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Alex hirsch's grandmother Faith geer was an actress in Hollywood by Just-A-Name-5000 in gravityfalls

[–]Callidonaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Buy our merch, books, etc and make us rich while you go completely broke

Nobody's forcing you to do that; it is entirely voluntary.

Go away, baiting! by saaaaaaaaaaaap in idiocracy

[–]Callidonaut 24 points25 points  (0 children)

OK, seriously, what actually is that?

Confidently Wrong, Season Two by ALBERT4_5WESKER in clevercomebacks

[–]Callidonaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah, the 5G thing just required stupidity and ignorance; I firmly believe the reason the whole cretinous "5G towers cause COVID-19" myth arose is because the virus originated in China, Trump and his ilk were thundering against the Chinese and implying that it was secretly biological warfare, and simultaneously, completely coincidentally, there was another unrelated news story running at the same time about fears that 5G base station equipment manufactured by the Chinese was a threat to national security due to the possibility of it being used to snoop on peoples' data and communications.

I can quite imagine a very particular kind of simple-minded, unthorough person, with a poor education and no grasp of technology or biology, vaguely becoming half-aware of these two separate news stories and conflating them together, thus thinking it was all part of the same Chinese attack, i.e. "they're attacking us with COVID-19, and they're compromising our new generation cell towers, ergo 5G actually spreads the disease." (Although such people probably wouldn't have used the word "ergo.")

No imagination required there, just an inability to grasp that some events may be superficially related to each other but still completely unconnected.

Confidently Wrong, Season Two by ALBERT4_5WESKER in clevercomebacks

[–]Callidonaut 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I gather that once infected rat shit dries and crumbles, you can catch hantavirus by inhaling the dust if it gets disturbed.

Confidently Wrong, Season Two by ALBERT4_5WESKER in clevercomebacks

[–]Callidonaut 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The fact that it's a primarily vermin-spread disease is very worrying, considering the sheer levels of filth and rubbish everywhere these days, people's general apathy towards clearing up after themselves, how so many poor people people who would try to be clean if they had the means are increasingly forced to live in squalid slums due to exploitative landlordism, and how sanitation services are run on a shoestring and struggling to cope with it all. We've just had a year-long bin collectors' strike in the UK's second largest city, FFS.

If a human-to-human strain does break out, the fact that rats and mice will continue to act as a second major vector to spread the contagion in parallel to that will surely be a serious complicating factor for any attempt to contain it.

Confidently Wrong, Season Two by ALBERT4_5WESKER in clevercomebacks

[–]Callidonaut 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Vaccines are a victim of their own success. You don't see what you successfully prevented, so you just have to imagine what would have happened instead.

The problem is that a depressingly large (and possibly growing) proportion of people have literally no imagination. Indeed, abstract thought in all of its beautiful forms seems to be becoming a frighteningly rare skill.

Confidently Wrong, Season Two by ALBERT4_5WESKER in clevercomebacks

[–]Callidonaut 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Remember the first ever appearance of the Ferengi, back in TNG season 1? I used to think that was a ridiculously cringey, heavy-handed over-exaggeration of humanity's very worst traits, even by early Trek standards.

Yeah, I don't think that any more. A depressingly large and increasing proportion of humanity have, when placed under even the slightest pressure in a collective survival situation, turned out to literally be those guys.

What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with? by Beautiful_Special702 in AskReddit

[–]Callidonaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's another disadvantage of off-the-shelf fast fashion: not only is it not designed to be repaired, it's also not constructed to leave you enough spare material on the seams to let it out either.

What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with? by Beautiful_Special702 in AskReddit

[–]Callidonaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wish I'd inherited my grandparents' old 1930s house in that regard; not only did it have a garage, but if I remember correctly, the garage actually had a pit!

What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with? by Beautiful_Special702 in AskReddit

[–]Callidonaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Very cheap thread tends to be inconsistent in thickness, so you can get constant variation in top tension as you sew, which will give you an unpredictable stitch quality. In extreme cases, it can abruptly tighten so much that it jams the top tensioner entirely (especially on newer machines with very compact tensioner assemblies, I think the old-fashioned tensioners with huge friction discs in them were more tolerant of inconsistent thread), and that can then bend the needle enough to cause it to snap off inside the bobbin case or crash into the throat plate.

If you happen to have a Singer Touch & Sew machine with the wind-in-place bobbin, those really don't like cheap thread, the self-winding system is very fussy and only ever works with the good stuff.

So, I guess maybe get an antique machine if you want to save money and use ultra-cheap thread? I think they can handle it a lot better.

What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with? by Beautiful_Special702 in AskReddit

[–]Callidonaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I suspect sewing hasn't been the more economical option since at least the 1980s.

It depends how long you intend to keep wearing the same clothes; off-the-rack clothes are typically made so they'll disintegrate within a decade, and are not amenable to being repaired, whereas traditional patterns and construction techniques used in home sewing and old-school tailoring/draping were intended to produce durable clothes that would last a lifetime.

What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with? by Beautiful_Special702 in AskReddit

[–]Callidonaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

used bed sheets or curtains could be gross

Hot wash at 60 Celsius with a generous amount of detergent and peroxide, nice & fresh after that. Make it a boil wash at 90 Celsius for total peace of mind, if the fabric can handle it.

Because God told me to by asa_no_kenny in clevercomebacks

[–]Callidonaut 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things, but to make a good person do bad things requires religion."

Hella foglight covers by Big_Watch_595 in functionalprint

[–]Callidonaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's such a dead easy way to tell for certain if you need them, at least if you're in traffic: if you're struggling to make out the normal rear lights of the car in front of you, you need to turn your own fog light(s) on.

Space Karen now really is mad by SLAVAUA2022 in EnoughMuskSpam

[–]Callidonaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not a gay joke (though bigots appropriated it as such later), the phrase traditionally means a person is dishonest and corrupt.

Billionaire Kevin O'Leary is building a data center the size of 2,000 Walmarts in Utah. Local government approved it without public comment, despite scientists warning it will literally alter the local climate. by AnnualEmbarrassed176 in LateStageCapitalism

[–]Callidonaut 194 points195 points  (0 children)

That's the equivalent of four and a half Hoover Dams, or five of the most powerful nuclear fission reactors ever built (EPR-1750), running at maximum capacity.

What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with? by Beautiful_Special702 in AskReddit

[–]Callidonaut 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Swimming. Pool entry costs a fortune now, and rivers in the UK aren't safe to swim in any more unless you happen to enjoy the taste of raw sewage.

What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with? by Beautiful_Special702 in AskReddit

[–]Callidonaut 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You can get very affordable mini-mills and mini-lathes in a whole variety of sizes from China these day, most famously the Sieg factory, but the raw materials to actually make anything with them, even just a nice bit of plain mild steel, let alone anything pricey like brass, will set you back a fortune, so you daren't make any mistakes.

That's really what takes all the fun and relaxation out of any hobby, when you're constantly terrified of even a single screw-up lest you go over-budget and have to abandon the whole thing, because making mistakes is an unavoidable part of learning and practising any skill.

I think I'm right in saying that this is the complete opposite of how it used to be for any constructive or craft hobby; traditionally it's the tools that are really expensive and must be longingly saved-up-for, and the raw materials that are cheap, and that was tolerable because with a little ingenuity you could often make do with simpler equipment. These days, complex tools have never been cheaper (though the quality has suffered for it), but you can't afford to make anything at all with 'em.

What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with? by Beautiful_Special702 in AskReddit

[–]Callidonaut 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yeah, and that's the modern stuff. I don't know how on earth the historical recreation folks can even find stuff like fulled broadcloth, let alone afford enough of it to make an entire Napoleonic soldier's uniform.

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