@pre@boing.world2025-12-19 13:02:42
So my car has been complaining I should put some exhaust emissions neutralizing fluid in it. A thing they call AdBlue I believe.
Bought a big 10l drum of the stuff ready to fill up.
But when I look at where I expect to find the hole for filling it, I just find a capped off tube and a warning sticker "See the GM Citreon Berlingo Blaze manual" for the adblue refilling hole.
Only user manual I have is the one telling me to expect it there.
The car was converted for wheelchair access at some point in its life. I think they are referring to the wheelchair-adaption manual, which the seller did not give me.
🤔
Have been looking around the car as much as I can for a couple of hours this morning to no avail. Where have they hidden this hole to fill up adblue?
Maybe it's under the engine or something now and you have to put the thing on stilts to find it?
🤷
Asked my mechanic about it and he says to bring it in on Monday. Gonna be a pain if I have to rip up the floorboards or something every year to refill that.
#mechanic #car #diesel
@kurtsh@mastodon.social2025-12-13 02:49:17
I've adopted 3 senior dogs. After being brought home, something clicks 2-3 wks in: They smile & are genuinely SO appreciative.
There's absolutely no better feeling.
▶️ This Unwanted Senior Dog's Reaction to Finally Being Adopted Will Melt Your Heart
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1I…
@castarco@hachyderm.io2025-11-16 12:05:17
I have the distinct impression that we could use most American "sci-fi" TV series (which seem to have a kink for post-apocalyptical scenographies) as a diagnostic tool for the autism spectrum.
For a moment, let's leave aside the tons of right-wing propaganda "hidden" in plain sight, and their excessive reliance on boring & worn out tropes (religious & cultish bullshit, irrational lack of communication & excess of anti-social behaviour, all vs all, ultra-low-iq characters*, psychotic & irrationally treacherous characters*, ultra-inconsistent character development used to justify "unexpected" plot twists, rampant anti-intellectualism...).
What could be used as a diagnosis tool is the incredible amount of strong inconsistencies that we can find in them**. It throws me out of the story every single time; and I suspect that it takes a certain kind of "uncommon personality" to feel that way about it, because otherwise these series wouldn't be so popular without real widespread criticism beyond cliches like "too slow", "it loses steam towards the end of the season", etc.
Many of those plots start in a gold mine of potentially powerful ideas... yet they consistently provide us with dirt & clay instead, while side-lining the "good stuff" as if it was too complicated for the populace.
Do you feel strongly about it? Do you feel like you can't verbalize it without being criticised as "too negative", or "too picky", or an "unbearable snob"? Do you wonder why it seems like nobody around shares your discomfort with these stories?
* : I feel this is a bit like the chicken & egg problem. Has the media conditioned part of American society to behave like dumb psychopaths as if it was something "natural", or is the media reflecting what was already there? Also, could we use other societies as models for these stories... just for a change? Please?
** : Just a tiny example: a "brilliant" engineer who builds a bridge out of fence parts and who doesn't bother to perform the most basic tests before trying it in a real setting and suffer the consequences: the bridge failing and her falling into the void. Bonus points for anyone who knows what I'm talking about.
@pre@boing.world2025-12-20 15:24:02
The treadmill desk is up and running with provisional hardware. Powered by the mini-pc that was lying around mostly unused.
The monitor can be pushed back out of the way to place a laptop on the shelf instead if needing to work on the dayjob's PC, say.
A bit cramped and unsafe feeling. Maybe needs a handle to hold on to screwed onto the door or something.
#treadmillDesk
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-01-08 19:35:41
Source: a few weeks before Grok started "digitally undressing" people, Elon Musk expressed frustration over guardrails on Grok's image and video generator (Hadas Gold/CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/2026/01/08/tech/elon-musk-xai-digital-undressing
@jensilber@mastodon.social2025-12-14 16:41:37
It is another finished-a-book-and-can't-determine-what-type-of-book-I-want-to-read-next day. This is most challenging when I really enjoyed the book I've just finished, because usually I'm hoping to recapture the feeling of it with the next book and have to hunt for something that will match up to it without being so similar that it gets them jumbled in my mind.
@hex@kolektiva.social2026-01-05 11:44:42
If you are an anti-fascist, you are against petroleum. Petroleum funds fascism globally. It is at the heart of the military industrial complex driving global imperialism, from both the US and Russia. Motonormitivity is fascist, both in it's elitist roots and in it's ties to historical fascism (Hitler hated bikes, just on principle). Oil is militarism.
Oil is the dominant resource which drives war, both in terms of it being the primary spoil wars are fought over and in terms of fueling the military vehicles and weapons that carry out those wars. Practically every war since (and including) WWII has been over oil. Genocides are carried out to secure oil. Gaza is over oil, in more ways than one.
Oil is the absolute enemy, and AI is simply an extension of that: an attempt to atomize us so we can't resist the oil-centric global order, one last grasp at the control over our lives oil has given to those whose power is now threatened by a solar punk future.
"I haven't written for a few weeks now. As I write the closing chapter and begin rewriting previous sections, everything feels both more distant and more immediate. The working title [Kairos] has only continued to feel more and more resonant, both during the writing and during my pause."
Now is the time to resist by making something different, by creating a world fundamentally opposed to these systems of oppression.
This is the last in my Kairos series. From here on out I'll be editing to try and make it more of a book than a series of posts. Thanks to everyone who has helped so far. All editing is welcome (typos, spell checks, questions and challenges). Between ADHD and dyslexia, it's always hard for my brain to notice mistakes in my own text so I always appreciate the support of those who can.
https://anarchoccultism.org/building-zion/kairos
@theodric@social.linux.pizza2025-12-13 20:40:44
Vardo, vardo, it's home from Kells we go!
@brichapman@mastodon.social2026-01-13 01:00:25
Many of us learned to survive by staying slightly absent from our own lives.
Not apathy. Not burnout. Something quieter.
A low-grade separation that let us function when feeling everything became too much.
It protected us. But survival is not the same as being alive.
What does it look like to come back?
…
