Paul Ganssle @pganssle@qoto.org

Having trouble remembering the difference between the flag of Belgium and the flag of Germany?

Remember this simple rhyme:
"Black touches Red, you're in Germany like Kaiser Fred¹.
Black touches yellow, you're in Belgium, so have a waffle with marshmallow²."³

¹This assumes that you know that Kaiser Frederick III was the second Emperor of Germany.
²This is only a slant rhyme, and it barely works since — while dessert waffles are associated with Belgium, and they *would* be pretty good with marshmallows on them — marshmallows are not particularly associated with Belgian waffles.
³Yes, I am not particularly good at coming up with mnemonics.

#flags #vexillology #mnemonics

Learning a new language: "Why are there two words that both seem to mean 'very' in this language? How am I supposed to know which one to use?"
Speaking English: "There really should be a word between 'amble' and 'stroll', 'meander' isn't quite right."

Anyone out there with #minecraft installed willing to take a screenshot for me?

I'm trying to get an image to illustrate the sentence "you put it there, but I want it here" for an Anki deck to teach my son to read.

I was thinking something like a house in minecraft with a door attached in the wrong spot (like above a door-shaped hole in the wall), or maybe a railroad with a few rails shifted over by a few voxels.

Prefer if you'd release the image CC-0, since that will minimize complications when I eventually make the deck public.

I dunno if you can tell from my open tabs, but I miss my #pebble... 😿

(And my #PineTime is really not cutting it...)

**Did You Know‽**

Most people know that humans drown when immersed in water for prolonged periods of time, but did you know that they also cannot survive immersion in molten lead?!

For more fun human facts, subscribe to my newsletter *Human Fact of the Day*!

#humans #didyouknow #funfact

Tried to go extremely stereotypical, specifying the "three eyes" multiple ways. The closest I got was a lemur with a little yellow light on its forehead.

“a three-eyed lemur; the lemur is sitting in a lotus position and all three of its eyes are open. The third eye is centered on its forehead. highly detailed digital art trending on artstation”

Anyone have any good tricks for getting AI image generation models like #dalle or #stablediffusion to produce animals or people with three eyes? I was hoping to get a lemur with a typical "mind's eye" third eye, but all the models seem to ignore the third eye condition no matter how frequently I specify it.

#promptengineering

"Papa, I hate Swiper."

Yo también, little buddy.

Thanks to [this response](https://mastodon.social/@ryanprior/110860614998463071) and [this one](https://fosstodon.org/@hanno/110860898443987704), I realized that I Orgzly actually _can_ be used with the local file system, I was just trying to sync a whole folder hierarchy and Orgzly wants to do it folder-by-folder (and manage everything in one big flat file).

I've been using it for about a day now and it's actually working for me! Thanks @ryanprior and @hanno!

#android #org #emacs #linux

I wanted to try #logseq, but their release method is "download an apk from our website" for some reason?

It is unclear why they aren't on Fdroid or the play store: https://github.com/logseq/logseq/discussions/4548

I hate to link to reddit, but this is a disheartening thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/orgmode/comments/12cgnr4/quick_recap_of_the_state_of_org_mode_apps_for/?rdt=62792

There's an emacs port on f-droid, but when I tried to use it it's not exactly a native app experience. Opening a file involves typing the full path to the file!

I am really disappointed by the current state of org mode (or just note taking in general) on Android.

I really want a simple, dedicated app where I can:

1. make a simple list or takes some notes
2. have that be saved in some plain text format that can be edited in vim or emacs on my computer
3. have that file be accessible in a way that Syncthing can pick it up
4. Pick up changes made on the file system

Orgzly seems to want to do its own thing and fails at 3 and 4. orgro is read-only. Every other note-taking or list app I've seen just stores stuff in its own little database in its own format.

#android #org #emacs #linux

Seems like my son is the first person in his friend group to lose a tooth.

How much do you think the other parents will pay me to *not* set the going price for teeth at $20?

I have the most thoughtful kids!

They know how much I like cottage cheese, so sometimes when I give them milk, rather than drink it all, they'll save some and hide it somewhere. That way, when I am cleaning up the messes they've made around the house, I can find it and oh, look, it's turned into a papa snack!

Warms my heart every time. 😍

Just finished with my son's reading lesson (using *Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons*, which is working *amazingly*, by the way); afterwards, I was trying to looking up the history of the character "a" and was reminded of how rigged the game is.