fireweed @ fireweed @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

Arcane, the animated Netflix show that was based on League of Legends.

"Hiking" is like any other kind of outdoor activity: it can range from a literal walk in the park to scaling a mountain. You're describing hiking the same way someone who wants to get into swimming might describe preparing to cross the English Channel; if you want to get into swimming, start with a shallow indoor pool and then if you feel like it, work your way up from there.

I will say that there is a lot of misleading hiking info on the web (as in, maps of trails that are inaccurate, don't exist, or that go through private property); I'd recommend finding a book (as in, made of paper) of local hikes from your library or bookstore (if you live in an area with an outdoor store like REI that's a great resource). Select an "easy" hike of 1-2 miles from the book, ideally a "popular" hike (as in, one that's likely to have a lot of other people on it) that's somewhere within a short transportation distance, and do that for your first hike. Short, easy hikes don't require anything more than comfortable footwear, and maybe a water bottle if it's a hot day. Until you start getting into very long, very remote, and/or technically difficult hikes, assuming you're in decent health there's really very little to hiking other than stay on the trail, keep an eye on the weather, and don't push yourself beyond your limits... or more generally, "if in doubt turn around." I do recommend getting an Open Street Map app for your phone, as it's generally more accurate than Google Maps; some trails are marked better than others, and OSM is a good backup to have in your pocket if you get lost or turned around, although it's mostly only necessary if you're going into an area that has a lot of intersecting trails.

I thought this was going to be about turmeric's lead contamination problem...

That would be great IF you could convince the city that thoroughly-entrenched tools like leaf blowers and lawn mowers and motorized vehicles fell under nuisance laws. Chances are the mayor and most of city council use these things (or pay someone who uses them). The problem is that most people either love these things or don't find them obnoxious enough to warrant action. Even if you somehow could get them to fall under nuisance laws, enforcement would be complaint-based, and who's going to risk pissing off their neighbor for being a snitch Karen?

I know everyone hates HOAs because they're usually petty and dumb, but this is where I think they'd actually be helpful. Designate certain neighborhoods as "quiet zones" where similarly obnoxious activities (that have reasonable, quiet alternatives) are banned: no motorized leaf blowers, lawn mowers, souped-up motorcycles or muscle cars. If you want to own one of those things, don't move into that neighborhood.

I've come to realize many people feel "forced" to move to incredibly space- and resource-inefficient (and thereby ecologically-damaging) places like suburbs and exurbs for basically two reasons: better schools, and in an attempt to escape asshole neighbors. Sometimes it's so that they can themselves be the asshole neighbors, but generally people are trying to live in a "nice" neighborhood not over usual HOA things like house siding color and properly-concealed trash cans, but rather for a general desire for peace and quiet. I know I dream about living on 40 acres not so I can start a dairy farm, but to escape the various forms of pollution (primarily noise, air, and light) emitted by my current neighbors. But I wouldn't feel the need to do that if my neighbors had similar desires as I and limited things like car idling, porch lights, and landscape-related noise. Meanwhile the neighbors upset at me for keeping my yard wild to support wildlife could have a neighbor with similarly bland yard maintenance standards.

Basically all the media.

There is (or at least was) a special kind of joy in discovering a new piece of media (movie, TV, book, video game, comic, etc), getting to the end, and hopping over to the relevant subreddit to sort by "top of all time." Bonus points if you loved the series and would get to essentially relive it all over again through the sub, but even media that you hated or were neutral about could be fun subs to peruse; maybe you would get to revel in seeing something you hated turned into a meme highlighting how stupid it was, or get to feel justified in your negative assessment upon reading an epic rant from another user; maybe instead you'd find hidden details or explanations pointed out by other users that made you reassess the work ("huh, I though that was a stupid plothole but it actually was perfectly explained by that one scene that apparently went over my head"). The ATLA subs especially were treasure troves of tiny details and "holy shit I just noticed on my fifth rewatch" posts that really elevated my opinion (and thereby enjoyment) of a series I was initially kind of "meh" on.

When I think about what it would take to feel like Lemmy had sufficiently replaced Reddit for me, the number one practical answer is for comprehensive news (political, world, cultural, meme, etc... Reddit really did at one point feel like "the front page of the Internet" if there ever was one), and the second is to have the critical mass to be able to ask a question and get a good recommendation for any specific product or service, via regional subs, hobby subs, etc (although thanks to LLMs and corporate astroturfing that may simply be a bygone part of the Internet). But the "fun" answer is to have the critical mass for a wide range of specific fandoms.

I definitely read "horses" until I got to the part where all three of them have "horses" even though only one of them was interested in them, and that's when I realized my brain had added in the "r" because horse people obviously exist, but hose people?

Confirmed. There are many, many lupine species, however, and each have their own growing conditions. So I'm not sure about the "sandy soil" bit (likely it's because the seedlings do better in sandy soil?). A single lupine plant will produce thousands (tens of thousands?) of seeds each year, and the plants mature quickly; some are annuals, but even the perennials grow at a prodigious rate once established in the right conditions. Because of their ability to fix nitrogen (take nitrogen from the air and store it in the soil where other plants can access it), as well as reproduce and spread quickly in the right conditions (i.e. lacking competition) they are used in places with severely depleted soil to revegetate; they were introduced in Iceland for this purpose with resounding success, although now they have the problem of a prolific non-native species.

The replier doesn't even know the plural for "company"

Why are we elevating this anti-intellectual drivel?

I just finished season one of "The Boys" and they did a fantastic job of implementing "necessary" sex scenes and excluding or "cutting to black" on ones that aren't. Just a few examples:

Generally the sex scenes aren't titillating and don't last longer than necessary to convey whatever plot/character development the writers want to reveal to the audience. This is another reason why I think their inclusion is highly calculated, and arguably "necessary."

Replace "sex scene" with "action sequence." There are plenty of movies where the action sequence is engaging, "thematically relevant" (as another commenter phrased it), and enhances the movie. Then there are Michael Bay-type movies, where the action sequence is over-the-top, gratuitous, and feels like filler that you have to get through before the actual movie can resume... in other words, an "unnecessary" action sequence. There's nothing wrong with movies with gratuitous action scenes existing; there is a place in cinema for Rambo and the MCU, just like there's a place for smut. But much like how I don't want to have to sit through a gratuitous CGI-heavy action sequence in the middle of a historical drama, I think it's legitimate to question the addition of sex scenes in movies/TV where you wouldn't expect it (or wouldn't expect it to be so long/graphic), especially if it doesn't feel like the scene added anything to the movie other than titillation.

Wow that map of the wiggly London-Singapore flight route really drives home how many airspaces these Europe-SE Asia flights have to skirt around.

Hedgehogs of the sea. Their babies even look the same!

I haven't watched the series in over a decade so I have no idea how it's aged (or how my tastes have changed as I've aged) but I remember the early seasons being quite good. Gray's Anatomy was really popular the first few years that it aired, and at least at the time I thought it was deservedly so. I think I dropped the show around season six? It was getting too soapy/ridiculous and the plot was starting to go in circles. They ratchet up the tension really high pretty early on (both on the medical drama and doctor-relationship drama sides) so the writers inevitably set themselves up for failure, because this isn't a shonen power fantasy, you can't just keep driving things up to higher and higher stakes and still remain within the confines of reality.

For instance, in a very early season there's a really bad train crash where a bunch of patients flood into the hospital and I remember it being a huge climatic thing with some fantastic episodes. Then in a later season they have a bad ferry crash plotline that falls flat because they already did the train crash, and the emotional impact of this huge public transportation disaster was significantly diminished by a sense of "didn't we go through this already?"

I cannot believe that the show is still going, mostly because I'm amazed they have any audience left.

I'm digging deep in my memory here so I can't provide any details, but there was one episode from a very early season of Grey's Anatomy where I got to the end of the episode and thought, "wait, did they ever solve this episode's medical mystery?" There was a lot of doctor-plot that episode and the patient plot just kinda got dropped. Well I watched the deleted scenes for that episode, and low and behold there's a line where they explain exactly what was going on with the patient. It wasn't the real highlight/purpose of the scene, but I'm still shocked they would cut it because it left an entire plotline (albeit just for that episode) completely dangling.

Fukisima

"Hoshi-zuna no Hama" (星砂の浜) literally means "Star-sand Beach"

Dogs with blue eyes look absolutely psychotic to me for some reason, like it's indicative that they're the serial killers of the canine world or something. It's super unnerving. This doesn't translate to any other animal for me; for instance I think blue-eyed cats are gorgeous.

I don't understand why some people find monkeys cute. They're so ugly and obnoxious! They don't even have the presence or majesty of great apes either. The further from humans on the evolutionary scale, the cuter primates tend to be IMO. By the time you get to lemurs, bush babies, etc, you've hit standard mammal cuteness.

I originally posted this review to !animationafter30@lemmy.world, thought y'all might appreciate it over here too.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has read this series! Obviously I thought it was great. At only four volumes, it's a relatively quick read. It's got 9.3 stars over at Mangadex.