@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

quixoticgeek

@quixoticgeek@v.st

Geek, Dyke, Brewer, Rider of Bikes, Archer, Quixotic, Generally Curious, Mostly Harmless, she/her

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

quixoticgeek, to random
@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

We have an utterly fucked up idea of what counts as technology. Something that projects many of our biases including gender, and race.

To many these days it's only technology if it's electronic, and used by western men. But to take such a narrow definition is to ignore the amazing technology that surrounds us, and upon which our society is built. As such. It's time for a thread. I'm gonna talk about two different items you use every day, and the technology that goes into them.

1/n

quixoticgeek,
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Like when Billy Connolly said "who discovered milk came from cows, and what were they doing at the time ?" You have to wonder how the first human came up with the method for getting fibre from the flax plant. It's a multiple step process that requires days to do. And then it all needs to be spun before it can be Woven.

For millennia spinning was done with a tool called a drop spindle. It was slow, and repetitive, and it took a lot of time to make the thread for a simple garment.

7/n

quixoticgeek, (edited )
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The principles from spun flax fibres have also gone into the making of steel cables that support megastructures like bridges. Or the giant cranes that built them. Woven fibres give us the fibre in carbon fibre. The composites that our aircraft are made from. All of these stem from the basic piece of string. Without it. Modern society would be very very different.

On to the second everyday item. The knife. Goto the kitchen and grab a knife from the draw.

17/n

quixoticgeek,
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Somewhere around 5000BC, someone worked out if you boil some rocks just right, at the right temp, and the right conditions. You get copper. That day. The world changed.

First it was just copper, then someone worked out how to add a second type of rock (tin) and it made the copper stronger, hold an edge better, and be easier to use. The bronze age began.

Eventually someone worked out that if you got it hot enough, and used the right kinda of rocks. You could get iron.

20/n

quixoticgeek,
@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

@libroraptor oh yes. Cast iron is often 5% or more carbon.

The real fun one with archeologists, is brass. Call something brass or bronze and you start to see steam. Bronze is copper + tin. Brass is copper + zinc. But often you get copper + zinc + tin. Is that a bronze with zinc, or a brass with tin. So it tends to just be called copper alloy... Metallurgy is amazing.

quixoticgeek, to random
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Given just a simple text based boost from @doot Is not enough to slashdoot my instance, it was suggested that a photo might work better. Looking through my photos, I find no moss for , But I did find some lovely Lichen I took in the North of Finland. Perfect for

Please enjoy my Lichen.

quixoticgeek, (edited ) to random
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Do you ever sign up for the newsletter when a popup appears on a website ?

quixoticgeek, (edited ) to random
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Got a van Moof bike? Worried that you might not be able to unlock it if the company goes bust completely (it relies on their servers to unlock the bike). Fear not, have an open source tool to unlock your bike https://github.com/grossartig/vanmoof-encryption-key-exporter

quixoticgeek, to random
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This is your reminder that electric cars are not designed to safe the planet. They are designed to save the car industry.

quixoticgeek, to random
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European logistics are really up the shitter at the moment aren't they ?

Big tunnel from Switzerland to Italy - out of service due to derailment
Big tunnel from France to Italy - out of action due to landslide
Bridge in main railway from Oslo to Trondheim - washed away by flood.
Main motorway between Goteburg and Oslo - washed away by landslide.

Those are just the ones off the top of my head. As climate change gets worse, our infrastructure is going to be challenged more and more.

quixoticgeek, to random
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"I can read a train departure board, I'm not playing jetlag the game"

quixoticgeek, to Bloomscrolling
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Going through my photos, trying to find some to print. I came across this photo of a Sundew Carnivorous plant, I think it's a Drosera rotundifolia, but I'm not certain. This photo was taken in Noord Holland on a canoe trip last summer. Until I found this plant, I had no idea we had carnivorous plants that were native to Europe. I always associated them as tropical species.

quixoticgeek, to random
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A reminder to people in tech. Especially those fucking about with AI. Please remember the first question you ask is "should we do this?" Not "can we do this?" It's very hard to put a pin back in the grenade.

quixoticgeek, to random
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Hmmm, my package is listed simply as "worried" in the tracking status...

quixoticgeek, to random
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A friend sent me a message asking for club recommendations. I give a response about the utility of the humble baseball bat as a tool for clubbing things.

The reply comes back.

"I meant night club".

Oops.

quixoticgeek, to random
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So wtf are these hunebedden that I've been talking about all day? Giant's beds. They rock!

Sorry, autocarrot. They are rocks. Specifically they are neolithic tombs that date from the time of the funnel beaker people. There are loads of them across the north of the Netherlands, into Germany, Denmark and into the Baltic nations. Where did the rocks come from? Scandinavia. Brought to the Netherlands by ice in an ice age 150k years ago.

quixoticgeek, to random
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I wonder how many businesses have in their BCP all the staff getting poisoned at the same time.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67808645

quixoticgeek, to random
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Brompton in touring mode. Heading to the start of Race Around The Netherlands to check bikes and interview riders for Dotwatcher.cc

quixoticgeek, to random
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Beautiful nerds of the fediverse. I'm looking for a USB temperature sensor that has an accuracy of better than 1°, and easy support in Linux. Needs to be available in the EU.

Any suggestions?

quixoticgeek, to random
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I can't help but thinking this is more a case of fix your own shit. Rather than bitching about mastodon.

Pretty much any website beyond some self hosted personal blog should have no issues with the number of requests being talked about here...

Maybe if someone like @cstross was to be posting the link. That might be legit breaking. But for most mortals. It shouldn't be.

Fix your shit.

https://news.itsfoss.com/mastodon-link-problem/

quixoticgeek, to Bloomscrolling
@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

Please forgive me that my has been so sparse of late. Much has got in the way of enjoying nature. Today I managed to escape to the woods for an afternoon to spend some time with the blue bells. Hadn't realised how much I enjoy a woodland carpeted with bluebells, and the occasional wild garlic. I returned to home feeling refreshed, and happy.

May these blue bells bring a smile to your too.

quixoticgeek, to random
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Watching @notjustbikes latest video about the new 30kph limit in Amsterdam reminded me of a realisation I had the other day while waiting for the bus to work.

The bus timetable hasn't changed. The speed limit for most of the route went from 50kph to 30kph. Yet despite only doing 60% of the speed. The timetable for the bus hasn't been changed.

Dunno if that just means the bus punctuality has suffered.

Makes you wonder how much the new speed limit is actually effecting car journey times...

quixoticgeek, (edited ) to random
@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

Really enjoying the pictures everyone is posting of the aurora. Even if it's too cloudy to see it here.

I do find myself wondering...

Who's read (or listened to the audio book) "Day of the triffids"?

quixoticgeek, to random
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Reminder, if you die your employer will be advertising your job before your funeral has even happened. Don't give them more than they are paying for.

https://sfba.social/@drahardja/112396070679663296

quixoticgeek, to random
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We've all been having a good laugh about sparkling autocarrot suggesting that people include glue in the cheese on pizza, and that we should all eat rocks.

But at the same time, you can buy mushroom identification books in Amazon that are "written" using sparkling autocarrot.

Actual printed books. On how to tell very similar poisonous and non poisonous mushrooms apart. Something that is really hard for skilled humans in some cases.

Who has liability when people start dying?

quixoticgeek, to random
@quixoticgeek@v.st avatar

The bigger issue is where you can return bottles for deposit.

If I buy a bottle of drink at the station, the only place I can return it is a supermarket. If I'm not going anywhere near a supermarket any time soon, am I gonna carry an empty bottle round for hours, maybe days, until I do goto a supermarket, just for the €0.15?

Don't worry about rising the price, make it so anywhere selling drinks in bottles has to accept returns. This is what happens in Germany.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/04/deposits-on-plastic-bottles-may-rise-to-50-cents-next-year-fd/

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