stoneparchment

@stoneparchment@possumpat.io

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sad plant giving up on life - a call for help⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  also… if it dies anyway and you’re heartbroken, dm me and maybe I can send you a cutting from mine :-) cheers!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sad plant giving up on life - a call for help⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So the plant you have there is a Maranta leuconeura. I have one that looks just like it!

  There’s a couple things that could be going wrong. In general, here are the conditions it likes:

  1. It likes indirect light. I keep mine by a south facing window that has an awning cutting the harsh light outside. Additionally, I have it behind a sheer curtain.

  2. It likes to be kept in moist soil, and in a humid place. I don’t let mine fully dry out before rewatering it, and I live in a place where the ambient humidity is often 60-80%. If you live in a dry place, water it often and maybe keep it in the most humid place with enough light (kitchen or bathroom is usually more humid)

  3. and this is key, it does NOT like hard water. I honestly think this could be the problem with yours given what you said. Hard water has a lot of minerals, and over time, they build up in the soil. The plant might have been fine with tap for months, but now the soil could effectively be too “salty” for it.

  If I had this plant, I’d do one of two things.

  Option 1:

  • buy fresh potting soil
  • gently remove the plant from its pot
  • shake off the soil from the roots
  • rinse and scrape off any residue on the inside of the pot
  • replant in fresh soil
  • water with RO/soft water from now on (see note below), keeping it moist, in whatever spot it already lives

  Option 2:

  • buy or obtain real reverse osmosis (RO) water (see note below)
  • water the plant so thoroughly with RO that the mineral salts dissolve and are carried away. This means soaking the pot in a large volume (like more than a gallon) of RO water for an hour or so, or watering it so water flushes out the bottom 5+ times in a row. You can tell if you flush the minerals out because there should be no grey dusty residue left on the soil or sides of the pot!
  • add a small amount of balanced fertilizer (like follow miracle grow instructions or something)
  • water with RO/soft water from now on (see note below), keeping it moist, in whatever spot it already lives

  As backup, I might also try and root a cutting (again, in RO water) just in case it still dies anyway. Hopefully with these efforts it will revive, though!

  Note on soft/RO water:

  If you are looking for soft water, don’t use water from a water softener (confusing, I know). This is because water softeners for humans replace the minerals with sodium ions. In essence, water softener water is just as “salty” as hard water, it’s just different salts.

  Instead, try and get deionized (DI) or reverse osmosis (RO) water.

  Ideally, this would come from an RO system, which is a common kind of in-house water filter. If you live by a college, you could maybe ask for some from their science departments (especially biology or chemistry). You can also buy it online and have it shipped to you, but this is really expensive, especially considering that the maranta needs so much water.

  Instead, I would buy a TDS meter (available on Amazon for like $7). It’s a little stick device that you put in the water and it tells you how hard it is. With this, you could test a few brands of bottled water (avoid “spring water”, or “remineralized” water-- go for “filtered” or “purified”) until you find one with less than ~30 ppm / ~75 µS/cm dissolved solids. My grocery store sells water in big machines out front that reads 15 µS/cm, and it costs $2.50/5 gallons!

  Honestly, I cheat and get lazy sometimes with mine and water it with tap. You saw yourself how long it takes for the solids to build up, and watering it with RO dissolves some of those over time. It’s not like tap will kill it right away, but these guys sure are picky! :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  youtu.be/11lPhMSulSU

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk has another secret child with exec at his brain implant company⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s a good (and reassuring) observation!

  Still, even if it’s a bot/troll/etc. post, if we don’t call it out when we see it, the culture of the community slowly shifts towards “bigotry is acceptable here”…

  I’m gonna keep pointing this stuff out when I see it whether the user is acting in good faith or not :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk has another secret child with exec at his brain implant company⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Aight you got me there

  I, too, am down to clown tbh

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk has another secret child with exec at his brain implant company⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure, notice that I included this possibility in the last paragraph.

  Also notice that that possibility doesn’t reinforce the perspective that “women are sluts for clown daddies”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk has another secret child with exec at his brain implant company⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The fact this has 40 up votes right now makes me feel like lemmy is losing a diverse user base. Like, where are the women to down vote this obviously shitty take?

  Let’s list some reasons why these women could have done this that aren’t “women are sluts for clown daddies”:

  • he’s their boss, and leveraging his insane power over them to make it hard to say no and keep their job
  • he’s just an extremely powerful man and they’re afraid of pissing them off
  • they have insecurities, like the “loser cuck” fallacy that they aren’t valuable or desirable as partners, and attention from someone as powerful as him feels like affirmation of their value even if they don’t like him or he treats them badly
  • they understand that, by not resisting his advances, they might be able to provide themselves a link to a financial source that could support them and a child
  • he literally sexually harasses, assaults, or rapes them and they don’t feel like they can criminally pursue one of the richest men in the world

  Like, yeah, some of them might be individuals who have bad taste in men or are shitty people themselves. I’m even certain that some of them are! But damn, can we take the perspective of the woman for one second? It’s not a good look to find yourself agreeing with incels on the internet

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This is not a stereogram. If you look at it a certain way it will not resolve into anything.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  shoulda said “yarrr, ye dumb bastard!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Total superiority⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  awesome!! I’m psyched you caught it and enjoyed it :-)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Total superiority⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  that is pretty metal and sick, you’re right

  the tradeoff is that the ring of fire means you can’t look directly at it even at peak totality…

  but either is so friggin hype

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Total superiority⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  pictures cannot capture the ephemeral, indescribable beauty of the moments of totality

  total eclipse wins every time

  get effin HYPE

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If I put a gallon of 10% cider vinegar in a shallow pan and let 1/2 gallon evaporate, will that make it double its strength?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oooh it’s even cooler than that!! You’re spot on, acid is the problem. And acid from food, candy, coffee, etc. is harmful for enamel for sure.

  But sugary stuff that isn’t acidic also rots teeth. Why? Because the bacteria in your mouth do what’s called lactic acid fermentation. Basically, when they take a sugar molecule and want to make “usable” energy out of it (in the form of something called ATP, or adenosine triphosphate), they end up creating lactic acid as a byproduct. In essence, the stuff living in your mouth makes acid out of sugar.

  We also need to break sugar down into ATP, but we do something called cellular respiration instead. It uses oxygen and creates CO2 as a byproduct! That’s why we need oxygen to breathe, and why we breathe out oxygen. But, when you work your muscles hard (lifting weights, sprinting), you might use the ATP in your muscles faster than your body can make it with cellular respiration. In that case, your cells will also do lactic acid fermentation! That’s what we’re feeling when we “feel the burn” (well, that and micro-tears in the muscle, in some cases).

  Source: I’m a biologist! And I love sharing weird facts like this! Thank you for the excuse to write this out :-)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If I put a gallon of 10% cider vinegar in a shallow pan and let 1/2 gallon evaporate, will that make it double its strength?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Other commenters have good suggestions also, but one option I haven’t seen mentioned would be to buy a powdered acid and make your own dilutions

  It’s easy to get citric acid in a dry form (like the crystal coating on sour candy), you can get 10 lbs of it for like $30-50 online. I put a small scoop in my dishwasher to keep my cups from getting foggy from our hard water, and I use it to descale our kettle and in our laundry, too.

  Just be careful, acid dilutions are no joke. Whether you get the cleaning vinegar or make a citric acid solution for yourself:

  • use nitrile or latex gloves when working with the acid solutions

  • wear something to protect your eyes, glasses are probably good enough but goggles are better

  • if you have an acid solution and want to dilute it, pour the acid into the water, not the water into the acid!!!

  • flush your skin or eyes with water immediately if the acid gets on you or your clothes

  These rules might seem like overkill but better safe than sorry!

  Citric acid is slightly stronger than acetic acid so if I were you I’d make like a 20% solution to have a similar effect to the cleaning vinegar (so like 100 g powdered acid to 400 mL water). You might have to mix it on the stove so that the water is simmering to get the acid to dissolve.

  Again, be careful! But as long as you’re smart about it, take your time, and prioritize safety, you can definitely use this for descaling and cleaning (and cooking!)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should this be in unethical life pro tips⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think that’s true? They have a dysfunctional guilt/shame system but they still have other feelings, right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are pipes used in plumbing more than hoses?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Huge disclaimer that I’m not a plumber or even close to a plumber, but I did have a house and think about houses:

  Isn’t the current “standard” plumbing PEX plumbing, which is basically just a bunch of hoses?

  Like I think you’re on to something but the industry beat you to the punch 😉

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m sorry! My knowledge of this process does not extend to the point where I could even give you a hint of the answer. To be honest, it would require me diving into the underlying mechanisms of your condition, and it sound like your doctor has said it isn’t even settled science why it’s happening, so I don’t think anyone can tell you if this would work for you.

  I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear, but two things: 1) this treatment is a long way off anyway, so anyone will have to wait for it to be available, and 2) there are probably many other treatments coming down the line for your condition… even if those also take a long time.

  Anyway, I’m sorry for your pain and that I couldn’t help! Honestly, I hope something will be available to help you many years before this becomes a treatment option.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re not oversimplifying from my description, my description was just too simple itself! Unfortunately, no, it wouldn’t work like this. The whole idea is that the cell would pick up anything and discover that it isn’t as dangerous as it thought. That’s the opposite of what we’d want for cancer cells!

  Luckily, there are many, many other treatments for various cancers coming in due time, also. My research is actually closer to cancer research than immunology, so I can tell ya-- there’s good stuff coming!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe? But it works by flagging specific proteins related to allergenic response. For people with higher tendency to develop allergies in general, I imagine you’d need a LOT of different flagged proteins to cover the bases of what one’s immune system was already alerting to.

  Tbh, it might be a good treatment for those individuals for their few, most problematic triggers, but I think in general there are probably better approaches for them!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This is basically my fear, also. How can I retain hope that new, amazing treatments will help people if we don’t even have equitable access to the current treatments?

  For example, we still make people seeking medicines for mental health try going through a gauntlet of dependency-forming drugs from greater than half a century ago (that have been shown to be effective in less than half of people who take them) before insurance will pony up for contemporary alternatives (that work much more often).

  I don’t work in the clinical space so don’t trust me too much… but jeez we have so many things to solve before the “bio golden age” really helps normal people

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Nope! This research is all done in rodents, to my knowledge. I’m always like “wow what a cool and maybe lifesaving discovery!.. for people in like a decade+!” 🙃

  (thanks for the book rec!)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  That is so funny… tbh I know I’d get shit for this professionally, but it definitely frustrates me that we don’t allow people with few other choices to have access to crazy, left field treatment stuff.

  My best friend died of a specific and rare cancer this year. We know exactly how that cancer works on a molecular level, and we’ve found a few chemicals that interfere with the function of those cells in vitro while not seeming to harm average cells.

  Sure, it’s a huge risk to take that drug that’s only been tested in a dish, and it wouldn’t be worth it for most people. But he was going to (and did) die within a year of diagnosis. It’s not like he had other options.

  Maybe he should have invested in a rat costume ;)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, you’ll also be happy to know that they started this work on allergin way before working on autoimmune disease, and in my opinion, the evidence that it works for allergies is much stronger than how it works for autoimmune diseases! Not necessarily because it won’t work for auto immune stuff… just that they have done less confirming.

  I have severe allergenic asthma so I was excited about it too 😁

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This article is garbage but I’m a molecular biologist and the publication they’re talking about is really neat.

  The “ELI5 to the point of maybe reducing out the truth” way to explain it is that the researchers can add “flags” to proteins associated with immune responses that make cells pick them up and examine them. This is shown to work for allergins (so say, add a flag to peanut protein and the cells can look at it more closely, go “oh nvm this is fine” and stop freaking out about peanuts) as well as autoimmune diseases (where cells mistake other cells from the same body as potential threats).

  It’s not nearly to a treatment stage, but tbh this is one of the more exciting approaches I’ve seen, and I do similar research and thus read a lot of papers like this.

  There’s a lot of evidence that we are entering a biological “golden age” and we will discover a ton of amazing things very soon. It’s worrysome that we still have to deal with instability in other parts of life (climate change, wealth inequality, political polarization) that might slow down the process of turning these discoveries into actual treatments we can use to make lives better…

  Still, don’t doubt everything you read! A lot of cool stuff is coming, the trick is getting it past the red tape

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US rejects AI copyright for famous state fair-winning Midjourney art⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Actually… If an animal you own/trained makes art… you do get to have the copyright to the art.

  I also agree more with the other posters interpretation in general. We copyright art made by random chance emergent effects (Polluck et al.), process based art (Morris Louis et al.), performance art (so many examples… Adrian Piper comes to mind), ephemeral art, math art, and photography, as the poster says. None of those artists are fully in control of every aspect of the final project- the art makes itself, in part, in each example.

  If a human uses a math equation for the geometric output of a printer, and they tweak the variables to get the best looking output, we consider that art by law. Ai is exactly the same.

  It’s funny, I find that illustrators hate ai art, but “studio” artists (for lack of a better term) usually adore it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I enjoyed LingoDeer for Japanese!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you go about preserving fruits & vegetables?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  dude the downvotes are because the entire vegetable section is about lactic acid fermentation, so your comment is just factually wrong

  It’s okay to be wrong… just maybe think about whether it’s your own mistake before calling people alcoholic dipshits

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[HN] Skiplagging: The travel hack hated by airlines is now the subject of a lawsuit⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  The one travel writer the airlines appear to support is so out of touch it’s funny.

  “So if you want to save money on tickets … take a flight at lunchtime one day instead of trying to be in the office by 9:00am after landing. You can sometimes fly for half the price.”

  As if people aren’t already looking for the cheapest flight between cities on the day they need to travel. When was the last time anyone with an average income had the luxury of picking what time of day to travel?