Casual Conversation

So back in highschool, the grade for 12th grade was based 100% on the mid and final exams. Homework didn't matter, quizzes didn't matter, projects didn't matter, participation in class didn't matter as far as grades go. You could of course still do these things and most people did care about them to practice but in the end it was all about the exam.

So I used to always take quizzes seriously as a chance to practice. I would note down my mistakes on my notebook IN ALL CAPS with red ink and a spiky border. Just so I don't make the same mistake again in the exam.

One day I made a mistake in a biology quiz because I confused heart pulse and blood pressure. That day I had cut myself and was bleeding. After writing the usual warning I looked at my hand and thought the blood matched the red ink really well...so I smeared my blood under the red ink warning.

After a few days the blood smear turned chocolate brown and no longer matched the warning :(

What was your latest bad idea?

I drink a cold brew this morning, because it was sitting on my desk from yesterday... Cold brew concentrate. Then after finishing my drink I went to the sauna.... This was not a good decision.

The sauna exercises the cardiovascular system

Coffee stimulates the cardiovascular system (in a different way)

I did not feel good! I only lasted half my normal time. I wont be mixing coffee and extreme heat again.

So character, characteristic and why.

So I found a little line of ants a few days ago. I didn't know they went this far off the ground, but I found a little cluster of them mobbing a forgotten piece of breakfast cereal that was under the couch, so maybe it was my fault and they were highly motivated by whatever else is under there.

Anyway, I don't want ants. I tried a couple of different things. I don't want to poison them or anything like that, I just don't want them in my house. Eventually, what I arrived at that seemed like it worked was this:

• Smush a bunch of the ants. It doesn't actually take that many, I think I did 10-15.
• Leave the corpses in place. They won't really react all that much to them, they'll just keep doing their thing and periodically getting smushed. And then, at some point, they seem like they specifically switch over as a team, and start gathering up the corpses and taking them away.
• Ever since I did that (and specifically since I let them gather up the corpses and let them take them), I haven't seen any ants.

I know that ants have a specific way they operate by laying down scent trails: They wander around at random, laying down a trail of "this is the way back to the nest", and if they find a bunch of food they will return along the same trail laying down a "this way to the food" trail. So it kind of makes sense that they would also have a function to lay down a new trail "this is we found all those bodies so let's not go there anymore." I don't know that that is what's happening but that's what it seems like.

Anyway, ever since the described operation, I haven't seen any ants. I share this in case my logic is sound and it is a good solution and one that is useful for you.

I've been driving the first car I ever bought for almost 15 years now. I love love love that car, but it's time for an upgrade, so yippee!

Before it gets asked and I forget to reply, Mazda 2 -> hybrid Honda Civic hatchback

Feel free to have a look at

!movies@piefed.social !television@piefed.social
!animation@piefed.social

Getting old I guess. I can vaguely recall her face, though barely. I didn't think I'd ever forget such a thing. Not suffering from acute memory issues afaik. Just father time gradually erasing the paths travelled in the sands of time.

Where else are you a lot?

I have been particularly miserable lately, just quit using nicotine altogether, and also been moving away from subscriptions. I need distractions that aren't gum and Altoids. I've been into these songs lately: Whatever You Want - Sports, Zen Automaton - Pond, Bicep - TR/ST, People in the Streets - MGMT, and We Control - Hyper.

it seems like lemmy has a thing for fireflies (aka lightning bugs). It's sad to think of them being driven away by our actions, or not even just us not being able to see them again.

Well my yard/neighborhood is covered in them. Literally hundreds dancing in the grass of every yard, every evening and night. Like they cast light into my home with their blinking by my windows, making me look for a coming car or something. At least one gets into my home every day, much to the delight of my cats.

I get it. I love them. These things have always been special to me, and I spent 10+ yrs living in places w/o them. So now being in an area with a healthy Fire Fly population feels like such a blessing to me.

I figured it'd be cool to share some of that with those of you who miss them. I'm trying to take some pictures and video, get some good closeups, etc. I got one video of two fireflies fucking. Just gotta figure out how to organize the media I guess.

But is there anything else you'd want? Requests or something? I dunno where this is going, look, I'm just saying: you all seem to like Fire Flies. I got Fire Flies. What's next?

Weather dotcom has premium gatekeeping and Accuweather just kinda sucks

EDIT: i just remembered not everyone is ND and doesn't get really super into every topic enough to care about things like meteorology :[

I signed up for a course for, like, social anxiety/social skills, and BY GOD does it feel like an MLM. I know it's actually helpful and well thought out, but they've tried to upsell me twice so far and have referred to the power of their "inner circle" and it's kind of getting on my nerves.

Good evening, everyone. It's 18:36 here, and the sun is down right now, but the weather was very clear. My activity helping my mum was not interrupted and was successful. I helped them drive the car and lift weights for processing gardening materials for sale, the family business. I created, deleted, and recreated Lemmy accounts because I wanted to try firsthand installing self-hosting front-ends like YunoHost, Coolify, Runtipi, Cloudron, and so on. I found that YunoHost and Runtipi are the easiest for me to try as an IT student who is currently stuck in semester 2 of college diploma studies, mainly for financial reasons. How was your day?

Edit: I am not sure why I am not allowed to choose English or even Interlingua for this English post. I'll find out what the exact problem is, and whether this is only applicable to this post or a larger issue.