A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
The easiest primary explosive to synthesise at home is HMDT (Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) The second easiest is TATP (Acetone Peroxide).
Knowing what organic mercury does to the body and brain, and how miniscule an amount is required, and how easily it gets into the body
Subscribe to more explosive facts π₯
Not sure if this counts, but as a software engineer, pretty much all major software you use is hacks on top of hacks on top of something someone built as a 'temporary' solution or as a proof-of-concept that's still in use years later. It's amazing that anything works properly at all. Stable software is basically just software with 10+ years of bug fixes layered on top of it.
Part of the reason that Windows backwards compatibility is so good (plenty of Windows 95/98 apps still work fine on Windows 11!) is because Windows automatically applies compatibility fixes, including simulating bugs that were in older versions of Windows, because old apps could be relying on those bugs.
My wife gets very frustrated when she encounters bugs, whereas I'm usually like "well, it's not nearly as bad as it could be" lol
Outside of software, I can say that most major companies operate like this too. In advertising, companies like to project that they're all polished and sophisticated, but behind closed doors, everything is held together with duct tape and prayers.
Most organizations in general. Thereβs a quote from a career congressperson somewhere, that basically paraphrases as βwhen I first got into office, I tried to find the big movers. The people who really knew what they were doing. I wanted to find them so I could learn from them. And all I learned is that nobody knows what theyβre doing. Weβre all making it up as we go.β
all major software you use is hacks on top of hacks on top of something someone built as a βtemporaryβ solution or as a proof-of-concept thatβs still in use years later.
i had a thought along a similar veing yesterday because i realized that the code base i'm responsible for now was originally built as a proof of concept that never got it's bugs ironed out and a temporary solution i implemented bit me in the ass.
What a human body looks like after being dead for 5 days in the July heat in an apartment with no air conditioning. The smell is also something I wouldn't wish on anyone either. Even worse, actually knowing and liking the deceased.
βTo know the future absolutely is to be trapped into that future absolutely.β
- Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune
Most bar ice machines are full of snot like microbial jelly. Even if the ice machine is properly deep cleaned it will be back to some extent within only a few weeks.
In reality it's harmless (if the machine is regularly and properly cleaned) because it's mostly just yeast colonies caused by yeast being flung into the air from the beer. Yeast loves ice machines for some reason and grows very quick. Assuming the ice machine is properly cleaned regularly and not subject to overly filthy conditions then there shouldn't be anything actually concerning growing in there. But now you are forever cursed with the knowledge that any ice you get in a bar likely came from a machine full of biological slime.
Also the issue can be mostly mitigated by built in air sterilization units or completely prevented by feeding the machine with ozonated water, but I've never met a bar owner willing to pay for those options.
fountain soda machines do the same in a way if not cleaned regularly. i've had a few jobs in the food industry where i would break down the soda fountain and other employees, even managers, had no idea the nozzles would come off and once they did at those places, it was obvious they hadn't been cleaned in years and would be full of crusty sugar, bugs, mold, it's horrifying.
No restaurant worth their salt is unaware that soda fountains can be broken down. Weekly cleaning minimum, if not nightly, is standard in any clean restaurant.
Knowledge even God carved from their own mind.
You, my friend, are a prophet of horrors unknown. Hail to you, harbinger of nausea.
So about this basilisk...
Man, in the showerthoughts community I saw someone independently invent Roko's Basilisk from the AI data center craze. They're inventing the fucking verification can torment nexus.
I've legitimately had people use Pascal's wager and then say that the basilisk is nonsense. So I guess you could include Christianity in this too.
The amount of salt and butter needed to get certain foods to taste like restaurant food. My mother in law nearly fainted when I started cooking for her, but she loves the way it comes out so she let's it be.
Also the reason bar cocktails taste so good? Boatload of sugar
A single tick bite can lead to you becoming allergic to meat for the rest of your life.
One of my mentors in a trade got a tick bite in 82', and for years couldn't stand or walk, or fully close his hands. Never again could he fully close his hands, having to hold hammers and chisels with his thumbs only, making them extremely exhausting to use.
The nerve damage is still getting worse, and now his only goal is to wrap up all his final projects before he physically can't use his hands at all anymore.
They scare the shit outta me
The scary part about this is that he likely has zero actual support from any kinds of disability, because chronic Lyme disease isnβt officially recognized in the medical world. Or rather, they recognize that there is a correlation between Lyme and long-term impairment, but they have no treatment nor palliatives for it. So they just sort of say βdeal with it. Most people can return to work after a few weeks, so you can too.β
Sort of like how long COVID affected (and still continues to affect) a sizable part of the population, but government disability in America didnβt recognize it as official so patients with long COVID had to keep going to work even when they were dealing with debilitating long-term symptoms.
What the Lindsey Graham ladybugs thing means. Once known it can never be dis-known.
How to play Scrabble competitively.
Once you know, you can't play against normal people anymore, they'll hate it and, if it happens often enough, you. You can only play against other Scrabble bastards, and you'll hate that and, very quickly, them.
I just learned that people who are allergic to shrimp are also allergic to cockroaches.
also cicada. i learned this after a local pizza place made the news for having a pizza topped with them during the last brood x emergence.
Mercaptan (the chemical used to give natural gas an easily detectable smell) is not regulated.
Duck penises.
If you know, you know.
If you dont, it's probably better off.
The code for the nuclear weapon is 3144
There are some atrocious actions people have done to other people and themselves that I wish I could unlearn. Not just the genocides, slavery, and mass rapes across history and currently but the individual stuff like what happened to Furuta Junko (nsfl). I used to think learning about the more morbid nature of humanity would be helpful to understand but it's hard not to become cynical or misanthropic after learning about some of the worst stuff.
Mm hmm
1 guy 1 jar (nsfl)
The jar doesn't make it.
Doooo NOT watch it.
My brother-in-law sent it to me maybe 20 years ago now and every horrible moment of it is still there making me flinch and pain.