gru:Bz

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

App Store | Google Play

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.