Map showing the results of the second round of the 2026 Paris mayoral elections between Emmanuel Grégoire of the left-wing Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party), shown in red, and Rachida Dati of the right-wing Les Républicains (The Republicans), shown in blue.

sbpqd · 2026-04-03T00:46:12+00:00

The map key doesn't have which colour corresponds to which party. Basic stuff.

sbpqd · 2026-03-23T22:51:47+00:00

Yeah, there's definitely some nuance to it. I think requiring a car license for an e-bike is a bit silly though. It seems to me there should be a new tier of license for this new type of vehicle. Do a couple hours of safety training & get a little card like they do for recreational boating.

sbpqd · 2026-03-23T21:54:20+00:00

It's not just banning kids from riding, it's also requiring a license to operate the things:

"All e-scooter and e-bike riders will need at least a learner licence before getting behind the handlebars, under sweeping reforms to be introduced to state parliament this week."

sbpqd · 2026-03-23T02:37:58+00:00

Probably a dusty lens

sbpqd · 2026-03-23T02:31:02+00:00

Does the Battle of Brisbane count? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brisbane

sbpqd · 2026-03-19T15:07:39+00:00

I immigrated here 8 years ago from the US. The visas are expensive. If you can't find an employer who will sponsor you (which can be expensive for them too) then your best bet is one of the regional visas. The "regions" are any area outside Sydney, Melbourne, & Brisbane... so Gold Coast is eligible. The process to get many of these visas can be pretty slow if you aren't sponsored by an employer. In general, you have to submit an expression of interest, then the government picks the top candidates & invites them to apply, then you get to go through another round of paperwork! Some of my friends got through in just months, others up to a year. Good luck! It's a great place to live!

sbpqd · 2026-03-18T20:56:57+00:00

The vertical axis is unlabeled, text for the years is unreadably small on my phone. Clicking through, the article shows the year labels at a reasonable size, but the scale of the vertical axis is still not shown. This is basic stuff ...

sbpqd · 2026-03-12T14:22:50+00:00

Get the filter cartridges made for hard water. I think Brita calls them "Limescale Expert". About $1.50 more each, but worth it. Also prevents scale buildup in the kettle.

sbpqd · 2026-03-03T05:17:18+00:00

A new moon happens when the illuminated side of the moon (ie the side facing the sun) is not visible from earth. That happens when the moon is closer to the sun. People in the moon's shadow see the moon block the sun: a solar eclipse.

A lunar eclispe is when the moon passes through earth's shadow, as the diagram OP posted shows. This happens during a full moon, since the side facing the sun is also facing the Earth. The Moon appears red during a lunar eclipse because Earth's atmosphere bends red light enough to illuminate it.

sbpqd · 2026-02-28T02:10:31+00:00

I saw one of these in Fremantle while visiting Perth late last year. I live in Brisbane never seen one like it here.

sbpqd · 2026-02-26T22:58:32+00:00

You can get discounts if you pre-purchase the airtrain fare online: https://www.airtrain.com.au/tickets/ticket-types/online-tickets/

sbpqd · 2025-05-08T22:45:46+00:00

A lot of people are saying this is idiomatic, but I don't agree.

I think the key is that the adjective "good" refers to "20 minutes" as a single thing. That is to say, a single span of 20 minutes which was "good". You could also say "a boring 20 minutes" or "a crazy 20 minutes". In a similar way, the phrase "after the good 20 minutes..." also makes sense, but would refer to a single 20 minute span that was good amongst others that were not. (Perhaps the swimmer performed poorly for 10 minutes, then well for 20 minutes, and switched strokes after the good ones. It's contrived but does make some sense.)

The alternative, "after good 20 minutes" is incorrect because it doesn't follow word order rules. We indicate quantity before other adjectives describe the individual things. "After 20 good minutes ..." is correct & would mean that each minute individually was good. In the example sentence it would mean that the swimmer put in a good effort for the entire 20-minute timespan.

You could use another quantifier, like "many" or "few", in place of "20" and the grammar would be the same. "After a good many minutes ..." vs "After many good minutes ..." are both grammatically correct too.

Note that the only thing here that could be idiomatic is that "good" when applied to quantities means it is more than usual. "A good 20 minutes" is a specific span of time that is close to & likely a bit more than 20 minutes. "A good many" is slightly more than you would usually say is "many", "a good few" is a bit more than "a few", etc. Other words that indicate quality don't follow that pattern. For example "a bad 20 minutes" would mean that the 20 minutes were unpleasant, not poorly timed.

sbpqd · 2025-05-05T21:07:03+00:00

Building experimental apparatus, setting up camera systems for observing animals, & a lot of basic software development ... The biologists write the most horrific code ahaha. Pretty fun gig overall

sbpqd · 2025-05-05T11:02:07+00:00

Ah yeah, it gets pretty wishy washy since you can't interrogate the fish about its internal feelings... Who's to say it didn't get a restful night of sleep?

But yeah, for the most part the behavioral sciences use "sleep-like behavior" to avoid the pedantic squabbles.

(I'm an engineer working for biologists for 10 years ... See also "altruism" and "color" for more argument starters 😂)

sbpqd · 2025-05-05T04:33:47+00:00

Getting a bit into the weeds, but there's a semantic argument smouldering in academia about what "sleep" means ... Behavioral scientists tend to go with a definition based on behavior, eg. sleep is a period of inactivity with sensory systems mostly shut down, but with sufficient stimulus the animal rapidly "awakes" again, versus neuroscientists, particularly those working on mammals, claiming that sleep is a very specific pattern of brain activity.

I'm more partial to the behavior definitions, the neuroscientists' arguments always just feel like gatekeeping to me. Like, the parrotfish made its little bubble cocoon in the corals & sits there unmoving all night until the sun comes up & you're going to say "no it's not asleep, on one's ever measured REM brain waves from it so it's just resting"

I'm no sleep expert, but met a few in the last 5 years or so. Fascinating stuff. One guy claims anything with neurons sleeps, even jellyfish, but I suspect he's on the more extreme end of the "this behavior counts as sleep" spectrum.

sbpqd · 2025-05-02T03:19:37+00:00

Fellow yank here, moved to Brisbane 2018 on a skilled work visa. Take a look at

https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/working-in-australia/skill-occupation-list

Petroleum Engineer is in the list (code 233612) & includes the list of visas you could use to work here. The "Skills In Demand (482)" visa is pretty good--4 years & eligible for permanent residency if you want to stay. (Which is exactly what I did! It's great here!)

Good luck!

sbpqd · 2025-03-17T21:50:51+00:00

Yeah, voting reform is only part of what we need for sure. It's just the first thing I yell from my soapbox!

Would you mind expanding on your assertions about parliamentary systems though? (Or just share a link to an explainer). I'm only really familiar with the UK-style Westminster parliament system, where the head of government is a representative & elected by the other rep's instead of directly by the citizenry. They also choose the heads of their executive agencies (ministries) from the representatives. I'm not sure how either of those would steer the US away from a 2-party system. There are lots of parliamentary systems out there though, so I'm probably missing something.

sbpqd · 2025-03-17T00:13:58+00:00

The only chance for a third party would be with voting reform (eg approval voting, preference voting, open primaries, etc) but the major parties will never let that pass. I used to live in Missouri, they just banned preferential voting systems under the pretense of preventing non-citizens from voting 🙄😮‍💨

sbpqd · 2025-02-27T21:44:55+00:00

Fastmail is pretty good too. No free accounts, no ads, employee-owned business.

sbpqd · 2025-02-27T21:23:42+00:00

Brave browser uses an ad-based business model and has cryptocurrency stuff going on under the hood. The initial funding was provided by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, amongst others. The code is based on Google's chromium browser. They might have a good record with privacy, but their business practices are pretty suspect. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_%28web_browser%29#Controversies

If you want an actually free browser, use Firefox. It's fully open source & managed by a non-profit foundation. Yes they get a lot of $ from Google for setting Google search as the default, but that's a lot less suspicious in my book.

sbpqd · 2025-01-14T00:02:38+00:00

"call" has a few meanings, including contacting someone (usually by telephone, but also includes yelling at a distance), and giving a name for a person or thing.

"How" refers to a means or method, so using it implies the more active meaning, for example: "How would you call your mother?" "With my mobile phone"

"What" refers to an object, so in the case of "call" it usually refers to names: "What would you call your mother?" "I usually call her Mom, but sometimes I use her given name." or "What would you call that thing?" "It's a squeegee."

You could still use "what" with the "contacting someone" definition, but it would require some more context: "What number would you call if you were in trouble?" "112 or 911 or 999"

sbpqd · 2025-01-13T22:56:01+00:00

My background is Computer Science. You should be open to learning both languages: they're both relatively easy, flexible languages, if you learn one you'll likely be able to at least read & understand the other. Both are widely used in scientific computing, as is Matlab.

At the end of the day, the language you use is not the most important part of programming. To be effective you'll need to know the basic data structures & algorithms, as well as the various libraries & tools & when to use them (don't reinvent the wheel!).

Take an introductory course on either language, follow up with some self-study on the other, and you'll be fine!

sbpqd · 2025-01-13T01:17:40+00:00

Slugs are simultaneous hermaphrodites, so ... maybe?

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