They look like springtails to me. I use springtails and isopods in my gecko’s terrarium as a clean up crew.
The isopods eat the poop while the springtails eat any mold that would grow in moist conditions. I do have plants in there too so all that bug poop goes right back into the soil to be reused.
They can’t survive outside of a moist environment for long and will simply dry out. I have no idea how harmful they are to plants alone but at least you don’t have to worry about mold.
Omegaverse works are most frequently focused on male-male couples composed of an Alpha and an Omega,[6] though heterosexual Omegaverse works have been produced,[11] and by 2013, about 10% on Archive of Our Own were labeled male/female.[8]
The origin of the Omegaverse is typically attributed to the fandom surrounding the American television series Supernatural, as a fusion between werewolves and the male pregnancy subgenre of erotic fan fiction.
I read that wiki page and I can’t help but come to the conclusion that primarily gay werewolf fanfic is being used to promote fascism?
I prefer my absurdist and surrealist humour to be works of fiction D:
I had an experience in Germany that really stuck with me. It highlighted to me the difference in how men are treated around children. As a north American, it’s assumed that older men around children is an unsafe situation and that left me feeling doubt and uneasiness whenever I was around children.
I had the opportunity to work and travel in Germany for a year and picked up a job as a home cleaner. Think Uber but for private property cleaners.
I was scheduled to clean a home I’ve never been to before and the owner told me that their son would be there to let me in. When I arrived, I called the home owner and she let her son know to let me in. He was probably about 10 years old and I was completely shocked that this person was trusting a complete stranger with her son who was home alone. I did my job and let him stay in his room and didn’t bother to clean his room when he refused after I asked.
I did get a chance to meet the parents on later visits to clean but that really put it into perspective to me just different men can be treated in different parts of the world.
Emotional intelligence has always been a sort of hidden magnet in my life that’s pulled me towards people who had the emotional capacity to treat people like people instead of treating people based off any first impressions or preconceived labels.
The people who I remember and hold closest in my memories have been people who understood that I’m my own unique person, with my own experiences that shaped me, with my own way of solving problems, and my own way of learning from those experiences. They were able to assist and guide me in a more human and understandable way. It felt more positive and encouraging. I learned so much more from people with a stronger sense of emotional intelligence in comparison to people who lack emotional intelligence.
Unfortunately, with what I believe to be a global mental health crisis brought on by the arrival of a global pandemic, it’s been obvious to me that there has been a critical lack of education in any form of emotional intelligence. Thinking back on my own education, there was more a focus on employable math and science skills, language with a heavy historical perspective, history with a heavily propagandized perspective and obedience within a narrow and confined learning structure. The only class that taught me any sort of life skills was the lowest level math class I had the option to take. The math class only “stupid” kids took.
After the initial uncertainty wore off and reality set in with the global pandemic, those who lacked the emotional intelligence to look within began to lash out at everyone around them. To them, the world turned against them as they were expected to be empathetic towards other people. It’s been difficult to process and deal with such a critical lack of emotional intelligence on such a large scale.
Those who are filled with hate for themselves and the world around them have far more energy than those with a better sense of their own emotional intelligence. Those who are filled with hate are burning out everyone else around them.
I think now more than ever, there needs to be more emotional intelligence education for both young and old. It will be very difficult to help ourselves move forward if we aren’t being empathic towards each other and the world around us.
I’m aware what I’ve said isn’t very specific to autism but it’s a topic that was made much more clearer to me after figuring out I have autism and understanding how it’s affected my life.
Pride encompasses more than just homosexuality. There’s a wide range sexuality that is there to be acknowledged and celebrated. Especially in the face of so much hate that is rampant today. It’s strange that there is such a focus on “homosexuality” in particular.
The way you talk about etiquette and that homosexuality should be a thing not discussed in public is also concerning. Sweeping up all the people that Pride represents under a rug doesn’t make the real and dangerous threat these people face magically disappear.
In order to us as a species on this planet to collectively move forward, we must be able to talk about difficult topics. If we shut our eyes, ears and minds to difficult topics, refusing to acknowledge past and current horrors and deny existence and freedom, we will never be able to move forward as we repeat history over and over and over again.
Sexuality, and by extension, the right to express one’s self freely and safely is a positive and encouraging step forward that has the power to uplift and benefit everyone, not just those who celebrate Pride.
By ignoring these people, and any other specific groups of people, we derail our chance to learn and understand ourselves and the world around us. We will only end up repeating history until we can’t record history any longer.
If something as simple as a rainbow potion is that upsetting, the game is open sourced and you can remove it yourself. The other option that I usually take when I disagree with a developer is to stop giving them my attention and money. I can’t be upset if I don’t subject myself to their artistic creations.
I wish it were that simple but the opossums in my head are throwing a party every night with the raccoons, the skunks and Carl while I toss and turn all night…
There’s no greater shock to people who lack empathy and an unwillingness to treat people with dignity than a person willing to put their foot down to prioritize their own dignity.
Fucking with manipulators would be more fun if they weren’t such scary and dangerous people.
I always find it interesting when someone states they don’t enjoy an activity and one of the first responses are to subtly guilt the commenter for not enjoying an activity.
I’ve been losing interest in movies for the past 15-20 years and being guilted into enjoy something I no longer enjoy for someone else’s expense does not sound like fun.
Fortunately there are plenty of activities to do together. As you mentioned, cooking together sounds great to me. So does walking in nature. I especially love playing music for each other because I love hearing what other people listen to.
Humans are wonderfully complex and there’s plenty in the world to for us to enjoy.
Many people get annoyed that I often give vague answers. If I over explain myself, they’ll twist my words into a new meaning. I’m confused :D
I’ve had stocks in a couple forms over my lifetime and after a while, both times I have pulled all my money out.
The first time was shortly after the 2008 crash. All those reassuring words my investing manager person told me were simply sweet nothings. I decided that taking the hit of losing half my money was a life lesson and used the remaining half to go travel and live a life for myself. That investing manager later went on to have a covid party out of defiance for masking requirements, caught covid and died. Felt good knowing my stranger-danger alarms were working even if I didn’t understand my decisions fully at the time.
The second time I simply put my money into a low risk, government stock option for a few years. After watching global leaders fumble the handling of a global pandemic, I lost faith my own government to have my best interest in mind. I pulled my money out again.
I personally feel super uncomfortable allowing other people to make money off my money that I am risking. Even if it is low risk. It make me feel exploited.
Ultimately, I decided I don’t need my money to work for me because I don’t even want to work. I hate the concept of money. To me, money just disconnects us from community and nature.
If you are curious to how I live, it’s with very little. I spent a number of years of my life living out of a 34 liter sized backpack. Living minimally while making sure what I owned had meaning, purpose or intention transfered over to when I finally started settling into a certain location.
This game has caught my eye. The visual style alone is what really draws me in to the world.
There’s something about the Half-Life-ish graphics and unique style that sort of hits a personal nostalgia for me. It has a wonderful combination of weird and abstract with a touch of familiarity. It also feels both vibrant and gritty at the same time. Something I didn’t realize I was missing so much. Especially after playing Baldur’s Gate 3 which has absolutely gorgeous but very busy graphics.
After I get over my Caves of Qud hyperfixation, I am definitely going to pick this game up.
I wouldn’t mind if societies also made some compromises for me too. Currently it feels like I’m making all the compromises to fit in but made to feel like it’s never enough.
Feels like I’m trying to fix an awful relationship by doing all the hard work myself. I’m tired.
I try to remind people that doing nothing is not a bad thing and something you can enjoy. Productivity can be quite addictive for some people. For others, it can be so ingrained into their mindset that they are driven by guilt to remain productive.
In a couple years from now when the sun finally decides to kill all life on earth for shit and giggles, all that progress and productivity won’t mean anything. I’d rather chill the fuck out and enjoy the nice views with the people I like around me and I only have one life to do that.
Some men are so desparate for love from their male friends but can’t handle the idea of showing any form of sincerity towards another man.
Instead of calling it love between male friends, respect becomes a currency for love and takes on some pretty toxic and abusive traits. Name calling, belittlement, insults, questionably aggressive forms of physical touch and more just to avoid giving a compliment or a hug.
That underlying love never gets expressed in a healthy way and you get the strange, hypocritical and mind breakingly confusing behaviour. Why do they hate everything about me but want me to go out for drinks after work tonight?
I think all this unaddressed love disguised as respect is more gay than the time I walked into the bathroom at a gay club and saw two guys giving another guy a blowjob.
Go give your buddy a hug, it ain’t as gay as the 50th dick joke of the day that you have to say. Hell, it’s not even lunch time yet, my dude.
I think managed is an appropriate word which describes the process the indigenous people applied to the land. They not only farmed on the land, but the use of controlled burns helped renew the area after it had been used. After farming in an area, it will deplete nutrients in the soil. If you want to use that area again in the future, you will have to have some sort of long term understanding of the land to regenerate the area.
Those fires also help guide wildlife to previously used, burned and planted areas ensuring the wildlife is not wiped out in the process. And since the burns are low heat, this helps get rid off weedy overgrowth, open seed pods and prepare the area for a new growth cycle. I assume there will be lots of bugs and micro-fauna survive underground to help kick start the renewal process quickly after a burn occurs. Managing this cycle requires a lot of effort. Especially if you consider that this was happening all over Australia by many different communities.
Australia was described to be green and beautiful by the first European settlers who arrived there. Without indigenous intervention, the land has been trampled and ruined by European farming practices. Now we have the red desert many people imagine when they think of Australia.
If you want to know more, I’d suggest watching This 14 minute mini-documentary which briefly covers things nicely with sources.
I think what bothers me most about this comment is that there seems to be a recurring theme I’m seeing on lemmy. Whenever there is a post or comment about indigenous peoples, there will be someone quick to post minimizing and belittling statements about indigenous peoples. These statements never have any supporting evidence and from my perspective seem to be aimed at erasing indigenous culture, history, efforts, achievements and dignity.
If anything, now more than ever, we need to learn from these communities. We may have lost an incredible amount of indigenous/local land knowledge due to unchecked colonialist pursuits, but there is still knowledge out there by people willing to share. We shouldn’t ignore or erase these peoples because someone else told us they are simple barbarians.
For a little background, I worked in the field for about 5-6 years, half the time as a contractor/helper, and the other half as an apprentice (which I never completed). The company built automation lines which primarily did metal welding. High voltage spot welding, Automated MIG welding and Laser welding/braising.
As for wastefulness, I don’t even know where to start and I am sure I will miss a bunch of things. In no particular order of importance:
Automation requires A LOT of materials. Pipes, cables, trays, robots, supports, safety, devices, fasteners and the list goes on. Keep in mind that All these materials need to be extracted, transported, refined and remade into what we need to build an automation line.
Automation is Heavily dependent on fossil fuels. We need machines to extract raw materials. We need machines to transport raw materials. We need machines and heat to refine raw materials. We need machines and heat to create a final product. We need to transport those final products and then we can finally work with that final product to install into an automation line. Some materials that we work with such as cables, hosing and tubing will create some sort of waste during the installation process. Maybe not as much as the other steps but it all adds up in the end.
I worked in electrical and all of our cables would have some sort of plastic/rubber/silicone sheathing. I honestly don’t know how we can expect to keep up with the growing electrical demand AND cut down on crude oil extraction. We need insulators to safely use electricity and plastics do that job very well.
I don’t know how resource extensive it is to make a microprocessor, but I imagine it still takes a lot of machinery and heat to create them. Microprocessors are in a lot of devices used in automation.
Wear and tear on mechanical parts. Robots are great for doing repetitive tasks. Robots and anything that moves (conveyors or clamps, for example) will involve moving parts. Anything with moving parts will wear down eventually. Those parts are generally trashed and replaced with a functioning part.
Electronic Devices. Computers, PLC (Programmable Logic Controllers), Sensors, power supplies, transformers, lights, and HMI (Human-Machine Interface) are some of the devices used in automation. Lots of plastics, metals and microprocessors. Since these are electronic devices, they need to be shipped in plastic to ensure the devices are free from moisture or shock damage. The plastic wrapping and plastic shock foam pads that have no purpose after the device has been removed from the packaging get thrown out.
Shipping. Everything coming in or leaving has to be shipped. For smaller items, they may be bundled up on a transport skid which may mean it is wrapped in layers and layers of shipping plastic wrap in order to secure the load. Larger items may require plastic or metal tie-down straps. All of which are disposed of after use. Robots, tooling, fencing, piping, cables, power disconnects and so on are VERY heavy. All this weight requires so much fuel to transport from place to place before reaching the final installation site.
Reusing vs. replacing. Depending on the request, we may reuse old robots or tools but in many cases, A LOT of old, still usable material just gets chucked into the trash. Companies care less about waste and more about downtime. It’s far quicker to tear out the old, bring in new cables/piping/tray, slap it in and get that power running as soon as possible.
Weight. Things are getting heavier. Heavier stuff means bigger robots. Bigger robots require more power. You can probably look back at some previous points to understand why the extra weight is not good.
Energy consumption. As we push further into automation, we require more electrical power. Before I left my company, the power demand was increasing at a mind blowing rate. Towards the end of my time there, I spent months with a couple other people prepping high voltage power main disconnects. When I first started there, there was only one person prepping disconnects when the demand required it.
Oils and fumes. Moving parts generally require lubrication. Greases and oils are generally not so nice to the environment considering the actions required to handle, dispose of, or clean up oil. Lots of fumes are created from welding metal together and it’s pretty nasty stuff. My patience with that company disappeared after they started welding aluminum without filtering the aluminum welding fumes.
Management are prideful idiots. The dingleberries that run the place have no idea what they are doing and have no idea what it takes to build an automation line. Some of their mistakes cost millions of dollars in wasted materials and all that shit just gets chucked. It’s fucking mind blowing.
I’m sure there’s more but my brains done with this for now. Automation is super cool and fun to watch when all is done and it’s running. It can definitely push out higher production numbers compared to humans. It is definitely not as green or sustainable as any tech company would want you to believe. I believe, from my perspective and experiences in that field, it’s an unsustainable disaster. If it seems like a green alternative, it’s because we aren’t talking about the resource requirements to build, maintain and upgrade automation systems and only focusing on the production output.
Personally, I believe our green alternatives shouldn’t depend on green technology but rather draw heavy inspiration from nature itself. The hard part about that is imagining a life that isn’t intertwined with capitalism, money and hierarchy. Once we shrug off those evils, we can start to observe and listen to nature again.
I had to leave the automation industry because othe reckless waste of resources the automation industry requires. It was becoming an unbearable burden on my mind.
I thought I was being smart by using this company as a way to quickly get my electrical apprenticeship completed. Get in, get out then find somewhere quiet to live. Instead, I got used up and discarded while the entire time being treated like the dirt under a pile of shit. My prize for attempting to game capitalism, even in the smallest of ways.
Since my youth, I had been lectured in school about the dangers of climate change. The only news I ever gave any attention to was environmental news. When I was in my early/mid 20’s, I made many changes to my lifestyle and future plans based on the fact that my elder years would be on a planet ruined by industrialization.
But everything is happening faster than expected. When COVID entered the global scene in 2020 and I saw the disorganized and uncooperative response from governments and corporations, I entered a state of existential dread. Once again, my future plans were cut short. Very short. By emotionally stunted children in positions of power. And the near future these very same people are creating is just depressing.
I don’t do much these days. I keep it simple. I don’t feel bad about how little I do. Small as it seems, doing less makes me feel less disgusted by my impacts on this planet. The way I look at it, if capitalism always demands positive accumulation of productivity and resources then the opposite, doing less, is a radical act of defiance against capitalism itself. I don’t need this justification, it just amuses me. I’m much happier now by doing less because doing less makes me content. On top of that, my mind is plagued with a lot less guilt knowing I’m not actively working against the environment for the sake of making a paycheck.
I got into Arduino through my electrical apprenticeship. We had an electronics course to teach us electrical flow, sensors and boolean logic with integrated circuits. I was working on a project for lights and lighting patterns. Also had a couple other smaller ideas but eventually gave up on all of them.
My world view at the time was being challenged and changing rapidly. It’s far to easy to get lost in tech crazes because there’s always something new to distract you from the truly destructive nature of tech.
I kept a couple parts but sold off everything else for the price of a lunch. The person who bought everything from me was a teacher and said his students would appreciated the box of parts. I didn’t feel so bad since they would get used instead of collecting dust.
I’ve since been focusing on less tech related interests. I’m attempting to work towards a minimal tilling garden. I maintain my own bicycle. I’ve recently picked up whittling. I have a bunch of untreated wood I can use and the wood shavings can be used in my garden. I am working towards simplicity after burning out hard from technology related complexity.
I never planned on staying in the automation industry for long, planned to complete my apprenticeship and run. Management delayed my apprenticeship and then covid further delayed things. All the new revelations of abuse, waste and destruction ate at me pretty hard and little voice in my head wouldn’t stop screaming at me to get out. In an attempt to offset the damage feel like I caused, I planned to get fired and somehow took down the HR manager with me on the way out. Still got my severance pay and a ban from a large, international automation corporation. Maybe I didn’t offset my damages but it was still very satisfying.
The video essay focuses on deconstructing modern day schooling under capitalism. Today’s schools are structured to teach obedience through hierarchy with the teacher having the authoritative power in the classroom setting.
He argues for a schooling process that focuses on teaching well rounded individuals instead of standardized testing that aims to turn out complacent workers or even soldiers. Teaching how to garden, cook and to work as a community while also offering compromises to ensure people have access to language, math and science education. He also stresses teaching critical thinking skills meant to challenge the current powers that choose to oppress such places of radical learning.
A lot of what he talks about is from an anarchist perspective and offers some past examples of alternative education systems that have been put into practice. There’s no definite solution or quick fix to our current education system but there are better ways to create well rounded individuals free from hierarchy’s demands, it’s just a whole lot different than from what we were forced to learn from such a young age.
I know I would have preferred to learn to garden, tend for the land and form a closer connection to my local community instead of learning a coloniser’s history and the skills to be a scared and obedient worker.