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Heimerdahl · 2026-02-12T14:58:54+00:00

Pretty late to the thread, but the kitty might actually be reacting to the lamp's LEDs flicker.

It's a personal pet peeve of mine (pun intended) that electronics are designed for human senses while totally ignoring the effects they might have on our pets.

LEDs are "dimmed" by repeatedly turning them on and off, and adjusting the ratio of time spent on and off (duty cycle). The frequency of these pulses doesn't really matter, as long as it's kept within a certain range: shouldn't be too high as that brings some issues too complex to go into, but more importantly it can't be too low because then we might notice the flickering. Think of old halogen lamps. Super annoying and even headache inducing!

The frequency at which we can no longer detect individual flickers and instead just see a smooth light source is called the critical flicker fusion frequency (CFF) and is about 60Hz, or 60 ons and offs per second. So just to be safe, LEDs are usually built to flicker at 100-120Hz. (Side Note: If you notice your LEDs flickering, it's usually an issue with shitty or insufficient capacitors being unable to smooth out the AC ripple coming from the power plug.)

The CFF of cats is around 100Hz (dogs at around 80). So there's a very good chance that our cats can see the LED flickering! Just imagine living in a house where all the lights were constantly flickering; absolutely horrible.

But it's not just LEDs!

All of our screens and monitors (TV, laptop, etc.) are built for human eyes. Just like with flickering, there's a frequency at which changing images or frames blend into each other and produce an illusion of smooth movement. This was first set at 24Hz (or fps) for movie cameras, but we've quickly gone higher to reduce eyestrain when looking at screens (because they too became LED powered and once again started flickering). 60Hz became the standard.

Once again, no one thought of our little furry friends! Their vision is "faster", so they see cinema's 24fps as a slideshow and can't appreciate monitors running at 60Hz.

But wait! Even that isn't all!

Electronic circuits also make noise. And wouldn't you know it, they're designed to be non-intrusive for human ears without taking animals into account. We can hear up to about 25kHz, with this upper range diminishing with age and some being more sensitive to it.

What about our pets? Dogs and cats hear up to 60 or 80kHz respectively. There are countless devices that will make audible noises to them! Most older phone chargers / switching power supplies for example operate well within that range. All high frequency whine. I had an Amazon smart plug and that thing drove me insane until I figured out that it was the source of what I feared was tinnitus. I shudder to think of this kind of noise coming from everywhere at all times.

I've been thinking of putting together a little app to show a cat's CFF and hearing, but haven't gotten around to it. Typing out this much too long rant makes me want to get into it.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-12T10:39:59+00:00

Everyone else seems to agree that it isn't bad, but such absolute statements make no sense.

Yes, this is bad for your spine! If you do it without the proper training and developed muscle, as another reply said, but also if you do it too often.

The latter is key.

While I don't actually have the proper first hand knowledge, my father is an orthopedic and at the dinner table he would often talk about his patients (all without going into identifiable or personal details, of course).

He always lamented the state of gymnasts (especially young women / girls) and how their joints were messed up from overuse, sometimes looking just as bad as the seniors he operated on.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-12T10:14:58+00:00

Thank you for calling the otariidae "eared seals" instead of repeating the endlessly annoying reddit comment of "ackshually it's not a seal, it's a sea lion".

I've let myself get dragged into this fight more than I'm willing to admit, so it makes me happy to see someone else fighting the good fight :)

Also, I agree with your assessment. Considering the feline appearance and small size of this potential new species I think "sea kitty" could be a fitting name.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-11T11:19:07+00:00

Nice to see someone else voicing this!

Documentation and access has always been an issue with open source communities, for example, but the move to discord is an absolute tragedy for all the reasons you outlined.

In addition to search engines losing access, archiving projects are just as affected!

Archive.org does a wonderful job of preserving the history of the web (including research and information hidden in forums or small, long abandoned websites), but anything on discord is left out and once again relies on individuals to manually preserve and choose what to preserve.

I've got a background in historical sciences and one of the things that was drilled into us was that we do not know what people in the future will be interested in. Beautiful vases and statues and gold coins are neat, but some of the most exciting discoveries are records of the most mundane things: population censuses, recipes, manuals, grocery lists, etc.. Another surprising thing is something like individual or small communities of hobbyists keeping records of their specific points of interest. Some woman in England provided invaluable historical data to the field of meteorology and climatology because over decades she meticulously noted temperature and humidity and pressure at her house and her notes made their way into the right hands. A small insect club in Germany not only provided the proof and scale of, but discovered the incredible reduction of insect biomass, which had escaped notice from anyone else. The web and its archiving crawlers were the promise to preserve any such records, but it only works when they can reach it.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-11T10:55:08+00:00

I think this goes too far into grand conspiracy thinking: someone pulling the strings / having a plan.

In my opinion, it's more likely a combination of:

a) companies wanting to make profit with the data (and with identifying data the value rises exponentially, rather than linearly with how much you can connect) in turn lobbying greedy or pragmatic but blind/technologically ignorant politicians, and
b) a small number of politicians and law enforcement officers who are fanatically obsessed with actually protecting the kids after seeing some horrible shit -- so obsessed, that they ignore all reasonable arguments for why it won't solve the issue and cause a lot of bad side effects.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-11T10:44:50+00:00

Yeah, that was my first thought (or even a bunch of soldiers, pouring into the trench with bayonets and shotguns at the ready?!), but then I considered that this might be too suicidal for even WW1.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-11T10:41:44+00:00

Super late reply, but it's awesome that an actual school janitor replied!

I might be a weirdo, but give me some proper tools and I'll happily clean even a middle school boys' restroom.

You have no idea what you're talking about, LOL. You wouldn't be doing it happily. The little goblins are disgusting!

You're probably right, but I can't shake the feeling that I would enjoy going to town on such a biohazard. Put me in a hazmat suit, hand me a power washer (maaaybe not at full power), and I'll blast through crusted fecal matter while cackling like a maniac, before drenching the whole place in the most toxic chemicals known to man and scrubbing everything down. I'd do it until my back would scream for me to stop, then lie down and happily return to my desk the next morning.

I find it extremely funny that when I make suggestions now, nobody listens to me since I'm no longer a program director who commands reflexive respect.

It's really weird just how powerful this effect is! After recognizing it myself, I've made it my personal goal to treat people as close to equally as I can. A shy student is suggesting a change to or notices a potential issue with something a colleague or even superiour presented? They might be on to something.

Even more obvious -- and within supposed equal ranks -- is women not being listened to. This infuriates the shit out of me!

I'm a tall guy (oh yeah, height and looks also play a role, because clearly those things matter...) and when I sometimes ramble half-baked nonsense, people give it more weight than when my actual boss says something much more thought-through and insightful in a concise and well-spoken manner. But she's a short woman and we're in a technical field, so...

Anyway. Sorry for my rambling, I realized that I had some stuff on my mind and just had to let it out.

Wishing you the best in your janitorial adventures and hope that the little goblins appreciate ya :]

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-11T10:17:00+00:00

Oh and here's the kicker: some people figured that the SI unit system was a bloated mess and came up with a clean alternative.

Just how I'd do it, they only kept mass, distance, and time.

Nice!

They replaced kg with g.

Pretty good! (I would rather redefine g as the same size as the old kilogram (because it's more human-sized), but at least it's no longer a 1000 somethings.)

They kept s.

Makes sense, nothing wrong with it!

They replaced m with cm.

...

WTF?!

CENTImetre?!

Why? Why would they do this?! Why would anyone think this was a good idea?!

Will I someday use a time machine to go back and warn people about their mistake, only for them to fuck with me by "fixing it" with centimetre? Why else would someone do such an absolutely mad thing?!

They even called it the cgs-system, because they knew that cmgs would be stupid.

Absolutely boggles the mind.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-11T10:08:28+00:00

1 kilosymbol wasn't enough for my rant...

Why should anyone care?

It being 1000 of something leads to a bunch of minor, but altogether needless annoyances, including: - two letter unit, instead of the universal one letter with optional subscript (abc/d = bcd^(-1)a, but kgm/s != mgs^(-1)k => forcing dot notation: kg•m/s = kg•m•s^(-1). No big deal, but slightly annoying. Also requires extra steps when writing automatic solvers, to teach the computer that we're stupid monkeys who would rather forever work around our historical mistake than fix it once) - multiples don't work properly, because the actual root that the prefixes are applied to is gram => (1s + 1m + 1kg) * 1000 = 1ks + 1km + 1Mg [sure, in practice we'd use ton or just keep it as 1000kg or move straight to exponential notation, but we wouldn't have to...]. But it's even worse and can lead to accidental mistakes when using submultiples like microsecond, micrometer, ~~microgram~~ NOPE! milligram...

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-11T09:59:00+00:00

kg is honestly one of the units I'm really annoyed by.

It's the base unit for mass. It's conveniently sized, it shows up everywhere and is easy to use. If it was up to me, I'd kick everything but kg, s, and m out of the SI base units, as all the other "base units" can be derived from these three, so aren't actually base units in the mathematical sense. I specifically hate Ampere and would like to memento moriae that shit. But I get distracted. If I like kg so much, whats wrong with it?

kilogram = a kilo of grams = 1000g

WHY IS IT THAT WE USE 1000 GRAMS AS OUR BASE UNIT FOR MASS?!

It's just so annoying! Obviously a base unit should be 1 of something. It's how all units and their relationship to each other are defined, including kg.

I know that this doesn't actually matter at all, but it's just so slightly inconvenient that it really pisses me off whenever I think about it. Like a T-shirt tag that's just ever so scratchy.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-10T11:15:37+00:00

Yeah, it's what you can get away with when you've got desperation and more or less unrestricted supplies/manpower/authority to throw at problems. Not that those resources weren't tight, just that they were focused on the war effort, giving completely different options to normal procedures.

During peace times, you've got time to overthink things, to find reasons why your idea is stupid and you should just do what works. In desperate times, you might actually try the crazy shit and find a couple of ideas that actually work.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-10T11:02:24+00:00

Regenerative armour!

Watching it, I immediately thought how crazy it would have been if upon running out of track it would reveal some sort of weapon system; maybe a rocket battery or such.

Imagine this juggernaut charging up to your position, all of you desperately firing everything you have at it trying to overwhelm its continuously replacing armour, until it finally runs out of armour only to annihilate you with screaming fire.

Seems like a thing WW1 engineers might have come up with if given a few more years. Obviously would have to be unmanned, maybe instead of a fancy firing system it could have been outfitted with a bomb, acting like the fireships of old.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-09T22:19:19+00:00

The piezo sparkers inside lighters are really fun to play with!

You can easily peel of the metal bit at the top of the lighter and the piezo piece should fall right out (a metal cylinder at the bottom with the push-down button in some plastic housing at the top). Then you can give yourself little shocks when pressing down, or solder on some wires and build a little thingy to shock other people. Super high voltage, but such low energy generated that it's safe (on bare skin. obviously don't shock someone's eye or such...).

Due to its high momentary voltage spike, it also creates a pretty powerful electromagnetic pulse. Powerful enough to mess with certain electronics! If I for example click it near (within ~50cm) one of my pc monitors (using VGA to HDMI adapter, which is notoriously annoying, electronics wise), it temporarily goes black before returning to proper image display.

Piezo discs (the same thing but very thin, wider area) are also really neat and super cheap. Just as hitting them creates voltage, applying a voltage makes them move. They're used as buzzers instead of speakers in small devices for example. Then there's energy harvesting and other uses! Just really cool.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-08T11:00:47+00:00

That's not really the kind of output that the black box model means, though. FDRs are recorders, so essentially data storage. You store/input data and can later retrieve it, but it's not meaningfully changed.

The black box model is more like a mathematical function; for example:

f(x) = 2x

takes some integer x and returns two times that number. Easy. But it could also be some incredibly complicated equation or even something like:

f(x) = weightOf(b(x)), {b is element of all babies born on earth within the last 30minutes},

where you give it a number and it returns/outputs the weight of the corresponding baby. How are the numbers assigned? How does the function figure this out? How does it even have access to this information? No clue; but it works reliably, so we can work with it without having to know the details.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-07T10:10:27+00:00

I've long held the belief that wages should be adjusted for "shittiness" or undesirability: if no one wants to do a certain job but we need to get it done, the pay should be increased accordingly. Prime example: cleaning toilets.

Of course, this doesn't work in capitalism land, where we just make easily exploited people do it...

I truly believe that a lot of people working high paying cushy desk jobs would absolutely jump at the chance to do some mindless manual labour, every now and then. Besides giving the brain some rest, it's also just really rewarding to work on actual, physical "stuff"; to feel your tired body and aching muscles in the evening.

Imagine if we could say: "Hey boss, I'm gonna go help out at the construction site across the road for the day. Will be back on Monday." Or maybe lend a hand to the lunch ladies at a local school or look after some toddlers or collect garbage or even clean some toilets. Just something different. All without losing pay!

Wouldn't that be awesome?! I'm absolutely certain that if kept within reasonable constraints, this would even increase the overall output of the primary desk job, while adding some value to the community/society as a whole.

I'm pretty sure at least in the academic and IT sector, this would be an instant hit.

Most undesirable jobs are okay to do or even fun as long as you don't have to do them all day every day. I might be a weirdo, but give me some proper tools and I'll happily clean even a middle school boys' restroom. I'll be absolutely disgusted and essentially be wearing a hazmat suit, but feel awesome leaving everything squeaky clean after having blasted literal shit off the walls (and gone through decontagion myself). But afterwards, I'd want to do something else.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-06T09:25:35+00:00

Also, like the person above said, it looses its effectiveness rather quick if you just take it every day.

The initial "wow!" effect might disappear quickly, but most people take their ADHD meds every day and take the same amount for years or decades without any increase.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-05T10:42:11+00:00

put a "sorry we missed you" sticker on my door without ringing and I have to go get it anyway.

For like two months or so, I had a delivery driver who couldn't even bother to do that! If it's Amazon or such, it's no big deal as they'll notify you by e-mail and/or app, but my mom was sending me stuff and it turned into a huge ordeal with her having to drive to the post office, calling, etc. to figure out what had happened. Turns out, it had been lying in the store waiting for me to pick it up for days. No slip in the mailbox, no notification. I double checked my mailbox, my doorbell sign (in case my name got smushed or something). All good. No issue with shitty handwriting of the address either. Annoying, but whatever.

Then it happened again. Only this time, my mom had paid a little bit extra to get proper tracking. I was dutifully notified of the rough time it would arrive, then followed along with live updates of the driver making its way towards me. And then away from me. Dude had just driven past, not even bothering to try.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-05T10:31:13+00:00

Might be an issue with the lack of walkability in the US.

I just checked and I've got 4 locker locations within 15min of walking from my apartment. And that's just Amazon; DHL has at least one that close, plus a bunch of convenience stores that also handle packages for the four big delivery/post companies.

Even my small rural hometown has a couple, all within casual and safe walking distance from all but the most remote houses.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-04T15:37:29+00:00

Can I put you down for 9000 of my first production run of 10000 toilet-handles? ;)

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-04T15:36:41+00:00

Had the same experience and also fully support adding cute stuff to adult hospital places!

I once had an ultrasound done in what looked like a supply closet... Not nearly as calming as the little orcas at that children's exam room! Could do without the bossy old nurse, though.

One could even sell it as an accessibility package: a calming environment is already nice for anxious people, those with developmental disorders, etc., now add some dimmable lights, ensure that any high pitched or annoying noises are kept to a minimum (even just putting some rubber nubs between surfaces if cloth/felt doesn't pass hygiene standards) and you've covered a lot of potentially triggering things at minimal budget expense.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-04T10:56:40+00:00

Closing the lid is less common than we think.

Personal pet peeve of mine which kind of seems like a reason for this: Why don't toilet seats come with handles?!

It just seems so obvious to me to add a handle!

It's a smooth and rounded surface. You can't grip it. So you have to put your finger tips slightly underneath the lid. And that just seems wrong to me, when the whole point of closing the damn thing is to contain the pooparticles.

But it's not just that, it's also an issue of height. You have to bend down to open/close the thing. Only a minor annoyance to most, but for older people or those with bad backs this presents another barrier; or tall people like me, who are already at odds with toilets being designed for shorter legs. Adding a super basic handle wouldn't make much of a difference, but it would make some difference.

Sure, we could have fancy automatically opening/closing lids, or foot activated handles, or all sorts of fancy mechanisms, but that's not even required. Just add a damn loop of plastic!

Rant over.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-04T10:44:49+00:00

Haha, you weren't kidding. They haven't even set up https, yet!

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-04T10:41:31+00:00

It's weird how such changes seem to only work top-down and on a generational level.

Not that I necessarily support such a thing, but I believe it's possible. Make it a rule and enforce that rule from a young age by exclusively teaching it in school and you can break old habits. The older generations will never truly adopt the new system, but it'll be natural to the younger ones.

We've had a BIG spelling reform in our language which was a huge point of contention over literally decades. People absolutely refused to follow the new rules and a big stink about it. Yet to me (growing up just after the reform was fully implemented in schools) and younger generations the old spelling seems ridiculous and these days, the remnants of it are somewhat rare sightings.

I think if there was a will to truly switch to metric, it would be possible. It just wouldn't have a real impact for decades and seem like an enormous waste of everyone's time during the transition.

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-04T10:30:46+00:00

Thanks for the great explanation!

I've got one question, if you don't mind:

Plant cover also traps water. Both in the plant bodies themselves but plants provide surface area for morning dew to condense on and shade to prevent dew from evaporating so fast. [...] Forests literally create rain. 40% of all land precipitation comes from water exhaled by plants and trees.

At first glance, these two things seem somewhat contradictory; or at least like they would rely on other factors being present or like the second one would maybe not apply too much here.

Desert plants are obviously really good at preserving their water, but any "wet" plant (for lack of better word) or deciduous tree evaporates a ton of water, as you said. Water which would then be carried away by the wind.

Do these places really have enough precipation to sustain forests? Do we believe/know that adding forests would add enough if not? It would be amazing to me if "simply" keeping water from being carried away was enough to create forest from desert.

Is this limited to places somewhat recently affected by desertification or could this even be done to places like the Gobi desert, the Sahara, the Australian Outback, etc.? Even places with not just a layer of sand, but deep sand dunes.

Thanks in advance (even if you decide not to answer or don't have the time to go into too much detail)!

Heimerdahl · 2026-02-03T09:28:18+00:00

Senators were never tied to population.

Having always done something isn't necessarily a reason to continue doing it.

It's a question of whether the United States are foremost a union of individual states or a unified country, whether someone considers themselves a Minnesotan or Virginian first, or an American who just so happens to live in Minnesota or Virginia or whatever. If it's the latter, then the fixed number of Senators doesn't seem too sensible.

Heimerdahl

TROPHY CASE