Andy Lowry @AndyLowry@qoto.org
Retired SysAdmin living in the high country of Arizona, USA. I enjoy learning about physics, cosmology, genetics, neurology, and suchlike. Deeply confused by worldwide trends towards authoritarianism. I thought we'd already learned about that stuff. But I guess not.
Joined Nov 2022
A #newb makes #space #candy
Oooh, nice. Thanks for taking the time to do some show and tell! I'll study up on some candy-making now; looks like fun.
A #newb makes #space #candy
Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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After a couple of days on #Mastodon I’m very impressed & excited to be part of this growing community! #mastodonmigration
My only humble suggestion is that it needs more #tardigrades aka "water bears."
Tardigrades have survived every mass #extinction on Earth since they evolved about a 1/2 billion years ago. There are ~1,300 known species. And millions of years from now, they won’t even notice we’re gone.
Andy Lowry
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RT @PoliticsVerse@twitter.com
🚨ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS VOTES 🚨
Katie Hobbs 8691 votes (96%)
Kari Lake 368 votes (4%)
Gen-Z is eff’ing AWESOME!!!
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/PoliticsVerse/status/1591115037632262150
Briefly mentions blood, sex, and childbirth
I will now out myself as an out-of-touch grumpy curmudgeon, because that's what ageing is for.
My wife and I have been spending about three hours every evening watching streaming TV and movies for about a dozen years. We prefer foreign (non-American) productions, especially French, German, and Scandinavian, because a surprising amount can be learned about unfamiliar places and cultures that way. There have been some worthwhile US- and UK-based shows here and there, of course, which are a welcome break from reading subtitles (unless they're located in Scotland, in which case subtitles might still be useful).
After some discussion based on thousands of hours of engagement with shows of many genres, we've come to some conclusions about what viewers could likely do without. If you disagree with any of these points, I'd be delighted to hear about it!
These suggestions could be used to save a great deal of production money, or at least transfer spending away from the pointless and towards the useful, so I hope directors, screenwriters, and showrunners can use these points.
1. Lengthy childbirth scenes
Screaming, screaming, blood, screaming. This has become a trope of late and it's a waste of time. If there's some plot-point oddity about it that needs to be shown, (Oh no! The baby has three heads!) it could be done much more efficiently than the current five minute shriek'n'sweat-fest that has become de rigueur.
2. Lengthy sex scenes
I mean, why? If I want pornography, I know where I can find it. The shows are rated "mature," so I presume its viewers already know what sex is. These scenes do nothing to build or examine the show's characters and their motives. These might have been edgy and daring in, say, the seventies, but now?
Unless there's something uncommon going on that shows something about the characters' personalities
(like the expertly-done S&M scenes in "Billions,") it's a waste of time.
3. Dream sequences
These are almost always completely pointless, and are frequently used as a "Ha ha! Got you! Made you think it was really happening!" trick on the viewer, like the "Made you look!" thing we used to do in third grade. It's juvenile and an insult to the viewer. Just stop.
4. Fight scenes
These can be integral to the plot, and I'm not offended by violence or blood, but there's no need to waste several minutes per drag-out, knock-down-and-get-back-up scene. Cut these to, say, ten or fifteen seconds and save a bundle on choreography.
5. Chase scenes
These have been boring and over-long since I first started watching TV and movies, especially foot chases. The pursued either get away or they don't. There's rarely any actual reason for them plot-wise. If the scenes are silly fun or highly engineered, like in a Herbie movie or "The Italian Job," those are exceptions from which others should learn.
So what have I missed? What am I dead wrong about? I was going to say something about scenes that use crying babies, but I've already gone on long enough. 😉
Andy Lowry
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A #newb makes #space #candy
I've been trying my hand at candy making, and i wanted to share what I thought was pretty candy.
It's Galaxy themed vanilla hard candy. It has a clear center with sprinkles wrapped in a jacket of clear blue, which all catch the light nicely. My first time trying to roll out canes but i guess i wasn't quite fast enough.. Better luck next time
Delicious though!
😋
Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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Judge Sanctions Alina Habba for Misrepresenting Igor Danchenko Indictment
Andy Lowry
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Ukrainian people are holding up the torch of freedom for all of us.
Ukraine belongs in the European family.
#StandWithUkraine 🇪🇺 🇺🇦
Andy Lowry
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Kherson. No panic😆 welcome to ukraine... Holy cowcake 😱😁
#NoMercy4Russia
#SlaviaUkraini
Andy Lowry
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The International Brain Laboratory is on Mastodon! We are 22 laboratories comprising experimental & theoretical neuroscientists. We collaborate to understand brainwide circuits for complex behavior. Looking forward to posting here! #neuroscience
Andy Lowry
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Inside Elon Musk's Twitter
What does it look like when the world's richest man decides to spend $44 billion and then vaporize his new asset? Amazing reporting from the New York Times. This link is unlocked so you can read it without a subscription.
Andy Lowry
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I built this tool a year ago but I feel like Mastodon folks would like it
The "Weird Old Book Finder"
Type in a search query, and it'll find one randomly-chosen public-domain book that matches the query -- and present it for immediate reading: https://weird-old-book-finder.glitch.me
Why only one book? To prevent the paradox of choice! Just *start readin'*
Can't promise every book will be weird, but most are
A longer essay on how/why I developed it: https://debugger.medium.com/a-search-engine-that-finds-you-weird-old-books-3a74fbb5f3d4
This was a search for "mastodon"
Andy Lowry
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Christmas is a terrible holiday. Here’s some ways to improve it.
1. No public Christmas music before 12/24 or after 12/26.
2. No presents other than stocking stuffers. Total value not to exceed $50.
3. Mandatory snow on Christmas Eve.
4. Anybody caught with an Elf on a Shelf has to do serious prison time.
5. From now on, Charlie Brown Christmas is the only Christmas special and it can only be shown once, at 8:00, on CBS.
6. Everybody is allowed to say Merry Christmas but nobody is allowed to make jokes about being “allowed” to say Merry Christmas.
7. Candy canes: outlawed
8. Ugly Christmas sweaters will be tolerated in designated areas only.
9. You can’t have any of the same dishes for Christmas dinner that you had for Thanksgiving the month before.
10. Hallmark Channel must cease operations.
Andy Lowry
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>This isn't your personal soapbox
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but if my microblog is not my personal soapbox, then what the heck is it?
I also worry for a generation that has no exposure to anything but safe spaces... it makes me feel like the same problem young children are now having with RSV... they were shielded (with good intentions) for a stretch and now things that they should have developed a healthy resistance to they have not.
Andy Lowry
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RT @mmpadellan@twitter.com
BREAKING: Mark Kelly just picked up 43,000 votes to increase his lead to 114,000!
Katie Hobbs has also added to her lead over Kari Lake, now by 26,000!!
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1590904625498320896
Andy Lowry
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Whenever I see the words 'Mastodon Migration' on my screen, my inner voice reads it in a David Attenborough voice.
Andy Lowry
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Buying a Twitter Blue Tick is the toupee of the 21st century.
Andy Lowry
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So someone messaged me privately and asked how absolute this is.. like would we block an instance calling for genocide. I feel my response is import to reiterate here, so here it is:
Its not just about the authorities, it is about the people whose lives are at risk by that call to genocide having the right to see those posts and use that information to look out for their own safety... If someone is doxed, they should know, if someone is threatened, they should know, and they should be able to take action.
Someone saying violent things online doesnt guarantee some police officer will meander by and take them down. The law only tends to get involved once someone is reported, and sometimes not even then. No one will be reporting a site if no one can see or know it is there.
The question is, if someone is being physically threatened and having their life in jeopardy how are you helping them by blocking the privileges of the **victim** and disallowing the victim the right to see the threat placed against them?
In short, I refuse to take away rights from the victim simply because there is a violent bad actor out there. If the victim doesn't want to see it they simply need to import the block list and the problem is solved for them, so why not keep the power in the victims hands?
🇳🇱
@freemo@qoto.org
I mentioned this in a private message to someone recently about why a small handful of servers block qoto. I wanted to reiterate it here for the ne...
Retired SysAdmin living in the high country of Arizona, USA. I enjoy learning about physics, cosmology, genetics, neurology, and suchlike. Deeply confused by worldwide trends towards authoritarianism. I thought we'd already learned about that stuff. But I guess not.
Joined Nov 2022
