Notices by Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 52

@fitheach the main unintended consequence of the disposable shopping bag ban in Aotearoa is people buying plastic bags for bin liners instead of reusing shopping bags. But the solution there is setting up separate green waste collection for municipal composting. Then landfill rubbish doesn't get wet and sticky and paper bags can be used.
@orbifx

@fitheach we have the reusable bags in Aotearoa too, but from memory they cost a fair bit more than that and people do reuse them. Some supermarkets also make the cardboard boxes their stock comes in available to customers to carry their purchases in.
@orbifx

@feonixrift I'm not aware of anything that is a) waterproof and b) biodegradable. My understanding is that all biological breakdown processes require moisture, so anything that can resist getting wet can also resist breakdown. I'd love to find out I'm wrong about this! Another problem with tetrapaks, aside from the plastic, is the foil, which is also a persistent pollutant.
@fitheach @orbifx

Being a weird looking white guy (beard and long hair) in China is a minor introduction to what it must be like to be a celebrity. Especially when we travel to places white folks don't often go. I often get photographed and video'd while I eat and end up in the eatery's advertising. People sometimes want to take photos of me with them and their children for no obvious reason. Especially when I wear my hear down. Maybe they think I'm a rock star?

@Wolf480pl read on. As with most of the truisms he introduces in this talk, he flips it on its head.
@Naughtylus

@andybalaam Arrival.
#SciFi

@fitheach one of the first things the current government of #NZ did was ban single-use plastic shopping bags. The supermarkets had seen the writing on the wall for years and were pretty much on board. Obviously that's only a drop in the bucket compared to all the single-use plastic that supermarkets and convenience stores use, but to me it shows the worm is turning.
@orbifx

@feonixrift this is a totally valid concern. One option is using recyclable materials like glass or renewable ones like pottery, instead of plastic. Ideally with a system where people get a small discount for returning packaging to the businesses selling it, for sterilization and re-use. We did this with dairy milk in Aotearoa for decades before plastic bottles and those evil, hard-to-recycle #tetrapaks took over. @fitheach @orbifx

@fitheach
> One answer is to better educate people, so they stop polluting

There's a great episode of #AdamRuinsEverything where he exposes the way this PR talking point was used to shift responsibility from those make and sell polluting packaging, to their customers. It doesn't matter how irrespinsible kids and idiots are with packaging, if it's compostable or otherwise non-polluting. The responsibility for pollution rightly belongs with manufacturers and vendors profiting from it.
@orbifx

"But the point is, I am much less angelic than my fans believe, and much less demonic than my critics imagine."
- #KenWilber
http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/83

Aren't we all? ;)

Mycelial masses can live for thousands of years, growing as big as hundreds of football fields:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/

"... mycelium, a material found in the root structure of mushrooms"
https://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/10787/RPI-Engineers-Develop-a-Mushroom-Based-Packaging-Material.aspx

Hehe. This like describing hens as a material found in the root structure of eggs ;) Mycelium is the being, mushrooms are just their fruiting bodies.

@solarpunkgnome this reminds me of conceptual designs I came up with for a bike-powered travelling circus. It's "truck", carrying the big top and all the gear you couldn't fit on normal bikes, was a super-light, huge bike trailer type thing, powered by strutting all the artists' and rousyabouts' bikes together into a vaguely truck-shaped vehicle. You'd need some really good brakes that allow forward motion up hills while preventing backsliding ...
@Stoori

"Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out."
- David Foster Wallace
https://markmanson.net/this-is-water

OMG this is me! (O_o)

My advice to anyone preparing to take entheogens for the first time is this; it's a lot like getting on a rollercoaster. Once it starts moving, there's no getting off, and you are not in control of the experience. You have two choices; relax into it and enjoy the ride, or struggle against it and try to control it or make it stop. The increasingly scary feeling of trying and failing to control the experience is one of the major causes of a "bad trip".

This interview vindicates everything that the #psychedelic subcultures have been saying since our plant medicines were criminalized in the 1960s. These substances are non-toxic, non-addictive (and even addiction interrupting), and can be extremely beneficial. As long people get the substance they're expecting (quality control) and they're allowed to take it in an organized, ritual or therapeutic setting, supervized by elders with some experience in guiding users away from a "bad trip" and so on.