A somewhat cheesy quote that helped me a lot is “you can be the juiciest, ripest peach in the world, but some people just don’t like peaches”. I used to try way too hard to be likeable and I agonised over people who didn’t like me.

There was an instance of a colleague being rude and unprofessional to me, and under the framework of “they don’t like me and that’s why they’re being unkind”, it put the onus on me to change, which wasn’t reasonable. It should be possible for people to not like each other in a working relationship while still being respectful and productive.

Okay, well this is actually super cool, thanks for driving my attention there. It seems that the word for this particular behaviour is "Nyctinasty

I think the short answer to your question appears to be “we don’t know”, because nyctinasty has been observed for millennia but there isn’t a clear, conclusive answer. In some plants that are open at night, it may be that they are pollinated by bats or nocturnal insects, but one of the open questions here is “does nocturnal nyctinasty happen via the same mechanism as diurnal nyctinasty?”. By that, I mean “does a nocturnal plant (like moonflower) use the same ‘muscles’ as a plant that’s open during day, like water lily?”.

I don’t recall it mentioning water lilies, but a book that you’d probably enjoy if you’re curious about this stuff is What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz. I remember there is some really interesting stuff in there about plant circadian rhythms, and the information is presented in an accessible and entertaining manner

A food-for-thought question from a biochemist who doesn’t know much about water lilies specifically: your question assumes that it’s the opening/closing that requires energy, but another possible mechanism might be if the default, relaxed position was closed, and energy needed to be expended during the day to keep the flower open (or the inverse, where the open position is the default, relaxed position, but then at night, energy is continually expended to keep it closed). I suggest this based on how I know many of the molecular mechanisms of plants rely on turgidity (swollenness from water) to evoke structural changes.

It doesn’t change the question materially, it just involves looking at the question from different angles. I don’t know much about water lilies though, I didn’t even know that they close at night. I might report back here if I find anything interesting.

That doesn’t make it okay. It was exploitative and blatantly neocolonialist.

Exploitation machine goes brrr https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/

I’m glad to hear of this wave of activism, I hope that as well as striving for political change, that people find comfort and support in solidarity with their fellows.

Do you have a favourite bridge?

Edit: I don’t know many bridges, but I quite like the Millennium Bridge in Gateshead. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateshead_Millennium_Bridge) My dad took me and my siblings there when it opened. It was a big deal for the area and I was young enough to not understand why, so I looked at it real hard to try to understand why everyone was so hyped. I concluded that it was a pretty good bridge.

I’ve been thinking of starting a blog to help motivate me to do more writing. For a while I felt burnt out because I knew I’d have no hope in hell of being able to do a bunch of SEO stuff to enable people to actually see if anything I write, but I’ve concluded that people based networks are the only way something like this will work for me. After all, most of my favourite blogs or blog posts are ones I’ve heard of through word of mouth.

I’ve not heard of gopher protocol though, that sounds interesting

Why wouldn’t they be allowed to hire scabs? Is it that the union is especially strong here?

'[The Constable measures the sound level at 91dB, the max that his decibel metre can record]

This level of noise, the CDC writes, can cause hearing damage after two hours of exposure. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration advises that employees can only work in 90-decibel settings for eight hours a day and are required to wear ear protection. And Texas state penal code deems any noise above 85 decibels unreasonable. Over the course of 2024, [the Constable] has recorded a noise above 85 decibels coming from the plant more than 35 times. "

Whilst the health concerns reported are the thing that would make these complaints more serious (if true), this level of noise is also just insanely high from a nuisance perspective, even if the health problems of the town are unrelated.

“Technically there is federal mandate to regulate noise, which stems from the 1972 Noise Control Act—but it was essentially de-funded during the Reagan administration.”

Of course it was. It’s always fucking Reagan (or Thatcher)

Thanks for this additional info; your comment was interesting

Rich people like to talk about philanthropy and charity being very good, and sometimes they speak as though the act of giving is virtuous and transformative for the person doing the giving. I agree with that, at least, but I think it’s pretty fucked up that they perpetuate systems that both enable and require acts of charity. Kindness and charity would still necessary and good in a more equal world, but more people would have access to it if there were less wealth hoarding.

Ha, that’s a mood; I have a theory about how the millennial/gen Z practical cut off is especially socioeconomically dependent — as you describe, it’s possible to resonate with millennial motifs way more depending on where you grew up. I think you effectively demonstrate how limited generational categories can be, especially if we treat them like hard boundaries between groups

Pretty sure Gen Z

I’m on the cusp of genZ and Millennial, but I feel much more Millennial. I speculate that this is because of how I related to technology growing up.

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who is like me, on the cusp, but feels gen Z rather than Millennial, and why

Neat site!

I agree, this is important to emphasise. I don’t want to ever slip into the mindset of dehumanising Trump in the same way that him and his allies dehumanise people like me, because I think that drive to so thoroughly otherize political opponents is a key driver of fascistic thinking. Having empathy for people like Trump (and those that follow him) doesn’t excuse their actions or beliefs, but I think it’s important

“gluteal clefts”.

I don’t know why I find that so funny.

Gin, I think.

It’s debatable about whether this counts for the question, but I’m commenting because this wasn’t a case of “drank too much, was very sick” kind of story, which many people have about alcohol. Basically I was at a small party and I downed a shot of clear liquid that I believed to be vodka. It was not.

I didn’t even know there was any gin in the house, I hadn’t seen anyone drinking it. I wasn’t keen on the taste of gin before, but the unexpectedness of the taste was so bad I was sick. People were concerned because they worried I was overly-drunk, but it was entirely the flavour that did it. Now, anything that tastes or smells remotely similar to gin makes me feel sick.

Though even if we are counting gin as a food here, this is very much gin not being consumed in its normal way - I have never met anyone who would choose to do a shot of neat gin.

Fracking already is unprofitable now, if we account for the slimy corporate practices used to avoid paying for spent wells to be properly plugged.

Propublica has done a lot of good reporting on this topic, this is just one article of many, but this one explains aforementioned corporate slime quite well https://www.propublica.org/article/the-rising-cost-of-the-oil-industrys-slow-death