An American Tail 3: return to the motherland
What are your recommendations for people with small faces? Because I've never encountered an N95 that felt like it fit.
Haven't seen this mentioned yet so:
The honey may not expire, but the container you store it in could. I'd be very concerned about plastic disintegrating and/or leeching into the honey. Glass would be better for that, but it's also really heavy compared to plastic, so you'd need more, smaller containers instead of one giant tub.
The original poster in the screenshot is "confessions of a diabetic," and based on her avatar I'm taking an educated guess that her illness is not lifestyle-caused. That's what makes your comment tone-deaf: a person with an incurable disease makes a statement, that other people with incurable diseases resonated with, and you start going off about lifestyle changes like it's contributing to the conversation and not just making chronically ill people feel bad. Why bad? Because it's a) a reminder of all the times they tried in vain to fix their condition with lifestyle changes, b) overlooks that most chronically ill people do actively engage in (often extreme) lifestyle adjustments to help manage symptoms, and c) reinforces the idea that if chronically ill people just tried harder they could be cured).
Putting "a lot" in front of your statement doesn't negate that it's out of context, and thus insensitive and not contributing to the discussion. It's a case of "you're not a member of the group of people that are commiserating here, so maybe this conversation isn't for you to participate in."
"Just chewing on plastic, what's going on with you?"
Yes, most chewing gum is literally made of plastic, because of course it is.
You sound like RFK Jr. Yes most people in our modern world don't get enough exercise, but it's not a panacea. Exercise, sunlight, and clean eating alone won't do more than nudge most chronic illnesses. Hell, the latest on ME/CFS is that exercise can actually worsen symptoms.
"All I needed was exercise and/or a healthier diet and I felt great!" folks were not truly ill to begin with, just slacking. There's a huge difference, and insinuating otherwise is a giant slap in the face to those who've tried these things (and likely so much more) and are still struggling with debilitating health issues. To use a car analogy, regular oil changes and premium fuel won't compensate for a broken axel.
Log was absolutely a part of my American high school math curriculum, and while it may not make its way to everyone, many if not most Americans were exposed to it in school. But people have terrible memories when it comes to what they leaned in school, doubly so regarding math, quadruply so regarding higher-level math. Regardless of their level of educational exposure to math concepts, I certainly don't expect the average American adult to be able to reliably do any math they learned outside of elementary school, myself included, because after a few decades of not practicing, not even thinking about those concepts, that knowledge is almost certainly gone or at least covered in a very heavy mat of mental cobwebs.
Even worse is when you try to "support local" and discover that, sure, the local hardware store sponsors the town's little league team, but the owner also reposts racist memes on his personal social media page. You can't win.
Step one: live in a country the size of Kentucky with the population of Texas + Florida, half of whom live in the capital's metro region while the other half live within half-a-day's drive.
The US's geography makes comparisons with successful protests in much smaller countries basically moot.
Interesting idea, but it would need to be heavily moderated against scams and such that have pervaded other online "handmade" shops.
Cruises are an environmental nightmare; we really should not be promoting them for any reason.
I love seeing random instances of vaporwave influence. I stumbled across this example in the sci-fi/fantasy webcomic series Ava's Demon. It's only for two panels and has nothing to do with the plot at all, but I thought it was a neat cameo.
Second panel of the original comic (posted here) amended to track better in 2024 based on the first panel's dialogue
There was a conversation about lupine seed collection in the comment section of a post a little while back, and now that my lupine is going to seed I thought I'd follow up on what that looks like.
From left to right, we have immature seed pods (still green, still developing), maturing seed pods (brown, with black seeds inside), pods just about to pop (you can see them starting to split open with the round black seeds poking through), old pods most of which have popped open and dispelled their seeds, and finally a branch with all four stages present (generally seed pods develop from the bottom up, however this can be affected by variables like sun exposure).
The seed pods are apparently heat-activated; we've been getting a major heat wave here in the Pacific Northwest and the pods have been exploding open like crazy during midday when the sun hits them and the ambient temperature is at its peak. The seeds are propelled out when the pods burst open, and I've witnessed them fly well over ten feet.
If you want to harvest lupine seeds, the key is to grab them when they're mature but not yet expelled; you can do this by harvesting the pods by hand as they mature, but usually I prune the branches off the lupine once the pods on the branch start opening and put the entire branch in a bucket to break open at their leisure. While this pruning is generally unnecessary if you're not interested in seed saving, it does prevent thousands of volunteer lupine from popping up all over the garden (it's nearly impossible to keep all the seeds from spreading so I usually get a few dozen every fall and spring, but it's super easy to remove any that aren't wanted). One year I pruned the spent flowers before seeds could develop, and while that did produce a small second round of blooming I think it overly stressed the plant. Many lupine species are fairly short-lived perennials (with a few annuals sprinkled in), so it may be worth stressing them for more blooms if it's likely to die soon after anyway.
Some general disclaimers about lupine: due to their prolific seed generation and speedy life cycles, lupine are highly invasive outside their native range. There are also many species of lupine out there, so before planting make sure to source species from your area! There are some more "domesticated" ornamental species out there, but I'd really recommend sourcing a native variety if you can. They are really wonderful plants that require little care once established, have unique and showy foliage, and native bumblebees absolutely adore their gorgeous flowers.
I hope this was informative!
For fans of '80s-inspired contemporary beats. Share artists, albums, compilations, -wave channels, and vibe art.
Droid Bishop (real name: James Bowen) is a one-man synthwave artist who's put out multiple banger albums over the last decade-ish. Each album feels like the soundtrack to an introspective 80s drama/action film. Beyond the Blue is probably my favorite road-trip album of all time; it makes driving through the empty expanses of I-80 through Wyoming feel like a grand, meaningful adventure.
As far as I can tell he doesn't have an official YouTube presence, but this channel seems to have all his works: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYb8MJseDAimJBFCJQ8Hfvg
INEXED is one of my favorite channels for background music. If I wanted to introduce someone to synthwave, this might be where I direct them.
Videos are consistently high-quality, and the compilations are long (1hr to 2hr+) without repetition. There's perhaps not a lot of variety in vibe: some videos label themselves and vaporwave, chillwave, retrowave, etc, but I'd consider those to be more the flavor of synthwave being featured than actual examples of those genres. Most compilations are calming but energetic, with a bit of a surreal touch.
It's frustrating that INEXED only has about 37k subscribers when the quality is so much better than a lot of other synthwave/chillwave channels out there. Please check them out!
NewRetroWave is the GOAT.
They've posted over 3000 retrowave and synthwave songs and albums since 2011, and more keep coming. With over a million subscribers, they're one of the biggest players in the YouTube synthwave scene, and for good reason: in an era of low-effort compilations repeating the same tired tracks over and over, NewRetroWave somehow keeps finding quality fresh material for us listeners. Most of their posts are single songs (3-6 minutes), but there's a few longer (hour-ish) compilations mixed in.
This feels less like a YouTube channel and more like a library. Definitely check it out!
Dreamingr0b0ts is a fantastic house/trance YouTube channel with a mere 123 subscribers. (It may not technically be synthwave, but it's synthwave-adjacent)
Some of the very oldest videos are a bit rough around the edges, but they quickly improve in quality. I like this channel because it has more of an old-school vibe than most synthwave; it reminds me a lot of early-2000s electronica, back in the days of Armin van Buuren. Vocals are present more often than not, and the vibe is more "dance" than "chillax." Great music to stay awake during a long road trip, or to stay motivated during a big house clean-up. A lot of synthwave videos rehash the same songs over and over, but as far as I can tell these are quite fresh.
Check out their "The Daily Dose" series, each of which are albums of about 20 minutes each.
Inspired by a comment reply I made in another thread, I thought it would be fun to share what plants native to your region you've had easy success with growing from seed, either in pots or direct-sowing. Please mention your country/region when commenting!
Original tweet quote translation:
"After inserting the giant butt plug, the [strained back/slipped disk] pain disappeared"