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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • Machinist@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldDo tell!!!
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    2 days ago

    It will be fun if we lose modern high yield rapeseed and soybean. Lovely.

    Unrelated but horrible farm story you reminded me of. Worked on a tater farm when I was a kid. One of my favorite things when riding the planter was when they would spray fungicide on the planting from previous days. It smelled just like Grapico cola (grape flavored soft drink). We all loved the smell of it and basically huffed the wind. Probably get dick cancer or something from it one day.


  • Novel inbound. Don’t think I’ve ever written this down.

    I hadn’t heard of the big mountain lion from Florida, I’ll have to look into it. Nifty.

    I have heard that the lions in Florida experienced a bad genetic bottleneck and are inbred and won’t survive long term without intervention. There has been discussion about bringing in fresh breeding stock to try and help them, don’t know if its been instituted.

    I saw mine deep in the woods, about 10mi north of a place called Cougar Holler. (I heard about that holler after this.) I saw the cat in Skyline WMA in North Alabama. Was 2mi from a road, no trail, after dark, coming up the side of a holler.

    On a flat spot up the side, almost to the top, I saw what looked like green headlights coming towards me. It was confusing because you couldn’t even get a four wheeler in there and it was quiet. Realized it was eyes as it got closer, we were moving towards each other. Got to about 20 yards and realized it was a giant cat. LED lamp, so color isn’t great/lot of green, but it looked like gold/tan fur and white belly. Its tail was proportionally shorter than a house cat and longer than a bobcat. End of the tail was squarish, almost tufted. Face was blocky and a little flatter than a common housecat. It was twice, maybe three times the size of a bobcat, so probably a juvenile.

    The way it moved was like a snake slithering. It was up on a deadfall, and it kept sliding out of my light. It slid off the log towards me. At that point I drew my handgun and started growling and hissing. It stopped and stared at me and I kept moving towards it. It turned back the way it came and just casually slithered away. It wasn’t afraid of me, just no longer interested.

    I know bobcats and house cats. This was not that.

    I will never, ever, forget its eyes or the way it moved. The entire event is burned into my memory. Adrenaline was up, but I wasn’t scared, living in the moment, excited. Got the shakes when I made it back to my truck and sat down.

    One of the peak experiences of my life.



  • Machinist@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlWhat Pseudoscience do you Believe?
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    3 days ago

    All electrical components contain magic smoke that was put into them at the time of manufacture. If that smoke is released, it doesn’t work anymore.

    Some broken or malfunctioning machinery respond to incantations projected with emotion. Cuss a machine hard enough and it will start working again.

    Another one I’ve personally experienced, but don’t know of any studies for: the main casting of machining equipment such as mills or lathes is a big crystal with unique properties. Each machine has different frequencies it resonates at when cutting. You can hear and feel the vibration when cutting and tune the machine/program for more efficient cutting and tool life. Sort of like taking a guitar that is out of tune and tuning it to a pleasant chord. Two identical machines will need different tunings. This tuning can change over time due to wear, temperature, humidity or maybe the phase of the moon.

    Unrelated to machinery: there are mountain lions in the deep south in the deep woods. I had one check me out once. The state wildlife agency denies the modern existence of mountain lions and I didn’t believe in them until I was face to face with one. I had to growl and hiss at it to convince it that I wasn’t interesting.



  • Born and raised in fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. The vast majority of evangelicals will know the story of Moses and the golden calf.

    A significant minority of evangelicals actually regularly study the Bible. (I used to be one of them.) They tend to be the core of the membership and teach classes and have leadership positions. See Mike Johnson for an example.

    The level of internal propaganda is wild. To be able to maintain that faith while regularly studying the Bible takes a lot of willing suspension of disbelief. Basically, they live in a bubble where they self-censor incoming information.

    Something like the ex-mormon CES Letter is needed for the evangelicals. Homeschooling also needs to have required curriculum to give children logical tools.

    Conservative cultural christians are a different problem and probably what you’re actually thinking of. They’re useful idiots for the far right as well as the evangelicals. They really don’t know much about the Bible or denominations around them and tend to believe what they were told last by far right media or their smart uncle who’s into conspiracy theories and shit. Political and religious outrage as entertainment.



  • I dug into ‘Creation Science’ for a while as a result of the cognitive dissonance. Trying to square reason and science with religion and belief in an inerrant Bible. Ultimately, I lost my religion and had an existential crisis that lasted about a year.

    It was terrible. Panic attacks and circular thinking. An existential crisis is depression’s cousin. Painful, frightening, and eventually exciting. I’m free now. I got rid of the slavery that was pushed into me as a child. Still have to fight the guilt and bad thought patterns.

    I was not successful in bringing any friends or family with me from before. I tried. I have regrets, but would do it again.



  • Just a note on the efficacy of activist messages in FOSS.

    In the Aughts, I was learning to play with microcontrollers. PIC microcontrollers were free as well as the JAL language. I ordered a hardware programmer from the Dutch guy who created JAL: Wouter van Ooijen. Probably my first purchase online. There was a statement in the license, to the effect of, the language could not be used to develop arms.

    Looking back, that was a turning point for me. I was machining arms for a living and continued to do so for years. It got me to thinking about what it was that I was producing with my hands. Weapons for killing people.

    I thought about it a lot. All these things I was making with blood and sweat being used to kill people. Running machines on night shift gives you time to think.

    His statement was, at minimum, at least partially responsible for me changing my mind. I grew past the bad religion and far right ideology that I was taught.

    I’m going to send him a thank you note.