Bemused. Geek. NZ.

lord-kiwi-the-wizard

gallopinggallifreyans

we figured out Roman concrete btw. This is the only thing on my mind

gunkopopfigurine

Oh? Do tell?

gallopinggallifreyans

HOKAY. Doing this in layman’s terms because I could not explain the chemistry in detail if I tried. Pls forgive if I’m a little off in the explanation because idk chem lol

So we’ve been trying to figure out why the fuck Roman concrete has held up so long, right? Our concrete lasts maybe like ten years before it looks like it took a wrecking ball to the face. And even then, our roads suck in general. Universally. Potholes. Everywhere.

Roman concrete has lasted two thousand years. Or more. Depends on where you go.

Now a bunch of scientists took chunks of concrete and threw a bunch of waves at it to figure out the composition, and turns out the concrete has lime in it. At first they were like “Huh, that’s weird, why are these imperfections in this super durable long-lasting concrete?”

So anyways they dismissed the lime, and they also figured out that Roman concrete is suuuuuper strong in water. Like it gets stronger in water. Compare that to our shitty ass concrete. Our concrete suffers in water. It’s shit. Our concrete is a middle-schooler’s newspaper bridge project compared to the Bifrost that is Roman concrete.

Now, because chemical composition is fairly easy to figure out, they found volcanic ash. We don’t have volcanic ash in our concrete (as far as I know), so idk I guess they thought that was the differential factor that made Roman concrete so strong. To my understanding, the Romans used hydraulic mortar rather than aerial mortar. Hydraulic mortar could harden with hydration and reactive silicates, whereas aerial mortar needed exposure to the air and was weaker.

Now, remember those imperfections I mentioned earlier? Lime is very, very weak. You ever felt limestone? Yeah. You get it. So it’s not hard to figure out why we thought these were actually imperfections in otherwise amazing, god-like, S-tier concrete. We used to think it was slaked lime, which is just lime paste.

One of the labs involved in the research developed a chemical mapping technique that allowed them to determine the exact makeup and type of lime present in the concrete. They figured out that this particular form of lime might have been quicklime, which is extremely brittle and very reactive. Quicklime forms at extremely high temperatures. We mix our concrete cold. Another common modern L.

In short, the Romans engineered preferential pathways for faults in the concrete to pass through the lime, which would react to hydration and recrystallize as more lime (calcium carbonate) and heal itself.

This is groundbreaking. I’m so amazed. Here’s the MIT publication, and here’s the journal article.

gunkopopfigurine

Ah, I see, road fuseboxes.

gallopinggallifreyans

Basically yeah! Especially if those fuseboxes are filled with quick hardening foam and look like they were left there by accident, except they’re everywhere so they couldn’t possibly be an accident.

therobotmonster

Apparently they’re already working on methods of adapting this kind of concrete for modern use. We could potentially fix the US’s crumbling infrastructure and simultaneously upgrade to vastly superior long-lasting materials.

gallopinggallifreyans

@corrodedcoffindisbanded it’s 8:30am this made me laugh so hard I woke up

dduane

cc: @petermorwood

lord-kiwi-the-wizard

What's considered socially acceptable is often referred to as a slope. Slippery or otherwise. Like things will naturally progress one way if you don't roll the boulder up the hill.

It isn't.

A more accurate description would be a giant near immovable stone on an open field.

You have the progressives on one side trying to move the stone and the conservatives on the other trying to stop it.

You have reactionarys trying to move it left and right rather than the progressive forward and anarchists who want to knock it over since the concept of the stone is stupid.

You'll notice however that the stone never goes backwards.

This is because as progressives become satisfied they either swap to the other side or stand and watch.

Religious persecution?

The stone moves.

Women cannot vote?

The stone moves.

Gay rights?

The stone moves.

Trans rights?

The stone moves.

And we are well aware that the stone won't go back. What was deplorable, unthinkable, illegal and scandalous one day is protected and fought for today.

And this applies to everything.

Gays, trans, women, men, minorities, majoritys, furrys, zoophiles, pedos, insect, adulterers, pagans, heresys, cults, unions.

Everything that at one time will get you: stabbed, punched, assulted, killed.

The stone moves and it becomes deplorable but not worth killing over.

The stone moves and it's simply disgusting.

The stone moves and now you can get in trouble if your against it openly.

The stone moves and now it's accepted.

And as I said. As it moves people move from progressive to conservative because I know FOR A FACT that those of you reading support and agree with half the list from a moment ago and wish the worst punishment imaginable on the other half.

The second you moved the middle ground of were we "should be as a society" to were you want it you will start to try and stop it.

And you will be an old bigot who's trying to stop what seems to them like an army of degenerates and morally bankrupt criminals.

And the stone will still move.

And you will accept or choose violence.

And the stone will not go back until it is toppled or destroyed.

This isn't a warning.

It is a promise.

lord-kiwi-the-wizard

sufficientlylargen

Every time I see a post about updog I’m torn between not wanting to fall for it and wanting to help the poster complete their joke.

tommyeatseaton

okay but what’s updog ?

jaiwithinnumerableunblinkingeyes

Updog is a long sausage in a bun often served with ketchup, mustard, onion e, and/or relish.

yumantimatter

No, that’s a hotdog. An updog is when a new version or patch of an application is released

koito-yuu

You’re thinking of update. Updog is when you end a sentence with a rising intonation.

invertedporcupine

No, that’s uptalk. You’re thinking of the fourth-largest city in Sweden.

argumate

surely that’s Uppsala, whereas Updog is the giant spider in Harry Potter.

regexkind

That’s Aragog. Updog is a symbol conventionally used for an arbitrarily small number in analysis proofs

another-normal-anomaly

You’re thinking of epsilon. Updog is an upward-moving air current.

yieldsfalsehoodwhenquined

no that’s an updraft

updog isn’t a noun at all, it’s a verb; it basically means to chew someone out, or harshly lecture them

identicaltomyself

No, that’s upbraid. An updog is a small dog that likes cuddling on people’s laps.

speakertoyesterday

No that’s a puppydog. An updog is when the Mets win.

mistbornthefinal

No that’s an upset. An updog is the modern version of a henway.

yumantimatter

What’s a henway?

eversolewd

Oh, about 5 pounds.

worldheritagepostorganization

World Heritage Post

rainysaturdayafternoon

@hellsite-hall-of-fame

snek-sama

Certified Tumblr classic.

crankyrabbit

Basically ready for Sunday at the Wellington Zinefest 2023. It's at the Victoria University School of Architecture and Design in Vivian Street, from 11am to 4pm. See ya there!

bemused-geek-nz

I was hoping to have more items, but I ran out of toner a second time.

wellington zinefest 2023

webcomicname oh no ownership legal battle dodgy contract greedy bastards Instagram

[C64] Frankie goes to Hollywood - Longplay

I had this game back in the 80s on floppy disk, complete with double-sided cassette of a live version of “Relax”. I never worked out what I was meant to do. But, well, so it goes.

Source: youtube.com

frankie goes to hollywood commodore 64 computer games

emptymanuscript

daddyfuckedme

ferpykins

headspace-hotel

what is a fishmonger? what does a monger do? presumably, he mongs

headspace-hotel

headspace-hotel

@jtformerland has the right idea

bemused-geek-nz

The preferred term for influencers is “plonkers”. The matching term for a group is a “pretentiousness”.

Well it is for me anyway, partly because it has a good metre. “So, a pretentiousness of plonkers showed up today, you know, those fartmonglers who think they deserve free stuff because of all their followers? Bothered us, asked stupid questions, filmed each other posing like cockwombles, claimed we’d get ‘em coming through the door… never did of course.”

stickyfrogs

herpsandbirds

Indian Black Narrowmouth Frog aka "Space Frog" (Melanobatrachus indicus), family Microhylidae, Munnar, Kerala, India

photograph by Hadlee Renjith

markscherz

Look, I think it is important that as many people as possible see these phenomenal photos of Melanobatrachus indicus, because they are damn rare, but truly spectacular.

If anyone wants to know my favourite frog, this is probably in the top five.

emptymanuscript

secondbeatsongs:
“x-cetra:
“accessibleposts:
“dangernoir:
“banananutloaf4life:
“actualaster:
“nerdfighterwhatevernumbers:
“ ryanthedemiboy:
“ pewterkat:
“ small-flower-prince:
“ dreadpiratecherry:
“ gentlemanbones:
“
” ”
I have no idea what’s going...

deep magic badger badger badger mushroom mushroom snake it's a snake the weebl and sometimes his best friend bob

emptymanuscript

friend-crow

I am slowly losing my mind over the shift towards video as the default media format.

I do not find this to be an efficient way to absorb information. I am bored and distracted by the time the largely unnecessary introduction is over. I can't use ctrl+f to find the specific information I'm looking for. If there are instructions to follow, I don't want to have to constantly pause and back up to the part I need.

At least give me a fucking transcript.

emptymanuscript

todaysbird

love how they used the most orbular photo ever

greaterabyssalcatgirl

thats a blueberry

todaysbird

emptymanuscript

onethirdofimpossible

Hello friends, there's a dogwhistle I've seen used a couple times on tumblr that I want to discuss.

Fellow neurodivergents especially, please listen-- towards the end of this post I describe how some in our community have been using it without knowing what it means.

A fairly common antisemitic dogwhistle used amongst alt-right circles on the internet is being a "noticer," "noticing patterns," "pattern noticer," etc. I've seen this from a couple Tumblr blogs I follow reblogging memes and such that use this term but don't provide any context about what sorts of "things" they may be noticing.

Here's the meme that I saw a blog I'm following reblog last night.

Seems pretty harmless, right? It's a meme with a cute cat.

In alt-right circles, what they are referring to "noticing" is the conspiracy theory that Jews control the world/"noticing" evidence of an imagined globalist (read: Jewish) world order/etc. If you see a meme that uses terms like "noticing patterns" that doesn't elaborate what those supposed patterns are-- just leaves you to fill in the blank yourself-- take a look at the types of things OP might be posting. The alt-right has an idea that it's forbidden to talk about who might be behind the "conspiracies" they talk about (again, the target is frequently Jewish people) so lack of context is often a red flag.

I sent the blog who reblogged this an ask informing them that the meme was a dogwhistle. If you see someone reblog something like this, check what they've been posting. If this seems like an isolated incident, the person probably reblogged it not knowing what the term actually meant. That's why dogwhistles are so effective-- to the average person they look harmless if you don't know what to watch out for!

Let's take a look at how alt-righters use this term.

Here's an alt-right definition of it from Urban Dictionary.

Oh boy, this one gets a bigotry bingo for all the dogwhistles used here. If I miss any, feel free to comment. Here are the ones I found:

-Noseticing: Noticing plus nose, based on the stereotype for Jewish people to have large noses.

-"those who cannot be named"/skirting around saying Jew: again the idea that it's forbidden to talk about who they think is behind their conspiracy theories.

-"world events and agendas": idea that Jewish people have a Globalist agenda etc etc

-Degeneracy: Nazi term to describe the behaviors/people they find undesirable.

-Early life: refers to the section in a person's Wikipedia page. If a person was brought up Jewish, it'll usually say so there.

-Oy vey: a Jewish exclamation of exasperation that Nazis have unfortunately co-opted when talking about Jewish people.

Here's probably the most obviously antisemitic meme I found.

The title and first bullet point include the "noticer" term. This meme also talks about a "group" who controls wealth. Who might the poster be referring to here?

Here's a Twitter account with many similar alt-right terms. Explicitly identifies as a Nazi and ethno-nationalist, etc etc.

A couple other pages. I clicked on them to see if I could find any more examples but the first seemed pretty blank and the second... Well, I don't have a twitter so I couldn't view.

Let's unpack these a little. The first one has "13 outta 52," a statistic used among white supremacists to depict Black people (especially African-Americans) as "savage": 13 referring to the percentage of America that is Black and 52 referring to the alleged percentage of murders in the U.S. that are committed by Black people. "109 countries" refers to the idea that Jewish people have been expelled from 109 countries during history. (Which isn't entirely true. Some "countries" in this count are actually cities, regions, etc.) Some white supremacists may use the number 110 instead to suggest that it should happen again.

The second one has a blurb alleging a global sterilization effort and concerns of fertility. This is likely in connection to pro-natalism for white people. If Nazis want a so-called "Aryan nation," they're going to want white people to populate it, and so they encourage white people to have babies for their cause. Nazi Germany employed this tactic as well, even awarding "Aryan" German women who had four or more children for their contributions to the Nazi cause.

The reason why I'm emphasizing that context matters is that some neurodivergent people have seen this and co-opted it into neurodivergent circles. As a person who is Jewish and autistic, this is pretty alarming to me. I'll show a couple examples from Tumblr:

And

I've left out the URLs of the OPs because I want to give the benefit of the doubt-- they both explicitly refer to being a "pattern noticer" in terms of neurodivergence. And it's easy to see why introducing this term to ND folks would be an easy way to get a dogwhistle passed off as harmless! Since autistic people often have analytical minds, we often make connections that others might not be able to see. But unfortunately, using terms like this only makes it much easier for antisemites to fly under the radar.

Stay safe and let's keep Tumblr free of this shit.

emptymanuscript

smol-blue-bird

I went to a library book sale this weekend and I found a very old book called “Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers,” which was published in I think 1975? I’ve been reading it kind of like how I would read a historical document, and it’s lowkey fascinating

smol-blue-bird

There’s a whole paragraph that’s like “okay, find the keyboard. Don’t panic if it has more keys than a typewriter, that’s normal. Really, it’s fine. The extra keys don’t make things harder. It’s FINE”

smol-blue-bird

Thought this section was particularly interesting:

Can the computer create something? At first glance it seems obvious that it can. Animated computer graphics, with their fluid transitions and whiplash perspectives, look strikingly new. And if one watches the machine doing animation work, there seem to be lengthy periods when the computer is acting “on its own.”

But if one observes these processes in more detail, it becomes clear that creation is not occurring within the machine. First of all, computer graphics are not unique. Computers have yet to generate anything that cannot be done by hand—and usually already has been done. Second, the apparent ability of the computer to “act on its own” is the outcome of thousands of hours of patient human effort to refine its instructions. The computer can manipulate a shape for us if we have already informed it what a shape is, what the rules for shape manipulation are, what this specific shape is, and so forth.

You can start an automobile engine and it will run by itself, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s being creative. It’s just running.

theriu

Somebody in 1975 had a better understanding of why artificial intelligence is not in any way “intelligence” than the majority of today’s intellectual minds.