@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

CurtAdams

@CurtAdams@urbanists.social

Semi-retired biologist with interests in speciation models, urbanism, liberal/left politics, economics, quartertone music theory, boardgames, ambient music, house rabbits, and yoga.

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ncrav, to random
@ncrav@mas.to avatar
  • Me comes home from gym
  • Lua comes running waiting for snacks
  • I get the snac box and drop it on the floor by mistake 👀
    I think Lua thought for a moment that she was in heaven as she tried to get as many snacs as she could before I got them from the floor 🤣

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@ncrav I did that with blueberries once. It was very exciting for both Xavier and me since blueberries roll and they ended over most of the kitchen. It was quite a race for a while!

shoq, to random
@shoq@mastodon.social avatar

Indeed. Unfortunately, they often point to what they occasionally do right as cover for what they more often do wrong.

In reply to…
https://mastodon.social/@dangillmor/112412042267276156

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@big_louse @shoq Putting out the occasional decent piece is an important part of the Times propaganda system. They have to keep people reading it in order to have people read their clouds-and-shadows coverage trying to make it seem like Democratic candidates have done something wrong when they haven't.

shoq, to random
@shoq@mastodon.social avatar

Women stars can get such shit from other women. I will never understand why so many I've met dislike Pink. I think she's another world class pop diva who, despite her massive success, has always been underrated. And you can see her influence in so many others. Is there something about her I never heard that puts so many off?

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@shoq The sound is too loud at her concerts, maybe? I lost some cochleal hairs when I saw her. But yeah, Pink is a great songwriter, great performer, openhearted, and a good person as far as I can tell. I would really wonder about anybody who would hate her.

ai6yr, to climate

Bloomberg: Southeast Asia heatwave: Thailand’s heat index tops 52 degrees as Philippines risks ‘overloaded’ power systems https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3260883/southeast-heatwave-thailands-heat-index-tops-52-degrees-philippines-risks-overloaded-power-systems

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@ai6yr I was in Death Valley once and a ranger there said when the temp goes above 120F (about 50C) you feel an instinctive panic. Your body KNOWS it's not supposed to be in that. And Death Valley is a lot drier than Thailand.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@Moonrise2473 @lgsp Too bad about the timing. If this had started right after an election the improvements would be done, and they could have locked in the fines by dropping other city taxes and making the city's budget depend on the fines.

TonyStark, to random
@TonyStark@progressivecafe.social avatar

A common sense approach, in my opinion.

Open Letter to College and University Presidents on Student Protests | ACLU
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/open-letter-to-college-and-university-presidents-on-student-protests

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@GreenFire @TonyStark @MJ The protesters didn't have the power to close the campus. The administrators are the ones who closed it. Blame the perpetrators of the closure, not the victims.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@TonyStark @GreenFire @MJ False analogy. A sit-in is not unsafe.

Hypx, to Hydrogen
@Hypx@mastodon.social avatar

CSX debuts its first hydrogen-fuel cell locomotive

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/csx-debuts-its-first-hydrogen-fuel-cell-locomotive/

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@Hypx That's just pointless. Fuel cells are only half as efficient as batteries, and with trains it's straightforward to just use wires, which are even more efficient. Plus hydrogen is more expensive to make and transport than electricity. The companies involved have to know this. Why are they wasting everybody's time?
https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car/articles/hydrogen-vs-electric-cars.html

Satori, to random
@Satori@mastodon.thirring.org avatar

BunMum and BunDad are busy working today (although honestly 99% of their attention is on me as it should be 😏) but the quick update is very happy - I woke up still feeling great! Eating, pooping, hopping, and grooming.

This critical care business is the pits for getting out of my white fur. I’m glad BunMum is easing back on the frequency of those feedings now that I’m eating!

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@Satori Keep eating that nommy hay, Skye, so you won't have to keep eating that Critical Care!

CurtAdams, to random
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

Worldwide groundwater measurements indicate PFAS "forever chemicals" may be even more of a hazard than previously thought : https://phys.org/news/2024-04-underestimating-future-impact-pfas-environment.html

ncrav, (edited ) to random
@ncrav@mas.to avatar

Today is the day bunDad decided I was born in, he doesn't really know the specific day and I was too busy drinking mommy's milk to care 🦫 anyway I'm three years old 🎉 :DsaprvingLua: (1 of 4)

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@ncrav Belated Hoppy birthday, Lua!

ajsadauskas, to car
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Are microplastics from car tyres contributing to heart disease?

"Add one more likely culprit to the long list of known cardiovascular risk factors including red meat, butter, smoking and stress: microplastics.

"In a study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, an international team of physicians and researchers showed that surgical patients who had a build-up of micro and nanoplastics in their arterial plaque had a 2.1 times greater risk of nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause in the three years post surgery than those who did not."

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-07/microplastics-may-be-risk-factor-for-cardiovascular-disease

The research is particularly noteworthy, given that one of the biggest sources of microplastic pollution is the synthetic rubber in car tyres: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112015017609398126

So it's not just the sedentary lifestyles that car-dependent planning encourages that's causing health issues.

And it's not just exhaust fumes either.

There's also the health impacts of microplastics, including from car tyres.

Worth noting as well that internal documents from the big oil companies show that they knew since the 1970s that recycling wasn't going to solve the problem of plastic pollution. They promoted it anyway: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112064312364853769

@fuck_cars

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@PowerCrazy @NotBillMurray You have to define "wear items" to include plastic packaging for that to be true. Probably also food and water processing as well, like plastic pipes.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@PowerCrazy Actually plastic water bottles leave water they contain LOADED with microplastics:

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/10/1223730333/bottled-water-plastic-microplastic-nanoplastic-study

It's not out of the question that the significant health risks we're finding for ultraprocessed food are partly, or even mostly, from microplastics introduced in processing or storage.

Wear makes microplastic issues much worse, yes, but plastic is turning out to be quite bad enough even new.

lilithsaintcrow, to random
@lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com avatar

“And as the internet becomes dominated by these centralized platforms and the sites they trawl for content, so begins the vicious cycle of the Habsburg AI...There's also no way to escape the fact that these hungry robots require legal plagiarism, and any number of copyright assaults could massively slow their progress.” https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die/

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@lilithsaintcrow Deserves a double upvote for "Hapsburg AI".

shoq, to random
@shoq@mastodon.social avatar

CRAP! While giving mom the swab. she hit my hand and a drop of solution spilled. I got 3.2 drops into the specimen pad. They say LESS THAN 4 drops could be false negative or “invalid result.” But she showed positive in a few seconds. Do I assume she’s positive, or go get another test?

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@shoq Positive. Too little sample can give a false negative but not a false positive. Best to you and her; fortunately vax really reduces severity. Take it extra easy during recovery.

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

Remember 10 years ago when the tech industry promised we’ll “3D print everything from food to houses”?

Now think about the promises about AI.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@thomasfuchs It was overblown, but there is some reality. My husband works at a industrial valve company, and they now 3D print many of their valve parts. OTOH, I have an acquaintance who works printing 3D game settings for RPGs. Larger sets are insanely expensive, even now, because 2x dimensions is 8x printing. He has some amusing stories of the weird stuff that goes wrong in 3D prints, too.

shoq, to random
@shoq@mastodon.social avatar

I am quite confident that someone is designing an LLM right now that will be able to help patients boil down all the web advice into usable chunks. Right now it’s just maddening trying to do that manually. Opinions vary so widely, often because there’s just a lot of obsolete data out there.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@shoq Oh you sweet summer child. They're actually designing LLMs that will chop suey all those existing contradictory recommendations into thousands of NEW recommendations mixing fact, fiction, and errors with minimal to no source traceability, boosted by SEO to push any genuine recommendations, accurate or otherwise, to page 15 or below of search results.

We will soon be forced to go to primary sources to get anything meaningful.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@shoq That's exactly the problem. Machine learning works by training the machine with the contrast of some low-quality data and high quality data. The problem with anything under study or with controversy is there is no high quality data. Sometimes there's no consensus, and even consensus is often wrong.

And insofar as you have accurate info to train the machine with, you'd be better off just releasing that rather than a complex AI that will produce somewhat less accurate paraphrases.

atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org avatar

Maybe webcomics are just really hard to make but almost all of them are terrible.

The only exception is Perry Bible Fellowship. But I guess that’s not technically a webcomic since it appeared in a university paper.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@atomicpoet I find that strange; to me its newspaper comics that are usually stale.. I'm currently following 29 webcomics; I only have about a dozen print ones on my GoComics. Most are drama strips, but I do follow the comedy strips XKCD, Dumbing of Age, St. Beals, Something Positive, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, Existential Comics, Cyanide and Happiness, and Evil Inc., plus the Hugo award winning dramedy Girl Genius.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@atomicpoet Don't see that at all https://xkcd.com/2904/

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@PowerCrazy @TheRealCharlesEames No. Tailpipe emissions are far and away the worst thing coming out of a car, because they are destroying the climate of the entire earth. If unchecked, it will destroy every ecosystem extant on the planet and kill most humans. 1.7 million deaths a year is truly, epically awful, but still not even a small fraction as bad.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@0110010001100010 @PowerCrazy Even if it runs off fossil fuel produced electricity, an EV produces about 1/3 as much emissions because it's so much more efficient. With 40% renewable, it's only producing 1/5 as much, and dropping as the % of electricity from renewables continues to soar in the US.

anubis2814, to random

I'm the cusp between Gen X and Millennial and realized over the past few weeks that I never say please. I will profusely say thank you and sorry but please sounds weird and almost childishly simplistic and awkward.
I never ask for things, I tend to ask if something is possible. After that I thank them if that is possible. Even at a restaurant I couch it in "Could I have.." never a "Please give me...".
I don't know what this means. Do I feel like directly asking is imposing and I shouldn't presume to be a burden in the first place, and please in this case feels like it applies pressure to me, and I want to give them the easier option to say no. Please feels like a magic word that's harder to say no to.
Still more to think about in this case, because I don't know what this means. I'm a terrible saleman and terrible at asking people for things. I've been on youtube for 13 years now with 800+ videos with a book to sell for 3 and my patreon has only seen a max of $50 and my book has sold maybe 150 copies max. I know Amanda Palmer wrote "The art of Asking that I should probably read some day, but blunt or pressured asking feels like I think I deserve more than I do. It feels gross to do. I don't think I'm as bad as The boomer women mentioned here but it appears to be a thing with our society and the only people who seem to do well are the people who are good at both bluntly asking and selling themselves, which feels so cringe and arrogant to me. But then again people like doing things for other people and are drawn to people with confidence, either arrogance or not.
Still lots to ponder and reflect on here. Is this a US thing? Is this a generation thing? or is this just a type of person thing? I have no idea.
♲ beige.party/

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@anubis2814 @RickiTarr That sounds like a linguistic shift to me. I'm substantially older than you, and now that I think about it, I rarely say "please" anymore. "Could I have..." or similar conditionals is probably just the way to ask for something politely now. Maybe a real linguist could weigh in.

tomkindlon, to mecfs
@tomkindlon@disabled.social avatar

The effect of comorbid medical diagnoses on disturbed sleep in chronic fatigue syndrome

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21641846.2024.2322915

"increased illness burden as manifested by multiple medically unexplained diagnoses does appear to influence insomnia"

@mecfs

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@tomkindlon @mecfs One of those "glad they did the science but not a surprise" papers. Yes, it's harder to sleep when you feel bad.

qkslvrwolf, to random
@qkslvrwolf@mastodon.social avatar

Hey, you know how lefties and righties both have conspiracy theories? You know..the right says shit like "democrats are running a satanistic child pedofile ring under a pizza shop" and lefties are like "Russians are literally attacking our democracy with active information warfare measures."

(And by lefties, I mean left side, progressive, serious people, not horseshitters etc).

Well it ain't a conspiracy theory if it's an actual conspiracy.

CurtAdams,
@CurtAdams@urbanists.social avatar

@qkslvrwolf Yeah, I wish there were a better term than "conspiracy theory". There are lots of real conspiracies. The problem is people ignoring facts and not understanding how real conspiracies work (they're usually messy).

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