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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Anyone have an over-the-range microwave they like? Ours blew its fuse, and when I replaced it it immediately went *bzzt* and blew again.

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.

in reply to Andres Salomon

Also what about plugging a outlet tester into the outlet?

Maybe the fuse is blowing because something is wrong with the outlet?

And yes I thought bosch had been a decent brand, I'm not sure why they were unhappy with them now.

in reply to Diane

@alienghic I tested the outlet. The microwave also made a really weird noise before it blew, so I'm pretty sure something w/ the wiring inside is messed up. It's so greasy and oily that it's not worth digging around inside to fix (plus it's 12 years old).


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


i don't think we should call it "searching" chatgpt. it's more like calling up a humongous dipshit and asking for them to make something up
in reply to Nora Reed

i don't remember where i heard the thing about joe rogan replacing your friend's older brother but i did not, to be clear, make that up

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


More than five years ago, I wrote about the American conservatives who admire Russia dictatorship. Now they run America https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


People keep putting fake walls in front of Teslas
Another YouTuber put Tesla vehicles through a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ wall test with mixed results.
https://www.theverge.com/news/634130/tesla-fsd-wile-e-coyote-youtube-test-cybertruck

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.





Voice of America staff sue Trump administration for shutting down network


Six Voice of America journalists and a director at its parent agency have sued the Trump administration, alleging its moves to shut down the U.S.-funded network are unconstitutional.

#news #npr #publicradio #usa
posted by pod_feeder_v2



Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


The photo Global News chose for this article on RFK wanting bird flu to spread, is utterly hilarious

Give that editor a bonus, well played

#RFKjr #BirdFlu #H5N1

https://globalnews.ca/news/11090800/bird-flu-rfk-jr-plan/

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in reply to Mat Wright

some leaders wanted to use the same strategy during COVID on humans. In some ways, that's still happening.


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


It took a while, but there she is - arrived from my Inkscape Station.

#art #xenia #inkscape

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


A local ordinance has banned grass burning because it poisons the air and kills insects, and there are organic waste bins on every corner. Unfortunately, the effect is just the opposite. People who aren't selfish idiots didn't burn grass even before, and the rest burn even more now to show that they aren't obedient sheep and that no one is going to take away their freedom to poison the air for their neighbors.

This graph shows what it does to the #airquality. It immediately jumps from OK to unhealthy.

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in reply to Jiří Eischmann

just goes to show, don't ban a thing unless you are prepared to enforce it.

Urban Hermit reshared this.

in reply to VulcanTourist

@VulcanTourist a citizens arrest is still "you wait here while I call the police". So what do you do when the police laugh it off?

What this last year in the US has taught us (not really taught anybody) is that every law needs to not only ban a thing but NEEDS specific references to who will enforce it and with what minimum penalties.

Otherwise it is selectively enforceable and can be ignored by the rich or stubborn.

in reply to VulcanTourist

@VulcanTourist not missed, just making another point. I was a security guard in the 90s and a citizens arrest is barely a real thing because saying it creates obligation for the speaker to stay on site until the police arrive, but it is still illegal to attempt to restrain anybody so they stay.
in reply to Urban Hermit

my bigger point is still that several laws, big and small, fail because nobody explicitly made enforcement an issue. The law is no place for 'shoulds'. 'Shalls' only. Serious or don't bother.

Now the sarcasm was missed.

This entry was edited (1 hour ago)
in reply to Urban Hermit Urban Hermit reshared this.

@Urban_Hermit
Such laws exist as leverage to be abused against those deemed problematic.
in reply to Urban Hermit Urban Hermit reshared this.

@Urban_Hermit The problem with that is, some things cannot practically be enforced. Remember prohibition? Remember the "War on Drugs?" You might catch a few offenders but if the punishment is a slap on the wrist they won't care, and if it's more severe you risk filling prisons with non-violent individuals (or at least they were not violent before going to prison).

The correct answer (and maybe this is what you were going for) is "Don't ban a thing unless it really matters and a very significant majority of the people agree with the ban". And, I might add, don't make bans for political reasons or so that some bureaucrat or politician can feel like he accomplished something, people will always oppose those bans.

in reply to maple Urban Hermit reshared this.

@maple @Urban_Hermit I agree. It should be about education and making it convenient to dispose bio waste a different way.
In early 90s my father built a summer house on his old family property in countryside. When he was applying for a waste bin, his neighbors told him that it was waste of money, "you have a stream behind the house, just dump it there, and the next big water will take it away", it was normal there back then. My sister lives there now and no one would even think of it any more. The stream is clean, even trout and cancers are back. And no ordinance was needed.


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


https://www.europesays.com/1931781/ Microplastic pollution affecting Photosynthesis #Environment

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Digimon Beatbreak, New Digimon Anime Set to Premiere in October 2025


The tagline for the new anime—”emotion-devouring digital lifeforms”—hints at a potentially dark premise. Analysts speculate that the central conflict may involve Digimon entities that have the ability to steal or consume human emotions, though exact plot details remain scarce.


#Digimon





Holy Fuck!!! The Man is an INSANE NARCISSIST!!

Has no clue what Government, Society, Country is about!

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-supreme-court-injunctions-judges-rcna197457








Trump Admin Threatens to Stop Social Security If DOGE Can’t Have Data https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-musk-stop-social-security-doge-data-1235300785/


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Wow. The US Treasury Dept. today announced it is lifting sanctions on Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixing service that state-sponsored hackers from North Korea have been massively using to launder their stolen billions.

"Based on the Administration’s review of the novel legal and policy issues raised by use of financial sanctions against financial and commercial activity occurring within evolving technology and legal environments, we have exercised our discretion to remove the economic sanctions against Tornado Cash as reflected in Treasury’s Monday filing in Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury."

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0057

h/t to @ncweaver for the heads up. Weaver said: "The US government has just said "money laundering is legal as long as the process is automated."

"Every wei that flows through Tornado Cash, even if 'legitimate,' is helping the North Korean nuclear regime by hiding illegitimate flows," Weaver told me.

Here's Treasury sanctioning Tornado Cash in 2022: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


One of Tesla’s biggest backers says Musk has to cut his work with DOGE to focus on Tesla, as 46,000 Cybertrucks recalled..

"It came as protesters announced on Wednesday they were planning what they described as their biggest day of action yet against the EV maker, with 500 demonstrations expected at Tesla showrooms around the world on 29 March."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/20/tesla-musk-trump-work-cybertruck-recall-dan-ives-protests

#RemoveMusk #RemoveTrump #Corruption #Fascism #Nazism #News #Tesla

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in reply to Urban Hermit Urban Hermit reshared this.

@Urban_Hermit
Calling it a cyberPinto is not fair... To the Pinto. Musk's traveling garbage can catches fire 17 times more than the pinto.
in reply to Lukewarm Skywalker 🇨🇦🇧🇧

@bardmoss which begs the question,"why is Musk's folly being treated so preferentially?"

Entire careers could be earned cataloging and explaining the number of mistakes that went into that car. The fact that those voices are barely out there indicates that journalists and publishers can be intimidated by anyone with that much money (speculative wealth, it is not real yet and can only be borrowed against).

It is probably not ethical or wise to be that wealthy.





NEW EVIDENCE THAT COSMIC RAYS SPARK LIGHTNING https://spaceweather.com/ Every second, almost 50 bolts of lightning zig-zag across the skies of Earth. Despite centuries of study, however, researchers still aren't sure how the bolts get started. Electric fields in thunderclouds are often too weak to ignite a powerful discharge. https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=204474
enter image description here
A new study just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research may have solved the mystery.

"We believe that most lightning flashes in thunderstorms are ignited by cosmic ray showers," says the study's lead author Xuan-Min Shao, a senior scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

To investigate the earliest moments of lightning formation, Shao and colleagues built a radio interferometer named "BIMAP-3D." Consisting of an array of 8 antennas in Los Alamos, BIMAP-3D can make three dimensional images of lightning and pinpoint the bolts inside thunderclouds. Here's an example: https://spaceweather.com/images2025/20mar25/3dlightning.jpg
enter image description here
This is a lightning bolt from a massive thunderstorm that passed by Los Alamos on July 30, 2022. BIMAP-3D imaged more than 300 bolts during the 90-minute storm. It was a treasure trove of data.

The experimenters realized that some of the bolts they observed happened in parts of the storm where electric fields were too weak to cause the "Initial Breakdown Event" (IBE)--the initial spark that sets the lightning in motion. Modern theories of relativistic electron avalanche couldn't explain what they saw. Their suspicions soon focused on cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays are high energy particles that come from distant supernova explosions and other violent events across the cosmos. They strike Earth's atmosphere all the time, creating a secondary spray of particles called "cosmic ray showers." Regular readers are familiar with these showers because we routinely monitor them using Earth to Sky cosmic ray balloons over California. https://spaceweather.com/images2025/20mar25/airshower.jpg
enter image description here
One of the important things about cosmic ray showers is that they contain antimatter--positrons as well as ordinary electrons. The Los Alamos 3D lightning maps contained strong evidence for positrons. Electrons and positrons are bent in opposite directions by Earth's magnetic field, so they leave opposite imprints on the lightning's polarization, which BIMAP-3D also measured.

"It took me a while to figure this out," admits Shao. "I started with electrons only at the beginning, but could not explain the observations. With both electrons and positrons involved, all the observations can be consistently explained."

Positrons clinched the case for cosmic rays. "The fact that a cosmic ray shower provides an ionized path in the cloud that otherwise lacks free electrons strongly favor the inference that most lightning flashes are ignited by cosmic rays," the authors wrote.

In fact, it's still unclear how much of Earth's lightning is sparked by cosmic rays. Many more storms need to be studied with this method to improve the statistics. "This will require a lot of long-term and good quality lightning data," Shao says.

Stay tuned! And meanwhile, read the original research here. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2024JD042549




This is literally "modern-day life is too complicated". :(

Why you're so tired — Johnny Harris


In today's fast-paced world, experiencing burnout and constant exhaustion can make daily functioning feel nearly impossible. So I set out to answer two crucial questions: why are we so tired? and what can we do about it?
in reply to Neil E. Hodges

i wonder if troglodytes had the same complaints when transitioning to village life

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


the fediverse is so full of communists that instead of having many spammers we have one spammer and we all have to share her
in reply to Nora Reed

I actually weirdly love that this is a shared experience you can only get on the Fediverse. ❤️

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Pretty much EVERY book I've ever published got stolen by Meta and is listed in this database. That's over 30 books, a 25 year career output. (Need to find a UK class action lawsuit to join, or a US one that's open to non-US residents whose work was published in the USA).
https://retro.pizza/@digitalraven/114199906574357235

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in reply to Charlie Stross

Yeah, but think of how much EXPOSURE your books got …

(<sarcasm> tag is assumed here)

This entry was edited (12 hours ago)



Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


https://stallman.org/glossary.html#nightmayor
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/eric-adams-nyc-developer

Night-Mayor Adams has NYC paying half a million dollars per month to an indicted hotel developer who could testify against him. One must suspect this is corruption like what Adams is accused of.

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


👬 For teens' mental health, strong friendships matter more than social media use, study finds

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-teens-mental-health-strong-friendships.html

#friendship #children #teenagers #psychology #mentalhealth #socialmedia

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


in reply to Adamski's Getting Fit this Year Shannon Prickett reshared this.

The Vietnamese mossy frog! A master of disguise! Trust me, there are definitely frogs in this photo.

Unlike the red-eyed tree frog, which uses its colours to scare predators, the mossy frog is a nervous bean who would rather curl into a ball and stay like that until it goes away.

I love these guys because not only have they developed the mottled green and brown colouration of their namesake, they've also gained a bumpy texture on their skin to really sell the idea that they are just suspiciously frog-shaped rocks covered in moss!

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in reply to Adamski's Getting Fit this Year Shannon Prickett reshared this.

South American Horned Frogs! Also known as Pacman frogs, because like Pac-Man they are round, 50% mouth, and eat absolutely everything in sight!

Those "horns" in their name aren't true horns, but fleshy bumps over their eyeballs that make them look a bit metal. These guys are ambush predators who hide in the mud until it's time to chomp something. They still need to see their food coming, so the horns help disguise their eyes as leaves. They even sleep with their eyes open, so they can see potential food at all times, which can be just about anything including their own kind.

Some people keep these ravenous bin-mouths as pets. Personally, I'd be worried about losing a finger because they're also one of the few froggos with teeth!

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


when I glanced over the notification oh the phone about a video about japanese rail" , I was like "oh a new @notjustbikes video"

Now I looked more closely: it was actually a Wendover Productions video about how Japanese Rails history

Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/wendover-why-japanese-railways-win

YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u0_nrsfxXs

This entry was edited (11 hours ago)
in reply to darix

damn Sam stepping on my turf again. I should start making aviation videos. 😂
in reply to Not Just Bikes 🇳🇱

the video about brightlines a few months ago was pretty good.

Or a crossover like Tom Scott did with Sam in the shortest flight video. Sam doing voice over for the aviation part, was funny.


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


[1/2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/17/the-guardian-view-on-labours-semantic-shift-its-the-party-of-work-not-workers
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/17/labour-is-gaslighting-disabled-people-and-that-should-terrify-us-all

Now that Labour has redefined itself as the "Party of Work" rather than "Party of Workers", one more similar shift can redefine it as the "Party of Bosses and Shareholders that others work for." The same party distanced itself from

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.

in reply to Richard Stallman

[2/2] the non-rich who need help in caring for their sick relatives, by proposing big cuts in government support for them. Maybe it should rename itself to the "Hard Labour" party.

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


So far this year @ProPublica has reported on who's working for #DOGE, the impacts of cuts on agencies like #USAID, and a lot more. Reporting on abuses of power matters more than ever before.

This is the last day of our spring member drive you can give as a member. As always, I would love the #fediverse to be represented in our member base. It matters.

If you have the means, please consider joining as a member through a gift of any amount: https://give.propublica.org/give/346423/#!/donation/checkout?c_src=ben #journalism

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


In film: @josephinelee writes that these librarians are risking their safety and livelihood to speak up for First Amendment rights, intellectual freedom, and, most of all, for the students who tell them “books have saved them.” https://www.texasobserver.org/librarians-movie-sxsw-book-bans/

#documentary #library #books #bookstodon #politics #USpol #censorship #film

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Content warning: USpol

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in reply to Sally Strange Shannon Prickett reshared this.

Content warning: USpol





Pilot Actions May Have Contributed To Endeavor Air CRJ-900 Crash - An excessive descent rate may have contributed to the Feb. 17 crash of an Endeavor Air CRJ-900 at Toronto Pearson International Airport


Pilot actions, including an excessive rate of descent, may have contributed to the Feb. 17 crash of an Endeavor Air CRJ-900 at Toronto Pearson International Airport, according to a preliminary report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

The TSB report noted that the aircraft descended too quickly, striking the runway and causing the right main landing gear to collapse. This led to the detachment of the right wing from the fuselage, spilling fuel and sparking a fire. The aircraft then overturned; however, there were no fatalities.


#AVweb #news #aviation #aircraft #accident



Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Fuck you

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in reply to Ramiro Shannon Prickett reshared this.

Content warning: US Pol


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


NEW STORY // City of Seattle Pushes to Dismiss Appeals Blocking Housing Growth Plan

via @urbanistorg // 🔗 https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/03/21/seattle-dismiss-appeals-blocking-housing-plan/?feed_id=5609&_unique_id=67dd633af08c6

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.



Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


#BBCNews - Counter-terror police investigating Heathrow fire
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg5dg4p2l0o

And the chaos the shutdown is causing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cly24zvvwxlt
Heathrow Airport latest

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