Ask Lemmy

Invasive species.

My region is absolutely infested with Siberian Elm and Tree Of Heaven (A.K.A., the “semen tree”). You cannot cut them down, because they will resprout like a hydra from the stump. You cannot dig them out, because the smallest root left behind can and will resprout wherever it is, leading to a many-year game of whack-a-mole.

I have near-daily fantasies of going around with a powerful backpack sprayer filled with glyphosate (Round-Up) and an application wand that can extend from 1m to 10m, and hitting everything just as they’re sending nutrients to the roots for winter.

The problem is, Glyphosate is highly restricted to purchase and own in Canada unless you have both the appropriate class of Pesticide Applicator’s License (an agricultural variant, for example) as well as the venue to use it in (own or manage an orchard, for example). Thankfully my family owns an orchard, and I am starting the process for the former.

But still. It’s an absolutely bizarre thing to be obsessing over and I. Just. Cannot. Help. Myself. Every time I drive and see clumps of those disgusting trees, I start to uncontrollably strategize how I could hit them with glyphosate in late September.

Phil Collins pisses me off, I can’t explain why, I just fucking hate that guy.

Ui being off by a few pixel, like microsoft calculator.

Anything text editing not supporting Vim mode, especially programming context.

There are so many people who are fundamentally wrong about what the Fermi paradox means, and proceed to present their shower thoughts about "what if everyone just, like, decides not to colonize the universe" as if they were profound or novel insights.

Who decides when a species becomes naturalized / stops being invasive? As an example, the European Starling has been living in North America since 1890 and are still considered invasive. They have natural predators. The ecosystem is adapting around them. Just let them have citizenship already!

Another thing: Taxonomy. Just all taxonomy. If a shark and a trout are both fish then we must also be fish because both of those animals are closer relatives to us than they are to each other. Obviously the way we define a fish has to change. Why has nobody done this? There are a TON of things like this in taxonomy and that all make me absurdly angry.

Random thing I was disappointed by recently. I live near a hospital that has a pizza vending machine near the cafeteria. So whenever I have to go to the hospital for appointments and stuff, I like to get some pizza. I went for an appointment a few days ago but the machine was broken so I didn't get to have pizza.

It's alright, I'm gonna breathe in the month of October and eat me some Reesies Peesies

That everyone dies alone.

I get a bit frustrated sometimes to see stars and think of the universe burning away it's entropy without anyone putting it to useful ends, like most of the universe going to waste before anyone can even reach it.

I'm annoyed that I was born in the armpit of history. There are people alive who were alive when the Wright Brothers were. And we can see a shining future ahead of us. But we're stuck in the middle. Too late to be excited for all the progress of the first flight, moon landing, dawn of the internet. Too early for commercial space flight, nuclear fusion, full dive VR, true AI.

We can see those things in the future. It's being built now. But by the time it's fully available and normalized we'll either be dead or too old to care. If capitalism doesn't kill us all with climate change.

So yeah. Armpit of history. Shit sucks.

Our prime minister couldn't explain what prime numbers are