This is an absolutely beautiful story! My mother always whistles back at the birds, but mostly just tries to imitate their songs. But she used to play "Für Elise" on the piano when I was a child :)
The blog post said bike theft prevention, yes. I'm not familiar with the ways AirTags work, so I had absolutely no idea how "silencing" an AirTag would help with that. I actually came here to the comments in the hopes of finding an explanation (which you thankfully included).
I think half the comments still miss what the "notified" part means. It's not jut an iPhone notification that a tag is following you. The tag literally beeps loudly, to help the thief locate it.
I think you're right, and in addition to that there is also a lot we could do other than AC. Just having some shade from trees already helps a lot. Modern cities can be a man-made hellscape with regards to heat. But we did that to ourselves.
It's the same here in Germany, and I very much dislike this development. We used to get so much beautiful fireflies in the summer here. Now they're mostly gone, and that's probably only the most visible damage.
True, but besides insecticides and habitat destruction it is possible that the strong nocturnal lighting, which disorients insects, has contributed to this. Wherever insects are abundant, a strong white lamp at night will accumulate quickly dead insects around it.
Where I live, in Europe, when I was a child there was a great abundance of insects of many different kinds. If I did a walk around my home I could see insects from perhaps at least 10 different orders.
Nowadays, the only insects that are still abundant are the true bugs (Hemiptera) why all others have mostly disappeared (a few, like mosquitoes, may still be seen from time to time). I do not know the reason, but I assume that the true bugs might be more resistant to insecticides.
And locally a lot of harm is done through leaf removal. Fireflies lay their eggs in leaf litter, if that gets raked up & removed those firefly eggs don't survive.
The Supreme Commander community, the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, still has an active community here: https://faforever.com/
"Forged Alliance Forever" is also a great mod, balancing changes, game lobbies and whatnot.
Doesn't "last gen consoles" include the original Nintendo Switch? That thing was underpowered when it came out, let alone compared to a Steam Deck. Also, PS4/5 and friends are not handhelds.
I was specifically referring to PS4 and Xbox One. Power-wise Nintendo platforms since Wii are essentially (at least) one generation behind the other consoles, and generally speaking Nintendo platforms have their own games rather than relying on big multiplats, outside of indie games.
Generations ago, we idolized war heroes and astronauts (and, for the nerds, the people working to get the astronauts there). I won't try to argue that was perfect, but for decades now we've idolized power and wealth without regard to cost or honesty. I don't know if that's stuff rolling downhill, just looking in a mirror, or something more complex. But it seems to me we've lost our civilizational self-respect. And I've no real idea how to get it back. The sorts of people who I would think ought to be at the forefront of any sort of positive reactionary movement seem to be bent on making sure that any sort of traditionalism is utterly and rightfully discredited.
When my dad grew up, he wanted to be a locomotive driver. Locomotive drivers were cheered upon by kids and greatly respected. Today, bus drivers complain about kids spitting in their faces. Something went wrong. I'm not sure what.
Good point. I used to think it was silly to idolize sports stars, but they worked incredibly hard with honest toil and usually a lot of study to be where they are. Heirs of big fortunes, mendacious politicians & influencers and scam artists who hit the big-time are not the same.
> ...or decades now we've idolized power and wealth...
Have we? Or is that what the ever-increasingly-consolidated media companies have chosen to talk about, and -because so many of the entities that did in-depth investigative reporting have been strangled to death- there are very few entities who "buy ink by the barrel" left to provide an opposing perspective?
Collapse of "honor" as a publicly meaningful concept.
Now, there were negatives to the concept, and it always relied on a certain amount of public/private hypocrisy to maintain a high public image while hiding deviations from that standard, but it did mean that people who misled the public would voluntarily resign.
Shame worked. Unfortunately due to overuse, like antibiotics, the public sphere evolved shame-resistant personalities.
> The sorts of people who I would think ought to be at the forefront of any sort of positive reactionary movement seem to be bent on making sure that any sort of traditionalism is utterly and rightfully discredited
If they had anything positive to offer, they wouldn't be reactionaries.
I feel like a lot of the hounding was more due to the fact that Cringely wouldn't admit the failure and instead chose to lie again and again, and less because of the money.
Seems like an even worse time investment; warn people about the fabulist, yes, but never expect there will be some change of behavior like you might get in a children's show.
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