stem cell version in vitro past the the age when it would need to implant isn’t really a solution/distinction because we can do the same thing with a sperm-and-egg version.)

Pictures and home movies from the 1970s are shocking. People were so much leaner then than now. And going further back, the silent movie actor “Fatty Arbuckle” was considered so fat it was his nickname, yet he wouldn’t look at all extraordinary today.

Seems like it’s the snacking culture, so much snacking “3 meals and 3 snacks” is normal. It didn’t used to be.

I hope you are doing better now.

You can buy card stock that has local wildflower seeds embedded in it. The idea is when the person is done with the card, they plant the whole thing so the card decomposes and the seeds sprout.

I’ve been wanting to do this ever since someone gave me one that said “You make a difference.” I treasured that card for years.

I don’t even remember what I did to help her at this point, it was something that seemed minor at the time, but she thanked me and gave me the card.

Do it! It can have quite an impact!

70,000 people without toilets… eeek.

And petting wildlife. Or trying to take selfies with wildlife. Or feeding wildlife.

No, no, and no.

Even a cute lil’ chipmunk is a no-no. Bison, moose, and their sweet huggable calves are serious no-nos.

In a video statement a day after the shooting, Belford said two officers were helping someone get into a locked car when a supermarket employee told them several people were leaving with stolen items. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/police-fatally-shooting-a-pregnant-black-woman-captured-on-video-set-to-be-released

I have a hard time seeing a 7-months pregnant woman being part of a gang of thieves and running from a store with her arms full of bottles of alcohol.

And if she was part of the gang, you record her license plate and get the security camera pictures and call her in. What the hell are cops being taught?

Does UPS deliver for the post office? I thought UPS and USPS were separate entities?

Tie that with the studies showing people are less stressed and more sociable when they have trees nearby, and the one about people in hospitals having better outcomes if their room has a view of a tree… well, it sure seems like we should be mixing more trees into our environments.