lvxferre

Based on

• owenfromcanada's comment - the "pros" of Lemmy (memes, beans, etc.)
• ByteOnBikes' comment - about not making Lemmy advertisement too slick, like corporations would.

SVG source for anyone willing to give it a try. Made with Inkscape. The emojis were added as images because Inkscape.

It's a 10m papyrus scroll from Herculaneum, one of the cities buried by Vesuvius' volcanic ash in 79 CE. It's fully carbonised but they're using a synchrotron to create a 3D model of the scroll without damaging it. Then they're using AI (pattern recognition AI, perhaps?) to detect signs of ink, so they can reconstruct the text itself.

The project lead Stephen Parson claims that they're confident that they "will be able to read pretty much the whole scroll in its entirety". And so far it seems to be a work of philosophy.

In case anyone wonders about the star:

1.6 introduced two amazing features to make mad money from fishing.

Pic related - it's the first Summer, I didn't ship all the fish (I couldn't smoke all of them in time), and I'm making 20kg/day, even being bad at fishing.

The bait maker is unlocked by Fishing Lv6. It requires 3 iron bars, 3 coral, 1 sea urchin. You put a fish there, and get 5~10 pieces of bait targetting that fish.

But why would you waste fish to get more fish, instead of using bug meat for the bait? Because you can target the most lucrative fish - like I did with sturgeon there, if I used normal bait I'd be getting carps instead.

Then there's the fish smoker. The recipe is from Willy's and it costs 10kg. You need 10 hardwood, 1 river jelly, 1 sea jelly, 1 cave jelly.

The river and sea jellies are not a big deal to get. The hardwood will likely require luck in the mines or an upgraded axe. Cave jelly is a pain, you need to fish in the mines for a while. (Ideally at Lv100, but Lv20 does the trick.)

But oh wow. It's worth. It doubles the price of the fish, but it keeps quality. Check the iridium quality sturgeon, it's 1200g! Lucrative fish tend to be unruly, but if you fish at good spots you can reliably get gold quality fish; 1.5 from gold quality * 1.5 from angler profession * 2.0 from smoking = 4.5 times the original price.

It does require coal but once you got the cash rolling you can buy it from Clint, that's what I'm doing.

[Idea] If you don't want to see huge flags taking space over actual drawings in the Canvas, pick the biggest flag that you can find to deface.

As long as a lot of people are doing that, the ones templating larger flags will be forced to reduce their layouts and give more room for actual drawings.

[Reasoning] When it comes to country flags, I think that the immense majority of the users can be split into four groups:

1. The ones who don't want to see country flags at all.
2. The ones who are OK with smaller flags, but don't want to see larger ones.
3. The ones who want to see a specific large flag taking a huge chunk of space.
4. The ones who want to see the whole canvas burning, like the void.

I'm myself firmly rooted into #1, but this idea is a compromise between #1, #2 and #4.

Typically #3 uses numbers (and/or bots) to seize a huge chunk of the canvas to their flags. Well, let's use numbers against it then. As long as #1, #2 and #4 are trying to wreck the same flag, we win.

[inb4]

But what about identity flags?

Not a problem. They're typically bands instead of thick squares, and people drawing them are fairly accommodating.

But what about [insert another thing]

Even if [thing] is a problem, it's probably minor in comparison with huge country flags.

What should be the template?

None. We don't need one, as long as everyone is working against the same large flag.

Just draw something of your choice over the flag, preferably over its iconic features.

But I'm not creative enough for that!

No matter how shitty your drawing is, it's probably still way more original than a country flag. So don't feel discouraged.

That said, you can always help someone else with their drawing. Or plop in some text. Or just void.

Why are you posting this now, you bloody Slowpoke?

I wish that I thought about this before Canvas 2024. But better later than never. (And better early by a year for Canvas 2025.)

EDIT: addressing on general grounds some whining from group #3 (the ones who want to see a specific large flag taking a huge chunk of the canvas space).

You do realise that this sort of "war against the largest flag" should benefit even you, as long as the biggest flag is not the one you're working with, right? Even for you, this makes the canvas a more even level field. Let us not forget that you love to cover other flags with your own.

I'm sharing this here mostly due to the alphabet. The relevant region (Tartessos) would be roughly what's today the western parts of Andalucia, plus the Algarve.

Here are the news in Spanish, for anyone interested.

The number of letters is specially relevant for me - 32 letters. The writing system is a redundant alphabet, where you use different graphemes for the stops, depending on the next vowel; and it was likely made for a language with five vowels, so you had five letters for /p/, five for /t/, five for /k/. Counting the "bare" vowels this yields 20 letters; /m n s r l/ fit well with that phonology, but what about the other seven?

I got a weird problem involving both of my cats (Siegfrieda, to the left; Kika, to the right).

Kika is rather particular about having her own litterbox(es), and refuses to use a litterbox shared by another cat. Frieda on the other hand is adept to the "if I fits, I sits, I shits" philosophy, and is totally OK sharing litterboxes.

That creates a problem: no matter if properly and regularly cleaned, the only one using litterboxes here is Frieda. We had, like, five of them at once; and Kika would still rather do her business on the patio.

How do I either teach Kika "it's fine to share a litterbox", or teach Siegfrieda "that's Kika's litterbox, leave it alone"?

Context: my mum got some keikis of this orchid from a neighbour. She managed to grow them into a full plant, it even flowered (as per pic), but she has no idea on which species of orchid it is.

I am not sure if it's a native species here (I'm in the subtropical parts of South America), but it seems to be growing just fine indoors in a Cfb climate.

Disregard the vase saying "phal azul" (blue phal), it used to belong to another orchid; it doesn't seem to be a Phalaenopsis.

If necessary I can provide further pics, but note that it has lost the flowers already.

Any idea?

EDIT: thanks to @jerry@fedia.io's comment, we could find it - it's a Miltoniopsis. Likely from Colombia or Ecuador, not from my area.

I feel slightly offended. Because it's true.

(Alt text: "Do you feel like the answer depends on whether you're currently in the hole, versus when you refer to the events later after you get out? Assuming you get out.")

xkcd source