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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: September 27th, 2023

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  • I think it’s a great idea not to idolize strangers. You say you liked Elon but folks in tech have always known he’s a piece of shit and some of his oldest “friends” (i.e. Thiel) fucking loathe him.

    Wealth, generally, fucks people up so it’s good to avoid the wealthy and famous as a default rule…

    Why not appreciate people around you, friends, family, your mail folk - these people are much more impactful on your life and their kindnesses in your times of need have the potential to be life saving.


  • The pyramids mostly take care of themselves - most of the Roman sites were destroyed because people needed stone, and its easier to get pre-quarried stuff than dig it out of the ground yourself.

    Our reverence of past architecture is a pretty modern trend - and the amount of work it’d take to keep repainting and gilting these ancient buildings is unreasonable if they aren’t useful.

    The materials being repurposed is pretty awesome though, it sucks to lose old buildings but being able to reconstruct where stones from a given ended up going and them receiving care and maintenance in their new homes is better than the material being outright destroyed… and it helps weave history into our everyday lives.

    One interesting debate you can follow right now (ish, it’s mostly been settled) is the repatriation of totem polls that were stolen from Haida and Coastal Salish peoples… there was a debate about trying to preserve them in museums or returning them to the tribes where they’ll serve their purpose and weather away to nothing. A takeaway from this discussion is that, if you have nothing else, it’s not a bad idea to try and preserve items so that future people can appreciate them… but there are also active totem carvers alive and passing on the knowledge today - it’s better to provide funding to keep the artform alive.







  • Most HVACs thermostats have a target temperature range and can toggle heating and cooling to stay within that range - usually with some minimum range logic to prevent constant swapping.

    This is also a classic modern house problem. In areas with wild temperature sways like what you’re describing traditional house building would include hacks to capture and retain the cool air in the morning and shed as much excess heat as possible during the day.

    When we lived in Puerto de la Santa Maria we’d throw open windows to create a cross breeze in the mid afternoon and keep the air flowing (assuming it didn’t get too cold) into mid-morning at which point we’d seal off the east facing windows and draw curtains over the windows and doors to keep the heat out - swapping to full enclosure as it got to just before lunch time - then opening east facing windows and leaving the west shut util it was time to start the cycle again.

    It was unbearably hot in direct sunlight during the hot months but the house stayed cool - especially with thermally conductive tiles and stone being the primary exposed surfaces. As long as you properly cycled the house you could keep it comfortable and it was easy to adjust by airing it slightly less or letting more heat in.

    Wooden houses with huge sliding glass doors in direct sunlight that have no shades or curtains can’t do this, however.