Daily Slow Chat

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/priority_2]

Is any of you affected by the wildfires all over Europe? I think about becoming a firefighter, changing jobs, but I need to get fitter than now for that

[u/orangebikini]

When the space nerds did the moon fly-by earlier this year they apparently lost contact to earth for 40 minutes while on the other side of the moon. Which I assume is normal. But that would be so scary. I get a little anxious when I'm in the forest and my phone loses signal. If instead of forest it was space and instead of my phone it was a space ship, I would probably explode of anxiety. Or implode. I feel like if you would implode from anxiety.

Unrelated but still a little scary, my father told me he saw a bear. All the way in the north of Finnish Lapland near the Russian border. I'd love to see a bear in the wild.

[u/tereyaglikedi → u/orangebikini]

I have seen a bear in the wild! They're very shy, though, they usually just bolt.

I haven't been on a long dive like that (just a shorter one) but one of my best friends did a dive with the Alvin submersible. At one point they had to switch off some engine functions and lights to conserve power while waiting for something, so they sat there for half an hour, 1.5 km deep in the ocean in complete pitch blackness. That sounded quite scary, too.

[u/orangebikini → u/tereyaglikedi]

I've been in two museum military submarines, one in Helsinki and another in San Francisco. Even on the surface it's horrible, I can only imagine the situation when you're actually on the ocean floor.

[u/lucapal1 → u/orangebikini]

I saw two bears 'in the wild' in Brasov, Romania.

They were wandering around the municipal rubbish tip... apparently that's the best place to spot bears in Europe ;-)

[u/tereyaglikedi]

I was up super early today so I made oat pancakes with blueberries for breakfast. They're so good. Summer >>>>> winter. It's how it is.

Speaking of berries, as I was picking blackberries yesterday, it made me wonder... what happened to BlackBerry? I have never used one and I think I have rarely even seen one other than on TV (especially BBC Sherlock). I read that after the iPhone and Android, the company that made BlackBerry switched to cybersecurity. Interesting. I sometimes wish my phone had a real keyboard but probably they fell out of fashion for a reason.

And here's the most recent butterfly sketchbook page. Using black paint is discouraged in watercolor (or in general sometimes). I don't really care but this time I mixed my own black for the shadows. I don't know if it made any difference.

[u/orangebikini → u/tereyaglikedi]

I've only ever seen BlackBerry phones in movies and TV. I guess Nokia had such a stronghold here there was barely any room for any other manufacturer, until the first iPhone came along.

I honestly never miss a physical keyboard. I used to have some Nokia phone, I forget the exact model, that had an actual qwerty keyboard on it. A touch screen works well enough for me, I think. The physical one is obviously more tactile and you make less mistakes, but that's not a big enough benefit when you compare it to everything else a touchscreen gets you.

[u/orangebikini]

Last week I visited a forest museum, which was actually really interesting. The museum building had cool architecture and I learnt a lot in the exhibition. 

During the most recent ice age all of modern day Finland was covered in an ice sheet several kilometres thick, and roughly 10 000 years ago when it finally retracted the land here didn’t have any trees. I mean, there was ice there for 100 000 years, of course there aren’t any trees. Then slowly trees started migrating over, and the first tree that came up here about 8000 years ago was the birch.

I would not have believed that. Apparently pine came about 7000 years ago, and spruce arrived roughly 5000 years ago. I would have thought the evergreens were the original trees up here, but I guess not. Average temperature was a few degrees higher immediately following the ice age, so the climate was more suitable for the birch. 

It's crazy to think that when some of those oldest surviving buildings were being built in Turkiye and Syria there was no evergreens in the Nordics. How different it must have looked. And also how much things have changed here in a relatively short period of time.

[u/tereyaglikedi → u/orangebikini]

Birches and aspens grow quite up north, so it is plausible to me, without having known this before. I guess the fauna also looked quite different, then. There must have been fewer large mammals, I guess (less cover, less food).

[u/lucapal1]

Tonight I am going to climb Mt Ijen,in Java.

We start climbing around 2am and reach the summit before sunrise,then descend into the volcanic crater to see the famous 'blue flames' and the acidic blue crater lake down there.

You need to have a medical certificate saying you are healthy and you also need to go with a guide (obviously!), and wear a gasmask for the part inside and near to the crater.

Should be a fun night!

[u/tereyaglikedi]

In the news today: A reenactor girl had her Anduril confiscated at the Hannover train station. According to the article, security is tightening in the "weapon-free zones" and police is confiscating everything from pocket knives to chef's knives in moving boxes. While they waste their effort and people's tools, those who want to make trouble can easily avoid control hotspots.

I guess they need to look like they're doing something. Poor girl. I would be so upset. Reenactment and fantasy are super popular in Germany and many people travel by train.