@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world … your squid signal has been shone into the fediverse skyline

I have an old clock in my cottage. I got it years ago from a previous cottage I renovated. When I found it, the glass had broken so I just treated it as a piece of junk. I renovated that first cottage over a winter and left the clock there to freeze. I put in an AA battery and forgot about it. It kept time great and didn’t lose time … for about two years on the same battery!

The dammed thing outlasted every other wall clock I owned. So I kept it, removed the broken glass and just left it like that.

After about 15 years I still have it in my cottage and it freezes and thaws with the northern Canadian weather. And I’ve only ever changed the battery with the same basic energizer alkaline battery maybe four times!

I’ve never found a comparable clock anywhere. Every new clock I’ve ever bought either fail prematurely or I am constantly changing batteries every two or three months.

So far I’ve junked about a dozen new clocks because they stopped working while this old cottage clock just keeps ticking reliably.

I’m never getting rid of my cottage clock.

But 1989 … wow! … I also had an old Italian friend who was very frugal with her money and the vehicle’s she owned. She also had an 80s era Volvo station wagon that she ran for about 15 years before she got tired of it and traded it for another newer Volvo in the late 90s.

Feel the same here … I miss my 960 … it was known as a diplomats car … the thing was luxurious inside and it looked like a plain vehicle from the outside. And it could turn on a dime! I used to love being able to turn around on two lanes without doing a three point turn! I joked with my friends that it had a turning radius of a bicycle. The main reason I didn’t want to sell it to the demolition derby guy was that I didn’t want to see the car destroyed!

1990s or 2000s era Volvo station wagon or sedan

I owned a 96 Volvo 960 for about 15 years before engine gave out with fixable problems … I didn’t have the money to get it fixed, sold it and from what I heard, the new owner is still driving the thing. (one potential buyer that wanted it was a young guy that wanted it for a demolition derby as he claimed that Volvos were great for this kind of use because they are indestructible in a crash. He said the engine is so well placed and protected that it would take several hits from other vehicles before being compromised)

Later bought a 2004 station wagon and other than a few minor problems (electrical issues that aren’t critical to driving the car) and a bit of rust spots, it’s still my daily driver. I met a young guy a few years ago that had a 1992 Volvo Station wagon with a million kms on it (the thing was covered in rust and looked like hell but it was still driveable)

I’ve seen many of these up here in northern Ontario and everyone raves about them.

The funny part is, every single one I’ve ever seen is a broken down hunk of junk in someone’s barn / backyard / garage / storeroom / warehouse that hasn’t run in decades. Every guy who ever owned these remembers being a kid and seeing their dad / uncle or other adult running it and calling it the greatest thing ever made. Then then grow up buy a broken down useless vehicle, work on it for a few days, plan on fixing it and never get it running. It stagnates on the property for a decade and then someone else comes around buys it and does the same thing.

I see it as a mythological thing from some forgotten past at this point. It’s like saying unicorns or minotaurs existed in Canada a generation ago. It might be true but I’ve just never seen a working machine in real life.

The last time I saw one was with an old elderly friend who had torn one apart and I spent an afternoon with him fixing it up. He said he needed about a dozen parts to get it running … he died a few years later, and never got the parts or the machine running. It got sold off for a hundred bucks and now the next owner is doing the same thing again.

I’m going for my second bagel and cream cheese so that I work towards my Big Galoot membership

Thanks for this motivation

No worries, they just elected a guy that said drinking bleach and irradiating people from the inside would be a good idea to deal with viruses and bacteria.

lol … classic GIMP … this is becoming the best part of a terrible day

GIMP 3.0 has kinda sorta maybe been released but they’re still working on it

lol … this will be one for the memory books

American loses their minds … for the 100th time … on the same day as GIMP 3.0 was released

MIGA

Make Image-manipulation Great Again

None … but if I had had a relative or friend tell me a story that someone had buried something there 50 years ago, I would have taken the time to dig it up while I was tearing down walls or breaking concrete.

Thanks for the detailed explanation … now I know not to rely on usb for extremely long term storage … never understood how they worked until I read your comment.

It makes me wonder … what long term storage would be the best option for storing digital information … like to store something for 100 or 200 years? Anything beyond that and I would just rely on writing something in stone and burying it.

A time capsule

Place photos and some small objects maybe even a usb key, dvdr or cdr with a video of you explaining everything and telling the viewer who you are, what year it is, what’s going on and what’s important to you right now. Place it all in a water tight container, maybe even an iron case and weld it shut.

If you have small kids, tell them what you’re doing and show them … maybe they or their kids or your descendants might dig it up some day.

Of all the places I’ve renovated, I would have enjoyed finding something from someone else’s life.

By remembering and being fully aware of who you are in this world … by being grateful for the good fortune you had by being born in the situation and family you have now.

You could have been born in an African village and lived for a year before dying of something. You could have been born in the slums of Mumbai. You could have been born in Gaza. You could also remove the time constraint and you could have been born a peasant in medieval Europe.

Out of all the billions of human lives that have existed so far, there are many that were born during this time but only a small percentage of them were lucky enough to be born in a family with wealth and privilege enough to enjoy the modern technologies we’ve created so far.

I am lucky, you are lucky and anyone who is able to read this is lucky to have been born at this time to enjoy this online chat.

Remember where you are in this world and this time. As unhappy as you think you might be, there are millions of people that wish they could have the life you have now.

Be happy because you are a winner of the cosmic lottery of existence.

Fuck that’s depressing

Reminds of a quote about rape during war time from a writer … I think it was Vonnegut but I forget

“There are two types of women in war … those that were raped … and those that will be raped”

Of all the supposed civilization and modernization that we claim to uphold as a species … the fact that this is still part of our world means that we are no more civilized then we were a thousand years ago, we just have computers, fast cars and nuclear weapons.

Most people (including myself) would like to agree with you on building some sort of system to create credibility or honesty or reliability among people on a social media platform. I think the majority of people that use any social media (including Lemmy) would probably agree and more than likely would participate in it.

Unfortunately, it only takes a small group of people to upset the system, game the system, play with the system or create situations or systems of their own to manipulate everything … either to fight against others, or to generate some sort of power or control of their own. All it would take is this small group to completely change everything and make everything difficult and non functional.

It’s a lot like the democratic system of government. When you think about it the majority of everyone would like to participate in it and make it work … unfortunately, its only a small group of powerful individuals who have gamed the system to give themselves and their friends power over everyone else.

There’s a bunch of these in northern Ontario small towns.

The mysterious unused, non functional, only decorative … front door.

It’s funny because there are some old houses up here where they even just remove the front step and front deck and the front door just lingers in the air doing nothing. Inside, the entire front living room area has been rearranged to the point where the old front door is just permanently shut, sealed and never opened and furniture placed in front of it. This was a lot more common about 20 years ago but lately they seem to be disppearing as people realize that is just too silly.

I think part of it is that because we live in the north and part of the year leaves us with big mounds of snow in the winter, everyone just prefers to use the back door. The back door is easier and more convenient in the winter time. If you used the front door, you blow in cold air (even if you have porch) into the main living area and then you track in snow, which melts and creates puddles of water. Plus a regularly open and closing door in the winter time eventually gets lined with frost and ice from the constant freezing the thawing.

The same thing happens at the back door but the back door is usually next to the kitchen, hallway or storeroom. And the back door usually leads into a big ugly porch, maybe even a second porch where everyone can dump their winter clothes, boots and outdoor gear before walking into the main part of the house.

You can also download the image and repost it to a lemmy instance like I’m doing here … then no one has to go back to the old site

It’s not so much that it’s AI generated … it’s also AI influenced.

I know so many professional office workers who once wrote some of the most boring sometimes stupid emails because they didn’t know how to write or get their message across or constantly miscommunicated things because they worded things wrong … now all of a sudden they’ve become professional writers and all their emails look like auto generated messages.

I’m guessing that many writers also take the AI shortcut. They get a bunch of content generated from an AI than just rewrite it for themselves. Some content i see is lazily edited and some is heavily. But I get the feeling that just about everyone is using it because it’s an easy way to get a bunch of work done without having to think too much.

A day that will live in Canadian Infamy