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SoleInvictus

@ SoleInvictus @lemmy.world

Posts
5
Comments
445
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Researchers Solve Mystery of The Sea Creature That Evolved Eyes All Over Its Shell

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  • To preface, I'm a microbiologist, so I have skin in the science game. I hate how these articles often have science illiterate authors or authors who are imprecise with their wording. They repeat misinformation on basic topics that science educators have been striving to correct for decades, perpetuating the cycle.

    ...the study shows once again how evolution throws up multiple solutions to basic problems...

    In this case, it's the "mysterious force of evolution that whips up solutions to problems". Evolution doesn't create solutions. There is no guiding force behind evolution.

    Evolution through natural selection selects for existing solutions that were generated randomly through mutation, increasing the frequency of that trait because those without either die or are outcompeted. What happens if a trait is required for survival but no organisms have it? They all die. That's why over 99% of all multicellular species that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. If you include microbes, make that 99.99999%.

  • Why do they still dye the rivers green for St. Patricks Day? It's not a good look for downtown Chicago.

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  • I like that you're thinking of alternatives, though! Don't ever lose that, it's less common than you might think.

  • “It’s a Silent Fire”: Decaying Digital Movie and TV Show Files Are a Hollywood Crisis

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  • Seriously. If these "media pros" are actually concerned, it appears my personal server adheres to higher standards than their industry.

  • Hmmm

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  • Check out OP's post history. They whine a lot about women, especially feminists and the pay gap, and Muslims in that cringy way boomer men more often do. Pretty sure they're a boomer.

  • Kids Are Watching Brain Melting AI-Generated Videos on YouTube Without Parents Realizing

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  • I'd imagine an increasingly hostile world economy coupled with a then-looming but now beginning climate crisis might have a huge impact there.

  • Why do they still dye the rivers green for St. Patricks Day? It's not a good look for downtown Chicago.

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  • It'd be bad. Real bad. An algae bloom of massive proportions. It has one huge issue.

    Enough algae to make the rivers run green will use up enough oxygen at night to kill off fish and oxygen hungry invertebrates, starting a chain reaction of death.

    Now you have a river full of dead organisms, so they start decomposing thanks to microbes. You know what many types of bacteria love? Oxygen. So they start using up oxygen, multiplying all the while. Night hits and the algae need to use oxygen, but a bunch die because there's not enough. Now the river is full of literally hundreds, maybe thousands of tons of decomposing matter. The river largely goes anoxic (meaning there's no oxygen) so things start dying left and right. A bunch of those bacteria can live with and without oxygen, so they use up what they can and keep on chugging without.

    Now we've moved from aerobic respiration to anaerobic. You know what the primary byproducts of anaerobic respiration are? Organic acids and alcohols, which smell. The river begins to smell like an infected wound. It's no longer green but deep, murky brown from the suspension of decomposing organisms. This continues until the river flushes everything out, but it kills what's downstream as it continues until it hits the ocean, where it likely continues to kill everything in the vicinity until it becomes dilute enough.

    I'm a microbiologist and worked with algae and cyanobacteria as an undergrad. Never underestimate the impact of uncountable billions of trillions of living organisms.

  • Final Fantasy music legend Nobuo Uematsu thinks modern ‘movie-like’ game music is uninteresting | VGC

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  • Elden Ring had a soundtrack?! Now I need to play it again. I think I had the music volume off.

  • A Woman Was Arrested For A DUI. Turns Out She Was Having A Stroke

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  • Sorry to play armchair doctor, but has she tried budesonide? I ask because a friend of mine has/had very similar symptoms. He was diagnosed with microscopic colitis but it was actually mast cell related. Doctors are still trying to figure out what mast cell disorder it is, but the leading theory is the other medication was causing his mast cells to degranulate, whereas budesonide inhibits degranulation.

    As someone who also has a mystery mast cell issue (go MCAS!), my mast cells going pop makes me really loopy, sometimes to the point of incoherence.

  • Netflix’s 3 Body Problem Is a Grandiose, Compelling Sci-Fi Yarn You Don’t Want to Miss

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  • Apparently he has crippling anxiety. I get it and, out of everyone I've listed, I'm very okay with him and Sanderson. I'm just wary of getting invested in unfinished series. Lynch only has the Gentleman Bastards series, which I fell in love with. Sanderson has so many literary irons in the fire that he's going to have gobs of unfinished business if something happens to him or he pulls a GRRM and just fucks off one day.

  • I donated some spindles of burned media and programs to Salvation Army expecting they'd throw 'em out. They're selling 'em for $3.

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  • No no, you really weren't off base. Even if they were owned by Walmart, I doubt they could do worse.

  • Pete Buttigieg forced to explain that lead is poisonous to obtuse Republican

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  • Well I was thinking more along some kind of governmental website with a search ability

    I wish! There's no registration required for industrial use, so there's no registry to search.

  • Pete Buttigieg forced to explain that lead is poisonous to obtuse Republican

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  • Lead paint doesn't contain enough lead to significantly control radiation of any type. You need a sizable amount to block x-ray radiation: think about the thickness and weight of the vests radiation techs use as protection.

    The lead is used as a pigment and helps to decrease dry time and to increase its durability, corrosion resistance, and fungicidal properties. Lead paint is quite cheap and is still used on outdoor structures like bridges, road markings, storage tanks, building exteriors, etc. Lead-free alternatives exist but aren't always as durable or are comparably durable but often more expensive. There are no applications of which I am aware that require lead paint. It's 100% a cost and convenience issue.

    Only Nepal and the Philippines have enacted any meaningful control of industrial lead paint. The US reduced the allowed lead content about 15 years ago but lead based paint is still actively used.

    P.s. I'm not just a crazy paint fanatic, I'm a paid, crazy paint fanatic - it's part of my job. Welcome to the EPA in the United States - better than nothing, but still industry's bitch.

  • Pete Buttigieg forced to explain that lead is poisonous to obtuse Republican

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  • There's an easy, not very legal way. Head to the Home Depot and buy some lead test strips, then take them and a pocketknife for some DIY paint sampling at the facility in question.

    If the police find you, make sure you're white and aren't near any oak trees.

  • Pete Buttigieg forced to explain that lead is poisonous to obtuse Republican

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  • Here's something wild: it was only banned for residential use. As long as the paint is labeled 'for industrial use only', manufacturers can go crazy with the lead. Despite the common misconception of lead exposure via paint being primarily due to "eating paint chips", it's mostly due to the inhalation and ingestion of the dust formed by friction and the gradual breakdown of lead paint. To get to the point, living downwind of any business that still utilizes legal lead paint means you may be exposed to lead.

  • I donated some spindles of burned media and programs to Salvation Army expecting they'd throw 'em out. They're selling 'em for $3.

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  • That's great, I'm glad you got some deals!

    The thing about them is their low wages and reluctance to train their employees meant high-end goods were often priced very low. Levi's jeans were $10-15 a pair while designer jeans were priced at $5. I recall someone donating a batch of Hermés scarves. None of the pricers knew the brand, so they put them out for $1 each. I bought them all for 50% off (employee discount!) and hit eBay. This kind of thing happened weekly so the employees were always looking for things we could resell. We made less than $20k/year, that's how we scraped by!

    I'm not sure how other stores are, but mine was a great example of being a penny wise and a pound foolish.

  • I donated some spindles of burned media and programs to Salvation Army expecting they'd throw 'em out. They're selling 'em for $3.

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  • So, I'm not trying to be the "ackshually" guy.

    Value Village isn't owned by Walmart.

    Buuuut, you're still right. They're absolutely a shit company. I was an assistant supervisor at Value Village a couple of decades ago. First, they're 100% for profit but advertise in such a way that consumers believe they're a charity. What they do is buy donations from charities by the pound. Any donations accepted at the store on behalf of a charity are paid at a drastically reduced rate, so of course they push HARD for customers to bring donations directly to the store.

    The shit cherry on top was the stores lying to charities about the quality of received goods to avoid paying. If clothes, for example, were soiled, they'd refuse to pay for the entire batch. Stores would find a few dirty shirts, claim the entire cart was crap, claw the money back, and sell the rest of the cart.

    The company makes a HUGE profit but pays their employees peanuts. Our head cashier had worked for the company for eight years and capped out at $7.25/hour in 2003, about $14 today. One year, they announced no raises, no reason given. My then girlfriend and I discovered the owners had purchased a cabin in Northern California for use by the c-suite douches. The store manager was pulling in $60k a year, plus bonus, in a very low cost of living area. Me? $8.25 per hour.

    What else? They incentivize under staffing by making a supervisor's paltry bonuses tied to their staffing budget. Staying at budget meant no bonus. They had to come in under budget for any bonus, and the more "savings" the higher the bonus. I got chewed out when I first started scheduling because I used all the hours allotted in the budget. The store went from a shit hole to being fairly respectable but it would eat into my boss's bonus. Her maximum annual bonus? $2.5k.

    So they may not be owned by Walmart, but they're the Walmart of thrift stores. Fuck those guys.

  • Voters blame businesses more than Biden for sticky inflation

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  • I'd settle for where my parents were 30 years ago. One middling income, no higher education, and a 2500 square foot house purchased for $350k dollars (in today dollars adjusted for inflation) that's 'worth' $750k now.

    Adjusting for inflation, my wife and I combined make as much as my dad did.

  • Netflix’s 3 Body Problem Is a Grandiose, Compelling Sci-Fi Yarn You Don’t Want to Miss

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  • It's about the frequency of Stormlight Archives releases. Last I checked, he stated he had over a dozen Cosmere novels to release before the next one drops. If he gets hit by a truck, that's the end of it.

  • Netflix’s 3 Body Problem Is a Grandiose, Compelling Sci-Fi Yarn You Don’t Want to Miss

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  • I had the same reaction. George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, and Brandon Sanderson have me spooked.