Fondots

@Fondots@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you had to buy a new TV, what brand would you get?⁩ ⁨⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Almost 2 decades ago I paid close to that for a 50" plasma TV as one of my first big purchases after I got my first job.

  Of course this isn’t a direct 1:1 comparison, they’re different display technologies, TVs these days have a 4k if not 8k resolution when that one I bought was 720p, there’s been almost 20 years of advancement driving costs down, and 20 years of inflation driving them up, etc.

  So I don’t even know where to begin trying to fairly compare the relative costs of those 2 TVs

  But back then tv manufacturers also weren’t getting paid to include apps, and put a button on their remotes to launch Amazon prime, or show me ads, or anything of the sort. Their only revenue stream was me buying the tv.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you had to buy a new TV, what brand would you get?⁩ ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Slight counterpoint

  I have 2 TVs in my house. A 70" Vizio as my main TV and a 40-ish inch Samsung fame in the bedroom

  Haven’t used the TVs smart features in years, everything I watch is run through a game console or dedicated streaming device (currently a 4k Chromecast)

  Their software is kind of dogshit, but I never interact with it except once in a blue moon after a power outage or something when it defaults back to that. I otherwise find it to be a perfectly fine TV for the price I paid for it.

  However, as bad as the software is on the Vizio, the Samsung is 10x worse. And unfortunately as bad as it is, that’s what we use because it was hard enough trying to hide the box the TV came with (the way they get the frame TV’s so light and thin is by moving all of the electronics into a separate box, I installed a cabinet in the wall behind the TV to hide it) let alone trying to hide a separate streaming stick/box along with it. I also feel like using one of those may not play as well with the art mode as the built-in software, which is kind of the whole point.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Best no install ceiling light?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  How “no install” does it need to be? Because in one sense, duct-taping a flashlight to the ceiling could technically be considered an install if we really want to split hairs.

  I’m assuming the main thing is you don’t want to be running wires and cutting holes in the ceiling.

  If screwing something into the ceiling isn’t too tall of an ask, a plug-in chandelier/pendant lamp might be a good option, but finding an attractive way to route the wires may prove tricky.

  Some command hooks and string lights may do the trick

  You could also try some rope rights along the perimeter of your ceiling held on with command strips/double stick tape

  A tall floor lamp could sort fill the role of a ceiling light, at an old apartment I had a lamp that was basically an enormous version of the Pixar lamp that filled that role pretty well.

  You might be able to find some sort of battery/rechargeable/maybe even solar powered light fixture that you can mount to your ceiling to get around needing to run a power cord to it, but I have a feeling you’ll find the light output and battery life of most options disappointing.

  Not what you’re asking for, but just a final thought- my childhood home had almost no overhead lighting, there was a light fixture or two in the kitchen, a couple bare bulbs in the basement, and a wall fixture in the bathroom. Everywhere else we just had floor, table, and desk lamps and never really had a problem with it. I feel like that’s still a perfectly serviceable solution, especially with the modern option of having smart bulbs and/or outlets to control those lights.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Except for a few obvious spam posts, I’m pretty hard-pressed to think of any specific posts or comments I’ve seen that struck me as bots (although to be fair, I’m there may be some bias due to which communities I choose to follow)

  There are, however, plenty of idiots, people who don’t speak fluent English, trolls and other people whose motivations may not be purely good-faith discussion, people who probably have various types of neurodivergence and/or mental health issues

  And I could see some of those categories being very easily mistaken as a bot under a lot of circumstances.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is with this new generation of shooters writing stuff on the bullets? Is this some new fad like if I go deer hunting or something I write FUCK BAMBI on the bulllet?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Most bullet casings are brass, which is a fairly soft metal, you could probably scratch some words into it with a pocket knife, sewing needle, pretty much any pointy steel object

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Not trying to disparage first responders on 911. Why aren't nurses included with fire and police departments? Did we not take care of people on the backend of the rescuing?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Just kind of thinking out loud

  All of those people who were brought into ERs from ground zero and the people, vehicles, etc. that brought them there would have been covered in that same dust that’s causing health issues for first responders, that means doctors and nurses probably also received some level of exposure to that dust because I doubt all of those people showered on the way.

  I don’t know how their exposure level stacks up against the people who were on-scene, I’m sure it’s an order of magnitude less, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was still significant enough to cause some health problems. IBM pretty sure I’ve seen some evidence of people who live with firefighters developing health issues from secondhand exposure like that.

  On top of that, there’s also the psychological burden that always gets overlooked. I’m sure that took a hell of a toll on healthcare workers.

  And there’s a recognition aspect, because for all of the people who died, there were also many more who were injured, and more than a few of them owe their lives to the doctors and nurses who treated them just as much as to the first responders who got them to the hospital.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has Charlie Kirk ever changed his views on a subject during a debate?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Well at the end of it, you can see he actually starts leaning pretty far to the left

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it possible to “make” someone have seizures?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Not a Doctor, take this for what it’s worth

  But my understanding is that, depending on the type of seizure disorder and a whole host of other factors, there’s a lot of things that can potentially trigger seizures

  Flashing lights are a classic example, but also smells, temperature, stress, diet, hormones, drug/alcohol use or withdrawal, fever, lack of sleep, etc.

  Also you said that you gradually halved your dose since then, that might also be a factor. Lets say you were on 100mg before and 50 now. When your body was acclimated to 100mg, it was probably a bigger shock to your system to go without than it is now that your body is only used to 50, obviously 0 to 100 is a bigger difference than 0 to 50.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cyclops would be a very different character if his eyelids weren't laserproof⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The in-universe science behind Cyclops’ optic blasts have been very inconsistent over the years.

  The explanation that I’m personally familiar with is that his eyes themselves are portals to a dimension of pure concussive energy that doesn’t produce heat, and that energy is also conveniently blocked by ruby lenses in his glasses and visor, and also his own body is immune to it.

  Which doesn’t really make any sense from a real world physics perspective, but that’s comic books for you.

  And of course depending on what timeline/reboot/alternate universe you’re dealing with, who’s writing it, and what’s convenient for the plot, any of that can go right out the window, I’ve definitely seen him melt things and start fires with his blasts in some versions.

  I think another explanation that gets used sometimes is that his body absorbs sunlight to power them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The USA prided itself on a nation of immigrant, heck even the Statue of Liberty says it. When did immigrants (US citizens from the old world) become anti immigrant and why?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The us has always been anti illegal immigration

  The US actually made it almost the first hundred years of its history without many meaningful immigration laws

  I’m sure someone will argue otherwise, but one thing commonly cited as the first US immigration law was the steerage act of 1819, which was pretty much just “you can’t overcrowd your ships, you have to have enough food and water for everyone, you have to have a list of your passengers and account for anyone who died on the way”

  So not really limiting immigration, more making sure that the ships bringing immigrants here were providing at least basic livable conditions for the trip.

  Immigration overland was totally unregulated.

  And with some minor alterations here and there, that was pretty much the state of things until the 1870s and 80s with the Page Act and Chinese Exclusion Act. Until then there really wasn’t such a thing as “illegal immigration” and borders were pretty much wide-open.

  To be thorough, between 1776 and the Page Act, we did have the Alien Friends and Alien Enemies acts to allow the US to deport non-citizen immigrants under certain circumstances, and we took a few steps forwards and backwards at times regarding the naturalization process, but we also had the 14th amendment and “An Act to Encourage Immigration” in there as well.

  And of course after that, shit went downhill pretty damn quickly.

  So it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but again for almost half of US history there really wasn’t any such thing as “illegal” immigration for anyone to be against (general anti-immigrant sentiments are another story)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'3d-printing a screw' is a way to describe how AI integration is stupid most of the time⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  3d printing is not the default fabrication method now that we’re getting good at it. It just shines in certain applications.

  Getting a little theoretical here

  With the current state of the technology, 3d printing lags behind some traditional manufacturing techniques like machining and in terms of speed, cost, quality, available materials, etc. except for some relatively niche cases.

  However, that gap is closing a bit every day, it may or may not ever catch up completely or surpass the old technique in those aspects

  But if it does ever get close, I could very much see 3d printing being a preferred method

  Subtractive manufacturing like machining, by design, creates a lot of waste, all of the chips and off cuts that are removed from the stock are either discarded or require additional energy and/or materials to recycle.

  And things like injection molding require custom molds that wear out over time, and can be expensive to design and manufacture

  And in either case, you’re largely locked into making one thing on an assembly line at a time, and to switch over to a different product you’re probably going to need to switch out a lot of the molds and tooling, recalibrate everything, etc. which can be time consuming.

  With 3d printing, you could theoretically use only the amount of material that’s actually in the finished product (if you design it that it doesn’t require any external supports ) you don’t need any custom tooling or mold, just generic, interchangeable nozzles (for FDM, LCD screens or lasers or whatever the equivalent is for other printing technologies) and you could switch production from one item to another by just hitting print on a different file.

  Again, we’re not there, may never be there, but it’s a cool thing to think about

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨2hot2handle⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  To be fair, at the time, there was no ISS for the shuttle to dock to, the shuttle pretty much was all they had. It was designed for missions of about 10 days, and could be expanded to about 17 days if needed. If they needed to stretch it up to a month to go beyond that for her to have a second period, I suspect that would rather have used that cargo capacity for some extra food and such and dealt with her free-bleeding, and much beyond that they’d need to come down one way or another or just die in space.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If they wanted to do a gender-swapped Doctor Who, without it being the absolute pile of dogshit that is the BBC's current attempt, Fern Brady would be an immaculately perfect choice⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not a doctor who fan at all, so as far as I’m concerned the show is dogshit regardless of who the doctor is, but that’s my personal taste, to each their own.

  However, from a couple minutes of googling, I’m pretty sure that the most recent doctor was a dude, and the next season with a new ("gender swapped) doctor hasn’t even aired, or even been given an official release date.

  There was another image doctor prior to this most recent one, but again, you’ve had a whole 'nother doctor since then.

  So I’m really not too sure what you’re on about their “current attempt.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨REDRUM⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My sister is the hermit crab expert in my family, I mostly only have second-hand knowledge through her

  But for starters it is really damn hard to breed hermit crabs in captivity, so basically every one you’ve ever seen in the pet trade is probably wild-caught.

  They also have really specific habitat needs, high humidity, warm temperatures, access to fresh and salt water, deep substrate that they can dig and burrow in, vertical areas they can climb on, I think you should ideally have like 10 gallons of space per crab, and basically no hermit crab kit out there actually meets these needs.

  And while a lot of people think of them as sort of throwaway pets that will only live a few months, with proper care they can actually live years, even decades.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨human geography⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The town I grew up in has a longish name, most people in the area shorten it to just the first syllable with a y at the end, similar to how Philadelphia gets shortened to Philly

  But there’s a slight difference between how the people who are from town pronounce it and how everyone else does and you can pretty reliably pick out the townies based on that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  By 18, somewhere along the line you’ve hopefully had some kind of science/biology class where they talked about dominant and recessive genes, Punnett squares, and all of that

  But in case you didn’t, or it’s slipped your mind (honestly, given your age there’s a good chance they may have covered this while you were learning from home during the pandemic, so kind of understandable if you don’t remember) here’s a quick refresher

  You get one copy of each gene from both parents. Sometimes you get the same version of them from each parent, sometimes you get a different version.

  Let’s imagine there’s a single gene that determines if you’re going to be tall. There’s a tall version of that gene, that we’ll call “T” and a short version that we’ll call “t”

  We’ll say that “T” is the dominant version, and “t” is recessive.

  What that means is that if you carry the “T” gene, it will always be expressed. You’ll be tall as long as you have at least one copy of it.

  Remember, you get one copy of this gene from each parent. They each also have 2 copies of this gene.

  Your dad is tall, so he must be carrying at least one copy of the T gene. He might have one, or he might have two.

  Your mom is short, so she doesn’t have the T gene, she has 2 copies of the t gene.

  So if your dad has 2 copies, all of his children will be tall, because they’re all going to get a T from him.

  But if he only has 1, he could have short children if he passes along his t gene instead, and since your mom doesn’t have a T to pass on, she can only pass on the t gene

  We can illustrate this in something called a Punnett Square, which looks something like this (apologies for the lazy ASCII layout)

  _ | T | T
  t | Tt | Tt
  t | Tt | Tt

  or

  _ | T | t
  t | Tt | tt
  t | Tt | tt

  The top rows represent your father’s genes, with 1 or 2 copies of the T gene, and the column on the left represents your mothers with only the t gene

  And the rest of the squares represent the possible combination of genes you can have.

  So in this hypothetical, if your dad is a “Tt” and your mom is a “tt” you have a 50/50 shot of being tall.

  This is a very simplified version of it. In reality, there’s not just one gene that determines height, there’s actually about 10,000 genetic factors that have some impact on your height.

  And for shits and giggles, let’s imagine that both of your parents were tall so the punnet squares look like this

  _ | T | T
  T | TT | TT
  T | TT | TT

  Or

  _ | T | t
  T | TT | Tt
  t | Tt | tt

  In the first example, both your parents are tall, and all of their children will be tall. In the second example both parents are tall, both parents are tall, but there’s a 1 in 4 chance that their child will inherit the t gene from each of them and be short.

  And not all genes are purely dominant/recessive, some are incompletely dominant, so Tt might sort of split the difference in height between a TT and a tt person. Some genes kind of play off of other genes, so maybe in order for the “T” gene to make you tall you may also need to be carrying a “U” gene, for example.

  And on top of that, there’s environmental factors, nutrition, illness, injuries, etc. can have an impact on how tall you can be. People today are, on average, taller than people in the past because overall we’re better able to meet our nutritional needs and treat health issues than they were back then.

  And, while it’s unlikely that you’ll grow another foot to catch up with your dad’s height, at 18 you may still have a little bit of growing to do, some men continue to grow a little into their early 20s.

  So there’s a lot that goes into this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If I stood on a precision scale and farted, would I get lighter or heavier?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well your guts and skin and other tissues do have some elasticity, I suppose it is possible that a large gas bubble might be able to expand your abdomen slightly.

  We’re very much into spherical cows in a vacuum territory here. I don’t think there’s any way this would be realistically measurable,just fun to think about.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If I stood on a precision scale and farted, would I get lighter or heavier?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that, theoretically, if someone’s flatus contained an abnormally high amount of lighter-than-air gases, like hydrogen and methane, they might get very slightly heavier. Having a gas like that inside of you would, I think, provide a bit of a buoyant force lifting you away from the scale that would make your weight read lower, and releasing that gas would sort of drop your full weight onto the scale.

  In practice, methane and hydrogen are only part of a fart, and other gases and such in the mix are heavier than air, so at best you might break even.

  Probably a few caveats to that about temperature and pressure and such, and it’s doubtful that anyone’s gut produces enough of the right kinds of gas for that to happen.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why aren't there many controllers with the ability to physically swap out the ABXY layout between Xbox/PC and Nintendo layout?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s basically what I had in mind. Steam has this as an option for the big picture mode UI and I like it a lot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why aren't there many controllers with the ability to physically swap out the ABXY layout between Xbox/PC and Nintendo layout?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Personally, I’d prefer if games and such would use universal face button glyphs on-screen.

  I’ve switched back and forth between Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation controllers so much that I really don’t have a mental map of which button is which, and in game I’m usually not looking at my controller to be able to tell.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, how much OP actually complains about this is kind of a big factor here.

  I run up against something similar with a few of my friends. They spend a lot of time complaining that they’re bored and lonely, but no matter how many invites you throw their way, they never seem to make any effort to follow through with any plans. They say they’re interested, but they never let you know when they’re available, or they don’t show up, or they come up with flimsy excuses, etc.

  And there are times I really wish I could force some of them to just show up to something so they’d stop complaining.

  Having a social life is hard, I get it, we all only have so much time, energy, money, etc. shit comes up, we have other obligations, we all like to just veg out on the couch sometimes

  But if you’re not willing to put forth even a little effort to follow through on plans, rearrange some things, inconvenience yourself a little, at some point you kind of lose the right to complain.

  And it’s not that you’re not allowed to complain about it once in a while. But at some point, it’s just not fair to the people you’re complaining to if you’re not actually making an effort to do something about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Protest footage blocked as online safety act comes into force⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not that I really support cops confiscating orbeez guns as a general rule

  But I work in 911 dispatch in a different area where orbeez guns aren’t illegal, and they’ve been kind of a problem this year.

  I think some of our local delinquents have taken to freezing the balls or modifying their guns to shoot faster or something, because we have had a few injuries and broken windows and such linked to orbeez guns this year.

  Even without that, they’re a pretty significant nuisance that have started a lot of fights because no one likes being pelted with orbeez.

  And of course there’s the problem that exists with all toy guns where if you paint them black or are running around with them in the dark it can be hard to tell them apart from a real gun which is asking for trouble.

  And the countless calls I’ve gotten from neighborhood karens who “don’t think it’s safe” or “that they shouldn’t be doing that here” is getting kind of old.

  And not for nothing, orbeez can be really slow to break down in the environment and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re contributing to our microplastics problem.

  If there is a way to twist the interpretation of a law to say that orbeez guns are illegal, I’m not at all surprised to hear about cops doing just that. Not that I generally support that, but if you caught me on a bad day after I took a bunch of calls about kids with them, I might be tempted to sign a petition to get them banned.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Protest footage blocked as online safety act comes into force⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As someone who has regularly carried a variety of knives and multi tools almost every day of my life, I also can’t say I’m a fan of their knife laws.

  That said, as-written, I don’t find them to be quite as bad as a lot of people make them out to be (how the police choose to interpret and enforce those laws is sort of a different matter)

  It’s not the sort of knife I normally choose to carry, but all of the reasons I normally carry and use a knife for can be done perfectly safely and effectively with something like a regular Swiss army knife with a 2.5inch non-locking blade which should generally be ok to carry for no particular reason.

  It should be noted that I do not carry a knife for any self-defense purposes. I feel very little need to defend myself, and even if I did a knife would be just about my last choice after pretty much any other object in arm’s reach. Even though where I am, I could pretty much walk around town carrying a halberd for self defense if I really wanted to and it would be legal, I actually do tend to choose my EDC knives to be pretty inoffensive-looking free of any unnecessary point/stabby bits and if possible.

  And cases that really require more knife than that aren’t exactly part of my usual everyday carry scenario, and the appropriate knives for those occasions should be covered under the lawful justification and reasonable use exemptions (again, how the police actually apply those laws can leave something to be desired, but that’s often a problem here too)

  Again, not a fan of their knife laws, but in the grand scheme, I’m not nearly as outraged by them as a lot of people are.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DissolvPCB enables fully recyclable 3D-printed circuit boards with liquid metal conductors⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You are correct, should have-checked that the two PVAs referred to the same thing.

  I think the rest of my comment still pretty much stands though, PVA glue isn’t quite water soluble but the cleanup for it isn’t much more involved and doesn’t involve any exotic solvents or anything

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DissolvPCB enables fully recyclable 3D-printed circuit boards with liquid metal conductors⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s around $40 for a spool, I’m not sure what that works out to per square meter of printed board, and I’m far too lazy to work that out.

  It also seems to me like it could be a more efficient use of board space since it could be printed closer to the shape of the traces than you’d probably want to trim a board to by hand so you can save on material a bit that way. A bunch of cut corners and notches cut out of a few boards could add up over a few prints.

  I’m just spitballing some thoughts, I don’t do nearly enough circuit designing to have a horse in this race, nor the desire to really work out the economics of it but especially for someone who already owns a 3d printer and maybe is already using PVA filament this seems like something that could fit well into their existing workflows.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Protest footage blocked as online safety act comes into force⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It could just be the parts of the internet I inhabit, but I don’t think it’s really a recent thing, I think it’s just hitting a point where the masses are really starting to take notice of it.

  I’m pretty sure I remember seeing memes about CCTV cameras and such in the UK about 20 years ago now, and I don’t think it’s an accident that things like 1984 and V for Vendetta were written by British authors and set there.

  As an outsider, it’s certainly looked to me like the UK has been kind of a nanny state for a long time, and it’s not a long walk from there to the kind of bullshit we’re seeing more of now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DissolvPCB enables fully recyclable 3D-printed circuit boards with liquid metal conductors⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s arguably easier, but I think it depends on your use case.

  Etching usually requires a couple chemicals that not everyone has the space to store properly, like if they live in a small apartment and have kids, and even if you go with safer alternatives like vinegar over ferric chloride, after use the etching solution should still be considered poisonous and needs to be handled and disposed of with some care.

  Also worth considering is that this method is solder-free, so in addition to not needing to solder anything, it’s easier to recover components, no desoldering needed, just warm it up a bit and pull out the components for reuse.

  Just thinking back to different points in my life, I used to live in a small apartment with my wife and a roommate. I wouldn’t have wanted to keep acetone around there, anytime I used it it would have stunk up the whole place. And I didn’t really want to do any soldering there, our ventilation wasn’t great and our smoke detectors were on a hair trigger, and I lived in fear of losing my security deposit from dropping a stray blob of solder burning a hole in the carpet or something. PVA printing is pretty innocuous as far as fumes go, and I wouldn’t have needed much equipment beyond an electric kettle (other than a printer) to play around with this there.

  Really though, I see this being most useful for a situation where you want to prototype a few iterations that you’ll want to field test. I wouldn’t want to etch a dozen prototype boards that can’t really be reused and have to desolder to recover all the components, but I could see printing out a dozen prototypes this way and refusing the liquid metal and such.

  I’d probably still want my final board to be etched, but this gives you a good way to workshop a bunch of revisions without throwing out a bunch of etched boards.

  Also I don’t know how the cost of PVA filament stacks up against copper clad boards, but just kind of guestimating from my limited knowledge of 3d printing, it seems like the cost of boards vs filament is probably about the same or maybe even better. Sure, there’s the startup costs of getting the metal and a printer, but I feel like a lot of the people who would want to do this probably already have a printer or were looking for an excuse to get one anyway, and the metal is reusable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DissolvPCB enables fully recyclable 3D-printed circuit boards with liquid metal conductors⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I skimmed through the paper, and I agree that it looks pretty damn digestible for the average tinkerer to understand and implement themselves if they so choose

  But just kind of a quick summary for people who still won’t read the article

  You basically 3d print a circuit board out of P A (which is basically the same material as regular white elders school glue, so non toxic and water soluble) with hollow channels instead of circuit traces.

  Then you fill those hollow tubes with the gallium/indium mix, which has a very low melting point, like “glass of warm water” low.

  Insert any components you need and secure them into place with a drop of glue, and BOOM you’ve got a circuit board.

  And when you’re done, just dump it in a glass of water. The PVA dissolves and you can fish out the metal to reuse in a different project.

  Like you said, the only “specialized” equipment you need is a 3d printer that can handle PVA filament.

  Not necessarily something that’s going to be useful for any industrial production applications, but this could be huge for hobbyists and even prototyping for businesses. Most traditional methods for making a PCB call for some kind of nasty chemicals and they’re not really reusable, especially not for the home-gamer, this could make for a nice step-up for the people who don’t want to deal with this and want something a little more polished than a breadboard or a mess of soldered wires

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you were reincarnated, wouldn't it be elsewhere in the universe?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Just pointing out some assumptions you’re making and shoehorning in a couple of my own thoughts on the matter.

  1. We’re assuming that there is life elsewhere in the universe. (I personally tend to believe there is something, somewhere out there that could check the boxes to be considered “life” but it’s not exactly a sure thing)

  2. We’re assuming that whatever life exists out there possesses a soul (If I did believe in souls, which I personally do not, I don’t think that every living thing necessarily would have a soul- bacteria, fungus, plants, etc. I wouldn’t think have souls, nor necessarily all animals, I don’t think I’d say that things like placozoans, sea sponges, coral, and jellyfish have souls for example.)

  3. We’re assuming that those souls operate in a similar manner to our own and are compatible with us. As far as we can tell all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor, so all souls have at least have somewhat similar biological “hardware” (wetware? Squishyware?) to run on. Would our souls be compatible with life elsewhere in the universe that might be based around totally different chemistry?

  4. Even if they’re technically compatible, would our souls even be part of the same system as the souls of aliens? I think that in most belief systems that involve reincarnation, the point of reincarnation is to somehow build upon the souls’ prior experiences on earth, to make up for or be punished for things you did wrong, to settle unfinished business, to inch closer to enlightenment with new experiences and knowledge, etc. Can you do that effectively if your soul reincarnates on an entirely different planet? Could, for example, the Dalai Lama, be an effective spiritual leader for the Tibetan people if he reincarnated somewhere near Betelgeuse? And if we are currently operating in 2 different “soul-ar” systems (couldn’t resist the pun) what happens if first contact is made? Do our two soul cycles merge into one since our two civilizations would be able to have an impact on one another? Does it happen evenly across the entire human race? Would a member of, for example, the Sentinelese people, who would probably remain unaware of and have no impact on the affairs of aliens, be part of that merged system, or would their souls remain largely in their own bubble?

  5. How fast can souls travel? Are they bound by the light speed limit that everything else in the universe seems to be, or can they go faster than that? If they can, does this open up some sort of back-door to FTL travel or communication where all we need to do is off somebody and let them reincarnate across the universe to awaken their latent memories of past lives? Can we encode information on a soul somehow and transmit it that way?

  Sort of tangential to parts 2, 3, and 4, the Catholic Church, while not believing in reincarnation, has actually given some thought to the idea of alien souls, and determined that it’s possible, even likely, that if there is intelligent life out there somewhere, that they may not be in need of Jesus’ salvation in the same way humans are. Since they’re not descended from Adam & Eve like they believe all humans are, they may not be burdened with original sin. So there’s at least one religion that thinks alien souls may be, in some way, fundamentally different from our own.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If everyone spontaneously became the same race the world would realize that the rich are the real problem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Kind of depends on how you define “race” (it’s pretty much scientifically meaningless, so define it however the hell you like)

  But we have several currently ongoing attempts at genocide happening around the world, that to me tells me that a hell of a lot of people out there care a whole lot about race.

  American racism is particularly odd to me due to how broadly we categorize race, trying to lump people into a black/white/Hispanic/Asian/etc. category based on not much more than skin color. And we’re also unusuallly open about the fact that racism is a thing here. A lot of the world kind of keeps it more on the down-low.

  But if you go with narrower definitions of race, you’ll see the same kind of things happening around the world as in America. I’ve seen people from the UK talk about Polish immigrants in much the same way people here talk about Mexicans, and that’s not even going into the cluster fuck of how much of Europe treats Romani people. A whole lot of people in Asian countries have issues with other people from other Asian countries, or even different ethnic groups within their own countries (like Uyghurs in china.) Parts of Africa are patchworks of different ethnic groups that are often at each other’s throats, and of course South Africa is still a long way from having its shit fully sorted out. A lot of white Australians have pretty significant biases against Aboriginal people.

  I could go on.