I’m an expert on capitalism and everywhere I look I just see pain and ecological destruction.
Some girl called me cheap today because I’m learning to sharpen my knives instead of just buying new ones. Consumerism is a cancer.
This blows my mind. I’m that guy who lives rurally and has been poor for a good portion of my life. I make, build and fix pretty much everything we have because we could never afford another one and it’s stupid to not do that anyway. It hurts my brain to think people live like that.
It hurts my heart. This is the society that has been built and those skills you have from necessity were completely forgotten and ignored as generations were raised.
Now it is just too much we don’t know that yes, I could learn how to sharpen knives but teaching myself isn’t cheap. It costs the money to buy the tools, time to research, money for any mistakes, and a mental load vs “ok well I guess I can spend $20 and get a new chef knife” It sounds so simple when it is one thing but you have probably come across dozens of people lacking a skill one would assume to be basic knowledge.
Anyway that person was just an ignoramus
Ignorance might be bliss, but knowledge is joy.
Eh. More often than not knowledge is suffering as well.
Makes sense.
When I spend a lot of time doing 3D design work I find myself looking at the world afterwards in terms of underlying mathematics, angles and shapes. Like I’ll look at a cabinet and see rectangles and cylindrical cuts that could reproduce it in 3d, or a lamp-post as a circle extruded along a path.
People who are really into rocks probably notice more about that stuff because their brains are hyper-focused on such
Being an expert in software has gotta be the most boring version of this.
“Oh that point of sale system? It’s running Android 11. I can tell from the status bar at the top. That’s probably because the SOC in it was cheap in bulk and supported Android 11.”
There’s probably some history there still too.
“Pos systems used to only run this specific kernel that had very limited memory because this buttface company lobbied themselves into a monopoly in the industry and we were stuck with 50yo tech until only very recently, which is how we got problems like that credit card input fiasco - this lady could never get her credit card to work because every time she leaned over to swipe, as she was swiping, her belly would nudge the keypad somehow and introduce an extra digit! We couldn’t even separate inputs whilst we were streaming movies off the internet, it was so backward. Now we’ve got a new monopoly with apple and android, it’s all held together by this dude in a basement somewhere. I met him once. He’s not a guy you can forget easily, even though everyone wants to. Also, he has eight fingers. But one of his hands only has two.”
Right, but you can also explain vulnerabilities and speak on topics like AI at a higher level and about that time that guy put in lines that worked like a kill switch if he ever was fired, and he was fired.
Over the last few years I have been working on getting into botany, herbalism and urban foraging. Basically I am working on trying to identify every plant I see in my neighborhood and finding what their uses are. So in my yard and walk around the neighborhood I look at every plant and try to see if I can identify it. Since its easiest to identify while flowering I guess for weeks and months until then to determine if I am right. As the seasons change I get better and better at identifying things after or before a bloom. It really brings magic and interest as I move around the world
Oh my gosh this is so me! I started by trying to figure out what our lawn was made of and now I’m seeing NPFs (Noxious Plant Fuckers) all over the place! I’ve gone through my states Noxious Plant list and I’m obliterating giant ragweed as we speak.
I’ve found so many cool facts about the history of plants in my neighbors garden, too! I’m just starting, but plants are so cool! There’s a type of invasive honeysuckle that whitetail deer love, and it tends to choke out all other plant life around it. One day, we might have whole forests of deer and honeysuckle, with not a predator in sight. Whoops, haha!
Its nice to be able to see what you should remove. I have defeating the Creeping Bellflower in my new wildflower section of my yard. (The thin strip between my fence and the alley sometimes called the Hell Strip). If you are like me and want to know what is good to have in your yard I would recommend Prairie Moon Nursery if you live in North America. The shop sells native plants and lets you filter by location, bloom season etc. in case you need to buy plants or seeds. It also has a great range map, great pictures and good descriptions in case you are interested. I highly recommend looking at the website to get plants to names
Oh, that’s delightful! Thank you! Good luck with the Hell Strip
It’s a lot of Black Eyes Susans right now. But I got more longer lasting perennials under most of them. It’s super low maintenance and beautiful. I seed in the fall and sometimes the spring. I mow yearly (early spring) to kill any tree saplings and do some weeding in the spring but not much.
I’m planning on harvesting some seeds from my Susans and maybe the coneflowers this year. I usually just let them fall. It would be fun to give the seeds away or spread them around empty lots
I’m always noticing things. Interesting things, weird things, funny things. My mom has asked me multiple times, “How do you find so much interesting stuff?”
All I’ve ever be able to respond with is, “I look around.” She misses a lot around her, my brothers and I even mess with her sometimes by “hiding” things in plain sight around my parents’ house and waiting until she says something.
There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see
Rocks aren’t magic but if you dig into the subject you’ll find that rocks are incredibly diverse and form in a number of different ways. Many are also found located hundreds/thousands of miles away from where they were formed, meaning they somehow moved.
Are you suggesting
coconutsrocks migrate?gneiss story that was some wild schist
I’m just beginning to read up on geology. It’s wild, invisibly slow change. You may like this short film “Das Rad” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPwXNFU7oU
Thanks! I reallly enjoyed that video.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
That book has been on my list for too long!
That book sounds wonderful. My local library has it through Libby
Where I am, everywhere is inaccessible private land, except for a tiny sliver of roads between them.
There are a few places which allow you to temporarily exist there for the purpose of commercial exchanges.
But most of my world is simply forbidden to access. There are endless forests and fields here, all littered with “no tresspass” signs.
It is all owned and I can’t go there.This planet is 0% magical
This planet is 100% magical, we’ve just let capitalists divide it up into tiny preserves for their own pleasure.
I am a leftist online poster
My specialty is being toxic and reminding you how bad everything is
See this thing other people are enjoying, its bad, fuck you
Do you see those things over there, fuck them too
If you don’t agree you’re a fascist and they fucking suck too
also fuck AI or something
Also, making things up to exaggerate how bad things are. Even in the US, there’s more public libraries than McDonald’s. You have parks, museums, community centers, etc. Even if you live in a town that has somehow privatized literally everything, that doesn’t reflect on “the planet”.
For me it is magical when I see some people who know how to walk and chewing gum at the same time
Walk? In this suburban hell?
