There was mold outside the box and a little inside the box, as well as on the outside of the packets, and inside the packets. Mold was also on just about every object in the room. This all happened within a window of 6 months or so. I think it would be an unlikely coincidence if mold were also introduced in the packaging process and that it would hit at the same moment (after I consumed about half the tea before stashing it in the humid room, which was not moldy).

I cannot help but think about that future-set movie with a non-stop train conditions non-survivable outside the train, with a class system on the train. The lowest class people were at the back of the train were fed something called nutrition bars or blocks (or something like that), which looked like mysterious black jello-like bricks. They were made on the train from cockroaches. Anyone know what movie I’m talking about? This research fits nicely into that movie narrative.

It was mentioned in a BBC coverage of this that other cows have been seen using tree branches to do the same.

That’s surprising. Acetone dissolves a lot of plastics even when they are in a new state. I might try it in a small area but I’m skeptical. I would expect it to worsen the situation.

It’s evidence that supports vegan causes. A tool for the vegan activist’s toolbox. In particular, environmental vegans benefit when the highest climate footprint animal (cows) are shown to have intelligence. Intelligence is a factor in assessing animal welfare and suffering. That is why it is posted in c/vegan.

(edit) note as well that when dealing with vegan-hostile meat eaters, this is the kind of story that you can present without attaching politics to it. Just show them and say “isn't it cool that this cow figured out how to scratch her back”, and leave it there. There’s nothing controversial about that. It just drops it into their mind that there is some intelligence they did not know about. Let them realise for themselves what it implies.

Maybe the acknowledgments gives a hint?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Kelly Idouchi, Manya Sleeper, James T. Graves, and Celine Berger for their contributions to this project. Similarly, we thank Chris Hoofnagle, Daniel Solove, and the attendees of the 2014 Privacy Law Scholars Conference (PLSC) for valuable feedback on an earlier version of this work.

(edit) there is also this about page and perhaps this lab was involved.

When the hard-working little swimmers encounter the thicker vaginal mucus, their path is slowed. So the sperm often join together at their heads, which gives them greater swimming speed (up to 50 percent faster) than if they were to carry on individually.

I wonder why that is. If a group of people were to join together and run, the speed of the group would be capped by the slowest runner. And aerodynamics would be worse.

Agreed.

As a kid I recall stepping on one and thick white milk squirted out. Another kid said “just like a Jr. mint!” Ever since then, I have been unable to mentally separate Jr. mints from cockroaches. And to be clear, that association was not an upgrade for the roaches.. it was a mental downgrade to Jr. mints.

I just downloaded the manual and skimmed through pages of safety info. This was the only relevant statement about that:

“Limit the length of use and check the skin's reaction.”
“Overly prolonged radiation may lead to the skin being burned.”

Since they don’t mention a duration of exposure, I get the impression this is just pointing out the obvious for liability purposes in case someone does something foolish.

The 15 min seems to be more about protecting the device itself from over-heating. Which I suppose means it’s not well designed.. overly fragile. And I guess the lack of fan would enable the device itself to take on lots of heat. (edit: sorry, just read that it has a fan.. though it could be fragile nonetheless)

update: I also see that the bulb lasts 2000 hours. I’ve seen 250 watt bulbs claimed to last 6000 hours for like ~$20. So I guess this thing is garbage.

I suppose the response is to give them links to mosquito repellents and mosquito nets.. tell them they are still in control.

Oh, wow.. I wasn’t expecting that reply. I was actually looking to discuss in general how to address this variety of issue. It was a few years ago but the code would still be interesting to see. I dug this up:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2911988

And now that I dug back into this, I must make a correction. ACM replied to say they are looking for the missing material.. then they never found it and they dropped the ball at that point and also neglected correct the description. AFAIK, ACM did not try to reach the researchers, who ignored my inquiries.

(Irrelevant trivia: ACM used to be in Cloudflare’s access-restricted walled garden, making it difficult to access research. They are still in that shitty place but at least they are now whitelisting Tor which slightly reduces their exclusivity.)

WD-40 sounds like an interesting idea. Most people think of it as an oil, but in fact WD-40 is a cocktail of many different solvents, plus mineral oil, IIUC. It’s indeed more of a cleaning product than a lube.

You don’t seem to be accounting for university image. Are the optics of this worthless? IMO, this guy should pitch a tent on the campus grounds and make a media spectacle of it.

Might be a good test to see how quickly a dorm room can be freed up and administrative red tape overcome.

Whenever I see that stuff on the shelf I think “I have acetone.. why would I buy that? Probably just acetone with a different label”. But I’m probably wrong.. if that were acetone it would not be “surface safe” and they’d get sued for damages. So indeed, probably worth a try.

I did, but I may be wrong. Wikipedia says tea trees are used.

Glad to hear that. So got me thinking about the wood glue dissolving on the bottle (polyvinylacetate). PVA is also used as a heel on some cheeses (gouda, I think). Maybe goo gone could be used to take the heel off cheese.

psy is on /this/ instance. Note my question was directed to the mander admins, who would only have the power to make me a mod on the node under their control.

One problem with all Lemmy instances running later version than 0.19.3 is the front-ends are broken with Ungoogled Chromium. Lemmy instances running 0.19.5 essentially force me to use Tor Browser (firefox). This is unrelated to the onion problem but one of my other workarounds is to use a non-stock front-end with ungoogled chromium. So for example slrpnk.net has alexandrite.slrpnk.net, which is an alternative FE. The landing page of slrpnk.net lists a few other alternative front ends as well.

I don’t know if there is a way for users to run alexandrite and then specify another backend of choice. But if not, it could be useful to make other front-ends available on the onion.

I’m considering that as well and got some tips from here:

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2024/12/how-to-build-an-electrically-heated-table/

So far my lower body is fine but in case it gets colder I have been keeping an eye out for excess waste roofing insulation in my area, which I would use for an under desk rig.

When you say your clothing becomes the chimney, that makes me wonder if I should surround myself in a insulated structure, unlike the link above where they seem to let heat escape around the legs.

Well it’s not actually clear to me whether the soft water is to protect the dishwasher, or to make cleaning more effective. Soft water dissolves soap better which makes it more effective in cleaning. It also means I can use powdered detergent (which is cheaper than liquid detergent, but in hard water powder doesn’t perform as well). Soft water has the down side that it’s actually /more prone/ to corrosion than hard water (at least according to youtube plumbers). So I’m tempted to conclude the built-in water softener is just for cleaning effectiveness.