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
Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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Fascinating world of ancient #glass: an amazing #Roman glass garland bowl, that represents a peak of Roman glassmaker’s skill at producing vessels. Very few ancient vessels were made of large sections or bands of different colored glass, and this is the only known example that combines the technique with millefiori (mosaik glass) decoration. Dating late 1st century BC.
Photo: Metropolitan Museum
Andy Lowry
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I very recently learned that the term “boycott” comes from someone’s actual name: Charles Boycott. Boycott was an English land agent who tried, in 1880, to collect unpayable rents from Irish peasants on behalf of an English aristocrat landlord. When he failed to collect the rents, he tried evicting the tenants. The Irish Land League responded with a campaign to ignore Boycott’s orders and isolate him socially and economically.
They not only ignored his eviction orders and threw manure at his process servers, but refused to deliver his mail or sell him food.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott
It was pretty effective—the British government eventually had to deploy a thousand soldiers (naturally, because the state works for the propertied class and none more than the 19th century British state) at a cost of some £10,000 to harvest £500 worth of crops. Boycott had to be evacuated by the soldiers, who even had to drive him out, as no locals would agree to drive his carriage out of the region.
Imagine being cancelled so hard that your name becomes permanently associated with getting cancelled.
Andy Lowry
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A 900-year-old church still standing in Wicklow, Ireland.
Photo by Bob Grim
Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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Jimi Hendrix playing with the 101st Airbourne while stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky in 1962
Andy Lowry
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No one's going to like this prediction/suggestion but... If I were a brand, I'd set up a Mastodon presence *not* for marketing (no ads, no algorithms; nobody wants to befriend brands) but only for customer service, as rel="me" allows for certain verification (as @leo beat--and I mean beat--into my head on TWiG). The aim is only to deal with customer complaints before they blow up, as they still will, even without Twitter. Without Twitter, brands are deaf and that will hurt.
Andy Lowry
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This:
No, national media, vote counting in Arizona isn't 'messy,' no matter what Kari Lake says https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/media/2022/11/12/fox-news-wrong-again-arizona-election-vote-counting-not-messy/10674314002/ via @azcentral@twitter.com
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
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
