For example, Britain’s national mapping organisation’s brand is associated in our national consciousness with going to a small shop in a quaint village to get a map showing how to walk up a mountain. It’s called Ordnance Survey. If that sounds like Artillery Research to you, that’s because the project started because the king wanted to know how to accurately bomb Scotland.
nature
I have a thick rope of muscle in my mouth that I can control accurately enough to speak with, swallow with, and dig popcorn fragments out from between my teeth with.
Just one of nature’s wacky solutions that applies to more than one problem. I should be grateful it doesn’t have thorns on it.
Health
life and death
Water. Fresh drinking water straight from the tap.
And yet I’m seeing lots of people in the UK start to buy bottled water. Worse: canned water.
The shittification of public services in favour of private products is a creep I’m not paying enough attention to
I agree with the overall sentiment; but there is no way in hell that canned water is worse than plastic bottles.
Aluminium is infinitely more/easily recyclable than plastic, and has a much lower negative impact on the environment.
But to reiterate, filling up your own bottle from the tap is preferred - but if you have to buy water in a container: can > bottle
It’s not really the metal that’s bad, but the coating on the inside of the metal (in contact with your food/water), that raises concerns.
Glass is best, but food/water in glass containers are often considerably more expensive.
I am aware; but when the options are an entirely plastic container (clear, and readily able to oxidise and leech microplastics when exposed to light over long periods of time) versus a lined metal can (which is at least opaque) - cans are remain the lesser of two evils.
I don’t disagree at all. I wish we had more options.
More glass with compatibility with mason jar lids would be a win for everyone. You can recycle 5them if you want, reuse them easily, and they can remain in circulation for a very long time.
The only caveat with glass is that you have too many idiots breaking them on sidewalks, bike lanes, and parks.
Glass is also quite heavy, increasing logistics costs for transport - but in an ideal world where everything runs off renewable energy sources and stupid people didn’t ruin things for the rest of us - glass would indeed be the ideal medium.
But glass is easy to sterilize at the point of purchase and refilled. There are “zero waste” stores that do something like this already, so there’s nothing to bring in other than bulk product (instead of 100 cans or bottles).
Doesn’t work everywhere in our current, high-profit, low-care business models.
I agree that metal is better than plastic, but it feels like they’re trying to categorise water with soda as a commodity
The thing about it is aluminum cans leach into their contents, especially if left open. Aluminum isn’t particularly harmful in that amount but it’s something you can taste, particularly with acidic contents. Not sure how much water suffers from this, but if it comes through in things with flavour, I’m sure it would come through in water, which is supposed to be flavourless, even if it’s not usually very acidic.
Printed currency.
Homelessness.
Homelessness. But I don’t occasionally think about it. I see it every day. In the richest nation in recorded history.
And the wealth of only one single manchild is enough to pay housing for them all - at least in this nation…and probably in some more. (Just looked some numbers up - world economic forum reported in 2021 that there are 150 million people homeless in the world, that would be ~2700,- per individual homeless person, taking his net worth into account -for 770. 000 homeless people in the US it would be ~525. 000 per person)
The problem is that homelessness is, weirdly, more complicated than just giving people homes. It’s also about mental health issues (many of which we don’t yet have the ability to effectively treat), community, purpose, and a ton of other things.
It’s almost like everyone would benefit from a support system or safety net put in place by some community funded entity that would have the capability of putting those systems in place.
There are other problems for the homeless, but it makes treating those problems a lot easier when they have a home.
You’re right-I didn’t want to make it look simple. I’m just constantly stunned how wealth is distributed, which is one of many reasons for homelessness. A fair distribution could finance housing and support systems.
You can’t treat any existing mental health issues while people are living on the street developing new ones.
It’s always been a rich man’s country. All for one, none for all.
What country? Is it really rich if it can’t look after its citizens?
That milk forms such a big part of western diets considering where it comes from.
Yeah dude the more I think of milk as sexual assault the stranger it feels.
Yeah dude the more I think of milk as sexual assault the stranger it feels.
Meat is outright murder and cannsbilism, and don’t get me started on eggs.
cannsbilism
I’m guessing cannibalism. But where are you shopping?
In the staff fridge at work someone used to label their milk as “breast milk” and people would go eeeww. Like it was snot or something. But from a cow’s breasts? Fine! So weird.
Well humans do be gross
it’s the lactose tolerance pyramid scheme
Our car centric world. We have somehow intersected everything and everywhere with death zone strips where people can’t go. And that’s entirely normal and accepted.
I’m fortunate enough to live in a walkable neighborhood. When I moved here walkability didn’t really factor in; I have friends here and I liked the apartment.
Man, it is so nice. I definitely appreciate it now and will try to factor it in in the future. I am absolutely convinced that walkability fosters community and cars reinforce social isolation.
I still have my car but I consider it and driving a burden. If I had to replace it I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t.
Humans be allowed in, on and across roads in many countries. Jay walking is the most insane non-crime I’ve ever heard of. I still don’t really believe it exists…
So, yeah, car centric cities are both terrible and insane - but not every city in the world is that way; thankfully.
Was kind of mind blowing moment when I was old enough to pay attention to the main underlying plot line of Who Framed Rodger Rabbit being about killing off public transport for cars. Like it is very clearly stated throughout the movie, but as a child it just went over my head. Not like I didn’t pay attention to when it was being talked about, just not able to appreciate the meaning. I also am from a more rural area, so things like public transportation were not something I interacted with outside of seeing it on TV shows and movies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Is the inspiration behind it, I think.
Thanks for sharing!
4,000 years ago, we were doing trigonometry, but just 200 years ago we were still putting leeches on people and not washing our hands before doing surgery.
Also, we sent people to the moon and got them back using less computing power than a smart watch.
putting leeches on people
We still do that. Leeches are surprisingly useful when treating certain blood clots. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The difference is putting them on because you actually understand the problem you’re trying to treat lol.
It’s insane how wasteful modern software is. The infinite growth mindset causes companies to pack more useless features into software and load it up with spyware and adware.
Google and Facebook’s tracking and ad software are a big cause of computing waste in most websites and mobile apps.
uBlock Origin ftw
uBlock Origin just prevents the network requests from these tracking frameworks from completing. All the javascript tracking code I believe still executes, just doesn’t return.
If it were possible it would be great to prevent these javascript frameworks from being loaded at all by the browser. But I guess the website javascript code would break.
It would be interesting to replace the tracking frameworks with an empty stubbed out implementation that does nothing. Not for sure how feasible that would be.
May I see a source on this? I’d love to read more about it.
I was actually trying to do some research on this as well to verify my claim, but couldn’t find a definitive answer. I’m not for sure whether uBlock blocks complete JavaScript libraries from loading by default or if it is only blocks the HTTP request like PiHole.
I did find this interesting project by DuckDuckGo which provides empty implementations of the JavaScript libraries when adblockers break the site. This seems to imply that some adblockers do prevent the JavaScript library from loading at all.
Those computers has less memory than a dollar store calculator. The bits in memory were physical magnets woven by hand into a mesh. It’s insane that it left our planet and came back with people alive.
to be fair, most of the calculations were done on Earth
Yeah, they even employed weavers to make the memory units, because it was easier than training factory workers to deal with such thin wire.
The USA drops approximately 15-20 million sterilized worms on Panama every day. Yes you read that right, it’s The Great American Worm Wall.
This is wild. Good share!
This seems like it would make for a good Wikipedia article, but am I could find was this section:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochliomyia_hominivorax#Control
Fuck that read God I hate those types of bugs
Fortunately, there is a Tom Scott video.
IIRC it’s not even the only sterilized insects US government air drops from planes. ( Fruit flies over LA? )
I just looked this up because I didn’t believe you, but you aren’t spinnin’ tales, my friend. This is true, and it’s blowing my mind. Thank you for sharing this fact!
Supply chains. It’s mindblowing how that patch of cabbage got to the produce section at your grocery store. Or how the parts of that gadget you bought at best buy were sourced, assembled, and shipped to the store. Some products that have multiple parts are shipped multiple times across countries, sometimes back and forth, as they get built and assembled by different factories.
And some of those parts cost less than a penny to produce or even purchase when done in bulk!
Scale. That’s the one thing I can’t get my head around
Driving.
Somehow millions of us go hurtling by each other mere inches away in multiple tons of steel, often in conditions less than ideal yet for the most part, it’s a safe way to travel.
We can’t even collectively agree on most topics, yet we put our lives in each others’ hands every day.
Even disregarding all the other drivers, we put ourselves in a metal can, hurtle towards solid objects, and simply count on the idea that on average, nothing catastrophic will happen.
Pure, random chance is enough to end us - animal pops into the road, a tree randomly falling, etc. - yet there we go, on yet another daily commute.
I have a long commute through the “middle of nowhere” so lots of time to think about things that ought to be downright terrifying. The thought of hitting one moose is bad. Never occurred to me until just the other day that two moose was not out of the realm of possibility.
Driving just gets more absurd the more you think about it.
Had it not been invented yet, would anyone get away with suggesting a machine propelled by explosions supplied by a tank of the most flammable liquid possible kept underneath the passenger seats?
Reminds me of the Asgard from Stargate and how there advanced race was surprised about how we us explosives to propel a bullet and “primitive” things they never really thought of or considered because there dangerous.
If you think driving’s weird, think about flying, too. We put several tons of that explode-y liquid, along with a bunch of people, into a big metal tube and shoot it into the sky. And we made that form of transportation several orders of magnitude safer than driving.
I feel like it’s probably going to go down in safety an order of magnitude or two in the US given, you know, The Horrors.
The aviation industry can absorb a whole lot of sin before they’re on equal danger footing with automotive, if for no other reason than sheer volume. Most people, unless you fly constantly for work, get on a plane once a year or less. Most people drive to work almost every day. Roads have traffic, the skies do not (at least, not nearly to the same extent, midair collisions can happen but they’re rare).
I have no doubt the skies are about to become noticeably less safe, but they’ve got a looooot of catching up to do before they dethrone the automobile as one of the top 3 leading causes of death in America.
Not just merely a machine powered by explosions, sitting on volatile liquids… but one in which we’ve decided that it’s also a great place to enjoy some music, maybe a nice beverage, and as a great way to take our attention off into vast distances to the sides to “see the sights”.
I think to myself as I steer with one knee, trying to simultaneously drink my coffee and light a cigarette…
You don’t need to worry about crashing. You’ll be protected by an unmaintained bomb that can inflate a pillow faster than you can travel 18 inches at 70 mph yet somehow never goes off accidentally.
somehow never goes off accidentally
Unfortunately not never
Well, hardly ever.
Your comment just reminded me of a sci-fi short story about how humans solve every problem eith explosions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/16fx8tc/humans_solve_problems_with_explosions/
What if we were able do to travel around in a robot suit that we could fully control. Oh yeah, thats a car.
We can’t even collectively agree on most topics, yet we put our lives in each others’ hands every day.
Yeah, someone can do a lot of damage simply by ignoring the double yellow divider on a two-way highway.
Last I heard we’re still in contact with Voyager 1
So amazing, the amount of incredible science we’ve been able to do with the Voyager program.
Voyager 1 is the antithesis of planned obsolescence¹, with it long outlasting its mission
¹the real kind, no the meme kind liberals often say that things are the result of
