Everyone has something they can’t stop themselves from nerding out over - but often it’s hard to find people to talk to about it. So go ahead, share your interests, and tell us about them!
The idea of time. It’s insane to me to think about events happening at different times in different places. Or for the same event to take different amounts of time depending on your reference points.
The sun is 8 minutes away from us, so we are looking at it 8 minutes in the past. If it were to suddenly disappear, it would take 8 minutes for us to find out. That’s mine-blowing to me! It’s like the past, present, and future are all happening at the same time.
Nobody cares to humor me when I bring the topic up lol
So facinating, even gravity is affected by those 8 minutes. Iow we would rotate around a missing sun, for 8 minutes, same as with light.
This is all also related to relativity, that someone else wanted to talk about in this post, i am just saying ;)It is also very weird that gravity is affected the same way!
what is the speed of gravity
has anyone tried to measure that?
There are some links describing the projects working on this at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity
Thanks
In the relativistic sense, the “speed of gravity” refers to the speed of a gravitational wave, which, as predicted by general relativity and confirmed by observation of the GW170817 neutron star merger, is the same speed as the speed of light ©.
I have a few.
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Linguistics/languages. It’s what I majored in. Unfortunately, being a linguist on the Internet is a Sisyphean task—when you point out that language changes and doesn’t always mean what you think it should mean, people get upset.
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Related to the above, conlangs (constructed languages—e.g. Klingon, anything Tolkien, Sangheili (sp?) from Halo, Na’vi). It’s a very niche hobby.
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My Little Pony. I am a dude. I like the wholesomeness; it’s a break from everything else being gritty and dark.
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Music theory. Like, deep music theory. Meshuggah counting? Microtones? Obscure composers and releases? I love that shit.
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Star Trek. nuq vIjatlh DaneH’a’?
Since you’re mentioning both linguistics and music theory - did you know that the music of Avatar was originally supposed to be completely different, essentially an alien counterpart to tribal music? I’d love to hear what they started producing, but afaik nothing was ever released. Still, there are some interesting videos on this topic!
Nice! Have you looked at Indian ragas and the scales/modes behind those? That was fun for me, coming from a western music background.
Yes! And I’ve also looked into Indian counting patterns (e.g., Sarah Thawer, the drummer, from whom I learned about the rupak taal). My favorite composer is Philip Glass and minimalism as a genre owes a lot to his experiences with Indian music. Unfortunately I got into Glass when I was in high school and nobody else gave a shit.
Glass is great. Yeah, hs’ers prolly wouldn’t appreciate him so much :-) I’ll look into Sarah Thawer…
Hello fellow Bronie.
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benefits of ritual and separating them from superstition.
I think it’s interesting to explore different frames of mind. I used to be christian, but then I read the bible. afterwards, I embraced paganism which has a more positive and welcoming community generally. eventually, the seeds of reason became rooted in my mind and I grew to be the atheist I am today. I still appreciate the experience of group ritual, as it feels good to explore different aspects of my personality. I guess the roleplaying is therapeutic. mixing that with my interests in mythology makes for plenty of content to examine. what encourages different rituals to develop? what are the notable effects of ritual in general? is superstition somehow beneficial to the community? I find that digging around to explore these questions can keep me busy for hours, which I enjoy thoroughly. unfortunately, no one I know shares the same interests. most folks seem to be superstitious about it, lol.
Those are very interesting thoughts. Do you write about it anywhere? Or do you have any good resources that give an overview over some of your questions?
I don’t write about them, but that’s a great idea. there’s a number of papers I’ve read and some academic YouTube channels I’ve found informative. I don’t have access to them conveniently right now as I am on mobile. (I’m still pretty new to Lemmy and don’t know if there’s a way to DM when I find those resources)
You can send DMs, or you can reply to the comment - that way others could read them too :)
Are you me? Same religious/spiritual journey here. I tell people now I’m an atheist that practices paganism, because religion is something you do, not something you are.
I think one of the coolest things about human experience is that we all come up with stories that answer the same questions, just slightly differently. It’s because being human leads you to want answers to the same questions regardless of time or space. Why am I here? Why do bad things happen? What comes next?
Doppelgangers unite, lol!
I enjoy getting together with my coven to perform rituals, as it is a bonding experience and the food is good. Celebrating the changes of the seasons helps me to be more mindful of the natural world and to appreciate it’s beauty. Satanism is also appealing to me because the use of rituals seem more poignant.
This is a very, very cool topic. Ritual too often gets dismissed as just hokum/superstition, but if you think about ritual activities as means of creating different perceptual states (imagination+ IMO) or as means of creating/strengthening certain interpersonal bonds or reinforcing certain group norms, it gets VERY interesting.
It’s kind of why I like a chaos magick maxim I’ve heard before - “Belief is a tool”. It’s very easy to cross over into woo-woo territory, but if you’re able to keep your head on straight while also being able to temporarily suspend disbelief for a bit, you can have some pretty neat experiences.
I couldn’t of said that better! some of my favorite symbols to integrate in ritual are Baphomet and Santa Muerte. Throwing a healthy dose of sexual activities in the mix can really make for a good time! After all, “Nothing is true, everything permitted.”
I don’t know if “rarely” is quite the right description, but I foster kittens. I meet lots of people who are excited to hear about it on a surface level and see pictures/videos/play with them, but it’s been challenging to connect with other people who also foster. I’m desperate to trade stories, learn from, and teach other foster parents. I even started a community on Kbin and have posted there a few times, but haven’t gotten any engagement (other than votes) so far.
In case anyone is curious, I’m still confused about how to properly link cross platform, but it’s at fosteranimals@kbin.socialThat’s awesome, thank you for doing it! I’d love to foster as I’ve lived with cats my whole childhood and FREAKING love them, but I don’t think I could give up a single one once they’ve lived with me :( how do you do it?
Honestly, I feel like I discovered a cheat code! It’s always a little hard to say goodbye, but I really enjoy having “illegally smol” kittens around, and they don’t stay that small very long. I only have so much time, space, and money, so if I want new tiny kittens, I have to say goodbye to the ones that are weaned and healthy. Also, most of the people who have adopted my fosters share updates with me as they adjust to their new homes, so I still have a small connection to each of them and know they’re in good homes.
Ooh that’s a good solution :) the small kitten phase is certainly uniquely cute. When I was very young one of our cats had kittens (my parents didn’t get her spayed quickly enough - luckily the only time it happened), and we kept one from the litter. It’s a very special experience!
Lots of things I’m really interested in are looked down on by other adults I know. I love animation but it’s seen as something for kids. I love video games, but that’s for teens, incels and nerds. And I love birdwatching, but that’s for boring old people. Oh and also whatever my ADHD is making me hyperfocus on at any given moment. I could talk about any of those topics for ages, but more often than not people aren’t interested, so I keep it to myself.
We should be friends. What’s your favorite animated film and/or video game? For me, WALL-E and Borderlands 2. Both for technical reasons more than entertainment reasons.
Hard to pick but for the longest time my favourite animated film was How to Train Your Dragon, the firdt one is really charming. There’s so many good ones to pick from. Wall-E is a great movie, and the soundtrack composed by Thomas Newman is just, chef’s kiss, y’know? Have you ever watched song if the sea? Another good one with a great story and beautiful music. Do you watch animated series? Anything you particularly enjoyed lately?
Favourite video game right now is Hollow Knight, even though metroidvanias aren’t necessarily my thing. I’ve never played Borderlands, what’s the gameplay like?
Borderlands is a looter shooter. You shoot things, they drop bigger guns, you shoot bigger things that drop even BIGGER guns. It’s the FPS version of Diablo.
I specifically love #2 because of the writing. Sure, they have middle school jokes that involve Bonerfarts, but under it’s goofy surface, it pulls you in and builds these characters around you, and it does NOT hold back from throwing you curve balls!
That game honestly made me laugh AND cry multiple times.
I might check it out then. Shooter games aren’t really my jam but I play Fortnite and Overwatch with my son from time to time and he loves it, so maybe I check it out with him. He might be too young for it though.
I love animation so much, and I’m desperate to talk about some of the shows that don’t have much of an online following. Like, Summer Camp Island is such a wholesome and fun series, but I don’t know anyone else who has watched it.
Also still so gutted about what happened with HBO Max, I really thought animation had found a home.
We are kindred spirits! I am devastated at what’s happened with HBO Max, I will forever be salty that they gave up on Infinity train! And netflix too, dropping glitch techs, dead end, and inside job. So many good shows without closure.
I’m heartened that some indie artists are starting to go their own way online. Lackadaisy, Helluva Boss, monkey Wrench. It’s promising and could be the future of animation, but requires a lot of patience for now.
I started Summer Camp Island but dropped it along the way. Maybe I should pick it back up again. What other shows are you desperate to talk about?
Oh man, I’m so excited that Lackadaisy got the full funding for 5 episodes and three minisodes, it’s one of the most successful fully indie series I’ve seen other than Helluva Boss. I’ve been following the comic since for like 15 years, it’s crazy to see it suddenly blow up and launch a series. I also love other webtoon stuff like A Fox in Space, Big Top Burger, and anything by Felix Colgrave (I’ve watched Donks more times than I can count).
For shows, I know Bee and Puppycat isn’t for everyone, but I absolutely adored that show. It makes me feel some sort of way with its mix of silliness and melancholy. Also Hilda! I’ve seen it mentioned more often than this other stuff, but I feel like everyone really needs to watch it. The movie was a great cap to the series, though I wish the series itself was longer. Perhaps its better to end on a good note though.
I’ve actually only watched the first two seasons of infinity train, I really need to get back into it. I was so surprised by how brutal the second season got. I think I just haven’t continued it because I feel like I’ll just miss Lake.
It’s always so delightful to see a pilot finally get to spawn a series years later. Starting with Adventure Time and going through Steven Universe, OK KO, Infinity Train, Bee and Puppycat, and soon Lackadaisy, it’s been so fun to see series get to expand (even if their time got cut short, like my beloved OK KO). Are there any pilots you’ve enjoyed seeing turned into series, and are there any that you’re hoping get picked up?
I’m super excited for Lackadaisy too - the pilot is of such amazing quality, even some major established shows don’t match it. I also loved Bee and Puppycat, and Hilda, really whimsical. Also loooooved OK KO. Have you watched Wander Over Yonder, or Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart? I feel the humour is very similar. Another couple of shows that were cut too short (at least the former provides some closure).
I have to say Infinity train doesn’t get any less brutal, and I definitely get missing Lake. Still think it’s worth watching the next seasons as there’s some continuity in the story (which HBO should let them finish dammit).
To be fair I really got into animation shows (as opposed to movies) around the time of the pandemic, so I missed most of the pilots. I am excited to see what happens with Hazbin Hotel, and other online projects like Talon, and Hugo’s Mind Palace. If you haven’t yet, I really recommend watching the shorts on the Gobelins school animation page. Some of them are mind-blowingly amazing.
If I were to ask which are your top 5 shows, would you be able to pick?
I haven’t been able to get into Wander Over Yonder, but I want to give it another try. I have seen the “bad guy” song… A lot. It’s very catchy, and goodness did the animators have some fun. I also saw the pilot for Mao Mao, definitely gonna put it on my list.
It’s crazy that Infinity Train was so popular and they still don’t want to give it the time of day. It’s how animation has been treated for a long time, though.
Top 5 is tough, I think in no particular order:
- Powerpuff Girls
- Avatar/Legend of Korra
- Steven Universe
- Bee and Puppycat
- Courage the Cowardly Dog
There’s so many I want to squeeze in there though!
How about you? I’m honestly glad to talk to a new watcher, some long time fans can be weirdly dismissive of new stuff and it’s pretty frustrating.
Instead of complaining about the public educational system. How to improve on existing methods to spread ideas of curiosity and learning methods/mechanisms through FOSS means.
Do you have any particular examples for FOSS projects in this space?
https://github.com/ossu/computer-science
There are repos like this.
Or there are repos like this: https://github.com/parthsuresh/stylegan2-colab
Where the latter has lots of materials to essentially train and run your own ML models. Teaching a lot of advanced topics simply in a way, using tools like Google’s colab. Using tools like Discord to handle discussion thereafter, seeking volunteers to improve or foster discussion in general.
There was one project, that was a simple react app, but meant for those in the Arts. Connecting famous works with news headlines of their time period. Allowing you to connect the dots around time frame and artistic movements in a more visual and impactful way. With a simple understanding of
npmas an Arts Major, you could greatly improve your learning experience.I feel all the materials are already there out in the open. Yet many do not take advantage or know how to access them or know how these projects can help them. Even with the age of LLMs, I’ve felt it hasn’t impacted the curiosity variable I mentioned either. When I say improve, I have wanted to build a tool which acts like the index to create your own lesson plan using all these FOSS software. Where FOSS is important because it provides the code for tinkering as a lot of kids, especially me, learn better with hands-on learning.
I just feel a lot of contributors out there do a great job already in teaching and providing. But, I’d love to talk about how we can integrate these into actual curriculum, and not some school club or after-school activity. I am no educator, so this is the part where I’d like to learn more about. And if that’s not a possibility, then how can the process of looking for these tools and learning how to learn be shared instead online.
Ah, I get what you mean! I thought you were referring to FOSS projects that make other education easier, not educational FOSS projects. It’s definitely an incredibly cool time to be alive and have an internet connection!
Null models for weighted bipartite networks, and why people choose dumb network summary stats because they are lazy
Linguistics and the prescriptive bias of assuming a word’s meaning based on its blatant etymology
How skill makes games less fun and we need to embrace more chance in board games and video games
How cool it would be if we wrapped copper wire around the moon and used the earth-moon system as a huge electrical generator
Trains are awesome and we should have more of them
Well, you can’t mention all those interesting topics and not talk about them more!
I can really only talk about:
How cool it would be if we wrapped copper wire around the moon and used the earth-moon system as a huge electrical generator
You’re referring to induction from the magnetic field of earth, right?
What domain is your area of application for bipartite networks?
Also, most current linguistic work In familiar with ignores etymology i. favor of statistical usage models, but you might have a more particular focus.
I love linguistics too. I like to make up new words and assign them meaning based on blatant etymological rules. Then I drop them in a sentence like it’s no big deal.
The theory of relativity (special and general).
It is more that 100 years now, and it is perfectly true according to all current physicists, but still hardly anybody (outside of physicists) knows it. What a shame.
For example, GPS wouldn’t work without it - your position would be wrong by a few miles all the time.
My mind was blown when I learned that a difference of just a few centimeters in height is enough to detect time dilation. I always thought the effect was so subtle that it could only be detected on a galactic scale, but it turns out we deal with it every day!
It’s so weird to think about, time is one of the few “constants” we have in life, but it’s really not so solid.
Cyber security stuff, but like the nitty gritty details and technical stuff. It’s something I’m really passionate about, but if anyone brings up something and I start going into details, their eyes glaze over.
I guess most people like the headline, tldr version only. Lol
I’m not deep in the topic, but I have done some security hardening for embedded devices. Whatever you have to share, I’d love to hear it!
There’s so much lol. I used to be a security software engineer. But people never fucking listen and will constantly fight you so I just gave up and went back to just software engineering.
At my job before last I told them we needed to enforce HTTPS and they said, but what if someone can’t use HTTPS for some reason?
This was an app that held tons of protected health information. I jumped ship as soon as I found another job.
Oh man, an HTTPS certificate should absolutely be required for that. Even aside from hackers, I don’t want my ISP to be able to read that stuff! Very disappointing.
Old radio shows! I’ve been listening back through episodes of Suspense (about 400 so far) and there’s some great stuff in there. There’s some stuff that doesn’t age too well, but there’s also some surprisingly relatable stories. It’s also fascinating to hear ads and snippets of news segments of the time, and to get a window of what people were worried about at that time. Not to mention that some of the episodes are just plain good thrillers that can be genuinely chilling. I can’t wait to get through these and move on to The Twilight Zone.
One of my favorites has been “Please Believe Me” (https://youtu.be/J8kbEL1332A?si=ro-K9VK3X3Zi5DMI), the performances are so good.
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Oh heck yeah!
I started getting into Warhammer 40k lore at the end of 2022. I only started doing so, because I kept hearing online about the sure tapestry of unparalleled mythos that 40k beholds. I checked out a dozen or so videos from all sorts of 40k lore people, but above all, I fell deeply in love with the animated series works that YT Janovich has produced. He does a hell of a lot of lore reading/combing and script writing to produce his videos. That really gives his videos a lot of production quality imo.
I’d love to hear any recommendations for a few of your favorite 40k lore YT channels. Especially 40k animated series.
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I’ll give Leutin09 another look. I mostly stuck to their origins/timeline videos to better understand what the heck has happened in the WH 40k universe.
I haven’t googled it yet, but it sounds interesting. would you mind elaborating please?
You have made a grave mistake friend. Brace youself for hours upon hours of lore about plastic miniatures.
you aren’t kidding! friend of mine paints those minis and he was going on and on about it when I asked. what have I done?! 😂
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I asked my buddy who paints those minis a little about it and holy shit. what a can of worms! interesting stuff, thank you for sharing!
The difference between town, zip code, school district, village, hamlet, and city where I live. I pay taxes to town A, by zip code is named after a hamlet in town B, our school district is named after town C. If you ask people where they live they will answer any one of these things.
In my opinion the town you pay taxes to is the best answer. The zip code, or location on your address, is deceptive because they are often named after small hamlets where the post office is. This small hamlet is a very distinct place where you probably don’t actually live. School Districts are often named after the biggest town they pull from so if you are not from that town it’s not really accurate. If you happen to be in a city or village that’s a good answer. However hamlets are so small and local that anyone not from the immediate vicinity will have no idea what you’re taking about if you say you are from there.
This is so true, and while i have never discussed the concept. I definitly adjust my answer based on the recipient.
From the name of the hill my house is on, for locals. Via hamlet,muncipiality, county,region. Up to : “the western part of norway, with the fjords and glaciers”, to forigners. I have never had to go for northern europe, or northern hemisphere. I am looking forward to the day i need “the third planet of the sol system”, that will be an interesting day.
The municipal waste management industry.
I even learned game dev in unity so I can work on a game about the waste management industry.
For context I dont even work in that field.
Honestly, I would love to know more about this industry because it sucks where I live and I would like to better understand the issues we are facing.
Cars. And I really like to talk reliability and engine design and other design related stuff, most car people don’t even care about that. (Obviously there are plenty who do)
I’ll gladly talk about cars with you!
Lol cool, what’s your favorite car and why
That’s a tough question, but I’d say the Pontiac GTO. I just love the way it looks, especially the stacked headlights
That’s a very pretty car indeed, I just realized I don’t have a favorite right now. I really like old fairlady Z cars and old BMWs, love the look of the e30 m3
I drive a Honda insight which is a 3 cylinder 1L. Most car guys do not care about something so small but I think it’s very interesting that it was designed for such a specific purpose, and works quite well
I think that’s cool! Little tiny engine powering a modern car. Likely with a gear ratio designed to make it feel peppy up until ~60mph
Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and the original edition of the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG - the lore, the artwork and tracking down the books missing from my collection!
