Saaame. I had to stop watching The Walking Dead because it gave me nightmares. I really wanted to watch The Last of Us but I know it would do the same.

Horror movies? Hard Pass on all if them, thanks!

It’s a BBQ, it’s ok to use your hands!

This is my first time growing anything from seed, so I don’t really have anything to compare it to, but I think it’s been helpful? I’m in the Northeastern US and it’s still cold here, so I think it’s been good to have.

It’s definitely not warm enough here yet. I do have two grow lights on either side of the table that are on 12-13 hours a day, but I might try the tin foil trick someone else mentioned.

I had them in a warming tent with a reflective surface in the beginning, but then they got too big for it, and with the repotting, they won’t fit at all, so that’s a good idea.

I never played Oblivion, only Skyrim, which I loved. Is it worth buying the remastered edition, or is it gonna be so similar to Skyrim that it’s not worth the money?

Well, TIL

This is interesting to me because in the moment after accomplishing something, I feel great about it. It’s only after time has passed that I look back at that accomplishment and my collective accomplishments throughout life and think to myself “omg, I haven’t done anything, I’m such a loser”, when I have in fact done plenty of things. I have no idea where that thought process comes from. I am not afraid to succeed; I have had to work hard for some, but not all, of my accomplishments. Maybe it’s a “comparing myself to others” thing?

Back when my brother still lived with my mom, he, a full-grown adult, had a set of four square whiskey stones made of metal that he kept in the back of the freezer that he would add to a glass of whiskey every now and then. One night my mom texts me a picture of the whiskey stones while he’s not in the house with “I FOUND THESE IN THE FREEZER!” “ARE THESE DRUGS???” “WHAT IS THIS??” Like holy fuck, are you serious? Yeah, sure, they’re drugs, Mom. Cubed metal is all the rage on the streets these days. You just swallow them whole and get high as fuck.

Lactose intolerance finally pays off

It would be interesting to see if it’s ever happened in the past, for sure. I too assumed it was due to poor education, but the three people I mentioned (my old boss and the 2 new coworkers) all came from different areas of the U.S. and are each in different generations (1 Boomer, 1 Gen X, 1 Millennial), so they all have very different backgrounds/education experiences, yet they ALL struggle to read anything longer than a single sentence. It’s infuriating. I try to be patient, because hey, we all have our thing we suck at, but it’s honestly a little scary that they and so many other are out there not following directions simply because they can’t read them.

Reading comprehension has gone down the tubes. I dunno if it’s from people watching too many TikToks and their attention span can’t handle reading more than one sentence anymore, or what, but I have definitely noticed a change in people’s ability to read and understand the content of what they just read.

Where I work, my old boss never wrote anything down, did not like to communicate via email, and insisted on phone calls/verbal meetings instead. When they announced they were taking a new job, we begged them to create an SOP of all the things they did with detailed instructions because NONE of it had ever been written down. We were told no, they couldn’t do that. No explanation other than “I can’t.” And I’m convinced that they simply couldn’t read, or could BARELY read.

So I created the SOP instead, detailed as hell, everything in one place. Sections, subsections, hyperlinks, it’s all there. 2 new employees come into the office, I’m supposed to train them. I do, and I show them the SOP, tell them “everything you need to know is in this SOP”, so that AFTER I train them, they can reference it.

They never reference it, ever. They ask me how to do the things they’ve forgotten instead. I just point them to the correct section in the SOP and tell them to read it. BUT THEY DON’T READ. It’s insane! How do they get by in life in general!?

I’ve had the same experience, though only for about the past 10 years, and at 45 now, it’s more like there’s a single day in any given month where the crazy depression/dark thoughts and rage at the simplest stupid shit occurs, and by now I’m able to stop in the moment and recognize that it’s just temporary, and it always resolves itself in an hour or two. I can’t wait for menopause to hit and for all this shit to be over.

So much winning!

Gross

I think the supply-chain issue is often forgotten about. Sure, we can open manufacturing businesses here to make whatever, but where do people think the materials will come from? Do they think we’ve had all the materials we need to manufacture goods here in America all along and we just haven’t been because everything is cheaper to make overseas? Just look at this list of major exports by country. Does the US have SOME of this stuff? Sure, but enough to make enough goods for US consumers on a regular, as-needed basis? No way. We will need raw materials, and there won’t be enough to go around.

It’s still cold here in Massachusetts, so I figured why not.

Good to know!

Do you maybe mean a formula patent or trademark instead of a copyright?

Take this with a grain of salt, but this is ICE’s (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) definition of human trafficking and is of course open to interpretation:

“Human trafficking is a global crime that trades in people of all genders, ages and backgrounds and exploits them for profit. Human trafficking generally takes two forms: sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.”

https://www.ice.gov/features/human-trafficking

Interpol’s definition: “While there is a clear distinction between human trafficking and migrant smuggling, they can also be linked. Human trafficking occurs for specific purposes, such as sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, forced criminality, and organ removal, among other forms of exploitation. Migrant smugglers take advantage of people who want to leave their home countries to escape poverty, conflict, and crises, or simply want to seek a better life. Even if irregular migrants generally enter into the journey voluntarily, they are often exposed to significant risks, including that of being trafficked, kidnapped or dying in transit to their destinations.”

https://www.interpol.int/en/Crimes/Human-trafficking-and-migrant-smuggling