That’s a sweet ride, I love the metallic silver-blue color. It’s been a while since I’ve been on here too. Since then, I managed to move to Croatia and crash my Golf in Hungary. Luckily (incredibly so) the Golf is still drivable and I’m unhurt.

Picking up a backpack and heading to the nearest bushes is also the kind of thing I like to do. I will definitely visit all the “must-see” places, but I was hoping to hear about a local gem that’s under the radar.

I wonder what the role of machine learning will be able to help mitigate the issue of it not being viable to run more detailed models of the weather. That said, I don’t know if it’s much use to know what “yeah, yep, it will be VEEEERY hot alright”. What are we going to do with that information in the short term? Move? Then move back? Doesn’t sound very feasible. We should really be preparing ourselves to be able to take care of ourselves and the local environment around us even in the face of heatwaves.

Personally, I’m very worried about the topic. In Latvia, 10 years ago there would be some drier periods in the summer, but nothing like the extremes we’ve had the last few years. This year there has been barely any rain during the last two months and there’s a very high chance of forest fires. Which is worrisome because half of the country is covered in forests. And now I’m moving to Croatia where the temperatures can reach around 40°C so I’ll see if I can even handle that, but going by my gut feeling I feel like I won’t be able to live there in 10 to 15 years or so.

I got mine from a friend as well. It’s been in his family for more than ten years. It’s nice to have a car that doesn’t have many underwater rocks.

Looking forward to the picture.

As @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org said, free will and determinism aren’t necessarily tied together. You can have one without the other. It’s been a while since my studies so I’m rusty on the academic side of philosophy so I won’t start naming names, but I’ll start off with the fact that a coin is a much more simple thing than a human. So while a coin might land on just one of its two sides or, in a freak accident on its edge. For humans, there are way more outcomes as to what could happen when someone’s thrown into a complex situation.

Personally, I am what one would call a soft determinist (I probably don’t fit the label completely, so feel free to correct me) which is considered to be a cope-out-of-the-discussion type of position, which I believe is a bit unjustified. I don’t think we have enough knowledge about the world to definitely answer the question of whether our actions are deterministic or not or whether our will is free or not. But it sure as hell feels like we have free will, that’s acting at least if not always then frequently. And as Argv already said, physics involves a heavy dose of randomness. So going by that I tend to sway towards the non-deterministic side. You can will yourself out of situations that other people would consider beyond their control, but if there’s a boulder rolling towards you through a narrow tunnel it’s very likely that you are going to run away from it, not towards it. In that sense, some action is determined by the instinct of self-preservation. But again, theoretically, who’s to stop someone from accepting the situation and letting the boulder roll over them?

So yeah, for me, as with most things, free will and determinism are on a spectrum, not binary. It depends on the context and level (quantum to Newtonian physics) that we’re speaking about.

P.S. How do I mention someone in the thread? I just linked Argv’s comment in a very brute way.

Ohh, hello Croatia! I’m moving to Split this week (I’ve been there once before, sadly Froggieland was closed then). Any unique spots that you can recommend in Croatia with funky plants or wildlife? I recently saw a Youtube vid of Mossy Earth doing a cleanup in caves somewhere between Split and Dubrovnik and that looked cool. I know that you have loads of nice environments to explore and I’m really looking forward to doing that.

No links at the moment, it’s a rough WIP, but maybe by the time I’m finished with it, I’ll have found an art/graphic design community to post it in.

2000 Prelude is a very cool car. Have you got any pictures of it? I have a small dream of owning a T3 or T4 van, as much as I like sportier cars I am trying to be a bit more of a practical guy.

Sure, here’s one of the latest ones I’m at least somewhat happy with. In general, I’m trying to paint more and use new techniques because I’ve been stuck with comfortable ones for a bit too long. This one’s more on the comfortable side of things.

Hey there! Have you got any photos to share of your clumsy macro photography? As a kid I was repulsed and fascinated by flipping things over, now I’m mostly just fascinated about what I can find under them too, sadly I’ve got no idea what I’m seeing, but I love the patterns and the chaos.

Any good resources you’ve got about farmers market economics?

It’s a Golf 4 TDI that I bought from my friend for super cheap. I’ll see how long the car lasts before I need to invest in fixing it properly. The idea is to tear it down and do my own project build with it when it gets to the point where it makes more sense to buy a new one rather than patching the old one.

As for projects, I’m currently working with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art on organizing their brand guidelines. And previously I did an identity for a project of theirs. That’s kinda the most fancy sounding project I’ve got going on even though it’s just a nice NGO.

Not much, I got my oat meal breakfast at the ready.

Ljubljana’s great. I used to live in Slovenia, about 20km from Ljubljana, and visited it often. I’m planning to go there to visit my friends, hike and see what’s good in the culture scene. I’m moving to Split so it’s a bit of a drive, but not too bad.

Thanks for the tip! Nice avatar by the way!