this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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My schools entire assignment system is out today.

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

If a nation wants to go to war with the US ... this is how they do it, they just shut down one, two or all of these systems down and watch the country go crazy. It wouldn't destroy the country, just disrupt it enough to make them go nuts and then do more things to them in other ways.

It's amazing when you think about it, first the US invested in heavily defending and arming itself in the 60s, 70s and 80s ... then it spent billions more in the 90s and 2000s to try to come up with ever more inventive ways to screw itself from the inside.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 29 points 2 days ago (4 children)

No. Everyone always focuses on the flashy stuff like datacenters but the truth is that the most vulnerable, overtaxed, and underfunded weak-spot for the United States is the electric grid.

Yup. Most of our core electrical infrastructure is over 100 years old now. And thanks to a combination of NIMBYism, profiteering, and the anti-nuclear brigades, we're not likely to see that change any time soon.

[–] ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

I'm pretty convinced that if we did have a complete grid failure, we wouldn't be able to complete a cold start.

Too many people would be pushing for their section to be started first so they could short the market first.

Edit: my proofreading sucks

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Doesn't matter who wants want, the power company has contingency plans and those plans are what is happening.

SOURCE: Worked for Cox after a major ice storm smashed north-central Oklahoma flat. Lived Hurricane Ivan and saw their rollout priorities.

[–] Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 days ago

The American dream

To be pedantic for a sec, the term is black start. Just cause I think it's super dystopian sounding.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 days ago

Note to self: Sabotage the US' electric grid.

[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Which in turn would take down the datacenters too, so same effect, just more severe

[–] Xaphanos@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Most data centers are backed up by generators.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago

.. that run on fuel for a limited time ... once the fuel runs out, the data centres go down

Need to transport more fuel there? Can't because the entire system is down.

[–] Psionicsickness@reddthat.com 8 points 2 days ago

All*

And UPSs.

[–] justsomeguy@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

I feel like you got it backwards. Letting them run is doing more damage than turning them off would.

If the way someone goes to war with the US is by freeing us from the overly-centralized landlords of the Internet, maybe whoever they are isn't so bad.