@llewelly@sauropods.win
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

llewelly

@llewelly@sauropods.win

I tried to write an introduction and it was so empty it collapsed inward on itself

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

ai6yr, to random

Safety note: do not accidentally stab yourself with a steak knife reaching for something else in the dish rack, LOL. It's painful, even if you don't break the skin. If it looks like I was in a knife fight, it was just with myself ๐Ÿ˜‚

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@ai6yr the dishwasher: invented to make dishwashing easier, for the low, low price of being stabbed by hot forks when you're impatient.

bruces, to random
@bruces@mastodon.social avatar

*What would "animal humor" even look like -- practical jokes, deception, physical slapstick, mime, camouflage, maybe some comic songs

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@bruces
there are some animals - octopuses, parrots, dolphins, elephants, non-human primates - for which all of the above seem plausible, though I can't easily summon scientific evidence one way or the other.

ai6yr, to Birds

Crow intelligence in action: the crows here will eat animals that have been visibly wounded/hit by cars/etc., but will NOT eat animals which do not have visible marks (ie potentially rat poisoned).

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@ai6yr
rat poison is a huge problem for nearly every carnivore (and most omnivores) of rat-size or larger, and it's a relief at least some of them are learning how to avoid it.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Are you living in your home or apartment, living your own life...

OR

...do you run a bed and breakfast for your cat?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird in all honesty, dry cat food is cheap compared to typical bed-and-breakfast food.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I don't know, pick one:

A. You have an excellent education, the means to answer questions: building a consistent understanding of the world. You are hard to trick. That said, you live in a society where the powerful can't be criticized. Many things you know cannot be said.

B. You freely and loudly express your ideas. But, you have very little education, formal or otherwise. You have been tricked before & know you could be again. You just don't have the best tools to prevent this.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
having spent some time in various skeptic communities, it has been my experience that on average, people who are sure they can't be tricked are usually much worse people than people who know they will be tricked and accept it as inevitable.

And both groups seem to get tricked with aproximately similar frequencies.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

At the Role-Playing Games club today, a fun debate. The whole campaign is on this ice-locked ship in the arctic: the DM introduced the possibility of sirens.

One player declares their character is ace and therefore immune to romantic seduction.

Not so, says DM these sirens call out with "whatever you desire most" ... another player wonders if, since their character is monk seeking enlightenment and the death of all worldly desires are they immune?

Apparently the sirens do enlightenment too.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
there were some book-and-paper role playing games in which all dice rolls were replaced with the player making a plausible narrative argument for the turn of events to go their way. Amber (based in the universe of the Roger Zelazny Amber novels) was probably the most widely known. I couldn't convince my players to give it a try, which I found surprising, since all of them seemed to make multiple attempts per session to sway my rulings with plausible narrative arguments.

llewelly, to random
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

google 15 years ago: "We're using machine learning to fight the spam industry"

google today: "We're using machine learning to be the spam industry"

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I know N. flavipes is invasive but they are still very pretty ants. This is what we get for importing so many plants. The garden trade is almost wholly responsible for nearly all of the invasive ants! Stop planting non native plants!

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
flat worms, jumping worms, little frogs, little blindsnakes, spiders, endless insects - the plant trade transports them all!

(astonishingly, spotted lanternfly arrived by a rock importer ... )

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

There is an ant colony that lives in the cracks of the asphalt in 2nd ave. In the center of the street. I donโ€™t know if I should call them absolute legends or idiots. They use the cracks as highways like sidewalks ants. Itโ€™s a big colony although I can never get a good look at them without getting hocked at.

Perhaps I am the legendary idiot in this story.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
โ™ฌ ant house โ™ฌ
โ™ฌ in the middle of the street โ™ฌ

timhutton, to random
@timhutton@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Do all animal's mouths open horizontally?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@timhutton @simon @futurebird
I think fusion of both sides of the mandibles is the norm in tetrapods generally, but there are a number of notable exceptions, particularly baleen whales, and snakes, which for somewhat different reasons have a highly stretchy muscle there, which allows the two sides to spread very far apart, and yet be able to pull them back together when needed. Then there's Ornithischians and their predentary bone, but I've run out of room.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Best movement of โ€œThe Planetsโ€ by Holst?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
I voted Uranus, but thanks to star wars, mars always wins, 'cause that's the one everyone knows and associates with their favorite films.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird @noplasticshower
I mean, there are differences, but you need to have some familiarity with both pieces to recognize them. That's not to say the differences are insignificant; Williams' changes better suit the theme of the empire.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

What is the best explanation youโ€™ve heard for 1 not being a prime number? For me itโ€™s โ€œbecause it breaks everything in my programs since the loops wonโ€™t terminateโ€ but thatโ€™s obtuse. โ€œBecause the God of math decrees it so!โ€ is compelling, but shallow.

โ€œit can only be divided by 1 distinct numberโ€ is contrived.

1 โ€œfeelsโ€ primeโ€” it has the fewest factors. (Primeness being about NOT having factors) ruling it out for having too few? eh.

โ€œitโ€™s the zero of multiplicationโ€ is betterโ€ฆ thoughts?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
if you define prime so that 1 is prime, you get a number system which is equally valid, but so full of anger at having been long snubbed by mathematicians, it plots to overthrow the normal order.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Sam Alito is so much worse than I ever suspected. Watching him speak, reading his writing you encounter a man who clearly thinks he's smarter than everyone.

For various reasons, we do not often encounter smug academically styled conservatives. But, he's the genuine article. He sincerely believes himself a brave iconoclast who will be seen as a hero someday.

His self-flattery could be a weakness. He is very wrong about how history will remember him.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
as far as smug, academically minded conservatives go, Bolton, Buckley, Bork, and Bloom all come to mind. But Bolton is the only one of those still alive.

(and historically, there were a great many smug academically minded conservatives in the life sciences)

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@chemoelectric @futurebird
It was long ago, but I think I borrowed both of those Mortimer Adler books from a friend, but about a week later she had to move away, and she wanted them back before moving away, and I was about 2/3 done with the first and had barely started the 2nd. But on the other hand, if I don't finish a book in less than a week, that's usually a sign I'm not going to finish it ever, unless it's as technical as a university text book.

gay_ornithischians, to random
@gay_ornithischians@sauropods.win avatar

friends do you think "animals" in the tetrapod size range that had hydaulic driven limbs would be too heavy to evolve flapping flight of the type seen in birds, bats and pterosaurs?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@gay_ornithischians
I'm not a biomechanicist, but I don't see any reason the limits for hydraulic driven limbs would be greatly different than those for typical vertebrate muscles.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@gay_ornithischians @Aviva_Gary
My memory, which might be incorrect, is that coconut crabs have hydraulic limbs as well?

llewelly, to random
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

actually, neurotypicals only want to talk about the weather until you start talking about all the myriad ways weather is being altered by fossil-fuel driven global warming.

john, to art
@john@sauropods.win avatar

A random artwork from my gallery:

"Hesperornis regalis" โ€” 2015

Hepserornis regalis, the Late Cretaceous toothy marine bird, takes to the sea.

https://johnconway.art/hesperornis-regalis

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@john the Hesperornis in the lower left looks unhappy with how shallow that water is.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Trump has said FOUR times that he will withhold federal funding from schools that require vaccines. Not just COVID. ALL.

This is most schools. This is hitting me where I work. This will lead to children dead from measles. It's obvious, inevitable.

Someone on here said they just couldn't bear to vote for Biden to keep Trump from office since at least under Trump there were better masking rules.

I hope that person sees this.

Worse is worse.

edit: because I don't know measles from smallpox

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
as someone who grew up among right-wing anti-vaxxers, I'm having thoughts about all the times I was told I was "crazy" for arguing that (1) most anti-vaxxers where right-wingers, and (2) they were a serious danger.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I was wondering why hand stencils are so common in early human cave art... then I read one of the comments on the video about the art "This is so cool I'm going to do it in my son's room."

Oh.

Ok I get it now.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird yeah, they are easy, and they are fun. But even more: The shape of the human hand clearly shows it's made by humans. Lots of other "easy and fun" stencils would, after 10,000 years, would leave plenty of doubt as to whether they were human made, or wouldn't make good newspaper photos.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Which best describes you?

("records" in this context are shellac, vinyl or resin etc. recorded sound discs played using needle)

If you have some records you can play and others you can't choose the third option.

If you have a player but it's broken choose the first option.

You "own" a player if one is in your home and you can use it when you want.

You "own" records if you are one of the people who must be asked if they were sold or thrown away.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
all through my teens and the first half of my 20s, I had only cassette tapes bc I couldn't afford a CD player or CDs. (Or even particularly many tapes.) When I finally had the money for those things, it was just about practical to rip CDs to mp3s and store them on a hard drive, and I didn't have any speakers except those connected to my computer, so that's what I did. I've never owned a record player.

ai6yr, to coffee

"Cowboy Coffee" recipe for 60 people (per vintage Betty Crocker) #coffee

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@mazz @ai6yr
yeah, thinking of all the coffee drinkers I've known, I can't think of one who would only drink 2/3 of a cup. 60 servings, sure, but only maybe a dozen people, or less.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Pica: Can I licky every bacon and poach egg?
Me: No, that would ruin the human breakfast, but you may have a little crumb of bacon and little crumb of egg.
Pica: donot want
Me: Then go away.
Pica: Can I PLEASE licky every bacon and poach egg? PLEAS

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird how can it be a poached egg if Pica didn't poach it?

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Nothing makes a meal feel fancy like quite like featherlight flatwear. I want forks optimized for spaceflight. Titanium butterknife! The new definition of luxury!

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
I just want a spoon that won't bend when I use it on the ice cream I just dredged up from the bottom of the chest freezer.

(I mean, I have that, but it looks very old, and of course it's very thick. But I love it.)

in other news, the bowl I'm eating out of has titanium in the glaze. But not for lightness; it's super heavy. Titanium dioxide (rutile, usually) is a common high fire glaze ingredient. Although maybe not for mass-produced stuff.

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