• 33 Posts
  • 126 Comments
Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: July 18th, 2024

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  • Not true.

    We found that mealworms on the polystyrene-bran diet survived at higher rates than those fed on polystyrene alone.

    While the polystyrene-only diet did support the mealworms’ survival, they didn’t have enough nutrition to make them efficient in breaking down polystyrene.

    Many of the ones fed only polystyrene for a month did survive, they just fared poorly as with any organism that’s eating only one substance for an entire month. But they did live, which is pretty impressive.

    They have gut bacteria that can break down polystyrene for nutrition. They just can’t eat only polystyrene and nothing else and thrive. It’s mostly an area of research because they want to use the bacteria in processing waste, not that the mealworms are going to be the answer as-is.



  • Most of these are pretty shoddy, but this one is really good. It’s detailed and accurate about a lot of the idoiosyncrasies.

    Like FlyingSquid I would have pushed “The South” a little further north into Western Pennsylvania, and up through Missouri into south Indiana. And what in the world is “The Northwoods,” that’s the YooPee and Wisconsin is upper midwest. But other than that it’s spot on as to a whole lot of the details. South Florida as part of the Caribbean, Washington/Oregon as part of the interior once you get away from the coast… it has a lot of little important details right.


  • Mastodon is your coworker who’s honestly well-meaning and kind, but seems to have fits of upset for seemingly no reason at all and random beefs and drama with people that arise from nothing at all. She’s not very good at her job, but she can get it done, and she seems like a sincerely good person, which is enough that people like her.

    Misskey is the employee who’s incredibly efficient, but has her own system that no one else can make sense of or follow. You have to just let her do things the way she wants to do them, but it all works. She does not hang around with anyone, just comes in and does her thing.

    Bluesky is the guy who is always talking buddy-buddy while either wasting time or asking people for things, blows coke in the bathroom, is constantly hyping himself up. He seems to be very qualified, but it’s hard to tell how much of that is an act, and he’s also clearly a huge piece of shit. For some reason he is wildly popular with everyone.

    You didn’t ask, but Bonfire is the IT guy who seems to live in his windowless office, wears T-shirts to work, speaks to no one, and is personally responsible for about 40% of the company’s products and services. Most people have no idea who he is.



  • If they are outside the US, actively in contest with it in some kind of zero-sum game, then I don’t have too much to say that’s upset with them.

    If they are outside the US and angry about its imperialism, I think they have yet to learn that the US doesn’t have a monopoly on it, and some of the other brands are somehow even worse. But the temporary or permanent collapse of the US might still be a good thing for them, depending.

    If they are in the US, and edgelording, then fuck ‘em. I don’t exactly wish on them what’s in store, but there is a certain grim anticipation, I guess, of the day they start to learn about the reality of what they’ve been talking about.








  • I think Greta Thunberg said it quite well:

    It is probably impossible to overstate the consequences this specific election will have for the world and for the future of humanity.

    The Democrats winning this election is in no possible universe sufficient for human survival and an end to industrial-scale murder and collective climate suicide, but it sure looks necessary.

    Here’s her full quote, including her main point, which is the absolute urgency of going further than that, pressuring the whole system to do a hell of a lot better than the Democrats, not stopping with the election:

    Full size image

    Saying we need to go way further than Democrats for success makes perfect sense. Saying there’s no point in electing Democrats, while pretending you think the climate is important, is a sign that you’re either lying on purpose or horribly and dangerously confused.

    Edit: Fixed the image, I’m not sure why it won’t go bigger