🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org
10h agoretooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
Well this is a genuinely new experience.
We're under a tornado warning.
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
68 followers74 following579 posts since May 23, 2024
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org7/7/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
So on July 4th, as the USA was celebrating its stunningly long 250 year history, I spent a big chunk of the day at a Buddhist temple in Wuhan that features this tower.
This 739 year old tower.
"Freedom 250" just doesn't really land very hard anymore after staring at this for a while.
#July4th #BaotongTemple #HongshanPagoda #Freedom250 #Perspective739
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/25/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
It dawned on me today that the Artemis program shows the USA is really just Al Bundy in country form. The middle-aged failure can't stop reminiscing about his "four touchdowns in a single game" at Polk High. The USA, side-eyeing China, can't stop reminiscing about their own "four touchdowns" – the Apollo missions.
The irony, of course, is that while the USA is reliving the glory of winning a race, the Chinese aren't even running in it. They're surveying the terrain and laying railroad track.
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/25/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
Today I finally found a source for a 白酒 (báijiǔ, "Chinese liquor") I'd heard about ages ago but could never locate.
I can now buy 石湾玉冰烧 (Shíwān Yùbīngshāo, "Jade Ice Distillate")! It's a 豉香型 (Chǐxiāng xíng, "fermented soybean aroma type") made by distilling glutinous rice liquor, then dropping in chunks of steamed pork fat and sealing it in clay jars for months to years. (The floating fat chunks are the titular "jade ice".)
Oh, and the pork fat is reused for years.
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/18/2026retooted Moreau Vazh
All the players: "This is awesome!"
People on r/rpg: "No! No! Force them to do homework! I'm calling the police! I'm crying! 😭😭🚨🚨"
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/16/2026retooted Jürgen Hubert
Speaking as a German, I have been to American bakeries.
And I have to admit that they have an excellent selection of bread-shaped novelty sponges.
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/13/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/9/2026retooted Dgar
The existence of Transformers suggests the existence of Cisformers.
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/8/2026retooted Micr0byte
gotta cover this month's server/infra by the 16th and i'm about $116 short after what's already in the project fund. altbot, fuzzies.wtf and wellness-ping all run off this. being free, having no ads, and no tracking. a few bucks one-time is totally fine and would help a ton: https://ko-fi.com/micr0byte/goal?g=88
update 2: we made it!! Thank you so much everyone!the only thing is that monthly donations don't cover anywhere near how much the monthly cost is currently which is why I have to keep posting about these deadlines and stuff. if there is anyway you can spare even just a few dollars monthly to support the project that would go so so far! thanks a a ton everyone! <3
boosts help as much as money does <3 will update when it's covered.
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/6/2026retooted Nathaniel Swigger
Student: “So Elon Musk is a trillionaire?”
Me: “Yup.”
Student: “How did he get that much money?”
Me: “Well, he doesn’t really have a trillion dollars cash. He just owns a lot of stock in companies that are valued at a trillion dollars.”
Student: “So those companies make huge profits?”
Me: “Oh gosh no. They all lose billions of dollars a year. All of them. Huge losses.”The Economist headline: “Gen Z Mysteriously Hates Capitalism and No One Can Figure Out Why.”
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/6/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦Today we have 滇红金螺茶 (Diānhóng jīn luó chá, "Dianhong Gold Snail Tea"). This is a tea from 云南省临沧市凤庆县 (Yúnnán Shěng Líncāng Shì Fèngqìng Xiàn, "Yunnan Province, Lincang City, Fengqing County) and it is a justly world famous red (in English black) tea. It is very floral for an oxidized tea, yet it is clearly a red tea. It has all the dark undertones that you'd find in an Assam or the various favourite blends like "English Breakfast" and so on.
But here is where it gets a little weird. Did you see how I called it "Golden Snail" above? That's a bit weird. Mostly when you buy a Dianhong you get "Golden Needle". So what's the snail about?
Well, see, golden needle tea is processed into straight, long, rolled leaves. Needle-shaped, as the name would suggest. Golden snail tea is instead rolled into the little curls you see above. Which is surely just cosmetic, right?
Wrong.
This is the weird thing about tea. Varietal, terroir, oxidation, processing, *and even shaping*, all have a part to play in the flavour. And more. The golden needle tea is sweet, floral, bright and cheery. The golden snail tea, despite being picked from the same trees (by the same people), and processed in the same factories (by the same people), has that same floral bouquet, but also has a far darker undertone, almost chocolate-like in its deep, round, nutty bitters, making it an entirely different experience.
This is what I'm sharing today. Details, as usual, in the alt text. As usual Mastodon users will have to click through to see all the pictures.
#茶 #中国茶 #滇红 #金螺 #红茶
#Tea #ChineseTea #DianHong #GoldenSnail #BlackTea - 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/5/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦A four for one special today. These are four of my favourite chops in my collection. I decided to put them all on a single sheet in an order that is absolutely completely random and has no particular meaning. I promise.
From top left to bottom right the chops read:
- 傻瓜: (shǎguā, lit. "Stupid Melon", idiomatically "Fool")
This is a 寿山石 (Shòushān shí, "Shoushan stone") 2.5×2.5cm in size and roughly 5cm in height.
- 梦: (mèng, "Dream")
This too is a Shoushan stone chop, 1×1cm in size, however, but again 5cm in height. The character is highly stylized with more sweeping curves than you'd usually see in a seal.
- 悟: (wù, "Awaken")
This is a brass chop, 1×1cm and about 4cm in height. Of note here is that the "吾" part of the character (the right half) has been rendered in a way to look like a human knelt in prayer before the other leftmost radical, itself carved to vaguely resembled a burning joss stick. Very fancy.
- 无为: (wú wéi)
This last one is a Daoist notion often translated as "inaction", but this is not strictly accurate. It is instead "effortless action" or "unforced action". It's not as passive as "inaction" would communicate; it's more aligning with the flow of things, acting spontaneously without forced intention or struggle.
In all cases the chops are carved in the 朱文 (zhū wén, or "red writing") style where the text is in relief and thus red when pressed against the "red mud". This is also called 阳刻 (yáng kè, "Yang carving"). As a personal preference I actually like the 白文 (bái wén, or "white writing") style better, but only by a small margin.
Again, I stress there was no particular message spelled out with "foolish dreamer, awaken into effortless action". I promise.
(Note: there is no alt text because the main text carries the description.) - 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/5/2026retooted Col
Cars now have too many options. Yesterday for example I was reversing and it showed me a video of someone getting run over. I tried to watch it again, but I couldn't find the rewind button!
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/4/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦So, for fun I collect 印章 (yìnzhāng, "seal" or "chop"). I think they look nice and they have a fascinating history behind them. They've been used for things as diverse as actual signatures (both on official documents, and on works of art) as collector's marks or decorations (you'll find a lot of major works of Chinese art positively festooned with these, only a very small handful of which—usually one—are the actual artist's signature), and even used as ways of imprinting slogans and jokes and such onto written and visual works. (One of my favourites says 笨蛋 or "idiot"; I use it when I journal.)
I'm not going to go through my rather sizable collection all at once here, but I will slowly be exposing chops old and new to show off my fun little toys.
And since I'm learning to carve these, when I get good enough I might even start sharing those for people to point at and call me 笨蛋.
So today I'm uploading three chops I recently purchased, each of which has specific meaning for me. The alt text will contain translations and commentary. - 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org6/1/2026retooted Bette
Hive Mind: Looking for a sci-fi book read in the mid-'60s. Takes place in a moon colony run by a large corporation. Murders are happening & no one can find the murderer. A detective is brought up from Earth to assist. He is blind & has a "birth defect" that allows him to see people as strange, colorful geometric objects, which leads to the answer. Need author & title.
#SciFi
#Books
#Reading
#FindABook
#ScienceFiction*Please Boost*
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org5/31/2026retooted Martin Rundkvist
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org5/31/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
In your mind, the opposite of "Sweet" is:
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org5/30/2026retooted 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦This tea is an interesting one, and if that sounds like "damning with faint praise" well, congratulations on reading between the lines. What we have here is a white tea from 松阳 (Sōngyáng) and people who have a bit of knowledge of Chinese tea culture are already nodding along sagely and saying "nice!".
See, Songyang is a tea growing region in 丽水 (Lìshuǐ) prefecture in 浙江 (Zhèjiāng) province that has provenance dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Songyang tea is justly famous for its high quality, noted for its lasting sweet aftertaste.
Except that's Songyang green tea. This is Songyang white. And Songyang is not noted for being a producer of white tea at all.
Welcome to the wild, woolly world of "experimental tea". See all these bewildering varieties and subdivisions of tea in China didn't just happen by accident. China has literally *thousands* of years of tradition in cultivation, transplantation, and processing experimentation where plantation owners try new ways to distinguish themselves from their neighbours by swapping varietals or processing techniques or growth techniques. This white tea is essentially a Songyang green varietal processed like a Fuding white.
I'm sorry to say that the result is ... mixed. It is by no means a bad tea (especially at the price; this was priced at an introductory level) but it lacks the Songyang trademark sweetness in the aftertaste (something that usually requires pan firing to seal in), but is a heavier, more vegetal flavour than the traditionally light and dainty white teas.
I don't regret the purchase, but I won't be repeating it either. I'll stick with 松阳银猴 (Sōngyáng Yínhóu), the tea Songyang is (justly!) more famous for.
Mastodon users will have to click to see all pictures.
#茶 #中国茶 #松阳茶 #白茶 #实验茶
#Tea #ChineseTea #SongyangTea #WhiteTea #ExperimentalTea - 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org5/30/2026retooted Martin Holland
The #Fediverse/#OpenWeb keeps growing, so how far can a post go now? Let's try it out!
If you see it please share and/or like! I'll post stats.
- 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦ZDL@gamerplus.org5/23/2026retooted millennial fulcrum
please vote anonymously and boost this poll for transparency and participation:
How frequently do you chat with LLM?