Asparagus made a lot more sense to me once I saw one go to seed. It branches out and looks more like a normal plant. We just harvest it before it gets to that point. Same with artichokes, they’re just an immature flower bud.

The concept of having interchangeable, standardized parts is actually kind of a new idea from the Industrial Revolution. Before then, everything was custom-made to fit. The example that comes to mind is firearms. All of the muskets and rifles used in the revolutionary war, for example, were hand-made and hand-fitted. The lock from one rifle wouldn’t necessarily fit on another. If your stock broke, you couldn’t just go get a new stock and slap it on - you had to bust out the woodworking tools and make a new one.

My first camera was a Voigtländer Vito 2, don’t know the exact age but it’s from the 1950s. My grandmother gave it to me when I expressed interest in film photography, she said she hadn’t touched it in decades so I might as well have it. As soon as I put a roll through it and got the photos back, I was hooked. Even though most of the pictures were underexposed, I knew I wanted to keep shooting film.

After talking to my uncle about this, he rooted around in his closet and gave me my second camera: a Pentax K1000. Super chunky and heavy compared to the Voigtländer, so I felt more confident taking it with me places without breaking it.

I just picked up a third, a Nikon FE along with some telephoto lenses. I haven’t put a roll through it yet, but I’m excited to try.

At this point I’m so desperate for a woman to want to spend time with me I’d take it

/s but not really

Their secret? They had superior morale and esprit de corps!

I live in Washington state, most of my electricity is from hydro or nuclear. My bill is usually about $80 a month, but it can go over $100 in the summer if I’m running the AC a lot.

I bought one of these toasters because of this video

I generally prefer to start series from the very beginning so I don’t miss anything, but I think I’ll go pick up that second book and give the series another try.

After the Dark Tower movie came out, I heard a whole bunch of people on the internet saying that the movie was awful and the books are so much better. I didn’t see the movie, but if the books are so well-liked I thought I’d give them a try.

I tried my best, I really did. But I just couldn’t finish the first book. It was just way too surreal and abstract for me.

There was a period where I regularly got to go inside Boeing’s Everett factory for work (I didn’t work for Boeing though). For those who don’t know, it’s one of the largest buildings in the world, built in the 60s to manufacture 747s. Now they build all kinds of aircraft there.

“Big” is an understatement. Even “cavernous” falls short. It’s easy for your brain to forget you’re in an indoor space until you look up and see a roof over your head. It’s like a miniature city in there. It’s got its own road network, fire department, cafeterias, and I heard it can even have its own weather.

My route to and from the job site every day took me through alleyways and around sites where workers were actively putting airplanes together. I got to watch an entire fuselage be moved from one side of the factory to the other by the overhead cranes. But my favorite part of the whole place were the underground tunnels that you could use to get around. You could still see old civil defense fallout shelter signs in the stairwells, and even though I wasn’t supposed to take pictures in the facility I did anyway:

Perhaps we should let nature take its course /s

I hate myself, let’s talk!

I think this is my issue as well. You always hear about how women hate being approached, and I really don’t want to come across as a creep who hits on women in public.

Joyeux Noel. It’s a French/German/English language film about the Christmas Truce during WW1. Very moving film in my opinion.

THE AUDIENCE IS NOW DEAF

I would recommend Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Madoka Magica, as well as Planetes if you’re into sci-fi. Girls Und Panzer is super fun as well.