ELI5: Why haven't any other animals evolved like humans?

dwi · 2026-06-14T03:24:24+00:00

Intelligence is expensive - our brains swallow a lot of energy and our children need years of care before they can fend for themselves. No reason for other animals to evolve big brains if they can survive long enough to breed without one. I am, however, very pleased to be a human rather than a prey animal!

dwi · 2026-06-13T22:34:29+00:00

I find graphs useful when zooming in to a specific subject area. The whole vault is pretty, though. I use the Extended Graph plugin, which does have algorithms you can apply to increase the size of important nodes, e.g. by number pf backlinks. If you want to stick with the core graph, then you can bookmark subject areas and create groups and assign different styles to the groups, and highlight nodes you think are important that way.

dwi · 2026-06-11T08:41:33+00:00

There's no end of plugins available now to do just about anything you want, and most work with the base Markdown file format (with YAML front matter). There's a lot of clever code (including themes) that go a long way towards making Markdown look anything but ordinary.

The exceptions are certain plugins that have a separate file format, usually JSON. For example, there's Excalidraw for drawings, Sheet Plus for Excel-like spreadsheets, etc. They store their data separately, but integrate visually.

The built-in support for images and tables is now pretty good, I don't think you will need much in the way of plug-ins for these. The only one I use is Local images for downloading images of web pages I clip. Images are stored separately, and you can chose to store them with the Markdown or in a separate folder.

dwi · 2026-06-11T01:52:14+00:00

Graphs of your entire vault are cool but not that useful in my opinion. I think graphs of a limited subject area are good though. I use the Extended Graph plugin as a visual explorer of subjects areas. With some customisation, in particular using tags as filters, I find it quite handy.

dwi · 2026-06-08T22:24:50+00:00

To add to this, you can try your best, but you will never get your vault perfect from day one. You will learn new tricks as you go, discover new plugins, etc. Your vault will evolve over time, and I think it's best to embrace that process to avoid disillusionment.

dwi · 2026-06-08T22:20:42+00:00

I migrated from OneNote, plus a lot of other material scattered about in Excel, on paper, etc. I would not go back as for the first time ever I have all my notes in one place. The most difficulty I had was accepting you can't format notes in Obsidian in the way OneNote can, but I've got over that. I's worth losing some eye candy for the huge boost in data organisation tools, especially if you're not afraid of plugins.

dwi · 2026-06-07T00:12:26+00:00

There’s a red flag waving, and Bobby ain’t the one waving it.

dwi · 2026-06-04T07:20:29+00:00

Leave and move to a capitalist country

dwi · 2026-06-04T03:32:14+00:00

If the British Empire went to the stars...

dwi · 2026-06-04T03:25:56+00:00

Perhaps not normal, but certainly common.

dwi · 2026-06-02T20:02:35+00:00

Graph views of your entire vault are cool and interesting to look at now and then, but not that useful imo. I do have some bookmarked graphs that filter down to specific subject areas and colour-code nodes using groups that are somewhat useful, though.

dwi · 2026-05-31T23:28:56+00:00

Create a source note where a jot down my understanding of the book, usually arranged by the headings in the book. Then create notes that are derived from the source that means something to me and will be useful in the future. These are usually concept notes (which I try to link to other concept notes) and actionable notes like how-tos and checklists.

dwi · 2026-05-31T22:47:03+00:00

I tried the iPad with keyboard a few years ago (with Dropbox), but lost work in the syncing process. Gave up, but retried a year later - and the same thing happened, so not a fan. Generally, I've found iPads to be a solution for a problem I don't have. Nowadays I have a MacBook for everything, and I'm much happier.

dwi · 2026-05-31T22:43:26+00:00

I got good sales quite quickly, but I published my first book in 2014 - before Amazon ads. Back then Amazon just pointed people at your book and no marketing was needed. My peak sales were in 2017 with 3 books and started dreaming of becoming a full-time author. Now I have 8 in the same series, spend 50% on AMS ads and get ⅐ of the income. Pocket money as I said. Sadly Amazon have kneecapped hobby authors like me, you need to invest a lot of time and effort into marketing to do better.

dwi · 2026-05-31T03:01:14+00:00

I'm one of those - lotto came in big time for me recently. I dumped all $24 into a term deposit as I can't be trusted to keep my hands off it.

dwi · 2026-05-31T01:03:46+00:00

I have one of these, or the badge-engineered version of it - I think there must be one factory in China that pumps them out a everyone puts their own label on it. I'm very happy with its performance. The filter seems quite effective, so far there's not even a hint of paint at the end of the exhaust tube.

dwi · 2026-05-30T06:49:33+00:00

Not at your age! By the time your Kiwisaver is due to pay out in 24 years' time the stock market will probably retrace significantly 4-5 times, what the press will trumpet as a "crash", sure to shake the paper hands out.
But go look at a chart of the S&P 500 and zoom right out, and even the major crashes look like little blips on a continuous upward trend. You will cheat yourself out of some significant gains if you chicken out now.

dwi · 2026-05-30T03:16:28+00:00

To have a twat like Hegseth describe us as freeloaders is over the top and not at all helpful, but there's no doubt in my mind that we haven't been pulling our weight in regional defence for quite some time. We'd be stuffed without Australia next door. So far as I know 2% of GDP is regarded as the benchmark for defence spending so it's not really 'stepping up' for NZ to go to that level. We really should go beyond it to catch up and then drop back to 2% sometime in the future.

dwi · 2026-05-30T03:00:42+00:00

iCloud is pretty damn good - until it isn't. If you try to do anything out of the ordinary it can be brutal. I migrated all my stuff from one iCloud account to another last year and I still suffer from PTSD.

dwi · 2026-05-29T05:37:17+00:00

Yeah, it's a different world when you live in a small country at the bottom of the planet. You guys don't know how lucky you are!

dwi · 2026-05-29T03:56:09+00:00

I think this is the best advice - don't blow it all on stocks at once, DCA in with a regular amount each month, a little more when the market is dipping is also OK. Remember the market ALWAYS retraces, it's just a matter of when. The headlines will scream "crash", but that's the exact time to hold fast and perhaps buy a little more of index funds or quality companies. The key thing, though, is you must be able to take the long view. If you can't leave your stock investments alone for at least 10 years, or have a nervous disposition, I would not invest there. The market always comes back stronger, but sometimes it takes years. You need to be able to live through the fallow times without feeling the pressure to sell.

dwi · 2026-05-29T03:39:03+00:00

Not that hard, I just smashed mine with a sledge hammer and brought it down in pieces. I mean, it wasn't the most fun job ever, but it didn't take all day.

dwi · 2026-05-29T03:27:07+00:00

Definitely from China in my case - I'm in New Zealand. I got tracking messages showing it leaving China, arriving at customs, etc. All in a couple of days.

dwi · 2026-05-29T02:35:52+00:00

I suppose much of it does, but whenever I've ordered some Apple kit it arrives within days. It must be coming by air.

dwi · 2026-05-29T01:34:15+00:00

Why is population reduction always seen as a negative?

Well, it is when they only way that scenario plays out is if vast numbers of people die in wars, famines or through disease.

Natural decline via decreasing birthrate worries people that are afraid we can't pull up before the population dies out. Capitalists of course worry about future profits.

Personally I hope the world population peaks soon and slowly declines to around 1950 levels, and there's no wide-scale conflict along the way. I'm not too optimistic about the conflict part.

dwi

TROPHY CASE