matsdis

Also in Europe. I’ve heard about Grenoble (France), but there seem to be more now. Check out adfreecities.org.uk too. Most don’t seem to ban 100% of all ads, but close enough for me.

Maybe people who are used to this will become less tolerant of online ads, too.

If I’m clearly not understanding a key concept in biology

Yes, you’re misunderstanding the concept of death. Death is bad only from the individual’s point of view. It’s how life renews itself, making room for change. Nothing wrong with trying to reduce suffering, of course, but immortality clearly falls into the “nefarious reasons” category. It’s what happens when you focus too much on the individual’s perspective of life. If you want to study biology you have to consider death from a different angle.

Try Libera Chat if you like the free/libre software community. About 30’000 users connected right now.

If you’re running the latest Debian (or even the stable one), IRC is still a good place to go for support. And there is an electronics channel on Libera that was still big last time I checked. If you don’t know which IC to use for your project someone there will probably know. I would stick around there if I were still into electronics.

Also, IRC is just more relaxing by being text-only. No flashy avatars, pictures, reactions, and for most parts no gamification.

I’ve read it too, and this is a perfect summary. (The book is relatively long and the topic is complex, not an easy read.)

Reminds me of the text-based role-playing heavy MUDs, where the players did their “pose” (a short paragraph describing what their character does) and you wait for 5 minutes while the other player(s) describe their move in return, often also adding a bit environment description. Some of the better player’s logfiles were basically prose you could almost publish. (Example: SpheresMUX)

Also, you got to like the name they came up with: it’s a MUSH (multi-user shared hullicination).

I’ve only crossed the “slight overweight” line now. But in the past 15 years I have monitored my weight while trying gentle changes: eat healthier, no added sugar, more exercise, build a small amount of muscle. Nothing has made a difference. I was gaining weight slowly, year by year.

Now I’m finally doing what I wanted to avoid for 15 years: stop eating while still slightly hungry. It was a psychological exercise: To focus on the feeling of hunger so I stay aware of it, so I don’t automatically walk into the kitchen. To convince myself that I’m okay with it, this is how it has feel, no need to panic. There was some resistance, but in the end it was easier than expected. I mostly do this towards the evening, and not every day, and when I’m more than just a bit hungry I still eat.

The effect on my weight was almost a shock after the non-effect of all my previous attempts. I feel like I can keep this up easily. In fact I had to dial it back, losing weight faster than I intended. And I did keep my healthy habits from earlier: especially I try to be active one hour each day, and if I wasn’t I usually go for a late walk.

Picture from 2002. This was a 2D plotter made from the motors of a CD-ROM drive. The open wires connected to a copper coil that smashed a pencil up and down. A hard-disk magnet was glued to the pencil. 3D printing wasn’t a thing back then, otherwise I probably would have started a fire with an improvised heater on top of this.

Yes, IIRC Undertale it will only taunt you a bit at first, you have to play almost to the end before you really notice. But then it masterfully beats you against the 4th wall, hard, several times. (Speaking about eating the wrong cookies, yes it does feel like that.)

And then, when you start a second play-through, the 4th wall stays broken. (Personally I didn’t care enough for the game for a second play-through, but if you read it up it’s a whole thing, the game will not simply reset.)

Are we hardwired to want social status?

Yes. Like many animals, we primates have a psychology of dominance. It helps to prevent constant daily fights over everything, so a group can function. You defer to the strong leader, or else. And you try to become the leader to get the benefits.

Unlike other primates, we have a second social status called “prestige” which is used for cultural learning. So you should upvote this post, like and subscribe, give me some virtual prestige. I may not be able to beat up your leader, but I can write eloquent posts such as this one, get more back from the hunt than others (see all those feathers and bones I’m wearing?), and everyone knows that I weave those useful baskets you use daily. Do what I do, and maybe you’ll become just as capable and healthy as I am. Defer to me to get access to me, to watch and learn from me, to copy everything I do. Which books to read. Whom to to vote for. Eating one carrot a day. You never know which of those is the secret ingredient. Better just copy everything this healthy-looking human does and believes.

I ca̴n’̸t rea̵d wha̴͌t ̸̈́y̶o̵u̷͆’r̴̚e̸ ̷s̴à̴y̵i̵͛n̴̓g̴͑ ̵f̶ró̵m̸̜̎ ̴̊ơ̴v̵e̴͂r ̵͎̽h̷̛̺̀͑̃er̵̆e̴…̴. But not sure what thé solutïon would be. Forbiddíng non-english text would be even worse UI.

Yes. Tech-savvy users should not run a script like the one below from extensions like open-with or similar. Be it on youtube or other music sites.

#!/bin/sh
yt-dlp --extract-audio --embed-metadata --no-playlist \
    --exec 'notify-send "download finished."' \
    -o ~/music/new/"%(album_artist)s - %(artist)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" \
    -f"bestaudio[ext!=flac][ext!=wav]"\
    -- "$1"