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Fondots

@ Fondots @lemmy.world

Posts
3
Comments
783
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • How do you pronounce in words the following two references to money: "6½d" and "6s. 6d." from a 1904 text?

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  • Other comment hit the nail on the head with their link

    But for those who won't click the link, its basically just that once upon a time that's what the price of a package of nails that size was, bigger nails cost more pennies than smaller nails.

    While we're on weird hardware measurement, I might as well talk about wire gauge

    Basically it's an arbitrary standard because it's what someone somewhere set up their wire making equipment to do and other people just followed the same standard (though of course different parts of the world use different standards for different things, so there's diff6 "gauge" measurements in use in various places for different things)

    But the general idea is you would start with a thick wire/rod, and pull it through a die to stretch it out into progressively thinner wire

    The original rod would be 1 gauge, one pass through the die and its 2 gauge, one more pass and it's 3 gauge, etc. which is why the diameter gets smaller as the numbers get bigger

    Then there's shotgun gauge, and I have no idea why this is the standard they decided to measure this by, but it's what it is. It's the number of lead balls that size it would take to make a pound.

    So a 12 gauge shotgun has a bore of .725 inches. It would take 12 .725 inch lead balls to make a pound.

    For a 20 gauge shotgun, the bore is .615, and you'd need 20 balls that size to make a pound.

    And then they throw that system out the window with .410 shotguns and just call it by the fucking bore diameter.

    And I'm not gonna even touch on railroad gauges, American screw sizes, etc. not because it's not interesting (to me at least) but because I've run out of fucks.

  • How do you pronounce in words the following two references to money: "6½d" and "6s. 6d." from a 1904 text?

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  • The abbreviations come from Roman times, popular currency in Rome were librae, solidi, and denarii.

    There were 12 denarii in a solidus, and 20 solidi (or 240 denarii) in a Libra

    In pre decimal British currency they kept the latin abbreviations, but denarii became pence, solidi became shillings and librae became pounds (and this is why the £ symbol for pounds looks kind of like an L)

    And over the years at different times currency was issued in various fractions and combinations of those, such as quarter penny (farthings) and half pennies

  • Flirc vs Sofabaton - TV Remote for HTPC, anyone got recommendations?

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  • I can't offer a comparison with the other options, but I have a sofa baton U2, and I'm not really a fan. I haven't spent too much time messing with it so maybe with a little extra setup it might work great, but the scroll wheel seems to skip around when trying to select different devices, a lot of buttons don't seem to do quite what I'd expect no matter how I try setting it up, the IR seems to have a really narrow beam and is really picky about being pointed right at the device you're trying to use it with, Bluetooth controls seem pretty unreliable, and I've never been able to get it to work work with my PC in a way that feels right.

  • why is radical acceptance not being a spineless conformist?

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  • I think this is the right take. At the end of the day you just can't change some people's minds.

    Arguably, you can't change anyone's minds, they have to change them themselves. You can try to lay the groundwork for them to make that change, but we all know what they say about leading a horse to water.

    Like OP's example of the uncle with lung cancer. The dude already has lung cancer, and is continuing to smoke, what more could you really say or do to convince him to stop? They're already facing probably one of the biggest possible consequences of their actions and they're still not stopping.

    Sure, you could focus all of your energy into trying to browbeat them into stopping, but do you really think that's going to get anywhere? Your time and energy are probably better spent convincing someone else to quit or not to start instead.

  • Delivery people of Lemmy: Do you judge customers?

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  • I only judged people in a handful of cases

    If you ordered fountain drinks instead of bottled sodas when we had both available, that's kind of a dick move.

    One lady once ordered a few cups of milk (in her defense, she did tell me when I delivered it that she was injured or her car was in the shop or something so it was an easy way for her to get milk without needing to go to the store. This was before grocery delivery really took off)

    And I judged you if you gave a shitty tip or took too long to answer your door.

  • How many of you are non-native English speakers?

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  • I'm also in the process of learning Esperanto (there's actually a decent amount of us on Lemmy)

    I don't foresee it ever being particularly useful on its own, but it is a really easy language to learn, and I think it's a great way to learn how to learn languages. I feel like after casually teaching myself it for a few years I'm a lot better prepared to learn another language somewhere down the road

    There's a few Esperanto clubs and such out there, I'm not a part of any of them so I can't really comment on the community all that much.

    One thing that does kind of interest me is Pasporta Servo, which is sort of a free Airbnb/couchsurfing thing for esperantists. Seems like that could be a cool way to travel around on the cheap and probably a good way to get more involved in the Esperanto community. Unfortunately most of my traveling is done with my wife and I haven't been able to convince her to learn Esperanto with me so I doubt she's gonna want to go hang out with me chatting with someone in a made up language in a foreign land.

    Mostly I talk to my dog in it. She knows most of her basic commands in both English and Esperanto.

  • What's a video game that you just don't get the hype about?

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  • BotW and TotK are such weird games to me

    They built these big beautiful worlds, and designed some really cool mechanics

    And just kind of did nothing with them.

    TotK was a bit better, but still fell pretty short.

    Also it's so weird that TotK is clearly a direct sequel to BotW, but there's almost no actual continuity between the games. There's a handful of characters that are missing without much of an explanation, and other characters from the previous game act as if you've never met them before. I get that for gameplay reasons you kind of have to start things over from square one in some ways, but it just felt weird.

    And the weapon degradation never really felt fun to me. I feel like at the very least once you get the master sword and recharge it to its full power or whatever you should have that as an option that just doesn't wear down, even if other weapons that do break might be better suited for the task.

    And having to go out and farm a thousand different fish and master parts and whatever else to upgrade your armor is just bullshit.

  • What would be interesting to bring to a home made pizza party?

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  • I actually did a make your own pizza party a while back, I encouraged people to get weird with it and a lot of my my friends are kind of foodies, so here's a couple standouts

    Goat cheese, hot honey, fig preserves, and capocllo

    Spicy hawaiian - grilled pineapple, bacon, ham or spam, jalapenos, drizzle of hoisin sauce

    Mac & cheese

    Taco- taco meat, cheddar, red onions, jalapenos, lettuce tomato

    Cheeseburger - ground beef, cheddar, mustard, ketchup, pickles, onions

    Desert pizza- pie filling, vanilla glaze, crumb topping

    Sort of a knock-off flammkuchen- creme fraise (sour cream would probably also work fine,) gruyere, onions, bacon

    Buffalo Chicken - chicken, hot sauce, blue cheese crumbles, diced celery, shredded carrots

    Breakfast pizza- eggs (we used quail eggs because my pizza oven is on the small side and we could get them, just crack them right onto the top of the pizza,) bacon, sausage, hash browns

    Chicken Tika masala

    Greek- kalamata olives, feta, spinach tomatoes, balsamic

    And of course we had all of the standard pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, olives, peppers, etc.

    A couple different sauces - standard pizza sauce, pesto, vodka sauce, Alfredo, etc.

  • Retired WoW players, how does that part of your life shade your current life?

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  • I played for a handful of years around 2009-ish

    Never got very far, don't think I hit max level, never got super into any particular aspect of it

    But I had fun fucking around online with some friends

    Probably the biggest source of strife in my marriage is that my wife played for the alliance and I was horde.

    And well over a decade later my text message notification sound is still a murloc.

  • Has USA crime actually dimished in 2025?

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  • Anecdotally, really just shoplifting in general.

    I work in 911 dispatch, been there for about 7 years, so long enough to have a decent feel for how things have changed since before COVID.

    And while I'm not keeping a personal tally, it definitely seems like over the last couple of years I've been getting a whole lot more calls about shit like people stealing a single red bull from a convenience store. (Yes, they call 911 for that sometimes, and we also answer a lot of the 10-digit non emergency lines, it all pretty much has to go through us one way or another, it's the same cops responding whether it's an emergency or not so at some point it has to end up with central dispatch)

    We actually have a couple convenience stores with security guards now because of this.

  • Could pizza be considered an open-face sandwich?

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  • Most burritos I've had have the ends folded in which may make them a calzone

  • My parents like Pete Hegseth. How is this possible?

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  • nobody alive today was alive and in the military for any major conflict that we were actually victorious in

    There are still a handful of WWII vets kicking around

    Also depending on how you want to define "major" and "victorious" you could maybe make an argument for Dessert Storm, and possibly the 2003-2011 Iraq War. (Whether we should have been involved in those wars in the first place, and how those wars were fought are separate issues, and I certainly wouldn't call them "unqualified" victories, but I do think there are absolutely certain angles you could look at them from and make the argument that the US was the victor in those conflicts)

  • Why are Michelin Stars so highly revered when they originated from a tyre company?

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  • Michelin Stars started out as a travel guide brochure for the best restaurants in France as a sort of advertisement for Michelin branded tyres

    It was really more of a way to get people to drive more and so have to buy more tires (hopefully Michelin)

    The original guide had things like maps, tire shops, gas stations, and tire repair instructions. Back then, cars were still new to a lot of people, and Michelin figured that a lot of people probably wouldn't know where they could go get gas or new tires or whatever, but if they had that information people might be inclined to drive more. If you didn't know where you could get gas along your trip you may not want to take that drive after all.

    Then after a while they started including things like restaurants to give people more of a reason to go driving around.

    How did the Michelin stars become so sought after by top restaurants and chefs?

    It's advertising. If you make it into the guide, more people are going to hear about and want to come to your restaurant. And since the guide has such a good reputation, it's seen as a badge of honor that this restaurant/chef is good enough to be recognized with a star.

    Was the head of the Michelin tyre company also a renowned food connoisseur or something?

    No, they were renowned tire manufacturers. But they were French and that probably didn't hurt the branding since French food has such a good reputation. I'm sure subconsciously on some level a lot of people are going to give a bit more weight to a French company rating restaurants than, for example, an American one.

    What about other tyre companiee, why didn't they do something similar?

    Why bother when Michelin was already doing it? You don't need to buy Michelin tires to eat at a Michelin-Stared restaurant. Regardless of where the guide came from it got people driving around more and needing new tires.

    There's other travel guides out there, some focus more on other things besides restaurants, some focus on areas not covered by Michelin, some overlap or compete with Michelin or position themselves as sort of an anti-Michelin because they disagree with the criteria Michelin rates restaurants on.

    And I'm sure some of them are or have been in the past published or sponsored by tire companies. But Michelin managed to get into the game early enough and did it well enough that they just became sort of the restaurant guide.

    And other tire companies have taken other advertising routes that are maybe a little less obvious. Let's consider the Goodyear blimp flying over sporting events. I'm sure there's a small element of "you should drive to sporting events to see our blimp and also wear down your tires a bit in the process" at play there.

    Are Michelin Stars still given by the tyre company, or has it been spun off into its own thing?

    Yes it's still the Michelin tire company. I don't have any real insight into their corporate affairs, so I don't know how much crosstalk there is between the tire-manufacturing and the guide-writing parts of their business these days, but it is still the same company.

  • Why don't cars have a way to contact nearby cars like fictional spaceships do?

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    1. A "truckers" (CB) radio is exactly what I was suggesting FRS radios as an alternative to.
    2. I suggested them because they are much simpler to use. With a mobile base station you need to figure out where to mount it in your car, where to mount an antenna, tune that antenna, how to hard-wire it into your car's power (or splice an adapter onto it to power it from the cigarette lighter), whereas with a walkie talkie you just need to turn it on, put it on the right channel and push a button.

    (Handheld CBs do exist. I've very rarely seen them for sale in a brick and mortar store)

    1. It's probably gonna depend on where in the country you are, but CB radio equipment is in fact not commonly available at gas stations and truck stops around me. It's something I actually actively look for and take notice of because I'm a bit of a radio geek. In fact, if I needed to tell someone where to get a CB locally, their best bet for that would probably also be the-store-whose-name-you-seem-too-think-that-no-one-should-say-like-its-fucking-voldemort-or-something, and even that would be hit or miss, some TSWNYSTTTNOSSLIFVOSes don't actually seem to carry them, but every TSWNYSTTTNOSSLIFVOS I've ever been in absolutely has at least one set of FRS radios for sale.

  • Why don't cars have a way to contact nearby cars like fictional spaceships do?

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  • Because they're fucking everywhere, something like 90% of the US population lives within 10 miles of one.

    It's basically shorthand for "this is a common and readily available thing that you can acquire anywhere in the country for cheap even if megacorps have driven all of the local specialty retailers out of business in your areas"

    As opposed to something like a HF ham radio which is a specialty item that no big retailers like walmart, to the best of my knowledge, carry, and so you're probably not going to be able to find it locally.

  • Why don't cars have a way to contact nearby cars like fictional spaceships do?

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  • I keep a CB radio in my car, and have a few friends with them

    It is actually really handy when you're road tripping together in different cars to be able to just grab the mic and say something to the other vehicle when you need to stop for a bathroom break or you're having an issue with your car or want to give them a heads-up about whatever.

    If you're fairly close together a set of cheap FRS walkie-talkies from Walmart does the job just as well. Probably worth stepping up to CB if you expect to lose sight of the other vehicle though, range is usually a bit better.

    It's especially handy if, like me, you go camping and such in rural areas with unreliable cell coverage.

    You do occasionally also get helpful heads-ups from truckers if you're listening to channel 19 about road conditions, police activity, traffic, etc. but mostly it's just idiots babbling about conspiracy theories and immature bullshit.

  • Luigi’s Mansion is now Available on Nintendo GameCube

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  • Not only that, but it was one of the launch titles, so it was always available on the GameCube

    I remember waiting in line at Target on release day and walking out of there with the console and Luigi's Mansion in-hand.

  • How did Gen X/Millennials failed at tackling the political issues they criticised in the 90's

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  • I think the basic premise of your question is kind of flawed.

    Generational age brackets are always a little fuzzy, but most definitions tend to define millennials as people born from about 1981-1996

    Which means come the end of the 90's, the oldest millennials were just turning 18, the youngest were just entering preschool, the "average" millennial would have been about 10. Personally, I was 8 in 1999.

    So most of us weren't exactly politically-aware in the 90s, let alone actively criticizing anything besides homework. And a lot of us probably had parents who wouldn't have let us listen to RATM because of the parental advisory sticker on their albums.

    My main concerns at the time were things like video games and cartoons

    Then right around the time we started to be old enough to really form political opinions, 9/11 happened and the world went insane around us.

  • what's the best solution to take a portfolio with clipboard with you when your hands are full moving a cart from point a to b?

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  • I may be missing something obvious here, but put it in the cart?

    Of course carrying a bag of some kind would also be an option, just a small backpack, messenger bag, etc. I have a surplus Czech military map bag I use for some d&d boosk and a folder of character sheets and such that would probably be about the right size for a portfolio, pretty sure there's a ton of them still available from various military surplus websites for pretty cheap.

    If you can put Velcro on the portfolio and the cart that could work. If the cart happens to be steel you could also do magnets

    You could also strap, Velcro, magnet, clip, zip-tie, etc. some kind of bag, bin, etc to the cart specifically for it. Not sure exactly what kind of cart we're talking about but some sort of a bicycle backpack with hooks to mount on a cargo rack may be an option to hook right onto your cart

    If you want to get really extra, you can get an auto follow drone to carry it around for you, or if your workplace is cool with pets, get a dog with a backpack to follow you around, or perhaps hire a personal assistant (these last suggestions are not meant to be taken literally)