Spyke

TIL how to block all posts containing the words Trump or Vance.

I did this on Firefox, but I suspect it may work in other browers too.

  1. Install the Violentmonkey extension. Tampermonkey or Greasemonkey will also do.
  2. Install the Lemmy tools script.
  3. Browse to Lemmy
  4. Click on the screw driver icon on the LemmyTools bar that is now visible on the Lemmy page.
  5. Scroll down and check the box next to "Content Blocking"
  6. Add your block words in the "Add filters seperated by commas." box. I typed "Trump, Vance" Voila!
View original on lemmy.world

TIL: The Canadian shield is in fact not an item but a region in Canada that is mostly rock

The Canadian Shield (French: Bouclier canadien [buklje kanadjɛ̃]), also called the Laurentian Shield or the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the ancient geologic core of the North American continent. Glaciation has left the area with only a thin layer of soil, through which exposures of igneous bedrock resulting from its long volcanic history are frequently visible. As a deep, common, joined bedrock region in eastern and central Canada, the shield stretches north from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, covering over half of Canada and most of Greenland; it also extends south into the northern reaches of the continental United States. Geographical extent The Canadian Shield is a physiographic division comprising...

TIL: The Canadian shield is in fact not an item but a region in Canada that is mostly rockhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_ShieldOpen linkView original on fedia.io

TIL about Crabbie, the world's largest (fake) horseshoe crab. It has a very weird history.

This gigantic horseshoe crab has migrated from a harbor in Baltimore, Maryland, to dry land in Ohio. This massive piece of art has had four homes over the last 25 years. The first was in Baltimore, the second in a creationist museum in Kentucky, the third outside a church in Blanchester, Ohio, and now in Hillsboro.

Known affectionately as “Crabbie,” the fiberglass arthropod measures 67 feet long, 28 feet wide, and 12 feet high (with an even longer tail that sticks up behind the structure). It was built in 1995 for an attraction in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The structure is open on the inside, with room for dozens of people, and it was initially used as a space for teaching about the Chesapeake Bay’s marine life at the Columbus Center. Videos of sharks hunting were shown inside the huge shell.

After it was purchased at a bankruptcy sale, the horseshoe crab moved to the Midwest where it spent time at two churches. In 2008, daredevil Gene Sullivan jumped over the horseshoe crab and through a flaming “Gates of Hell” as part of his gospel ministry stunt program, Jump for Jesus.

In 2015, the church put Crabbie up for sale. It was purchased by a family in Hillsboro, Ohio, who moved it to their property and set it up as a roadside attraction, where it remains to this day.

More on Gene Sullivan: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4wb54d/the-evangelical-evel-knievel-511

Crabbie as it was delivered to its current Hillsboro location:

Crabbie has since been given a new coat of paint:

This is the best picture I can find showing the underside. Clearly whatever building structure was beneath it to project the shark video is gone.

TIL about Crabbie, the world's largest (fake) horseshoe crab. It has a very weird history.https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-horseshoe-crab-of-hillsboroOpen linkView original on lemmy.world

For centuries, the only way to get purple dye in Europe was by harvesting tens of thousands of murex snails from the ocean. TIL the Mayans discovered this independently

They also produced the color purple or lavender from the murex mollusks that were found on the seacoast. Dye makers rubbed two of the mollusks together in order to extract the dye.

That sounds simple enough, but it also involved some real chemistry:

https://hal.science/hal-03202592/document

Purple was one of the most expensive and difficult dyes to acquire and process. 1 gram takes 10,000 snails. In Europe, it was solely used for kings.

For centuries, the only way to get purple dye in Europe was by harvesting tens of thousands of murex snails from the ocean. TIL the Mayans discovered this independentlyhttps://www.mayaincaaztec.com/mia-similarities/dyesOpen linkView original on lemmy.world