TheTechnician27

Look, it’s my cheat day. I’m allowed to have this. Ten imperfect non-puppy-kickers are better than one perfect one.

I’d say avoiding palm oil is becoming a bigger thing in vegan circles. Most who are vegan for the animals, whether they’ve seen it or not, will be going by the Vegan Society’s definition: “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals”. So for example, even if I never eat or purchase animal products, if I spend my Tuesdays going down to the dog park to kick puppies, fellow vegans are probably going to say I’m not actually vegan. That brings us to this frontier of veganism where you not only avoid products made from or by animals but also try to cut out other products that needlessly hurt animals – palm oil chief among them.

It does unfortunately use plastic, but I was lucky enough to get a gallon of Dr. Bronner’s liquid handsoap clearanced for 25 USD (regularly ~65 USD). To make foaming handsoap, I just mix somewhere between a 3:1 and 2:1 ratio of tap water to handsoap. (Foaming handsoap is just low-viscosity – and therefore highly diluted – liquid handsoap; the pump is what turns it into foam.)

It’s been over a year, and despite using it both in my kitchen and bathroom, I’d say I’ve used less than 1/3 of it. The soap feels amazing, but I’d wager you could get a large jug of cheaper liquid handsoap with similar results.

Unfortunate that it uses plastic (and I think mine has palm oil, which really sucks; I didn’t see it when I bought it), but it’s still really good harm reduction over regular handsoap; for a few years’ worth, I’m using less plastic than a gallon milk jug.

I enjoyed this new Stardew Valley DLC.

I hate it when pop science articles write headlines like “study confirms”. Why can’t we just use “study concludes”? It’s a subtle but important distinction that treats science as the ever-evolving process it is instead of an activity booklet where you get a stamp for every new science you complete. The article is fascinating, though. Here’s the full conclusion:

Our field experiment showed that firefly signals significantly enhanced prey interception and attraction rates. We therefore conclude that a build-up of signalling fireflies in spider webs attracts other fireflies, the consequence of which is enhanced foraging efficacy for the spiders. By handling fireflies in this unique way, the spiders effectively utilize the firefly’s signal for its own ends. Such conspecific signal utilization is rare in nature as it often comes at prohibitive costs. The sit-and-wait foraging behaviour of [Psechrus] clavis along with its habit of foraging primarily at night, nevertheless, seemed to effectively mitigate much of the costs.

Our findings highlight a novel interaction where firefly signals, initially evolved for sexual communication, indirectly benefit spiders by enhancing prey availability. This suggests there may be an evolutionary compromise where spiders tolerate signalling fireflies as they subsequently benefit the spider.

Fantastic for the health of the surrounding community too.

This sort of solution is, in reality, just another way for us not to address the root of the problem, which is that car-centric infrastructure is orders of magnitude worse for the environment and even just global warming than whatever benefit solar roadway roofs could provide.

• Cars today mostly burn fossil fuels. EVs are better but are having slow adoption and are still quite energy-inefficient compared to e.g electrified public transit.
• The cars have to have a bunch more energy dumped into them for procuring and assembling the materials compared to public transit.
• Car-centric planning means extremely space-inefficient, sprawling design, resulting in the removal of natural ecosystems that help fight global warming through carbon capture.
• The amount of energy that goes into building such massive parking lots and extensive road networks to accommodate car-centrism has to be unfathomable.
• Car centrism physically makes things more distant from each other, meaning not only is the transit medium itself less energy-efficient over the same distance, but travel distances are much longer.
• There can still be rooftops over above-ground public transit infrastructure, and even a fraction of the space saved on sprawling design could be used for solar farms.

TL;DR: !fuckcars@lemmy.world