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Cake day: May 11th, 2026

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  • If you haven’t seen It the largest steam train in the world was restored by union pacific, #4014 big boy. It’s basically two heavy freight locos welded together into one machine over a hundred feet long. Lots of great videos of it online including a great video where it helps out a stalled mainline freight train running actual customer UP freight.



  • Athenian democracies solve a lot of our current issues. It’s a bit like jury duty. You put your own name down and can be picked for roles in government.

    France did that after the yellow vest protests. They randomly picked 100 citizens to lead a citizens Senate to propose solutions, and Macron promised to implement their suggestions (he lied. Only partial implementation happened)

    One of the emergent properties to picking 100 random citizens is you get close to a random sample of society. Rich and poor, left and right all with different perspectives and life experiences. They all have to argue their perspective and back it up with evidence for it to function properly.

    They also can’t be bought out the same way as entrenched parties. The candidates are random. Nobody knows until the results are announced.

    It also results in a much stronger sense of civic duty for the average citizen when you participate in the civic process regularly like this.

    This video does a far better job than I can making the case for them








  • Men also don’t typically take multiple years off to have kids (as a demographic. I’m aware of exceptions even in my own personal life but the rule is typically the wife stays home, or they both work.) that put women behind their peers career wise. If people don’t take that factor into account when talking about the pay gap it’s disingenuous in my opinion.

    The best way I’ve found to sum up the disadvantage boys have in school, is they’re treated like defective girls. The school environment is better suited for girls. Boys have a lot of pent up energy that needs it be burned off for them to pay attention. It was a huge issue when I was in school (and I was one of those hyperactive boys) and I can’t imagine how hard it is now with social media and tablet-babysitters…


  • There are a lot of plants we consider weeds that used to be cultivated as staple crops. Industrialization meant only the most productive species got attention for mechanization. Less productive species fell out of favour and now are kind of lost knowledge.

    Lamb’s quarters: also called goosefoot or wild spinach. It’s related to quinoa and both the seeds and the leaves were eaten.

    Purslane: grows in poor soils and is hardy. Still used in Mediterranean cooking but is considered a garden weed in a lot of the world

    Dandelions and amaranth: both were cultivated, and most amaranth varieties are considered weeds now

    Sorrel: tough leafy green with a tangy flavour used prior to citrus in Europe.

    Ground elder: hated by gardeners and farmers. A nice spring leafy green planted around monestaries

    Mallow: used to thicken soups and stews. Still used in the middle east and Mediterranean but is considered a weed elsewhere.

    Nettles: you’ve probably heard of this one? Not farmed anymore to my knowledge.










  • I guess this is countered by Ukraine repeatedly hitting their refineries

    Here’s an infographic dated May 8th. The oil barrel in the bottom left shows the theoretical maximum impact of strikes if they somehow took all refineries offline. Ukraine is pretty good at targeting the right units when they hit a refinery, but it’s not perfect. Either way looking at economic output sources Russia made half as much oil last year as 2022, and the refinery strikes are picking up speed. Tuapse was a giant hit to them. Ukraine hit it 5 times in a row…