Pre-home internet I remember running a line-in to my soundblaster card from a clock radio and recording Tool’s Sober to my HDD.

The wav file took up a good chunk of the HDD. After a good amount of funking around with encoding it was barely comprehensible and still took up too much room. Was exciting and felt like a glimpse of the future.

After 25 years of writing Japanese and trying many cheap and expensive options…

「Zebra Clip-on multi」

is my forever pencil (+pens).

This is Piaget’s conservation of volume test. I did this experiment at school (we went to the elementary school next door and ran tests on the kids). Most of the kids said the higher one held more liquid because it was ‘taller’, though some said the short one had more because it was ‘fatter’.

A further complication is that the aluminium is considerably thicker on the base and the top… so there’s more thin metal, and less thick metal.

Day 3170 here… that’s still what I’m doing… But in Athens, and mouse+keyboard.

💯. I also got Discworld vibes!

I find usually when I can’t articulate something clearly, it’s because I haven’t thought about it/researched it well enough, and I should stop trying to contribute on that topic until I have a better understanding.

That’s why I often end up writing long comments, but don’t hit post. Not a waste of time though, as it helps me identify areas in which I’m more ignorant than I thought I was.

My point is, by looking at one of the replies, that people might just be misunderstanding the argument being presented, as they have a different understanding of what ‘inherent’ means, and if you look up a dictionary definition, you can understand why.

For example: in “existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.”, the first two clauses are immutable, but third is mutable.

As last names are a social construct, their characteristics and usage can change over time. Just because they started as, or are predominately used as a tool of patriarchy, doesn’t mean that’s what they will be in the future. If you believe that something ‘inherent’ is an immutable trait, that you would disagree with the premise of the argument, but if you think it’s just a characteristic trait, then you would generally agree - if I change my last name to ‘Orange’ to signify my love of the fruit/colour, it is still a last name, but has nothing to do with patriarchy, proving that patriarchy is not an immutable trait of last names.

Personally, I think that both marriage and last names are predominately used as tools to enforce patriarchy historically and currently, but can imagine that changing in the future. But when I initially looked at the OP’s statement, I disagreed, because I understood ‘inherent’ to be an immutable trait.

I think the downvotes come from a semantic disagreement, based on a strong or weak definition of the word ‘inherent’.

For English sources probably the best book is Tokyo Noir by Jake Adelstein

If they are built and maintained correctly. And meltdown isn’t the only problem that could occur.

I don’t have much faith in a corrupt, self-regulated industry, with strong yakuza ties, to do things 100% the correct way, especially given everything we know about the industry post 2011. Knowing how much local political power the company has, I know they could literally get away with murder, as no politician or police would want to be on their bad side.

Don’t get me wrong, the missile was still the biggest threat, but I do believe the power plant isn’t necessarily safe. An engineering and/or scientific understanding of a modern power plant doesn’t mean shit if you don’t consider the political and capitalist systems the that underpin their construction and maintenance.

We were in this scenario last year, when NK launched a missile towards Hokkaido, and we were on the west coast, just next to a nuclear reactor.

After getting the altert, we put on clothes, went downstairs to the sturdiest room, stuck on the TV to the NHK news, and waited. The missle plopped into the ocean off the coast, and we had tempura for lunch.

There’s really nothing you can do in these situations but stay calm and do the small, sensible things.

Many people saying ‘live for the now’, which is totally valid, but there’s an alternative as well, which is the path I followed - devise a concrete economic plan for your life (5 year plan, 3 year plan, etc), and track ALL your spending until you have a strong grasp on how you like to spend your cash.

It’s hard to make more money, so do everything you can to reduce spending in your life. No only will you increase how much can put away, but you’ll need less to sustain yourself when you reduce how much you earn, due to the cultivation of a spendthrift life.

opossums

Oh, interesting! I never realised Opossums are actually marsupials. I don’t think I’ll start feeding wild ones apple slices and petting them like we do brushtail possums, though.

I just came across this chunky Indonesian boy on wikipedia.

Being that they’re from the Americas, I doubt Armadillos are marsupial. Probably closer relation to a sloth than a platypus.

Wombat are extremely powerful. They are expert diggers. They have extremely hard butts and if any predators follow down into their holes, the wombat can kick upwards, crushing their pursuer’s skull against the roof.

Despite their little legs, they can run in a straight line up to 40km/h. That puddle ain’t shit.

If you hit a roo with your car, the roo bounces off. If you hit a wombat with your tire, it can break the axle and put your car out of commission.

Wombats are the tanks of the marsupial world. Don’t fuck with a wombat.

the sole reason I stay in this cold dreary backwater of a country.

You do know you can get crumpets in any supermarket in sunny Queensland, yeah? You can even get Marmite (but why would you when Vegemite is superior).

I’ve only spent a couple months in France, but I agree from my experience. I think that foreigners that complain about the French being rude were just expecting special treatment, didn’t put in any effort themselves to be friendly, then shocked that the storekeeper/waiter wasn’t kissing their ass, even though they didn’t even manage to say ‘bonjour’.

“Kerokero” is correct romanization. No problem there.

• unless you live in Australia. We had to censor Peppa Pig for spreading this pro-spider propaganda. That said, there hasn’t been spider or snake deaths in years, due to antivenom. Will still hurt like hell though.