evranch

joined 1 year ago
[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

The interesting thing to me regarding both power and blasphemy is that by the fact that it was on display in a major cathedral, those in charge have already given it their blessing. Anyone calling "blasphemy" only looks like a fool.

So you have these "traditionalists" wanting to drag the Church backwards. But due to the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church that's just not how it works. Church leadership has made significant progressive strides over the last decade, leaving people like this Tschugguel with only impotent rage and vandalism as their options. And as you state this only adds new context to the art, giving it more power and ensuring that their regressive goals are not taken seriously.

Meanwhile the Evangelicals have gone absolute nutters, I never thought I would see the day where the Catholics were the "progressive" church. But they play the long game, and have always changed along with society over the millenia.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 15 points 4 months ago

Interesting to see the charts there showing a steady 25% against. Even when asked if a majority government should have the support of a majority of voters!

Who are these guys! Its hard to believe that a quarter of people surveyed appear to not want our democracy to function.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 21 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The work had drawn criticism from some Catholics, who said it was blasphemous.

I won't deny it's kind of an odd idea for a sculpture and clearly designed to create controversy, but claiming that it's blasphemous just confirms the fact that they don't know the definition of the word. It just depicts a defining moment in Christian history, whether you like the aesthetics or not... The Catholic church has definitely celebrated weirder things.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

I don't see how people like you miss the entire concept of "base load".

I live in a region with vast amounts of renewable energy resources. It's always windy and the sun shines almost every day. I have solar panels on my house that cover most of my DHW and a large fraction of my summer cooling load, and keep most of my appliances running.

But right now, the sun is down and the wind is flat. And I still need power. My battery storage would be depleted by morning, damaging it through overdischarge if I don't buy power from the grid instead.

And it's a lovely summer evening with no heating or cooling demand! What about midwinter, -35C and dark and snowy? Where is my power coming from on that day, after a month of days just like it?

Nuclear.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago

Sure lasers don't have recoil, but I see no reason a laser gun can't have recoil.

Anything from flywheel energy storage, a lasing medium compressed by pistons, massive magnetic fields created by high currents, who knows what's inside that thing.

A handheld laser gun has to generate a beam of such unrealistic intensity that I'd be surprised if the power stage didn't buck in some manner.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago

Straight into the toaster from the freezer. If you want bread, set the toaster light. If you want toast, set it dark.

Some toasters even have a switch for frozen bread to compensate.

Here in rural Canada we have always frozen bread even short term. Mostly because mice can't get into the freezer.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

Is agriculture land based transport? Short of an actual nuclear tractor, nothing but diesel has the energy density sufficient to run modern scale farms.

Chatting around the fire we've tried to imagine a solution like dragging a cable but with tractors pushing close to 1000HP now that's about a megawatt. That's a long, fat cable or an extremely dangerous voltage to drag around a field, probably both. And an insane grid infrastructure to get power to the field borders.

You wouldn't believe how much fuel goes into agriculture, to the point where I believe it makes up nearly a third of emissions (possibly including land clearing, can't remember the details). Synthetic fuels are the only net-zero option.

Well I'm kind of a fan of the nuclear tractor honestly but I kind of doubt it :)

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago

Used to do this to my shooting glasses, just put Scotch tape on my non-dominant eye so I could leave it open while shooting open sights.

I'm "wrong eyed" so my brain always tried to look down my gun with my left eye. The tape solved it. With practice I can now shoot well with regular glasses, though it's still more comfortable to use taped glasses.

Don't listen to the wrong prescription talk as it will hurt your eyes. Tape is cheap and safe.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Thanks for the American context as I'm a Canadian and our systems are different here. I didn't realize the risks involved and the motivation behind it. I think this might be my least popular comment on Lemmy ever😅

The USA as a battleground between religion and atheism changes the context as I would shrug most of this off here in Canada as harmless. Like the 10 commandments? Most of them are good advice, basically just "don't be a piece of shit" and i wouldn't have a problem teaching them to kids... Unless the goal is to teach them actively as the word of God and marginalize non-believers as sinful, in which case this is absolutely criminal. That is church, not school.

We have a more robust separation of church and state to the point where when I read "teaching the Bible in school" I hear "robustly secular, historical and cultural study" which as I stated I believe would be a valuable learning experience. In Quebec there are even rules that public servants can't display any religious symbols at all, even as small as a cross on a bracelet. The leader of our Conservative party recently made a statement that both abortion and gay rights were "a closed issue" and he would not stand for any attacks on them.

So personally my wife and I made the hard decision this year to send our daughter to a Catholic school next year due to the rapidly declining quality of public education. However the Catholic school district here is publicly funded and staffed, with strict regulations that any religious content is optional and that respect must be given equally to those who choose it or do not choose it.

Many of her friends have already made the switch (regular school is quickly emptying out of smart kids and turning into a zoo as parents pull their kids) and stated this is exactly how it works, most of them being non-religious as well but impressed with the discipline and learning outcomes. My wife teaches college and said the difference is night and day with some kids even making it out of public highschool unable to read. Meanwhile my daughter's new school has won awards for the achievements of its graduates and their placement in top schools and in industry.

So you see I'm comfortable enough with our dedication to secularism here in Canada that I am willing to send my daughter to an actual Catholic school with no fear that she will be brainwashed... Obviously a bit of bible study doesn't scare me but in the context of the USA culture war it's clearly a much bigger deal.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

Deere makes good equipment but you won't find one piece of it on my farm. Fuck em

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Looks like I'm gonna run my Mercedes 300D until it literally collapses into a heap. The engine is supposed to be good for a million miles, after that I guess I can change bearing journals, valves and seats, bore it out and do oversize pistons like they did back in the day.

I'm appreciating more and more owning a car that only has an electrical system for the lights and radio

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

No I'm serious, I'm here in SK and we're trying to push Moe and his cronies out for the NDP this fall, and our biggest problem is the federal NDP damaging the brand by backing Trudeau. All we say all day is "The SK NDP is not affiliated with the federal party, we stand for working Canadians, vote Moe out"

If you think $500 for low income and seniors is anything other than a bone thrown to pacify the poor then Singh has pulled the wool over your eyes.

The requirement for "no access to insurance" absolutely torpedoes the entire thing. Private insurers need to fall, universal coverage is the only way. Dental is the Canadian equivalent to the entire USA health insurance racket.

Congrats on living in the one green riding, which does give you some power over your single seat party... Which ultimately holds no power at all in our broken system.

I'm sorry to say I voted Trudeau on the promise of electoral reform, which he then told us we didn't want. I'm in a safe blue riding which means my vote is pointless, so I'm going full protest vote next time for the PPC 🤣 Max is laughable, especially his obsession with dairy supply management, but enough votes for "burn it down" will hopefully send a message.

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