If you’re interested in smaller scale sculpting, it’d be remiss of me not to direct you to The Crafsman Steady Craftin’

https://youtube.com/@thecrafsman?si=IrZ7Ze0j5WnfyXXk

Lemmy was released as an open-source fediverse alternative to Reddit.

Just over a year after launch, r/ChapoTrapHouse, moved across after being banned from Reddit. This is likely what you’re referring to. It had well over 100,000 active users on Reddit, so represented a sudden sizable influx of users.

I’d wager the biggest influx of people by far, though, occurred when Spez upset a majority of mods and many users by banning third party apps.

People looked for an alternative, and Lemmy was it.

But why are so many people who lean left politically? Because the Venn Diagram for “people who like the idea of a decentralised platform that supports everybody and is free from the machinations of millionaires”, and “people who would like society that supports everybody and is free from the machinations of millionaires” is nearly a circle.

You might be underestimating the timescales involved.

For example, grass - super simple organism, right? Should have appeared early on? No, dinosaurs appeared before grass did. But when the first grasses did evolve, wow, they were successful on a scale that is hard to overstate.

The beauty of sexual reproduction, from an evolutionary point of view, is that by its very nature, it allows many experiments to take place at once. The success criteria of each experiment is how many babies can the subject make.

Little wings evolve on seed pods for the same reason they evolved on anything else. For whatever reason, each step along the way made them a tiny bit more successful at having babies than those without.

Maybe a little spike makes them slightly less likely to be eaten, a bigger spike less likely still. A flatter spike helped them catch the wind and scatter further afield, and broader ones further still.

There’s no feedback needed for individuals in this system - it’s literally a numbers game based on who/what can make the most babies. They’re the ones who, millions of years down the line, end up winning.

It’s not the boiling that’s the important factor - it’s the temperature.

You could make a cup of tea with it, but it wouldn’t be much different than just plopping a teabag in room-temperature water for the same amount of time.

Primary sources? No, but there are independent secondary sources by people with no skin in the game.

Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus (circa 93–94 CE).

Annals by Tacitus (circa 116 CE)

The earliest Christian writings are also more about the teachings of a disruptive Jewish preacher who was then crucified, than they are about magic.

Let’s not do the ‘every Christian’ thing. It’s worth remembering the US has a very ‘unique’ type of Christian.

This. There is evidence that a preacher called Jesus existed, was crucified, and was well-regarded enough to start a following that persisted even after his death.

There isn’t, however, strong historical evidence for any of the magical parts of it.

Is that actually true? I suspect not.

Most people start “enjoying their own company” years before getting to try for real.

If there was a question of insensitivity, then surely problems would be much more prevalent at ages when people are enjoying themselves more frequently. But it’s not the case at all.

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Fact 1 - sexually active people subconsciously look at peoples’ crotches when meeting them.

Fact 2 - evolution doesn’t fine tune things if they’re good enough to get the job done well.

So the fact that pubic hairs are unsightly crazy-looking things might not be because they are fine tuned to be like that - it might just be because they do their job well enough and they just ended up looking like that.

What job could that be?

To confirm visually that you are sexually mature.

That may literally be it - a localised fuzzy indicator of whether or not you’re able to make babies.

I’m not trying to downplay the reality of serious health concerns sometimes being behind food habits, but I think I need to say…

Picky eating is an absolutely normal part of child development. Anecdotally, both of my kids went through two distinct phases of picky eating, at around 3-5 and 8-11.

They gradually grow out of it. All you can do is try to make sure what they are eating is nutritious enough while they are going through it.

Dry cereal always worked (still does!) as a nutritious snack. Granted, the nutrition has all been sprayed on, but it’s still there.

A little mixed tub of Cornflakes/Branflakes/Rice Crispies/Coco Pops always goes down well.

Nerf Herder have a song called Courtney about Courtney Love.

I always wanted a Nokia - I know it was a cliche, but I was amazed at how indestructible they were. Even when they did actually break apart, you could just pick up the bits, clip them back together, and it would just work again - with no visible damage.

Also, SNAKE

I started university in 1999. Pretty much everyone had a mobile phone there. They were fairly new, granted, but they were pretty ubiquitous.

I know it doesn’t help, but Europeans have always been amazed how much you guys were charged for SMS. Even in 1999, over here messages cost a fraction of what you were charged - that you pay for them at all these days is just mind-boggling.

I think it depends on the convention used in each country, so there isn’t one global correct answer.

In Britain the convention is Ground, 1st Floor, 2nd Floor.

I guess the USA famously uses rendition flights and offshore detention centres, so maybe the plot twist is the other ‘US’ is actually the USA?

Just wanted to add another agreement here. It’s like milk at the bottom of a bowl of children’s cereal (er, obviously not Coco Pops).

I’m surprised that there’s a few people saying it tastes salty. I wonder how much it depends on diet - I guess human diets vary more than cow diets do.

Maybe I am being obtuse - but I really don’t see what it is you think you’ve had taken from you.

The conversation, the exchange of information, is intangible and transient by its very nature. You don’t own the conversation. There’s nothing about it to own.

If you think there’s some obligation on the part of the moderator to preserve the transcripts of conversations that you’ve taken part in, even against their own better judgement, then I’m sorry but I don’t see it.

But anyway, like I said - if you set up your own instance, you can keep those threads open for as long as you like.