@cdarwin@c.imIn the narrow alleyways of the historic center, the stone walls were sweating under the day's 40°C heat.
There was no sign of human life on the main street.
Metal shutters were down and wooden window blinds remained closed.
About 20 kilometers from Perpignan,
Ille-sur-Têt, a large rural village in Pyrénées-Orientales,
resembled a ghost town on Monday, July 6.
That morning, the local prefect renewed his evacuation order for the town's 5,900 resi…
@v_i_o_l_a@openbiblio.social"Librarian day in the life": John Jackson (@…) is takes us to his office in a #library for a week!
@bobmueller@mastodon.world“Your constitutional right varies by your ZIP code in New Jersey,” he said.
https://slate.com/life/2026/05/gun-range-new-jersey-law-memorial-day.html or
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systemsI've finished reading Simon Winder's "#Germania" a while ago, but I've been slacking with the review. This is a book about the history of #Germany, in the wide meaning of word. However, it's not your boring detailed history book. The author takes us on a deeply personal journey across German landscape, across tiny towns and great forests, Schlosses, churches and monuments, and uses that as a context to bring the country's surprisingly interesting history to light. And honestly, it works — it is deeply enjoyable, to the point of making me wonder if one day I should actually move to Germany, get a Bahncard 100 and start exploring myself.
I didn't quote the book here, but if I were to choose one quote that really resonated with me, it would be:
"""
Solitary tourism is something that everybody should indulge in. Of course it is a fraudulent solitude because its enjoyment comes from its limited duration and having a cheerful, only very temporarily abandoned main base area. […] And then, suddenly, I am in Vienna, standing in the shadow of a monstrous, derelict flak tower, and completely alone. The virtue of solitary tourism is its infinite ability to absorb boredom. I often find myself almost crippled with anxiety that the companion or companions on a journey might be finding everything wholly without interest, would rather be eating somewhere else, are secretly angry that we have wound up walking down this street rather than that, are contemptuous of my own interests. Solitary tourism cauterizes all this: if a museum is boring beyond all measure there is no pressure to feign interest, you just leave. I am perfectly happy, in a zoned-out way, to crisscross a town, walking for hours, just for the off-chance something curious might be round the next corner – indeed in the confidence that there will always be something curious (there always is). But for each street, each bar, each folklore museum to be converted into an inter-human negotiation creates an entirely different dynamic.
[…]
Quite possibly the pleasure of this way of life would be much reduced in some other countries, particularly more insistently gregarious places such as Italy. German culture puts a high value on temporary solitude of a stagey kind. Perhaps this is its great gift. In some moods I think there is no need to do anything other than read German writers from the first half of the nineteenth century – a sort of inexhaustible storehouse of attitudes flattering to those who just like sometimes to be left alone. Everyone must have at least a part of them that wants to live in a stairless, doorless tower as a sort of intellectual Rapunzel, setting aside, at least in part, the complicated sexual frisson laid out by such an idea. Germany really is thick with ivy-covered turrets and the promise of solitude (Kepler staring at the planets above Prague, Faust conjuring demons) – the great majority presumably built in the nineteenth century in response to the whole literature devoted to the subject. There is one turret in Lübeck, built onto a city guard tower of just outrageous fakeness, which would do me for life.
"""
(Simon Winder, Germania)
And if you follow me, you have evidence that the part about crisscrossing towns is so true: the best things I've posted here I found by complete accident, especially the murals.
#books #bookstodon
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.socialA late #PhallusThursday because I spent the day with a friend celebrating her birthday.
I am supplicating Hermes to grant her good luck, great fortune, and swift travels in the next year of her life, like this traveller is likely asking Hermes for a smooth journey. Hermes seems very excited about it 😉
@brichapman@mastodon.social🪲 Soil microbes. Birds. Pollinators. Trees.
Climate solutions grow in living systems.
Biodiversity is resilience.
#BiodiversityDay #NatureBasedSolutions
@frankel@mastodon.topExiting the Billionaire Castle
#EuropeanSovereignty
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
Handsome Boy Modeling School feat. RZA, The Mars Volta & AG / Handsome Boy Modeling School feat. Tim Meadows:
🎵 A Day in the Life / Good Hygiene
#HandsomeBoyModelingSchool #RZA #TheMarsVolta #AG #TimMeadows
@cdarwin@c.im"Another Wasted Life.”
That’s the name of a remarkable new song by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Grammy-winning artist
Rhiannon Giddens.
She released a video of the song on October 2 to mark International Wrongful Conviction Day.
The song was inspired by
Kalief Browder,
a Bronx resident who died by suicide in 2015 at the age of 22
after being detained at Rikers Island jail for nearly three years,
after being falsely accused at the age of …
@Techmeme@techhub.socialGarmin launches the Cirqa Smart Band, a $200 screenless fitness tracker that monitors 80 activities with an up to 10 day battery life, to compete with Whoop (Dana Wollman/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20…
@jake4480@c.imJust beat Deathsmiles (with a few continues). Been meaning to play it for a WHILE. Killer shooter, I mean, what Cave shooter isn't. On sale right now for 50% off, just $9.99USD - lowest I've ever seen. Highly recommend. Kill a fire god and a Tyrannosatan, just another day in the life
https://store.steampowere…
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systemsLet's say you're building a house. Normally this involves hiring a whole bunch of experts (either directly or via some company). You need to pay a fair wage for their labor, and you have to pay for all the material they're going to use. Some of them will be more experienced than others. They will sometimes make a mistake. They will sometimes get sick. The whole construction work will probably take a few months, and may get delayed in the process. Some construction material will be wasted. There's also a risk that over the next years, you'll discover that they screwed something up, and have to fix it. But you'll get a reasonably good house.
Now, a kid comes and tells you you don't have to do this. Instead of paying all these people, you can hire him. He's wearing a suit and sunshades. He never laid a brick in his whole life. But he's got this new great technology that will give you a great house in no time. Of course it will cost you, but not as much as the labor of all these people. You try to learn more, and you discover that the technology actually builds and razes a hundred of house-like things a day, until it gets close enough to something that actually resembles a house. There's a lot of wasted energy and material, but you don't have to worry because it's all subsidized (for the time being). You pay less, you get a house that looks just right on the outside and inside, and that seems to work just right.
Of course, there's a real risk that in a few months you'll discover that something is wrong. You may have to pay a lot for a real expert to figure out how things were done, and how to fix them. Or they may not be able to help you. You may be stuck having to call the suit again, and he'll happily come and fix it for you. And by "fix", I mean he will just raze a whole part of the house and start randomly spitting it out again until he gets something that looks about right, and works about right. Of course, it may not really be a good fit for the rest of the house, but you don't want to pay for replacing the whole thing, do you? It may also introduce a completely new issues that will surface in a few months, but that's just how it is.
Welcome to the glorious world of #AI.
#NoAI #NoLLM #LLM
@BBC6MusicBot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #Afrodeutsche
The Beatles:
🎵 A Day In The Life
#TheBeatles
https://lennonviadinhe.bandcamp.com/track/a-day-in-the-life
https://open.spotify.com/track/0hKRSZhUGEhKU6aNSPBACZ
@burger_jaap@mastodon.socialThe German story of beached whale ‘Timmy’ is a modern-day fable. Continuing to cling to its survival against scientific evidence, as if it were a combustion engine. A rescue operation distracting from the overall decline of marine life, and it turns out to be pointless. And it all ends with diesel.
@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.caA little discouraged this afternoon as I spent part of the day adding extension wire into the 2nd pump as I had the first.
Two tries on both ends splicing in the cord and both times the pump fails to start with a low voltage on the pump-side error. 😢
Hate losing a day… but also unsure where the problem is. If it’s the pump, my splices, or the quality of the extension cord spliced into it (it is the other half of the same cord used to extend the first pump.) Really hope it is not the first! But the other two options suck too because it is an annoying job to do the splices.
Bummer.
Also after the foaming in, it looks like I still missed a significant gap somewhere. Only redirected about half the water. There is a lot more coming down to the end of the waterfall which is good. Still lots coming out the bottom under the flat rocks.
I think I am going to try splicing in a newer extension cord another day since that will kind of answer both the splicing and cord questions at once.
For now though, no extra bottom poolpond circulation/sprayers, just the main pump. And I still have 1.25 cans of foam to use, so I will plan for another day of foaming when I can take a super close second look at where the water is going that it shouldn’t.
Can’t all be successes. Like computer stuff 😝
Onward!
My outdoor office was fun tho. 😊
#poolpond #backyardProject
#diy #pondlife #success #failure #life
@Rob_Oost@mastodon.socialEverybody dies some day. "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning" provides practical handles on how to de-clutter your life, for your own benefit, and the ones who outlive you.
Useful to give this matter some thought timely. Written in a light an utilitarian style by Margareta Magnusson.
#book #goodread
@Erikmitk@mastodon.gamedev.placeI have not seen my cousin for maybe 30 years (due to family bullshit I had no say in as a kid).
We met yesterday and I am delighted that she also has two kids and lives the exact same #ADHD parenting life with her partner as we do!
It sure does run in families!
The kids bonded after 2 seconds instantly and even talked about their medication at the end of the day. Amazing ho…
@cdarwin@c.imAn employee of a company that runs an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Colorado is under arrest
after shooting and injuring a woman on Thursday evening.
The incident happened after the woman participated in a protest in front of the facility earlier that day,
according to the Aurora police department.
When officers arrived on the scene, they said they found the woman with a gunshot wound in her lower body.
She had a friend with her, who was …
@paulwermer@sfba.socialSo it's not just Chinese EVs: "In the last two years much of the car industry’s focus has been on Chinese overcapacity, but the VDA’s statement is drawing attention to deeper changes in Europe with fewer cars being bought by the public."
And with ever more people living in an urban setting, and the arrival of e-bikes & e-mopeds, the need for a car in every day life continues to drop.
German car industry warns of job collapse unless ‘bold decisions’ made to addre…
@PaulWermer@sfba.socialSo it's not just Chinese EVs: "In the last two years much of the car industry’s focus has been on Chinese overcapacity, but the VDA’s statement is drawing attention to deeper changes in Europe with fewer cars being bought by the public."
And with ever more people living in an urban setting, and the arrival of e-bikes & e-mopeds, the need for a car in every day life continues to drop.
German car industry warns of job collapse unless ‘bold decisions’ made to addre…
@brian_gettler@mas.to"Sing along if you've ever worked on a building site or actually just worked a day in your life."
The Mary Wallopers, "Building Up and Tearing England Down" (2022)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXHyLMWDFoY
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #AfternoonShow
The Beatles:
🎵 A Day in the Life
#TheBeatles
https://open.spotify.com/track/0hKRSZhUGEhKU6aNSPBACZ
@radioeinsmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 Auf radioeins läuft...
The Beatles:
🎵 A Day In The Life
#NowPlaying #TheBeatles
https://open.spotify.com/track/0hKRSZhUGEhKU6aNSPBACZ
@smurthys@hachyderm.ioNarasimha is the fourth incarnation of the #Hindu god Wishnu. For reasons, rage is a key trait of Narasimha, especially early in the incarnation. #trivia
Yesterday (Thursday) was "Narasimha Jayanthi", the birthday of Narasimha. The occasion is observed with pomp in Waisnavite locations across #India.
I of course attended the Narasimha Jayanthi festivities in #Udupi. Of the many people I encountered, two were rather rude and directed some anger at me, which I thought I didn't deserve. Still, I handled one of them right, which is by ignoring them; but I think I responded a wee bit in kind to the second. 😳
Needless to say, those two interactions left a bitter taste in me, but I later consoled myself that maybe it was just that Narasimha cast his shadow on some people that day, what with him having just been born. 😀
PS: Anyway, enjoy this presentation of Udupi Krishna on the special day:
#jest #life
@Techmeme@techhub.socialIran's internet blackout, which costs an estimated $80M per day in economic damage, is dividing its military and civilian government, which opposes the measure (Patrick Sykes/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20
@cdarwin@c.imBryan Johnson,
a 48 year old American entrepreneur,
has made headlines for his outlandish anti-ageing techniques
-- spending millions of dollars in a bid to extend his life
and reduce his biological age to that of an 18-year-old.
Johnson refers to his Benjamin Button-esque ways as
‘Project Blueprint’,
meticulously taking 54 supplements a day,
eating every meal between 6am and 11.30am,
and following a strict exercise regimen.
In 2023, …
@johnhobbs@mstdn.caIn retirement, embrace life's simple joys. Start your day with peace, spend afternoons with family, and enjoy stunning sunsets. Make time for cherished travels, hobbies, and creating lasting memories. It's your chance to truly own your time and relish in the richness of life! #RetirementGoals
@BBC6MusicBot@mastodonapp.uk @johnhobbs@mstdn.caStarting the day with coffee in hand as the sun rises, fully owning your time, truly epitomizes the essence of retirement. Experience the liberty to travel spontaneously, enjoy life's simple delights, and craft lifelong memories with grandkids. This blend of hard-earned freedom and elevated living is not just a dream; it's an experience to cherish. Here's to embracing THE FREEDOM. #RetirementGoals
