Yep. It’s quite frustrating, because I want to support the concept of the community and what it supports tech-wise, but frequently I find myself clicking off the site because I’ve seen something political so eye-rollingly crazy I don’t feel like sticking around.

It’s called the double ear mutation! It’s a known recessive gene that appears in some cats.

The Culture is objectively the safer answer. Living in Star Trek feels like it carries a fairly significant daily risk of being assimilated / used in a Romulan plot / sucked into some weird negative space wedgie / having a console explode in your face for no good reason.

Meanwhile, if you’re in the Culture, you’ve pretty well got it made.

Like the other comment says, concrete is rocks of various sizes (called “aggregate”) mixed with a cement and other additives to change its particular properties.

The cement is the really important point, because once water is added to the cement, it undergoes a chemical reaction which hardens it. Saying cement “dries” isn’t quite correct - yes, it stops being wet, but some of the water actually ends up incorporated into the molecules of the final cement. This is also why cement is really hard to recycle - you have to undo that chemical reaction, as opposed to asphalt which stays the same material.

Fun fact: When concrete is mixed at a big plant, it begins curing immediately. Concrete being carried in those big mixer trucks needs to be delivered before it cures in the truck!

I’m not honestly sure. Asphalt (or, more properly, asphalt and gravel as a mixture, which is what is mostly used as a road surface) and concrete both are pretty ‘hard’ materials.

Specifically talking about asphalt vs. concrete:

• Asphalt is relatively cheap vs. concrete. This is partly because asphalt is a whole lot easier to recycle than concrete, which is almost un-recyclable, but also because asphalt is a relatively “simple” material - it’s mostly petroleum byproducts and gravel.

• Concrete doesn’t grip very well, compared to the relatively textured surface of asphalt. Especially when wet! This is why you often see concrete formed with “ridges” or “bumps” cast into it. However…

• This also makes concrete noisier and bumpier to drive over, making drivers less happy. It’s why it’s often used for short, low-speed uses like driveways, parking lots, or side streets.

Just about the only thing concrete has going for it is it’s endurance, which it definitely wins handily.

Every few years another engineered road solution is conceived - I’ve seen variations that would use glass which could be ‘re-fused’, concepts for recycling plastic waste, and many more. Most of these run into the issue that they’re either less ‘grippy’, or that they simply cost more even accounting for the longer lifespan.

In a steam locomotive, but a scale model one that was ridden on instead of in. It was actually pretty cool; they still hand-stoked the firebox and everything, just… really small.

Honestly? I’d crank out the fictional settings I’ve been tinkering with for a long time (one a military-political science fiction setting, the other a dark fantasy one).

Part of the problem is that I tend to think and create visually, so I don’t feel writing really captures either very well. I can picture, in my head, how I want to visually frame the most enthralling or emotional moments… but translating them to words never seems to capture it. So an AGI that could produce the media from my imagination on-demand is pretty much a dream come true.

Really glad I’m not the first to come here and say this. We’re “firing” programs now? Come on.

I have actually heard the “original person” complaining about this… but the original person is also the kind of person who wants a picture-perfect ocean view every single day. Wind turbines? Visual pollution. Ships passing by? Visual pollution. Their neighbor has too many holiday decorations up? Visual pollution.

They just genuinely expect the rest of civilization around them to comply to their demands for a fantasy-perfect oceanside existence.

I don’t know if it’s something about the genetic or just the coloring, but voids always look like they’re super fit.

This is a big thing killing my interaction with Lemmy as well. I want to like it, but I drop into a discussion thread and the top-engaged/boosted comments are spicy and almost designed to promote maximum anger. And I feel like, “Do I really, really want to spend significant time writing out a deeper comment to engage with this community…?”

I have no medical background, but…

“[Patient in room 4B] has a urinary tract infection with Methicillin-resistant Staph now, on top of the massive pulmonary embolism post”… surgery, I assume? Not sure about the AB. Second sentence I don’t get, but third is “…time to talk with Next of Kin about Do Not Resucitate. Will be burying them if they don’t start recovering soon.”

That pretty close?

c/worldbuilding

Thanks for the shoutout! It’s going to be a slow climb up, but I’m looking forwards to growing this place as well.