Fun fact: The mass of all humans on Earth is about 10 times greater than the mass of all wild mammals.

I’m not versed in modern military strategy, but I’ve heard others say that the U.S. carrier fleet has been a dominant force because the U.S. has only taken on adversaries that didn’t have submarines, and anti-torpedo systems aren’t foolproof. Also, it seems to me that they’re for force projection, and not so great for defensive action, to since there are only 11 of them. That is, the U.S. has a lot of assets that enemies could strike while the carrier groups are elsewhere.

I guess I’m not convinced that the carriers would be decisive in a conflict with a modern military, instead of the usual U.S. MO of picking on the weak.

According to Wikipedia, the earliest property tax records are from 6,000 BCE.

Definitely illegal in the parts of Wisconsin I’m from. Zoning codes generally include a list of permitted uses for each zone, a list of conditional uses that need approval from the local zoning board or officer, and everything else is not allowed. If this structure were classified as a permanent structure, it would not meet building codes anywhere. If not a permanent structure, staying in it would be considered camping, which is not a permitted or conditional use in the zones of the county where I live. (Or maybe it is somehow; I just glanced over the ordinance.) I do have a bit of land in a county that does allow camping in certain zones, but for a maximum of 10 nights per year.

It seems to me that there’s this pervasive sense that the landscape and lifestyles (cars, single-family houses, lawns, etc.) in the United States are what they are because that’s what its citizens want for themselves. The reality is that just about anything else is illegal. Remember, the United States is the country that invented loitering (a.k.a. existing in public without a specific objective) as an offense in order to force (mostly Black) people into working degrading jobs. This is actually the kind of dwelling that Cornish miners built when they came to Wisconsin to mine galena. They got the nickname of “badgers” for it, and that’s why we’re the Badger State (and not due to the animal). So it’s not like this is a new idea that nobody has thought of before, we just can’t do it anymore.

My boss has AR glasses that transcribe conversations in real-time (more or less).

I’ve been thinking about sharing my rule for making Lemmy a better place by having more discussions, and keeping even the arguments respectful:

Never tell another person what they are/think/believe/want.

The rule of thumb is just like in intimate relationships: Use “I” statements instead of “you” statements. Don’t tell people “you obviously think…” or “you support…” or “you are…” Yes, that applies even to racists, transphobes, tankies, everybody. At best, it will never change the other person’s opinion, because everybody is the hero of their own story. At worst, other people judge you to be the asshole. If somebody is truly vile (like Neo-Nazis), disengage. It’s up to the community moderator or instance admin to remove them.

Oil lamps. They have the same appeal that’s behind the resurgent popularity of vinyl records. They’re hefty, kinesthetic items that feel good in the hand. There’s a little ritual that goes into using them. There’s the sensory appeal. I bought a Thomas & Williams miner’s lamp that was said to have been a prize that the original owner won in a regatta in the 1920’s. It’s all shiny brass, with a heavy, solid feel, and the parts fit together with such a satisfying precision. There’s feeling the heat of the flame, and the slight scent of kerosene that it emits.

(Although, I’m not sure that they’re outdated, since they’re still manufactured and sold as yacht lamps, and you can still get parts. Last month, I ordered a brand new glass chimney for it.)

No, no, that’s iteration. Loops are how I get my daily servings of froot.

Add scurvy to that list, since primates lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C endogenously, while other animals kept it.

Honestly, I think it is disingenuous, and the argument is loaded. Namely, if a believer does effectively communicate the notion that God has some universal, eternally-true standard of morality, then the person making the argument can spring the trap:

If that standard of morality exists, we don’t know it. God hasn’t told us. The Bible is very definitely, historically the word of mankind. The standards it espouses have been relentlessly fought over by different religious factions with their own interpretations, and what’s more, they’re internally self-contradictory.

The idea that religious people need the threat of hellfire to behave just doesn’t stand to scrutiny, since so many of them have no problems professing an interpretation of God’s morality to justify whatever behavior they want.

Not him, per se, but the realization that I’m part of the same species with people who care about foreign royalty, what some actor was wearing, or a rap feud. Cripes, there’s even a separate Wikipedia entry about it, which somehow meets the notability requirement.

That’s why I’m here. This week, I learned who Kendrick Lamar and Drake are, and I feel stupider for it.

I’ve seen quince cider made in the U.S., but I’m guessing it’s all hard cider?

For what it’s worth, Blue Moon and Shiner Bock are mid-tier.

No hate, but they all lack a flavourful taste.

Wat?

We’re gonna need some names here, so we can evaluate this take.

That’s called an infix, like a prefix or suffix, but, y’know, in. Some other languages use them often, but it’s just a few fun examples in English.

This is another one. “Anymore” only works when paired with a negative, like: Idiocracy is not fiction, anymore.

Imagine if you asked whether the store has AA batteries, and the clerk says, “We have anymore.” In contrast, “we don’t have anymore” works.

Aisle. As much as I would love to take a boat to the breakfast food isle (a.k.a. island), I’m pretty sure that I need to look in the breakfast aisle at the grocery store.

YES! Proprietary home-automation ecosystems are a confusing mishmash of standards, and Matter is only just barely starting to change that. Home Assistant is the glue that sticks them all together. I can have expensive Hue smart bulbs, cheap HomeKit bulbs I found in the clearance bin, Magic Home RGB LED controllers, Sonoff smart switches, a garage door opener connecting via MQTT, and it easily connects to all of them and presents a uniform toggle switch for all of them. I can switch all my (smart) lights on and off from a menu on my GNOME desktop. No fighting with proprietary apps for each different ecosystem. Home Assistant is amazing in how boring and unremarkable it makes the implementation details.

Some of my favorites are sailmaking tools, like the lignum vitae seam rubber, or the ebony fid. Even the rest of the ditty bag is fun—the sailor’s palm, the tarred marline, the triangular-shank hand needles, et cetera.