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General thoughts 2024-04-11

Postby LongRunner » April 10th, 2024, 4:08 pm

Dancing
Unless the moves form a coherent expression (which they generally don't), I don't find much point in watching it.
So if people see it as just being an excuse to show sexy poses, I can't blame them :P

Cakes
Do they really need 1cm of icing? 1mm would be fine with me :shy:
Information is far more fragile than the HDDs it's stored on. Being an afterthought is no excuse for a bad product.

My PC: Core i3 4130 on GA‑H87M‑D3H with GT640 OC 2GiB and 2 * 8GiB Kingston HyperX 1600MHz, Kingston SA400S37120G and WD3003FZEX‑00Z4SA0, Pioneer BDR‑209DBKS and Optiarc AD‑7200S, Seasonic G‑360, Chenbro PC31031, Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.3.
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General thoughts 2024-05-01

Postby LongRunner » May 1st, 2024, 3:36 am

Australian manufacturing
It was great when the whole product was locally made; but newer products rely on more and more imported components, and our companies often haven't done an adequate job of checking those (see for example the circuit breaker in this, and the B22 lampholder in many Westinghouse fridges).

Nowadays I only really bother for items which are simple enough to locally manufacture in their entirety: Beyond food/drink and basic building materials (notably NCIA tiles) I have Clipsal 2000 Series switches and sockets (although many of the lower-volume items are offshored even there), Palm Outdoor cups and plates/bowls, a Koala bed and Sutton Tools drill bits… For large appliances I usually go with European makes; small appliances I choose on their (observable) merits.

“Nonsense”
If you say the word without explaining why, then you have zero possibility of convincing any sane opponent.
(Providing an explanation doesn't guarantee anything, of course, but if you want to have a chance…)
Last edited by LongRunner on August 6th, 2024, 7:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Added NCIA tiles
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General thoughts 2024-05-10

Postby LongRunner » May 10th, 2024, 7:58 am

Aspergirls, part 2 (refer back to part 1 first)
Many parents express bafflement that their offspring identify as trans during or after puberty, without having been noticeably gender-atypical before then (and perhaps not even now). How could that be so? Easy, as it turns out: Aspergirls (at least) are often very shy and anxious, so many make their way into particularly-docile (and “feminine”) spaces such as art (which doesn't require much in the way of ambition or other conventionally-masculine traits which can be conflated with aggression), and can therefore seem “male” by comparison to their friends/acquaintances without necessarily being so in a broader context.

Perhaps also as a result, some Aspergirls might not get used to normal male behavior; they may erroneously assume they're “fine” there because they get along with the male regulars in their art/whatever community (who will tend to be unusually “feminine” compared to the broader male population), only to be slapped in the face (metaphorically, hopefully not literally…) by the real world and at a loss for an explanation :(.
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General thoughts 2024-05-16

Postby LongRunner » May 16th, 2024, 1:29 am

Cults
I think a key reason they're quite common and so successful is because in many ways, they're not so different from “normal” society; sure many of their specific views are contrary to those of the wider population, but the wider population certainly believe some things with much the same level of conviction as cultists (and some of those things might even be almost as destructive as cult beliefs), so from “here” to “there” isn't really that far to leap…

Scroll Lock
I actually wish software developers didn't abandon that key; tracking the cursor continuously (rather than only scrolling when it reaches the edge) would have been nice to keep. (Linux doesn't even let you turn it on anymore…)
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General thoughts 2024-05-31

Postby LongRunner » May 31st, 2024, 12:30 am

Paranoid people
It may seem easy to dismiss them, but consider that many are actually quite intelligent and “talking down” to them will only make things worse.
Let's recount a few cases I know of:

Maryanne Demasi
As many Australians know, she landed in hot water for her Catalyst episodes on heart disease and Wi-Fi (which were since withdrawn by the ABC).
Frankly, in “Heart of the Matter” she could have chosen better correspondents on both sides; saturated fat/cholesterol dissenters less-associated with flagrant quackery would have helped (if they exist…), as would mainstream professionals not from the Heart Foundation (which gained some infamy for granting their now‑defunct Tick to some sugary foods).

I'm no medical doctor, but what I can piece together from available information is:
  • Saturated fats are indeed the most stable, but their straight molecular chains facilitate the formation of plaques.
    (The Heart Foundation would have done far better to explain the latter, rather than resorting to the emotional beat of being “shocked” at Demasi's deed.)
    Myristic (14 carbon atoms) and palmitic (16 carbon atoms) acids are the main concern, lauric (12 carbon atoms) is marginally better; however stearic acid (18 carbon atoms) seems to be surprisingly benign, so if it can be economically refined then it becomes a viable solution to the solid-fat conundrum…
  • Monounsaturated fats are slightly less stable, but have a bend at the double-bond making them much less prone to forming plaques.
    So if you have to add extra fat to a meal, they are probably the most healthful (or least unhealthful) overall option there.
  • Polyunsaturated fats are noticeably less stable again, although omega-3 and omega-6 are essential in some quantity (much less than in the American Diet).
    Many seed oils however have an excess of omega-6 (pro-inflammatory) without enough omega-3 (anti-inflammatory) to counteract it; the criticality (or otherwise) of this balance is somewhat contested, but if you use canola rather than (say) sunflower oil it's easy enough to stay on the safe side.
  • Finally, almost* everyone agrees that trans fats are the worst of both worlds; they are technically unsaturated, but have straight chains like saturated fats.
    How much worse they are than saturated fats is subject to debate and/or interpretation, but definitely not something to prefer.
*Sandy Szwarc may herself count as an example here, as she's largely a crack-libertarian although she makes an occasional good point; that 85th and 95th percentile business was/is, at best, a lazy way of classifying “overweight” or “obese” kids.

That being said, whether swapping saturated fats for monounsaturated is actually a sensible exchange is another question; liquid oils are fine for frying in (although unsaturated fats do degrade somewhat from the heat, and the meal shouldn't actually retain that much oil if you're frying it properly), but in baked treats (cakes, biscuits etc.) you're putting the fat in to produce the desired texture/consistency, and replacing solid fats with a liquid oil isn't that :lol2:.

Demasi also aimed to draw more attention to side-effects of statins (you may debate if her attention was proportional to reality), but nowhere did she claim that they don't work. My own assessment is that you should take them if you have heart problems despite living a healthful lifestyle (or as healthful as is practical under your circumstances), although if every available statin causes intolerable side-effects then you might be willing to risk going without them; don't just devour the Standard American Diet and use statins as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Anyway since being booted off Catalyst, she staggered around until getting lost in the infamous Brownstone Institute.

Graham Linehan
Best known nowadays for his all-consuming transphobia (amply detailed elsewhere so I won't repeat that myself), he once directed Father Ted and The IT Crowd.
Of course, these are technically connected in that the IT Crowd episode “The Speech” contained a tacitly-transphobic subplot (although even some real transwomen admit it wasn't that bad, at least by 2008 standards), for which Channel 4 withdrew it after receiving some complaints and doing an internal review.

I won't coddle anyone involved here – Linehan's reaction has been massively out of proportion, but at the same time Channel 4 could have better-handled their end of the drama (say by putting The Speech's fate up to an audience vote).
Not that any sane person expects bureaucratic institutions to behave rationally; but given that episode's priceless “The Internet” subplot, many viewers have been happy enough to forgive its sins. (Although now that the UK has swung so far back in the anti-trans direction, I'm a bit surprised they haven't reinstated it :P)

Perhaps the moral of the story is: Don't treat anybody as an idol, even if they haven't yet done anything wrong…

That aside, it's often hard not to be paranoid when you deal with things like:

De-Solv-it (basically the Australian version of Goo Gone)
They've really pulled a fast one by boasting about their “Natural Citrus Base” when their own MSDS admits it's mostly hydrocarbons (and unsurprisingly, burns like nobody's business if you set it alight; but strangely lacks the standard flammability symbol). And it's supposedly “biodegradable”? :wtf:
Hitoha hates hypocrisy.png
Hitoha hates hypocrisy.png (427.98 KiB) Viewed 3479 times
I know proper orange oil is expensive, so making a cheaper mixture is understandable; just don't make out like it's as eco-friendly or “natural” as the real thing.
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Re: General thoughts 2024-04-11

Postby Behemot » June 15th, 2024, 1:55 pm

LongRunner wrote:Dancing
Unless the moves form a coherent expression (which they generally don't), I don't find much point in watching it.
So if people see it as just being an excuse to show sexy poses, I can't blame them :P

applies for everything, why should anybody be watching other doing something instead of doing it themselves? especially sports

well, they do :popcorn:

what I don't get, why is watermelon (or any other melon for that matter) constantly being found in FRUITS menu of the scales in markets, or is it just local thing? you have it in vegetables?
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General thoughts 2024-06-27

Postby LongRunner » June 26th, 2024, 9:48 pm

Beverage transport
To cut down on plastic waste I think we should go back to delivery in reusable bottles, only now made of Tritan rather than glass :mrgreen:

“Judging people by the company they keep”
That may work accurately enough on extroverts, but it's far less reliable on introverts (especially semi-wild renegades like me :group:).
Most of the individuals I associate with have rather dissimilar views to mine (certainly on political matters).
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General thoughts 2024-07-07

Postby LongRunner » July 6th, 2024, 8:57 pm

“Woman” and “female”
I've never been overly fond of those very English words, given how they're formed just by adding prefixes to their antonyms.
It also never felt right how neither “man” nor “woman” share even one letter with “boy” and “girl” (granted that's because the latter two originally had different meanings, and “girl” wasn't even specifically female to begin with); such are the sins of the English language (those pompous imperialists :dodgy:).

Many feminists might not appreciate it, but using “girl” for any age is fine by me if you also use “boy” likewise :P

Large animals
I find giraffes more graceful than elephants.
(Elephants are larger, live longer and have the added utility of their trunk; but giraffes digest their food much more efficiently and have superior sight.)

Pandas, on the other hand – don't ask :runaway:

Electric blankets (and heating pads)
I suspect that their modern low-EMF element construction has compromised on electrical and fire safety; in the older blankets with simple single-core heating cables, a direct or partial short-circuit was virtually impossible as it would have involved breaking through the outer insulation on two adjacent parts of the cable (which would have already put the user in electrocution danger anyway). (There was some fire risk from arcing across a break in the wire, but you probably had to keep the arc going for a while for it to escape the containment of the PVC insulation – PVC being inherently self-extinguishing, of course.)
To reduce EMF, however, the manufacturers resorted to using two concentric resistance wires, carrying the same current in opposite directions, each joined to active and neutral at the same end of the cable, and connected together at the other end; the intermediate insulation is much thinner than that around the outside, so could quite feasibly be broken through at any point on the cable. If this occurs near the power input then a short-circuit will result, and if it occurs somewhere in the middle of the cable then the section remaining in-circuit will be severely overrun. (There may also be some models using two concentric wires to produce the different power settings, instead of the safer method of two separate heating cables; an insulation break within those would parallel the cores between the break and the common node, so on the other side of the fault, whichever wire is currently active will be overrun when operating on low or medium power.)

Of course the better brands incorporate various protections into the electronic controller, but anything goes in the cheapos. (To be satisfactory to me, if a modern electric blanket doesn't use an electronic controller with instantaneous overcurrent protection, then the input connector should at least contain an appropriately‑rated HRC fuse to guard against hard shorts; and a thermal fuse in contact with the heating cable or a series resistor, to apprehend overheating from partial shorts.)
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General thoughts 2024-07-10

Postby LongRunner » July 10th, 2024, 3:46 am

Open-plan home layout
Only extroverts should go for it; it's just stressful and chaotic for us introverts to live in…

Can Do Albany
This is my first time criticizing a local business by name, but I'll go ahead because my objection partly is with their name: Channelling the Commonwealth Bank's “Can” mantra just makes them sound terminally institutional :lol2: – and in my brief experience, their PEERS program is just that.
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General thoughts 2024-07-16

Postby LongRunner » July 16th, 2024, 5:21 am

Toenails
They're a real wasted opportunity; they could have been much tougher, like built-in steel caps. Instead they're weak points…

Kate McCartney & Kate McLennan
They probably should have stuck to the Katering Show; I don't remember Get Krack!n actually cracking me up. :shy:

Digital DayClox (and similar)
These are low-effort even for a niche product in general; they have a large full-color LCD, and even a USB port – but only for firmware updates, it doesn't load pictures (despite having enough current capability – at least when tested on a 2A PC +5VSB supply, rather than the original faulty 1A plug-pack – to power even a 2.5″ HDD, let alone a flash drive). My understanding is that they only use a full-color display because it's easier than getting a custom display made; but apparently these also contain a fairly capable CPU, so could perhaps be reprogrammed to display pictures as well. Let me know if you find (or write) a custom firmware…
But I guess old people don't care if the device has wasted potential, as long as it does all they ask for :lol2:
I know they're aimed at Alzheimer's disease sufferers so more settings could be confusing, but they could program it to only show the picture functions and settings when a USB drive with pictures is plugged in, and revert to basic clock/day mode when it's unplugged…
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