dustylungs's recent activity

  1. Comment on US Government UFO document release in ~society

  2. Comment on Weekly thread for casual chat and photos of pets in ~life.pets

    dustylungs
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    Is there a recommended progression you can follow to get them comfortable with being handled? I know it's always easier if you have access to them shortly after they were first born, but I wonder...

    Is there a recommended progression you can follow to get them comfortable with being handled? I know it's always easier if you have access to them shortly after they were first born, but I wonder if it's possible later. My daughter had a few litters of fancy rats (I realize, possibly quite different than mice) and I recall her being very careful to spend time handling the pups early on so that they would be easier to handle later. (I also learned my lesson by ignoring her warning to separate the mother before handling the babies. Wow, mama rats don't play around and I got a nasty puncture-wound bite.)

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Tildes Gardening Group: Week 13/4/26 in ~hobbies

    dustylungs
    Link Parent
    Thanks! I think best practice is to replace the water roughly every 1-2 weeks but I'll often stretch it to 3 or 4 weeks (depending on jar size) without trouble. The main goals of the refresh are...

    Thanks! I think best practice is to replace the water roughly every 1-2 weeks but I'll often stretch it to 3 or 4 weeks (depending on jar size) without trouble. The main goals of the refresh are to get rid of anaerobic bacteria metabolites and to increase dissolved oxygen levels, so I'm really excited to see the impact of an air bubbler. The smaller vessels need to have water changes more often than the larger ones though. I'll change the smallest ones every five days or so.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Tildes Gardening Group: Week 13/4/26 in ~hobbies

    dustylungs
    Link
    Sorry everybody, I joined this thread and haven't written at all after the first post. I love reading about everyone's work here but I don't have a real garden to write about. I've started to get...

    Sorry everybody, I joined this thread and haven't written at all after the first post. I love reading about everyone's work here but I don't have a real garden to write about. I've started to get pretty obsessive-excited about my pothos clippings though, so I'll give an update on those. I'll try to gild the story by referring to the plants as a distributed "water garden". I ended up with 10 or 15 glass jars of pothos plants around a year ago by occasionally taking and saving clippings from a few the mother plants. And over this past year, the water garden expanded a lot through compound interest on those clippings.

    I never put much effort into these or any plants in the past. It's been luck along with patience (the resume word for laziness and neglect) and the bare minimum effort needed to keep the jars from running dry. But recently I've been trying to take it a little more seriously and, wow, the plants are really responding. I bought some liquid plant food. I've been timing the clipping of apical growing ends. I've learned a bit about root care (H2O2 and some gentle fingerwork is a nice trick). More recently, I even bought a few grow lights to use as an experiment with some of the plants growing above the kitchen cabinets.

    I don't know where this is going to end, but I still have counter and bookshelf space here and there, so it could go on for a while. I think I said in my only other post that I'm also thinking about starting a "little free library" of plant clippings at work. Work has been busy so that hasn't happened yet, but it's still on the roadmap.

    Also on the roadmap is something I'm really excited about. I ordered an aquarium air pump and bubbler stones to increase dissolved oxygen levels in a few of the water jars. I don't think it will do a lot for the initial phase of clipping propagation, but it should in theory help once the root system develops. The package hasn't arrived yet, but you can imagine that I'm on the very edge of my seat waiting for the delivery truck to pull up. I'll give an update on that experiment once I've rigged it up and give a few plants the effervescent spa treatment for a month or so.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Falling demand for cardboard boxes — long a proxy for consumer spending — is raising concerns about the US economy in ~finance

    dustylungs
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    I wonder if there is a corresponding metric of thrift store traffic. I've noticed that the local Goodwills and Salvation Armys seem to be very busy here recently, and just in the past few weeks...

    I wonder if there is a corresponding metric of thrift store traffic. I've noticed that the local Goodwills and Salvation Armys seem to be very busy here recently, and just in the past few weeks I've seen news that two new Goodwill locations are opening. There has also been a increase in flea markets in my area too.

    8 votes

  6. Comment on Tildes Gardening Group: Week 6/4/26 in ~hobbies

    dustylungs
    Link Parent
    Yes, thank you. I've been trying to cobble together an update on my garden (of houseplants) and will take this as motivation to make it happen.

    Yes, thank you. I've been trying to cobble together an update on my garden (of houseplants) and will take this as motivation to make it happen.

    2 votes

  7. Comment on Interesting material types for fantasy resources/macguffins other than crystals or metals? in ~creative

    dustylungs
    Link
    This is a question that could go down a number of rabbit holes in the halfbakery. I'll suggest a couple tried and true options: pykrete and oobleck.

    This is a question that could go down a number of rabbit holes in the halfbakery. I'll suggest a couple tried and true options: pykrete and oobleck.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on ‘I took two bites and had to spit it out’: US candy makers are phasing out real cocoa in chocolate in some products in ~food

    dustylungs
    Link
    And sitting right next to chocolate bars in the checkout lane is chewing gum, which you may already know is often made from plastic.

    And sitting right next to chocolate bars in the checkout lane is chewing gum, which you may already know is often made from plastic.

    5 votes

  9. Comment on Would anyone be interested in an online gardening club? in ~hobbies

    dustylungs
    Link Parent
    Ah, I will check there. Thanks. I've also been mulling over setting up a "little free library" for plant clippings in a corner of my office at work. It seems like it could be a good source of...

    Ah, I will check there. Thanks. I've also been mulling over setting up a "little free library" for plant clippings in a corner of my office at work. It seems like it could be a good source of plants and an interesting social networking experiment.

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Dox with Grok in ~tech

    dustylungs
    Link Parent
    It's interesting that it caught your pun. My Reddit username uses a bit of sound-based obfuscation (though not a pun) and instead of catching that, it decided that it referred literally to a...

    It's interesting that it caught your pun. My Reddit username uses a bit of sound-based obfuscation (though not a pun) and instead of catching that, it decided that it referred literally to a reduction of someone else's legal name; first letter of first name, first letter of middle name, and full last name. Maybe that coincidence was too much and Grok was confident it had ID'ed me.

    3 votes

  11. Comment on Dox with Grok in ~tech

    dustylungs
    Link
    I tried this with my Reddit profile and Grok confidently connected it with someone else who lives in my metro area. My Reddit account has about 2,000 posts and comments so I'm surprised Grok would...

    I tried this with my Reddit profile and Grok confidently connected it with someone else who lives in my metro area. My Reddit account has about 2,000 posts and comments so I'm surprised Grok would so confidently pin it to the wrong person. I'll be curious to try it again in a few days to see how much stochasticity there is in Grok's reasoning.

    17 votes

  12. Comment on Would anyone be interested in an online gardening club? in ~hobbies

    dustylungs
    Link Parent
    Yes, houseplants. I don't think I've heard of swedish ivy before, but I've been on the lookout for silver inch. I'll have to get some soil if I get either of these. My pothos plants are all purely...

    Yes, houseplants. I don't think I've heard of swedish ivy before, but I've been on the lookout for silver inch. I'll have to get some soil if I get either of these. My pothos plants are all purely grown in water with a drop of nutrients once in a while. I've had pretty good success with jade plants in the past. Begonias sound interesting!

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Would anyone be interested in an online gardening club? in ~hobbies

    dustylungs
    Link
    I've recently been filling my house with propagated pothos clippings while trying to learn more about its biology. I'd love to hear about other Tildeans' experiences with propagating plants...

    I've recently been filling my house with propagated pothos clippings while trying to learn more about its biology. I'd love to hear about other Tildeans' experiences with propagating plants (especially easy plants like pothos). I have a few parent plants living atop a fish tank, and clippings from those have now ended up in 40+ glass bottles around the house.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Third spaces: What do we want, and how do we get them? in ~life

    dustylungs
    Link Parent
    The libraries in my county have had spurts of movement in this direction. One of my favorites was a period when one of the branches hosted a makerspace in a large (otherwise storage) room. The...

    The libraries in my county have had spurts of movement in this direction. One of my favorites was a period when one of the branches hosted a makerspace in a large (otherwise storage) room. The makerspace had scheduled classes, but also had open times when kids (and technically adults) could hang out and work on personal projects. Space is money though, and money decisions eventually crowded the makerspace out. But the fact that there was enough support to keep it open for several years is encouraging.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on Palantir was allegedly hacked, exposing CIA collusion and deep-rooted global surveillance/meddling in ~tech

  16. Comment on Palantir was allegedly hacked, exposing CIA collusion and deep-rooted global surveillance/meddling in ~tech

    dustylungs
    Link
    This story might prove partly or fully false and blow over. If not, welcome to the next circus. I'm not sure why the spelling switched from Palantir to Palentir mid article.

    This story might prove partly or fully false and blow over. If not, welcome to the next circus. I'm not sure why the spelling switched from Palantir to Palentir mid article.

    5 votes

  18. Comment on What are your food aversions? in ~food

    dustylungs
    Link Parent
    I grew up with an aversion to seafood as well, associating fishy smell with rotten animal carcasses. I pushed myself to get over that general sense of disgust, but I can't get over the fact that...

    I grew up with an aversion to seafood as well, associating fishy smell with rotten animal carcasses. I pushed myself to get over that general sense of disgust, but I can't get over the fact that crabs are arthropods. When I see people cracking crab shells and picking apart the innards, I can't stop the revolting mental image reminder that they could just as well be picking apart large beetles, centipedes, bees or spiders. Crabs are nasty and I can't understand how anyone can eat them.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on I taught an octopus piano (it took six months) in ~music

    dustylungs
    Link
    The drama, the humor, the engineering and problem solving. Everything you might expect from the endearing story of a boy determined to train his octopus to play piano.

    The drama, the humor, the engineering and problem solving. Everything you might expect from the endearing story of a boy determined to train his octopus to play piano.

    5 votes