Severus_SnapeWhat do you know because of your personal interests that most people have no idea about ?
This might not be uncommon around here, but…
Between D&D and video games, I can identify most medieval weapons and armor.
Why tf is a Bastard Sword called a Bastard Sword?
Because it’s not strictly one handed or two handed.
Its a combination of two separate families, like an illegitimate child. (Their logic and definitions, not mine)
It’s probably due to the word batard in French meaning something of a dual nature or dubious origin (and can therefore also be used for our more usual use of the word bastard).
As the bastard, or hand a half, sword is halfway in length between the single handed long sword and the two handed great sword and could be used either way. The French specifically call it an epee batard and IIRC correctly there’s a type of French bread called a batard which is like a hybrid of a loaf and a baguette.
You can clean dirty/corroded electronic edge contacts with a pencil eraser. Also helps equally as cleaning preparation before soldering.
Go ahead and try it yourself on an old penny, it’ll clean up and look shiny as new. Same principle for electronics.
cally [he/they]My dad taught me this!
Awesome!
Yeah, there’s one drawback though, if the edge contacts or whatever trace was originally gold plated, the pencil eraser trick will pretty quickly wear away the gold plating.
But… If you got corroded gold plated contacts, the gold plating itself is the least of your worries, you want clean metal…
ParagoneGold doesn’t corrode, Hoomin…
If it’s corroded where the gold wasn’t … that’s different.
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I’m well aware of that actually. But if the gold plating is pitted, then the copper underneath will corrode through and even on top of the gold.
Plus, if it counts for anything, I happen to have an open faced USB-A flash drive on my pocket keychain, that actually does still have its gold contact plating, but just looking at it right now, I’ll have to clean the contacts once again from pocket crud before I use it again.
In that case though, I usually just lick my thumb, wipe the contacts clean, and dry it off with my shirt. Gold itself might not inherently corrode, but it can and will still get dirty, plus that plating is super thin and just regular use will eventually wear it away down to the bare copper underneath.
Please stick a cap on it, if you want it to last.
Tech that works is worth protecting.
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Nah, it’s an early model Lacie USB key shell from 2011. The way they designed it, it was actually never meant to go on an actual keychain nor in my pocket, it was meant to go on a lanyard. Also, the way they designed it, a cap could never stay on there, even if I tried.
I had to very carefully arrange my keys to lay perfectly parallel to and not rub against the USB traces or bend or otherwise damage the key. But yeah for real, it would never hold a cap, especially in my pocket, even if I tried.
It’s almost held up pretty well since 2011 though, and has even been dismantled and rebuilt twice for flash storage upgrades. Currently I keep Linux Mint MATE 22.1 installer/live boot on it, nothing else right now so no personal data, so honestly it’s no big deal for me.
For reference, here’s a new one on eBay, with way more than the 8GB module I currently have in mine…
RedEye FlightControlA good rubber eraser also takes sticker adhesive right off of most surfaces, safely.
So does fresh duct tape.
Wait wait wait, for real? I’m 42, how did I not know this?
The real LPT is always in the comments.
Ha, yeah. Snap-On sells a 400$ tool that takes 30$ consumable rubber wheels. Or you could use a 99 cent pink pencil eraser.
Snap-On’s Snap-On: they are a BRAND-Identity, not an engineering-actual-solutions-to-acutal-problems company.
There’s a Project Farm, or something, yt-channel, where they guy just does comparative-tests of different products, to see what the truth is, & … it’s a resource all ought be knowing-about.
Ha I DID remember its name right! www.youtube.com/@ProjectFarm/videos
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When I detailed cars at a used car dealership for a living, I had a wheel made of the same rubber you find in erasers on the end of an air powered die grinder. It was soft enough to not affect the clear coat, but it was fantastic at removing commercial vehicle decals / stickers / numbers along with the adhesive!
I learned this when I was a kid, and the only problem is that nowadays, I haven’t seen a pencil nor it’s an eraser and probably 15 years.
Still, a pretty great tip!
Normal people use alcohol or flux
I do a ton of electronics repair, would never in a million years think that an eraser is going to do anything but make my life harder
OK… But have you tried it?
Why would I do that? So I can fuck up my precision solders on expensive boards??? I need my electrical connections to be free of dirt and debris, and the way to accomplish that is by cleaning it with a solvent or flux. Using an eraser is the equivalent of rubbing it with your fingers… you’re not going to remove the small particulate or oils. Haven’t tried it; won’t. Its piss-poor advice.
We who’ve done it blow the particles away to get them out of the area.
It’s a practice used when cleaning ( by sanding, grinding, etc ) throughout industry.
The removing-film & surface-dirt with an eraser is valid, but not cleanroom, obviously.
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I look up everything interesting that occurs to me on Wikipedia so I know a lot of shit about random topics.
Not sure the Guardian has enough readers to be so influential in British politics tbh, though it does try
I look up everything interesting that occurs to me on Wikipedia so I know a lot of shit about random topics.
This is a very valuable habit.
Amethyst, citrine and tigers eye are all Quartz they just have various impurities and structural differences that create the differences in color/appearance. Some can even be irritated or heated to change their color.
The Orion nebula can be seen with binoculars depending on the lighting and the famous horse head nebula is actually located very close to it in the sky (visually from our perspective, not physically)
Similarly, sapphires and rubies are the same mineral, just with different impurities that change the color of the gem.
It’s amazing how much metalurgy you learn from Dwarf Fortress
bitofaramblerIt currently costs $500 USD to live in most countries (rent, food, wifi, groceries) and $1000 to live in the rest.
Speaking fluent English is currently an incredibly valuable and valued skill that adult English speakers have been practicing their entire life, at least a couple decades; a skill in the same way engineering expertise, ballet proficiency or any other well-executed ability is a skill, with the added bonus that speaking fluent English guarantees employment.
owned english schools? sounds like a interesting story. care to elaborate?
Sure. I was hired in a funny way by a drunk person who posted an ad for an english teacher in the USA instead of China, and I decided an adventure would be way better than continuing to struggle in the US. Went to china, loved the job and money for a month, then the guy was like “schools are hard, I’m quitting and also moving away.”
I said “give me the school. If I fix the business, you’ll have a school making money, and if I can’t, you don’t lose anything.” He said “okay” and left Beijing for several months. When he came back, we had a bunch of extra money and the school was running great, so he asked me to become a part-owner of the school and help him manage it.
I left after a few years, and a friend from that school asked me to come back to China to start a school with her and she would deal with the parents, I would manage the students, curriculum, and the school itself. I had been traveling a while so I said okay and that was the second school, which was very successful until I decided to travel again and gave all my students to another school.
I’m not sure if the episodes explaining those stories in detail have come out yet. But they are funny stories and memories, so I’m glad I got to tell it here.
Oh, this is the episode about why i left the first school.
011 How I Got Started
Have you ever tried to buy a Nintendo 64 controller and ended up teaching English in Beijing? Welp, here's how that happened for me!
thanks for that. was interesting indeed 👍🏿
For sure, have a good one.
If you ever have a travel question, let me know.
gon [he]What makes the NYT so good? And why is The Guardian so important?
NYT used to be the paragon of USA journalism, but was always considered liberal paper.
I disagree on both fronts now though. NYT has really fallen in both professionalism and liberalism the past two decades.
NYT’s an institution, it isn’t that its journalism is better-quality or better-integrity…
I remember in the US elections, NYT was … silent … on the Progressive’s issues, & voices…
They were suppressing them, systematically…
I found this infuriating, because for me the difference between Journalism & “journalism”/propaganda is a religious issue:
Integrity’s a REQUIREMENT, self-inherently!!
Anyways, a few years later, a brainrot show called “Joe Rogan” had a guest on, who identified that CNN & NYT intentionally “shut down” ( his term ) the Progressives, including Bernie Sanders…
I’ve read that the board/committee which decides the Pulizer-Prize is stacked by NYT, in order that they remain dominant in the media-empires landscape…
& their systematic normalizing of things which should be attacked by actual Journalism, these last few years…
& finally, they make it their paradigm that only-the-paying-get-true-access, so therefore, as another here on Lemmy.World so accurately pointed-out, something like…
~ if a new & important news event happens, I can go look for news on it, but NYT paywalls it, & Fox doesn’t: so what do I have to read, to find out what’s going on? ~
( very bad paraphrase, but that’s the gist of it: I think in abstract-shapes, & that’s the English-approximation of the abstract-shape I’m remembering )
NYT’s woven deeply into the upper-middle-class identity.
You can’t defeat identity when acting within any socio-political domain…
The Boston Globe was the newspaper that broke the Catholic relocating-molester-officials story, they were excellent, I don’t know if they’re any good now, because … yet-again, the upper-middle-class news is paywalled.
Nobody seems to understand that accountability, including both whistleblowing and Journalism with a capital-J, are national security requirements, strategically…
shrug
We’re watching the “drug-addict” of human-civilization choose its disinformation-drugs instead of surviving its addiction…
This is going to be the worst century our planet has ever had, unfortunately…
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Oh, Paul Fussell’s books on the North American Class System are eye-openers, in case you want it to pop into your yes more starkly…
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spittingimageThe chemical used to stiffen cloth for book covers is also used to help snack bars retain their shape.
You mean, like, water?
I’m guessing starch.
TrackinDaKrakenI sat here for a couple of minutes, trying to think of something I was willing to reveal.
Alright then, keep your secrets!
PlutoniumAcidUsername checks out.
Apart from some episodes of violence, it was stable. But when imperialism ended, it was basically a mess.
Not directly relevant to your question, but for starters you should read about Sykes-Picot. The destabilizing impact of imperialism simply comes after the imperialist force and its vastly superior military leaves.
Thank you for pointing-out that imperialism & colonialism are distinct.
I’d not understood that clearly.
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WugmeisterYou know how sometimes when you stand up you get lightheaded? If you squeeze your buttcheeks as hard as you can, that immediately stops.
I am now super curious to try this...
Thanks. You made everyone whonread this clech their buttcheecks.
People really misunderstand a lot about diving.
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SCUBA is an acronym that stands for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Aparatus
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Tanks are usually filled with just regular air, nothing special about it
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Oxygen becomes toxic at depth, so if you were to dive with 100% oxygen, you’d die at a fairly shallow depth
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Your flesh absorbs nitrogen from the air
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The amount it absorbs is based on the pressure of your environment/the air you’re breathing
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When you come back up to one atmosphere (1 bar) of pressure, your body slowly releases the nitrogen it has absorbed at depth
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If you stay down for too long or come up too quickly, the nitrogen will become bubbles in your flesh and blood (the bends)
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That’s painful and can kill you
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A hyperbaric chamber (hyper-more than normal, baric-atmospheric pressure) can help by forcing the nitrogen bubble to dissolve back into your flesh and release slowly
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You can use a special mix of air with noble gases to extend the time you can stay at depth
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Another danger is if you ascend without breathing out, your lungs can pop
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Humans don’t have any sense to tell us our lungs are too full
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This is called lung over-expansion and can also kill you
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Another danger is nitrogen at depth can induce an intoxicating effect like alcohol
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This is called nitrogen narcosis and can cause you to act carelessly and get yourself killed
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If you experience this, the correct course of action is to ascend a bit (like 15 feet) and wait until it subsides before you attempt to descend again
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Regular diving gear has two second stage regulators, your main and your octo
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The name octo comes from how it makes your gear look like an octopus
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It’s a backup for you and for anyone who might need it
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The hose is yellow to make it easy to see
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The vest you wear (not everyone uses one, but most divers do) is called a Buoyancy Control Device, or BCD, or just BC
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It fills with air from your tank when you want to ascend to increase your buoyancy
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In an emergency, you can drop your weights, which should make you positively buoyant and cause you to ascend
And last, but not least:
- Diving is incredibly fun and an experience I’d recommend to everyone who is even remotely interested
Also, underwater currents are a lot stronger and faster than you think.
I’m grateful my dumb ass never went to a dive spot that I read about where the currents between 15-60ft deep were intense and there was a chain to follow to guide you down or to hold on to.
No thank you. So scary.
There are dangerous spots to dive, and there are safe spots to dive. Diving can be incredibly safe as long as you know what you’re doing. And it’s incredibly fun. :)
You missed a bit. Overcoming your reflexes to “breath” underwater is HELL.
Dated a beautiful diver girl. She lived in the water. Got me in a class with one other person, young guy, to get our first cert.
Don’t know how to put this. Let’s say I’ve been in scarier situations than the vast majority of people reading this comment.
Truck full of skinheads armed with AR-15s rolls up to the punker hangout? Meh. Saving my own life in the face of certain death, twice? I could do it again, I hope.
I’ve been brave. I’ve been a coward. I have never in life been so fucking scared as taking that first breath underwater, took every ounce of courage I had. Only reason I didn’t bail? Didn’t want the young guy to fail. Because he was shitting bricks, couldn’t let him down. We made it!
This definitely varies by person. I never found it bad at all to take that first breath, and even found myself with the opposite problem. Once I was used to SCUBA I had to remind myself not to breathe while swimming without gear.
BlueÆtherMy grandfather was playing with DIY aqua-lungs immediately after the war - listening to his stories when I was knee high I really dont know how the first guys that were doing this didn’t kill them selves more often.
They did. Quite often. :(
Additional “fun” fact about lung over-expansion. The pressure difference necessary for it to happen is startlingly small if you, for some insane reason, completely fill your lungs. You can do damage rising single digit numbers of feet.
We did a family introduction in a local aquarium and it was amazing. I had a something strange happen to me afterwards. I stopped breathing from time to time. Weird, because rule number one is “keep breathing”.
It started at work where I got the feeling I was suffocating only to realise I was holding my breath unconsciously. I had a constant feeling of being out of breath and only felt good I if I was conscious about breathing. Took me a bit of therapy to get it sorted out. Therapist figured that the dive triggered something in me.
There’s an existing cure for most chronic diseases. Unfortunately, no one seems to care.
OP, given your knowledge of news media, perhaps you have some ideas of how to get coverage of the issue? I’ve written to dozens of news outlets about it.
IF that link is about fecal-transplant, to put a healthy biome into people,
THEN just taking a good pro-biotic, instead, puts a good microbiome into one ( cures diahrea in 2-ish hours ), if one takes it with a probiotic-supporting meal ( like one’s favorite diverse meal, including each of the kinds of food one eats, some starches, some proteins, etc… ), seems FAR saner, in my eyes.
The whole “you need a fecal-transplant procedure” thing is a scam, in my eyes, because pro-biotics provably work, after one’s gut has gotten borked ( by food-poisoning, by antibiotics, by whatever ), & it works in mere hours.
Repeatedly good pro-biotics have un-wrecked my gut, after things like food-poisoning ( & I’m a guy who’s racked-up 7+ years of outright-homelessness, so food-preservation isn’t always possible ).
Dad had been a medical-researcher: he taught me to think.
Getting the right diversity of microbes ( you need both Lactobacillus & Bifido strains, multiple of each ) in one’s gut doesn’t, in any way whatsoever, require any clinical-procedure.
It requires a good bottle of pro-biotics, of a good, trustworthy brand.
Doing the experiment is something that people can do on their own.
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Dad had been a medical-researcher: he taught me to think.
He didn’t teach you very well. Stop spreading harmful misinformation.