fireweed

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[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The issue I'm raising here is that (again using an example from the newspaper days) you can have a singular strip that's "complete," with its own setup and punchline, that's still part of an overarching story.

Imagine, say, Garfield, where on Monday Jon takes Garfield to the vet, Tuesday through Friday's strips take place during said vet visit (each strip featuring its own joke that could be understood on its own, but is enhanced by the context provided by the other strips that week), and then on Saturday Jon takes Garfield home, ending the vet visit saga. Posting the "complete story" would require posting all six comic strips together, even though they were published separately and (more often than not) are still understandable (and hopefully funny) even without having read the other five strips that constitute the "complete story."

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Do you attend the kind of school where you expect they'll be cool with it, or do you have the ACLU already queued up on speed dial?

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago

Did you mean "open ocean creatures"? While tuna can dive 500-1000 meters, and while technically "deep sea" refers to >200 meters, I generally consider "deep sea creatures" to be those that live primarily/exclusively in environments with no light and high pressure, like on the sea floor (~3500m) or in trenches (down to ~11,000m).

But I could be wrong! Maybe a marine biologist or oceanographer can clarify? (Lemmy needs a Unidan, minus the ego and voting fraud.)

Either way, zero overlap with any feline habitats.

 
[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 18 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

In a surprising reversal, the meme got it right (SUVs, 90s) and the title did not (SUV's).

Even when dealing with acronyms and numbers, " 's " indicates possession.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (5 children)

I haven't seen this mentioned (sorry if it was and I missed it), but I want to question rule 2a:

Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.

Even in the newspaper days, it was common for comic strips to have ongoing plots, with each day's strip presenting the next part in the story (with the plot usually starting on Monday and being resolved by week's end, although some were ongoing serials, iirc Dick Tracy was like this). So the way this rule reads, it sounds like you would need to publish all strips from the same storyline together.

I think the rule is intended to prevent someone from breaking up comics that were initially presented together and intended to be read in one chunk, or otherwise truncating a comic (e.g. the meme version of "this is fine"). If that's the case, it's a reasonable expectation, but the current wording is unclear. It's hard to recommend alternative text since so many exceptions exist (what if the panels were originally posted one at a time? what about bonus panels? What if the bonus panel was only published to patreons? What if the strip was reformatted from a graphic novel for mobile-friendly re-publication? etc etc.) But maybe something like this would work: comics should be posted in their original format (e.g. multi-panel strips should not be split up). But this is already covered somewhat by rule 4a: "Comics should [...] be unmodified." So maybe rule 2a is unneeded and only causes unnecessary confusion?

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Hmmm, I've seen a lot of bad and mid anime movies (and a number that I even regret, yeah I'm talking 'bout you, third Made in Abyss movie!), but not a lot outside of the usual classics that I'd actually recommend. Redline definitely makes the list, probably also Utena: Adolescence because they went there and I applaud them for that. Other decent movies include Koe no Katachi, Ookami Kodomo, Vampire Hunter D, Interstella5555, and of course the Eva movies. Then there are the movies that I watched so long ago that I don't know if I'd still enjoy them today, like Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo. I used to like Makoto Shinkai's early movies a lot, but the more of them he released, the more I realized he basically only knows how to make one movie over and over again with aesthetic tweaks, which kinda killed it for me. Also I don't like Satoshi Kon's movies very much (unpopular opinion I know).

Sorry for not following the assignment, but nine movies without Ghibli is apparently a tall order for me.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 55 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Japanese speaker here, confirming the translation πŸ‘

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm just waiting for the day my cat realizes I can't see in the dark like she can, and it's maybe not the greatest idea to sprawl out on the hallway floor directly between the bedroom and bathroom at night...

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not if you consider door to door times.

(Obligatory "fuck cars and car-oriented developments" but to play devil's advocate here)

If driving: Most people's cars are parked in their garage/driveway, or on the street or in a group lot very near by. This means 0-1 minutes to get to the car. Snowy weather can add 1-10 minutes of cleaning/idling time, but since we're talking about a development in AZ I'm not going to count that here. There's the drive itself. Then there's finding parking (time required is very location-dependent, but since a grocery store was mentioned, those usually have huge dedicated lots that require 0-1 additional minutes to park). Then there's the walk from the parking spot to the store (again, for a typical US grocery store, that's about 1-2 minutes). So all in all, door to door times are only a few minutes longer than the drive itself, if that.

If taking transit: The typical numbers in American urban planning for a reasonable transit distance are 1/4 mi for a bus and 1/2 mi for a train. It takes 15-20 min for a healthy adult to walk one mile, but that doesn't include time to cross intersections (waiting for signal or gap in traffic). This will obviously vary wildly based on the route, 0-5 minutes depending. Doing some averaging math, you're looking at about 4 minutes to walk to a bus stop and 8 to a train, but up to 7 minutes bus and 15 minutes train (and I'm leaving out the time to get into the station because it varies wildly, but large stations can add several minutes just to get to the bus/train itself). Then there's the wait; you can reduce the wait at the stop by using an arrival app, but you still can't leave at exactly when you want like with a car, so I'm negating that benefit. Frequent service in the US is defined as anything from every 5-15 minutes depending on location and time of day, so average of 10 min, which gives an average wait time of 5 minutes. Then there's the ride: with only exception of the rare BRT, buses are always much slower than driving on account of all the stops and still being subject to the same traffic as cars. Trains fare somewhat better, although not streetcars, and many US trains follow interstates, where cars are traveling much faster than the train. So what might be a ten minute drive may be more like 15-20 minutes via transit. (Then there's a potential transfer if your destination doesn't happen to be along the transit route = more waiting and a potential longer travel time if driving would utilize a more direct route.) Then there's the walk from the bus/train to the destination, another 4-8 minutes. Taken together, door to door times via transit can easily end up being 2-3x longer than the trip itself (and many more times longer than driving the same route would have been).

So considering all factors, a "30 minute drive" will get you much farther and to many, many more places than a "30 minute transit trip." And while I used American figures, even "good" transit systems can be quite time consuming. When living in Tokyo (one of the best transit systems in the world where most people commute by transit) I lived very close to a subway that ran every 3-7 minutes and was a mere 15 minute ride before arriving at a stop quite near my work, but when all factors were considered (including a very long trek to/from the subway train through the station up to the street), my "15 minute train ride" was more like 45 minutes total.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

genuinely nothing worse than going bowling ~~with people who are actually good. like why are you doing all that~~

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

There are fig wasps, of course. And other species, yes, that aren't quite as good as bees at pollinating, but neither are butterflies, but no one has a problem with labeling them as pollinators. Plus there are the wasps that eradicate pests. The year I had a paper wasp family move in near my garden was a bumper year for my brassicas, because they absolutely annihilated the cabbage white caterpillar population. Basically, wasps aren't just useless enemies.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by fireweed@lemmy.world to c/books@lemmy.world
 

Or, in other words, how do you pick what to read next?

There are millions of books in existence and only twenty-four hours in the day. I'm curious how everyone here picks what books go on (and, depending on your proclivity for dropping books mid-read, stay on) your reading list?

Librarian recommendations? "Best of" lists? Your favorite authors' latest? Social media recommendations? Whatever seems "hot" at the moment? Serial publications/anthologies? High school/college reading lists*? Covers/titles that entice you? Whatever your approach, I wanna hear it!

*This is a fantastic way of creating non-fiction reading lists, but I can't imagine doing this with fiction--I'm just not that much of a literary masochist.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This post was inspired by a comment in another thread, and was adapted from a post to c/gardening.

When people think of "medicinal gardens," likely what comes to mind are plants grown specifically for their medicinal properties, such as arnica, feverfew, mugwort, and tulsi: plants that have to be sourced from special seed catalogues and not something you can just pick up at your local nursery. In actuality, tons of vegetable garden staples have medicinal properties, including quite a number that are container-friendly!

For example, basically all culinary herbs have some kind of medicinal use. Probably the best known is sage (its witchy reputation isn't arbitrary!), however many other culinary staples such as mint, oregano, thyme, rosemary, cilantro, and parsley all have their own medical benefits too. Unlike more specialized medicinal plants that can require special processing (e.g. drying the root or creating a tincture), culinary herbs are also super easy to take, either by mixing them into food or brewing a tea (turns out you can just make tea from basically any sturdy edible plant part, including flowers, leaves, stems, roots, and seeds). Probably the best part about using culinary herbs medicinally is that while their medicinal effects may be on the milder side, you're unlikely to over-consume them or experience an interaction or side-effect, unlike other more pharmaceutical-grade plants like licorice root and ashwagandha that require care with use. This general safety, as well as their prevalence, ease of use, and multi-purpose nature, make culinary herbs fantastic entry-level additions to any medicinal garden.

Many popular garden flowers also have medicinal properties, such as jasmine, echinacea, calendula, lavender, and yarrow. It's important to note, however, that many medicinal flowering plants have also been bred for ornamental purposes, and while ornamental varieties probably still retain some medicinal properties, it's best to stick with varieties specifically bred for use as medicine as they tend to be the most potent (and maybe safer? I haven't heard that you shouldn't consume the ornamental varieties, so much as that they're not as effective).

Also worth noting is that for many medicinal plants, the medicinal part isn't necessarily that part that's most commonly consumed. Raspberry (and to a lesser degree strawberry) leaves, for example, are a common treatment for menstrual discomfort, even though the part we usually eat (the fruit) does not share the same medicinal qualities. Flowers, seeds, and roots can also be surprise sources of pharmaceutical effect in plants usually consumed for their other parts.

While there are lots of online resources for learning more about medicinal plants and pharmaceutical gardening, I'd also recommend seeing what print resources are in your local library. Growing and foraging plants with medicinal properties is an ancient human tradition... even non-human animals have been observed seeking out specific plants to alleviate various ailments!

My favorite edible container plants are perennials (as dealing with spent soil from annual plants every season is such a pain), and quite a number of those have medicinal properties. I've had tremendous success growing sage, thyme, oregano, mint/catnip, and calendula in smaller containers, and stinging nettle, mugwort, lavender, and echinacea in larger containers... all of which have medicinal properties of one kind or another. Quite a number of medicinal annuals are container-friendly too, such as tulsi. Some medicinal plants can even thrive indoors, such as aloe vera. Considering that many of these plants do double-duty (e.g. for culinary/pollinator-support/ornamental purposes), there's no reason why even the tiniest of gardens can't have some medicinal plants mixed in!

An obligatory disclaimer: before consuming a plant for medicinal use, you should of course always research the plant for potential interactions or side-effects (many herbs should not be consumed during pregnancy, for example, and some can interact with pharmaceutical drugs, which seems obvious if you think about it). You should also be careful which part of the plant you're consuming: many perfectly edible plants have toxic parts (nightshades like tomatoes and eggplants being a great example).

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