• 0 Posts
  • 3.73K Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 30th, 2023

help-circle





  • And the horses.

    One riding along that road in the background, for some reason the wagon wheel is turned directly towards the viewer.

    The other wagon carrying some sort of goods, originating from the road that fades to nothing.

    And the horse that is calmly walking with its front legs while it’s rear legs are both airborne, suggesting a gallop?

    Oh also the person carrying a load of stones from a spot the road will be built to. Though maybe that was a part of the process if they layered different materials underneath the road, but it looks a bit deep to me.

    Edit: Oops meant to reply to the other comment about the workers. Instead, this is the timeline I inadvertently chose. Hopefully it’s a good one.



  • I think legalizing weed didn’t make that much of a difference because the whole claim that buying random weed from a random dealer put money in cartel or terrorist pockets was a lie.

    Not that there weren’t any large weed organizations, they just weren’t murdering people at the scale the cartels are or doing it to fund violence.

    They’d also rely a lot on temporary workers since trimming was really the only labour intensive step, and then it would be sent out into a distribution network that wasn’t so much an organization as it was a collection of independent or small scale distributors. Which in some locations might have been gangs, but I’d guess was mostly normal people looking to make some extra money.


  • Tap for spoiler

    Yeah, I think they shouldn’t have called them cell phones, they looked like just AM radios, which aren’t that complicated. Just need a microphone (membrane attached to a magnet), amplifier (they used vacuum tubes), and an antenna (whose length would determine the frequency). Receiver is the same thing but backwards (with adjusted geometry on the mic/speaker, but they are electrically the same). If they had the vacuum tubes, copper wire, and magnets (which they could make more of once they had one), then I don’t think that part was that far fetched (though I could be missing something big tbf). But a cell phone is a lot more than a 2-way AM radio, even if you’re talking about a simple phone with no display.

    Biggest issue I had with suspension of disbelief was when they used a vehicle without a road system. Roads came before cars in our history and had to be good enough for horses to pull carts. Using a two stroke steam engine to generate enough torque for offroading with those basic tires was a big hand wave IMO.

    Oh also the whole using a celebrity impersonation to convince some of the other side that the US was back up and running was a weak tactic. Like I’m glad they had it immediately get noticed, but a better way to do that bluff would have been to just have other “radio chatter” going on to make it sound like they had joined up with others, at which point they could have talked about all kinds of technologies that might have taken the fight out of people from the modern era.


  • Another one that I found gave a kinda similar feel is Dr Stone.

    Though instead of diving deep into fantasy mechanics, that one is based on real world physics (well, other than some characters having super-human levels of skill) and rebuilding a modern society from scratch.

    I find them similar due to their attention to detail and using their environment to build up their capabilities. The overall plot is very different and DinD has a bit more charm. Not that Dr Stone doesn’t have charm.

    If I could choose which one I want to see one more season of right now, I’d pick DinD. If I could choose which one gets seen through to the end, I’d pick Dr Stone.



  • I think it would need to be a subscriber service paid for by consumers who are willing to pay for good reviews. Otherwise the consumers become the product and eventually marketers take over.

    Also crowd-sourced reviews are what we’re supposed to have already, both on Reddit and Amazon (and anywhere else).

    What I envision would be a publication that funds a set of reviewers (maybe a mix of full time and part time, since some products are appropriate for testing as a job while others are more appropriate to just use for a while).

    Each product would either be bought by the org directly, or if manufacturers provide review samples, a layer of indirection is used to avoid the reviewer feeling like they need to give a good review to keep the free shit coming (with clear communication to the supplier that free or not well have no effect on the review).

    Any issues get included in the review fairly, along with any kind of resolution (which should ideally go through both consumer channels as well as reviewer back channels, the former to show what average customers should expect, the latter to hopefully resolve design flaws).

    The reviewer will then keep the product and give updates, either in the form of “still using it and it is like x after y months/years”, “doesn’t get much use because I’m using this other thing instead because of x, y, z”, or “doesn’t get much use because I’m not really part of the target audience”.

    My complete vision includes brick and mortar locations where products are available to try out, and maybe sales handled there, where any product available has a “we vouch for the quality of this product” where flaws are highlighted as much as features are.

    Though I think the idea is self-defeating because if it gains momentum, it could halt or reverse enshitification and make it redundant, fail, then enshitification returns. Ideally, enshitification is stopped with legislation about quality and enforcement that questions why a bad design is used when a better one is obvious.


  • Yeah, the only shoes I’ve ever had falling apart (or more accurately, worn until there were holes in one of them) were worn for years before that happened.

    I’ve also never spent under $100 on shoes.

    And I don’t think it’s smart to buy shoes you haven’t tried on. There’s variation in foot shapes, some shoes just aren’t designed for your foot and need to be “broken in”. I thought all shoes needed to be broken in until one time I got lucky and the second pair I tried fit perfectly right away. Ever since then, I’ll keep trying shoes until I find ones that don’t need to be broken in.

    One exception was when I forgot about that when my cousin saw a sale on good sandals and had him pick me up a pair. Was reminded the first time I wore them. I spent a day at an amusement park and my feet were killing me by the end of it. Figured it was because I hadn’t been standing much leading up to that. But then, a few years later I wore the same sandals (now broken in) in a similar situation and my feet didn’t feel nearly as bad.

    So try on shoes until you feel ones that feel good right away and your feet will thank you. Spend money up front for quality and your wallet will thank you when those shoes last longer than that amount of cheap ones do.

    Also take care of them. If they are tie up shoes, untie them to remove them. If they are difficult to get the heel in, get a shoe horn. If you’re often walking through puddles and/or mud, wear boots. Always wear socks unless your footwear can breathe well.

    I’ve never put shoes through the washer, not sure how that would affect the longevity, though it likely depends on the materials.

    Good shoes will last longer than the laces, too, so just replace the laces when they get worn down. A new lace colour can also refresh the look.