Some people had magazine racks next to the toilet. There was a whole Seinfeld episode about George taking a book into the bathroom.

Lllllllike a glove!

"Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys is the same Ab7 chord for the whole song. Lock in that one chord shape and then all you have to do is get the strumming pattern. Put a capo across four strings on the first fret to make life even easier for your left hand.
https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/beastie-boys/sabotage-chords-3688055
This page says there are slight changes in the chorus. Just don't strum the low E string for that part. If you or your friends are belting out the lyrics then it won't matter anyway.

The intro and verse to "About A Girl" by Nirvana is also easy. You go back and forth between Em and G, and it's a relaxed tempo. To play the chorus you have to learn a few bar chords. https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/nirvana/about-a-girl-tabs-36242

Contact your local sailing club/yacht club. They often have classes and rental boats. Even if they don't, you can sometimes find someone with a boat who is willing to teach a beginner.

Trying to keep up with you

We are homeschooling one of our kids because his particular needs were not being met by the local school. Meeting other homeschool families is always nerve-wracking for me. I never know if they're going to be a normal family adapting to an unusual situation, or tinfoil-hat nuts using homeschool as an excuse to hide their children from the outside world.

Some of those instance names are, uh, interesting.

Loans aren't the problem. Insane loan debt is a symptom of an unsustainable higher education system.

You can learn a lot on your own, but many careers require a formal education (medicine, law, engineering, etc.). By itself, banning student loans within our current system merely makes it harder for poorer people to attain those careers.

Great quote from a Slate op-ed: “You can often protect your client against the government, but you can never protect him against himself.”

That author has the best name for a fake ID I've ever seen.

I especially liked the Neanderthals. Outsiders looking in.

The end-of-year numbers aren't in yet, but 2023 should be the year that wind and solar finally generate more electricity than coal here in the US.
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/BTL/2023/02-genmix/article.php

For new generation projects coming online in 2023, 86% of the electricity is from non-fossil sources. The generation capacity that was retired in 2023 was all fossil based.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1304-august-21-2023-2023-non-fossil-fuel-sources-will-account-86-new

"Resistor" usually implies a device with a fixed resistance value. A rheostat is a device with variable resistance. The two terms are not synonymous.

As for condenser and capacitor, Wikipedia has an interesting tidbit:

Early capacitors were known as condensers, a term that is still occasionally used today, particularly in high power applications, such as automotive systems. The term was first used for this purpose by Alessandro Volta in 1782, with reference to the device's ability to store a higher density of electric charge than was possible with an isolated conductor. The term became deprecated because of the ambiguous meaning of steam condenser, with capacitor becoming the recommended term in the UK from 1926, while the change occurred considerably later in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor

They can and do get sick. Here's an example of bovine parasites whose life cycle goes from cow to grass and back again:

https://livestock.extension.wisc.edu/articles/managing-worms-on-summer-pastures/

The former fighters found themselves missing the freedom of the front-lines as they adjusted to the mundane nature of office work. Huzaifa, a 24 year-old former sniper, said, “The Taliban used to be free of restrictions, but now we sit in one place, behind a desk and a computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Life’s become so wearisome; you do the same things every day.”

“In our ministry, there’s little work for me to do,” said Abdul Nafi, 25. “Therefore, I spend most of my time on Twitter. We’re connected to speedy Wi-Fi and Internet. Many mujahedin, including me, are addicted to the Internet, especially Twitter.”

And with a 9-to-5 comes the dreaded commute—and actually having to show up for the job in order to get paid. “What I don’t like about Kabul is its ever-increasing traffic holdups.” Omar Mansur, 32, said. ”These days, you have to go to the office before 8 AM and stay there till 4 PM. If you don’t go, you’re considered absent, and [the wage for] that day is cut from your salary. We’re now used to that, but it was especially difficult in the first two or three months.”

I never thought I would identify so much with the freaking Taliban.

It's the same way you know the things outside your window are real. You look at the light coming to you from that object and make inferences as best you can. As long as new observations and inferences line up with old observations and inferences, then you can be reasonably confident that your growing model of the outside world is accurate. When something doesn't add up then you revise your model and keep iterating with new observations.

There's no difference whether the object appears to be within our solar system or far outside it. We see something and we interpret what we can from the available observations. Occasionally, if something is close enough and interesting enough, we send a robot to orbit the thing or maybe land on it and gather better observations, like how Rosetta/Philae visited a passing comet.

I was talking with my high school girlfriend about future career ideas and she mentioned one that made me think, "Huh, I never thought about that." So I decided to read about it at the school library during lunch one day.

I can directly tie my college degree, all the places I've lived, most of my friends, half the countries I've traveled to, and meeting my spouse all back to that one moment.

As people dive deeper into a hobby they have very particular desires. That means two things: (1) specialty parts with very low sales volumes, and (2) people are willing to pay extra to get exactly what they want. If I just want two wheels and a set of pedals and don't really care about the details then I can grab any $200 bike from a department store. But if I want, say, a very particular drivetrain, carbon fiber parts to shave weight, maybe a specific suspension design, mounting points for niche accessories, etc., then I'm shopping for very specific items from boutique brands. That's why a very small number of hardcore riders do crazy stuff like pay over $4k for a set of wheels.

You'll see the same thing in other hobbies, too. I can't imagine what some people spend on their gaming PCs.

By monogamy do you mean having one partner, and only one partner, for life? That isn't the norm. It's very rare, at least in the western world.

Serial monogamy is the norm, and seems to make the most sense for most people.

Polygamy and polyamory only work for a small subset of people. I don't see those types of relationships ever becoming mainstream.

The meaning depends on the intent of the person displaying that flag.

The innocent option is that it's military cosplay. The US military uses black or gray monochrome flags since red/white/blue is bad for camouflage. Some people think it looks badass, so they mimic it.

The negative option is that it's a "no quarter" flag.

IIRC, Egypt also sees Hamas as a threat since Hamas is backed by Iran. They aren't going to do anything to make life easier for Hamas or similar groups.

Physical seasons, and the modern western calendar, are both based on the sun. Having two moons wouldn't make a difference there.

Two moons would make the ocean tides more complicated, though.

Violent chaos in the US. One of three things will happen:

• The Supreme Court sides with the states that want to remove Trump from the ballot. Trump's minions cry foul and lose their minds.
• Trump gets on the ballot but he loses to Biden again. Trump's minions cry foul and lose their minds.
• Trump gets on the ballot and wins. Trump and the GOP take that as a mandate to govern with impunity, and run roughshod over the country.

Good ol' Shitpost Calligrapher!
https://theshitpostcalligrapher.tumblr.com/

Dracunculiasis (disease caused by Guinea worm infection in humans) is almost eradicated. We hit a new all-time low for known cases: 13 last year, and now only 3 in the first half of 2023.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7245a4.htm

https://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/index.html

Homeopathics, though sometimes even a placebo can have beneficial effects.

Archive.is might help:
https://archive.is/aAI5s

The protocols and software are all free and open source. You can't stop a company from running a Lemmy or Mastodon instance any more than you could stop an individual from doing so.

The nice thing is that the system allows for free choice. Your favorite instance isn't forced to federate with a hypothetical Meta instance, and and even if it does you can choose which communities to subscribe to or avoid. Who cares if Meta runs an instance, or a hundred instances? You can simply choose not to use them.

Does Weird Al count? Because he is just as talented as any "serious" musician.

Also, The Presidents of the United States of America.

It includes ... copies of historical documents including the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Pledge of Allegiance.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/1241186975/donald-trump-bible-god-bless-usa

Jesus, that poor guy had some issues. I wish he could have gotten the help he needed rather than going down this road.

Similar to how Subaru brags about their "zero landfill" production. Manufacturing a car absolutely generates waste. They just juggle the supply chain to have all the waste happen at their suppliers.

three-month probationary basis

Stating this indicates they will never give you an ounce of trust, nor the benefit of the doubt in any situation.

Mantises live solitary lives, and are cannibalistic. I assume it's more out of indifference than hate, but it's close to what you're looking for.

Up through Lemmy version 0.18.5, "active" meant posting or commenting within a specified timeframe (past month, past year, etc.). Starting with version 0.19.0 voting also counts as being active.

Y'all are wonderful. Thanks for your dedicated effort.

I also appreciated your shout-out to other instances that are active cooperating with .world to make Lemmy a better place. Teamwork makes the dream work.

Dunk it in water, squeeze it into a tight ball, and take bites like it's an apple.

Whining about zoomers is inline with tradition. Humans have been complaining about younger generations for thousands of years.

https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-about-the-younger-generation/

I was rougher on pillows back then.

There's a story here, I just know it.

You didn't have to post this.