gru:Bz
Average millennial living life on the edge (of the Midwest). Probably too immature for Micro.blog but I like it here.
Link
Inspiration from Dr. Hoby Wedler - your non-visual sensory guide to the best things in life
I’ve been watching this TikTok page for a couple months and it’s been such an inspiration. Super sweet down to earth guy who laughed in the face of adversity and got his PhD in chemistry, in spite of people telling him it would never work. This video is my favorite. He talks about using your disadvantages as a super power. If you’re not crazy about TikTok, his home page is hobywedler.com
video: tiktok.com/@hobywedler/vi…
Nintendo made a music streaming app for Switch Online subscribers
It’s like Apple Music Classical but for Nintendo games
Some (Slightly Biased) Thoughts On The State Of Decentralized Social Media | Techdirt
I’m enthusiastic about Bluesky’s approach. I think the ATProtocol gives us the best chance of reaching that breakthrough. But I’m happy to see others trying different ideas as well, because all of these experiments will help bring us to a world where more people embrace decentralized systems and move away from old walled gardens
This is interesting. Bluesky is my first choice too. I really dig the fact that Micro.blog lets you comment via Bluesky or Mastodon ❤️ decentralization
These hornets break down alcohol so fast that they can’t get drunk
“To the best of our knowledge, Oriental hornets are the only animal in nature adapted to consuming alcohol as a metabolic fuel," said co-author Eran Levin of Tel Aviv University. “They show no signs of intoxication or illness, even after chronically consuming huge amounts of alcohol, and they eliminate it from their bodies very quickly.”
I wonder what they do to wind down at the end of the day
Power-sucking GenAI set to create mountain of e-waste
The study…indicates potential for rapid growth of e-waste from 2.6 kilotons each year in 2023 to between 400 kilotons and 2.5 million tons each year in 2030, when no waste reduction measures are considered.
AI can do some really amazing things but do its benefits outweigh 2.5 million tons of waste per year?
I Don’t Know Why Women Keep Laughing at Me When I’m Out Driving my Tesla Cybertruck
I was taking a right turn out of a convenience store driveway the other day, waiting for the traffic to go by, and noticed the driver, a female, was apparently laughing hysterically at my truck…Then today, I was at a four-way stop, and a guy in a Nissan Titan/Toyota Tundra or something smiled and then chuckled like: “What a tool.”
Hmmm I can’t think of any reasons someone would mock you for driving a sheet metal polygon that costs as much as a house and can’t survive an automatic car wash 😆
We can Terraform the American West – Casey Handmer’s blog
I like this. Terraform Earth before we terraform Mars.
The fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor called Loops
Loops…was developed by Daniel Supernault, who also created the federated Instagram rival Pixelfed. In fact, Loops will run under the Pixelfed project, according to an FAQ on its website.
This looks pretty cool! I registered an account and now I’m just waiting for the welcome email to come through. I wonder how it will hold up to TikTok. I think it’ll be difficult to pull in creators without any way to monetize, but then again look at everyone here who blogs every day just for fun. It might just be crazy enough to work
Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales from June
Single-use vapes are difficult to recycle and typically end up in landfill, where their batteries can leak harmful waste like battery acid, lithium, and mercury into the environment, the government said.
This is my biggest concern with disposable vapes. I use one daily, so I’m definitely a hypocrite here. One vape store out of dozens near me has a drop box for used ones and I always dump my old ones off there, but I still have to wonder whether or not they’re actually recycling them.
A Quarter of Smartphone Owners Are Unimpressed by AI
The biggest motivation for US adult smartphone owners to upgrade their devices is longer battery life (61%), followed by more storage (46%) and better camera features (38%). Just 18% say their main motivator is AI integrations.
AI can do some really cool stuff but I’d much rather have a battery I don’t have to charge three times a day. One that doesn’t go to 85% capacity after a few months, maybe. It totally works in device manufacturer’s favor though. Something with onboard AI is probably going to suck down a lot more power, run hotter and wear out quicker, so you’ll still purchase an upgrade in a year or two. Don’t upgrade because you want to, upgrade because you have to.
iOS 18.2 will let everyone set new default phone and messaging apps
…a note on Apple’s developer website states that all users worldwide can set new default apps for calling and messaging in iOS 18.2
But the big stuff, like support for alternative app stores and browser engines, has mostly been confined to the EU.
I wish they’d support other browser engines in the US already. The only thing I miss about Android was that you could actually use Firefox. Like actual Firefox, with extensions. Imagine if Google limited everyone to re-skinned versions of Chrome on every Android device.
‘Jersey Shore’ Airs as ‘Macaroni Rascals’ in Japan? | Snopes.com
The Japanese translation of “Jersey Shore” is more nuanced than the meme suggests, but the core of the claim holds up. When the Japanese title, “マカロニ野郎のニュージャージーライフ,” is translated to English using Google Translate, it can be read as, “Macaroni Guy’s New Jersey Life.”
However, when that same title is translated using the Cambridge Dictionary Translator, it reads “Macaroni Bastards' New Jersey Life.”
I love Japan 😆
Conservatives tried to start a boycott of LGBTQ+ friendly businesses. Their efforts backfired.
Several small business owners in Lancaster, Ohio, say they saw an increase in new customers after a local anti-LGBTQ+ group tried to start a boycott campaign against them.
I work in Lancaster every once in a while and it’s a pretty backwards, back woods kinda town. I always feel a little uncomfortable there because of all the jacked up trucks with Trump flags, LETS GO BRANDON stickers and even my customers who come in wearing NRA shirts and MAGA hats.
Here’s what a County Conservatives member and director of the local Family Forum has to say:
“None of us have called for anyone to boycott these businesses; we were just trying to figure out who was supporting [the events],” Burgoon said. “Our downtown has suffered greatly, and it has come back now. We don’t want to lose that again, so we haven’t called for anybody to boycott anyone.”
Yeah okay.
But the owners of businesses on the list aren’t buying it. Brandon Love, owner of gift shop Bewilderment argues that the list was always meant to discourage people from patronizing the businesses on it.
“We’ve probably had at least 200 people who have never been to Lancaster that have come to town to support the boycotted businesses,” Love said. “People from, not just Columbus, but out of state have been visiting us on the daily now, and so it’s definitely something I didn’t expect.”
It’s nice to see the LGBTQ+ community standing their ground to all the hate coming from the shit head conservatives who want to run them out, or at the very least force them back into the closet. Even more heartwarming to know people are flocking to this forgotten little town to show their support. I’ll never understand why some people are so hellbent on dehumanizing other people who are a little different than them.
The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds
I was reading a post by Toxicka Shock about this disturbing homebrew Gameboy ROM this morning:
One of the great unsung stories of video gaming in the 2010s was the explosion of high quality homebrew releases. The success of games like Undertale and Cave Story are proof that you don’t need millions of dollars and humongous staff to create an unforgettable title, but where thing get really interesting is when it comes to retro console releases.
It hit me right in the face with a blast of nostalgia and reminded me of my console modding days.
Back in the day, I had a soft-modded original Xbox loaded with emulators and ROMs from all the big 90s consoles. It was my first and, frankly, my best experience with emulators as well as community built, homebrew games and ROM hacks. The 2000s and 2010s were definitely a golden age for unofficial ROMs.
My absolute favorite to this day is still The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds;
The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds is a fan overhaul of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past using new graphics, new music, a new overworld and underworld, and a new storyline. It is for the SNES. As of 2008, the game has been in production for 4-5 years and has had a demo release, a 1.0 release and a 1.1 patch to fix many bugs as well as minor changes in dialogue. A 2.0 release is planned and has been officially announced. This overhaul is infamous for its high level of difficulty
When you picture a homebrew game you probably picture something with lots of bugs, and sprites made in MS Paint. Or maybe the old NES Zelda hack where they make everyone look like South Park characters.
This is definitely not that though. It feels like an authentic Nintendo title. It truly feels like an insanely difficult official sequel to A Link to the Past.
It’s over 20 years old, but it’s still worth playing if you’re a die hard Zelda fan. Especially if, like me, A Link to the Past is your all time favorite in the series.
Autopsy of 78-year-old man reveals he had three penises
Interestingly, it appears the urethra first grew within the secondary penis but failed to entirely develop there, forcing it to change its route and grow through what became the primary penis.
Because of this internal arrangement, medical researchers explained in their paper that it’s possible the man spent his entire life unaware of his situation.
Imagine having not one but two extras and not even knowing it lol
Man blames bellyache on street food — but no, it’s a live cockroach
Cockroaches are known as hearty insects that can survive just about anything: sewers, decapitation, radiation after a nuclear war. And to prove the point, one cockroach was just spotted alive and well while wreaking havoc inside the stomach of a 23-year-old man.
Dude wuuut 😳
BlueSky knocked offline after mass exodus from Elon Musk’s site
Elon Musk, X’s owner, announced that the site would be changing how its “block” button works. That option previously allowed users to hide their profile from certain accounts – but will no longer do so.
“One of the biggest functions of blocking is giving women the ability to stop weird men from constantly making them uncomfortable and scared,” one user wrote. “So of course Elon had to change that.”
Always heartwarming to see more people leaving Elon’s Hellsite
Jerry Seinfeld No Longer Believes the “Extreme Left” Is Ruining Comedy
“I did an interview with The New Yorker, and I said that the extreme left has suppressed the art of comedy,” Seinfeld said. “I did say that. That’s not true."
“Does culture change, and are there things I used to say that I can’t say [because] everybody’s always moving [the gate]? Yeah, but that’s the biggest, easiest target…The accuracy of your observation has to be a hundred times finer than that to just be a comedian.”
He had a terrible take and realized it was terrible. Good for him
Maybe It Should Be Illegal To Instantly Delete A Website’s Archives - Aftermath
A few months ago GameStop wiped Game Informer off the face of the earth without notice. This kinda thing is why the Internet Archive is so important.