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What is the most advanced chemistry you've done on your own at home or work?
  • Had to do a flame test to identify old fuel for recycling.

    Made blue dye from indigo, and red and orange dye from madder, mixing in alum and other things. Making blue is amazing, it comes out green then changes colour all at once. Get the mix wrong and you get the wrong colour.... Also we boiled one batch of madder and got orange instead of scarlet, so even the temperature had to be regulated.

    Most recently, been making etched plates from the inside of soft drink cans, etching with copper sulfate (they sell it in Bunnings as a fertiliser). Lots of fun!

    So yeah mostly art projects.

    That said even baking a cake is pretty fancy chemistry.

  • Life Hack
  • Plenty. I have had people tell me I am inhumane for criticising tipping culture, and if I point out it is related to the extreme class system and slavery history of America they downvote me to hell and try to justify that it is "land of tha free" or whatever.

    They don't even have freedom from hunger or illness in their messed up country.

  • If we all exist in a simulation, what will happen once we start running out of RAM?
  • Have you not played Dwarf Fortress? Frame rate goes way down, a situation imperceptible to the dorfs. Then eventually the operator of the machine looses interest, or a oandemic makes the pop count drop, or a combo of those.

    Edit; You should read some Greg Egan if you're into this question.

  • Texting in house
  • I do, and he reads them days later and apologises.

    Now that he is overseas on a business trip he reads them all immediately, but apparently in-house is not an option.

  • [Weekly thread] What have you been watching lately?
  • Rewatching Buffy (It is surprisingly good for a show a quarter century old)

    Rewatched Super 8 with a friend. Best train crash ever.

    Rewatching Bluey. Odd how a wholesome show can make you feel so patriotic.

    Watching Earth, a BBC production about the creation of our world, which is on ABC iView at the moment. Really epic BBC production, although the accent of the presenter is echoed in the subtitles which is pretty distracting. He pronounces many of his Rs as Ws. Worth it for the nuts and bolts of how eukaryotes and fungi evolved, etc. I do recommend. Plus free to watch!

  • My terrifying strong sewing machine
  • I was using a thimble when I did that. The needle popped through the thin metal of the thimble, through my finger, and hit the inside of the thimble on the other side. I couldn't remove the thimble, I tried but the needle was locking it on my finger. I had to pull the needle out through my finger, then remove, by which time the thimble was full of blood....

  • Create a race to the bottom in the rental market
  • I have lived in apartments in Western Sydney and in Newcastle that had less than half the apartments in the block tenanted.... yet none advertised. I do not know the motivations of the owners. But it is quite common, in my experience. Perhaps they have no one pass through their doors for six months at a time or more for another reason, but I cannot think of one.

  • What was the last time you clicked on an ad?
  • Sorting the safe from the scam seems a terrible way to spend an arvo playing roulette, but sure if she feels she must. Personally I have been very successful searching without those advertisements. You can hover over them as you go past, and their links are invariably complex enough to nope the hell out. I don't need that sort of risk in my life.

    If she honestly wants to shop H&M (USian I'm guessing?) or David Jones or whatever, she should go to their website. Even the most humble local shops have websites these days, my local custom paper seller has, like most shopfronts, had its website long before the shopfront arrived in the world. And buying from the small and local is better for the environment, better for your home town, and more reliable.

  • What was the last time you clicked on an ad?
  • Thankyou for restoring my faith in you, mate. I hope the girlfriend shopping issue works itself out (perhaps she should use her phone hotspot to connect her shopping machine if she wants to be scammed? I use mine for some stuff on occasion, if and as necessary, and my boyfriend and other housemates are thus not affected) and I hope the rest of your weekend is excellent.

  • How many days do your wear your socks before changing them?
  • I wear cheap croc knockoffs. Once I got real crocs as a christmas present, and they weren't as comfy as the cheap no name brand notcrocs.

    That said, still prefer leather sandals, they are more comfortable still. But that could be because I live in a hot climate.

  • What was the last time you clicked on an ad?
  • Lol ?!? My girlfriend did no such thing! (My boyfriend didn't either!)

    Tell yours to use more small local shops, for the sake of the environment. Honestly it isn't tough to shop without ads that steal your money, credit card, and identity.

  • A question about secure chats

    Two questions.

    My family insist on using Whatsapp for the family chats. I have to keep a copy on a device just so I can communicate with them. I do so under protest, as I was always told it isn't secure. My brother has just said

    "oh Whatsapp is encrypted, it's perfectly secure".

    First, is it actually as encrypted and safe as my brother claims? That would solve everything.

    Second, if it isn't, where can I get some proof that we should switch to Telegram or whatever? Proof which doesn't make me look like a raving loony?

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    ‘Reddit can survive without search’: company reportedly threatens to block Google
    www.theverge.com ‘Reddit can survive without search’: company reportedly threatens to block Google

    Reddit is apparently seeking to strike deals with big AI companies.

    ‘Reddit can survive without search’: company reportedly threatens to block Google

    This could affect a lot of peoples searches. I don't know about you, but when my laptop stopped working correctly last month, the best solutions were still ones that google linked me to reddit to read.... That said, don't believe every news article on the internet and all that...

    5
    This seems to happen more and more recently

    If I choose to drive on anything except the freeway, I get told the road is closed, drive it anyway (the road is, after all, not closed) and spend the entire journey with a mapless screen. Great 4G+ reception the whole way. Happens all over NSW. Weird.

    37
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)TH
    Thisfox @sopuli.xyz
    Posts 3
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