Your pointless thoughts & observations

bioluminescence is ancient electricity. I wonder what they thought of it in the year 500 BC.  What did they think of fireflies?

  On 3/18/2022 at 12:17 AM, marf said:

bioluminescence is ancient electricity. I wonder what they thought of it in the year 500 BC.  What did they think of fireflies?

They probably thought it was fire

  On 3/18/2022 at 12:17 AM, marf said:

bioluminescence is ancient electricity. I wonder what they thought of it in the year 500 BC.  What did they think of fireflies?

Aristotle (4th century BC) called it "cold light." I dunno if anyone else wrote about it though. 

Why do some drivers still think using your headlights at night will drain your gas tank? Super dangerous.

i know i recognize this sample - probably from more than one thing. it's driving me crazy! it's like humming a song in your head, times x100000

(@0:28) it's a wagon christ interview so this should be pretty straightforward.

or you could leave me to it and see if this escalates to hallucinations or big maps of SAW2 artwork on my walls like a detective.

Today I heard Basshunter's Boten Anna after a long while. Jfc, remember when IRC was so popular that there was an eurodance song about a fucking IRC bot that went into top ten charts across Europe? Early 2000s, man.

  On 1/8/2022 at 5:05 PM, milkface said:

Very sad today. There's a book shop that's run by volunteers that I spend so much time at (all books are donated and sold dirt cheap, all profits go to keeping the lights on and the rest goes to charity). The selection the book shop has is absolutely astounding. From lots of 60s editions of classic French novels, to 70s music magazines, old coffee table art books, obscure books on esoteric science, auction catalogues from the 90s, etc. Not only that but it's such a cool building. It's small but is on 3 floors and has a spiral staircase running down the middle of it. I overheard a conversation last week about volunteering at the book shop so I thought I'd swing by today to ask if they needed any more volunteers. The lady at the shop told me that the owner of the shop (lovely old man who would always say hello to me in the street and would always tell me about his visits to England every time he saw the Barclays logo on my bank card) passed away last night and that the shop would be closing down some time in the next few months.

Never got his name but rest in peace Monsieur.

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Still getting reacts on this - don't worry the shop is staying open with funding from the local prefecture to help keep culture and arts alive.

  On 3/20/2022 at 11:13 PM, Dragon said:

i know i recognize this sample - probably from more than one thing. it's driving me crazy! it's like humming a song in your head, times x100000

 

(@0:28) it's a wagon christ interview so this should be pretty straightforward.

or you could leave me to it and see if this escalates to hallucinations or big maps of SAW2 artwork on my walls like a detective.

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Damn, I thought it was from this, but it turns out it isn't. Revisiting it was a good time though, so thanks.

2 major Dutch newspapers reporting details on a political/corruption scandal that were already reported last year, pretty much word for word. Feel like I'm losing my fucking marbles.

Today as I approached the door to leave my apartment I noticed I had a fork in my hand.  Hadn't eaten, didn't do dishes...  Why was I holding a fork?

Why does seafood taste fishy? Even freshwater and saltwater foodstuffs taste fishy.

Why does my cat's breath smell? Is it because he licks his anus?

What kind of cat do you have?

I’m gonna get hammered

(and eat a curry )

  On 3/25/2022 at 12:06 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Today as I approached the door to leave my apartment I noticed I had a fork in my hand.  Hadn't eaten, didn't do dishes...  Why was I holding a fork?

''bro i feel you''

  On 3/26/2022 at 5:39 AM, ManjuShri said:

Why does seafood taste fishy? Even freshwater and saltwater foodstuffs taste fishy.

Do you mean fish itself, or anything from the water? With the former, from what I understand it's mostly a sign of not being fresh. The type of fish (and its oiliness) will impact this as well, as that is what (I believe) starts to go rancid and causes the smell. 

full disclaimer: I'm not speaking from any actual working knowledge, just hearsay. edit: also, experience eating really fresh salmon (PNW life)

  On 3/26/2022 at 3:50 PM, user said:

What kind of cat do you have?

Regular stripey cat I think 

I've noticed over the past decade that Polish game developers seem to have a thing for intertwining traditional Japanese cultural aesthetics with cyberpunk. I've seen it in Shadow Warrior 2, Ruiner, and...well, Cyberpunk 2077.

Japanese game devs (particularly Capcom) on the other hand appear to have a long-standing tradition of adopting Western aesthetics and restructuring/fine-tuning them to their own tastes. This seems especially evident in Biohazard/Resident Evil 4, as well as Village (which I haven't played yet).

I seem to have become one of those people that's plagued by ultrasound.

My apartment building is situated next to a very active waterway and there's a dockyard visible from the window that's behind me as I'm typing this. At nigh I've always been able to feel, and sometimes hear the larger ship's diesels but since 6 months or so it's been getting quite intense. Right now it feels as if my whole floor is wobbling/pulsating and it's starting to worry me a bit. I suspect it might have something to do with the building finally settling (it was delivered about 6 years ago, I think and afaik it would be around this time that all the concrete has actually completely dried/cured/whatever concrete does. In addition to nightly wobbling there's also been piledriving every single day of the week, starting at 7 am, finishing at around 15:00 across the road from us. Only partially ultrasonic, unfortunately. According to my phone my monthly hours in bed average over the last 6 months is a little over 4 hours. FML. ain't even gonna fix this wall of text.

  On 3/28/2022 at 1:26 AM, user said:

I seem to have become one of those people that's plagued by ultrasound

You're describing infrasound, which is low-frequency and carries long distance due to long wavelengths, often below 20 Hz; ultrasound is high-frequency, over 20 kHz. There's something generating infrasound around the apartment building where I live: in some places inside our apartment a low, throbbing pulse can be either felt or heard, and it's driving me nuts because I can't locate the source. I think it could be the A/C system of the parking cave not directly below our building, the intake/exhaust structure is at a distance of about 30 meters (100 feet or so). But I'm not sure - the throbbing is not constant, so it's on and off, but I haven't been able to discern a pattern.

It's not a pointless observation, it's a real problem that makes some places practically hostile to human habitation.

  Quote

Terry Riley（lives in Japan now）

I think I might have an ice cream problem.  It's the only grocery item other than milk and coffee related things that I buy on the regular (twice a week-ish)

  On 3/28/2022 at 1:40 AM, dcom said:

You're describing infrasound, which is low-frequency and carries long distance due to long wavelengths, often below 20 Hz; ultrasound is high-frequency, over 20 kHz. There's something generating infrasound around the apartment building where I live: in some places inside our apartment a low, throbbing pulse can be either felt or heard, and it's driving me nuts because I can't locate the source. I think it could be the A/C system of the parking cave not directly below our building, the intake/exhaust structure is at a distance of about 30 meters (100 feet or so). But I'm not sure - the throbbing is not constant, so it's on and off, but I haven't been able to discern a pattern.

It's not a pointless observation, it's a real problem that makes some places practically hostile to human habitation.

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yes, infrasound is a persistent form of pollution today. Most of the time you don't even know it's there, but in moments of attention it really becomes this ever present annoyance. Not far away from where I live is an industrial furnace for aluminium casting, and it's situated right in the center of the town (terrible idea). The sound reverberates between the buildings and the surrounding hills work as a sound amplifier (I live on a hill), so it's like an old Greek open-air theatre effect. "My" hill also catches a distant transport railway and a motor highway. Both are around 10-15km from here but I can hear them in rare moments of complete silence as this low-vibrating noise or hum, the railway especially at night with the heavy diesel locomotives.

I wonder when urban planners are going to start to take these things into their decision making...

  On 3/28/2022 at 11:58 AM, cichlisuite said:

I wonder when urban planners are going to start to take these things into their decision making...

... property developers tho

"For too long this country has treated its economy like a life-support system for the property/construction business.This in spite of the evidence everywhere of the damage they do: environment, amenity, traffic, infrastructure bottlenecks...Take your pick.It's time the entire industry was put back in its collective box.Planning is a good start-followed by a reduction in immigration and a phasing out of special tax treatment. But put the noise cancelling headphones on first..." 

I think this might be fun for a lot of the people on here

https://www.heardle.app/

It's a song guessing game.