For me it was the original Resident Evil on the Playstation.

It was the first time I saw live-action digitized full-motion video on a gaming system. I know there were a lot of FMV (Full Motion Video) games in that era on other systems, but I didn’t own those other systems and I didn’t know anybody who did. So, it was all new to me once I played a Playstation.

Resident Evil was also the first time a video game had ever given me a jump scare. Early in the game a zombie doberman bursts through a window unexpectedly and I was hooked! I loved introducing my friends to the game, specifically so I could see their reaction when the dog shows up. So much fun.

Honestly seeing and hearing Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo was kind of wow, too. The graphics boost compared to the 8-bit systems I was used to was incredible. And the sound quality compared to the other 16-bit systems I’d played (Genesis and TG-16) was a leap above. The experience probably pales in comparison to modern games, but back then there was wow factor to it.

To young me, Street Fighter 2 Turbo was pretty wow as well. It was “literally” the same as the arcade version to child me. I could not believe the home version was so close to the real thing, because prior generations of game systems like the NES couldn’t come close to that level of performance.

My keyboard certainly doesn’t have throe in its dictionary. But it also doesn’t have throw. Or through. Or really any words because it doesn’t have a dictionary.

I can’t answer affirmatively. However, today there are numerous posts on Reddit about the fact that they are considering charging money to access certain subreddits. As you would expect, most of the top comments in those threads are not happy and there are numerous comments along the lines of “I wish there were Reddit alternatives” or asking if there are any.

I did not see any responses mentioning Lemmy or the Fediverse, and I looked for it. Now, to be clear, I did not read every comment and every reply in every one of those threads, so it’s possible Lemmy was mentioned and I simply didn’t see it. But it certainly wasn’t prominent in any of those threads at the time I checked.

HTML CSS XML JSON SQL CRAYONS

Okay, it’s starting to add up.

I feel this in my soul. If I were independently wealthy or had a sizeable amount of passive income, I probably would give up the corporate life and just do something like farming.

But in reality, most of the farmers in my area either have to make do with very little or they end up having to work a full time job to supplement the farm income, build a retirement fund, and to have decent health insurance. Kind of takes the joy out of it if I know I’m either going to have to compromise further on healthcare & retirement, or if I’m going to have to continue working another job either way.

Except that’s exactly how nose canceling ear phones work.

Mine work like this: “Got your nose. Neener neener neener.”

Fish don’t stink underwater the fish don’t stink.

Just thought I’d mention that there are species of fish and other animal groups that are all female or close enough to it that their populations do not rely on males to propagate. For example, Amazon mollies. I couldn’t tell you if any species of betta are capable of parthenogensis, but as a general statement “If you would have only females, the entire fish species dies out” isn’t universally true.

Although it’s possible that female bettas want strong males, I’m certainly not a female betta and don’t want to get too far into the territory of anthropomorhpism and there are certainly other possible motivations and processes going on than simply wanting “strong males”.

But really, all this seems to be veering oddly away from the original topic and my first comment, so I’m just going to leave it at that.

It’s mostly only the males that don’t get along with each other. Given enough space, females can be peacefully kept together in sorority tanks. Similarly, a trio or harem (i.e. one male with multiple females) is typically safe as well and the fish get along just fine, given a large enough tank and appropriate stocking.

Also, most reputable breeders and sources of information will tell you that 5 gallons / 19 liters is the minimum suggested tank size for a happy and healthy fish in optimal conditions. While they can certainly survive in much smaller bodies of water, it’s not ideal and in some cases it’s actually harmful.

Some of it depends on your circumstances, honestly. What’s applicable and works for me, may not be applicable and work for you in your situation.

One thing that really helps me in my situation is a product called Mosquito Bits. It’s a microbial product that you add to anything that might contain standing, stagnant water. It kills mosquito larvae and is quite effective at it. I place this in the saucers of outdoor plants, in equipment that tends to collect water after rain, and even sprinkle it in plants that tend to collect water (ex: bromeliads).

I’ve also read and heard that using aromatic wood mulch, like cedar, around the outdoor living areas can help somewhat.

The biggest disappointment in terms of products that don’t seem to be terrible effective was a Dynatrap. I had acquaintances raving about it, saw some people on other sites like the R-word saying good things about it, so even though they are expensive and require yearly bulb replacements, I gave it a try. It really did not make a dent in the mosquito population, and worse, it traps so many other kinds of insects including beneficial insects that I consider it to be a failure. I’ve opened up the trap to empty it, and there just aren’t many mosquitos in there, just lots of moths, flies, beetles, etc.

In 2024, I feel like we should have the power to create images that aren’t fuzzy, overcompressed, and hard to see messes, yet here we are.

Like that other comment asked: We are you living in Japan in the 90s?

I’d buy that for a dollar.

Fun fact since you may not be aware, but not all owls are nocturnal. And even those that are considered nocturnal are often active at dusk (after sun set but before the sky has gone dark). So, it could still work.

You should probably spend a bit more time avoiding xylitol then, if that’s your reasoning. Sorbitol isn’t toxic to dogs for the most part. Xylitol on the other hand is.

“Wipe” is a bit of a stretch and a bit specific when it comes to animal behavior, but many animals do clean their food or clean their living quarters in a variety of ways.

In addition to the other examples already given, I’ll toss Eusocial Insects into the ring. This includes groups like bees and ants that live collectively in colonies. For example, honeybees will clean their colony’s comb to keep it free of debris. Leaf cutter ants depend on a specific type of fungus that they cultivate for food, and they spend a lot of effort keeping their farmed good nice and sanitary.

The pickle juice would dehydrate you and if the pickles or juice were consumed in any significant amount, would likely reduce your survival time … potentially by quite a bit.

But also, you’re in a location with an unlimited amount of pickles (in theory), so even if you don’t directly have fresh water, there’s a chance you could rig up some way of distilling / evaporating the pickle juice to extract fresh water from it. In that case, duration of survivability would increase quite a bit depending on how much fresh water you could successfully extract from the brine. First priority would be to drink only fresh water and not consume the pickles (or consume only a small amount). But if you have lots of left over water, then you can start soaking/boiling the pickles to reduce sodium levels.

It would vary quite a bit depending on the person and the circumstances.

First, I’m assuming you’re talking about brine pickled cucumbers based on the context, but brining isn’t the only way to make pickles and cucumbers aren’t the only thing you can make pickles from.

I think 2 of the biggest considerations here would be whether I have access to clean, fresh water and whether I’m in good health, with no major health issues.

If I don’t have access to fresh water, then I wouldn’t eat the pickles to begin with. And I would probably only have a matter of days to live.

If I had major health issues that would be potentially fatal without medical treatment, then that would probably be the limiting factor in how long I survive and would be dependent on the condition.

If I do have access to fresh water, I would give the pickles a lengthy soak (or even boil them if I could) before I ate them. That would mitigate at least some of the concerns about too much sodium. I could further mitigate some of the concerns by ensuring that I’m drinking lots of water (at least I would assume that would help somewhat).

I’ve read that the average person can go without any food for at least a month or two (with 3 weeks being the minimum), so if I did my sodium mitigation, then I would expect to at least survive at the upper limit of that. From a purely caloric standpoint, the average pickling cucumber (not that there really is such a thing as average/standard) is something like 20 - 50 calories each, and I feel like that alone would extend the window of survivability.

It’s really hit or miss. The communities generally have most of the same downsides as those on the corporate competition, but with added issues due to the small size of Lemmy/fediverse and inherent features of a decentralized platform.

I mostly stick to bigger communities and instances on Lemmy, which was not a thing I did much on the r-word site, and I admit that makes it trickier to make a one-to-one comparison.

My hobbies and interests aren’t actually all that obscure, but the communities for them on Lemmy are functionally dead, fractured across multiple instances, or just plain non-existent as far as I can tell. Really little or no engagement. So, that sucks.

Another issue that seems especially apparent here is that it seems much easier for smaller groups with “loud” voices / strong opinions to overwhelm any kind of discussion or debate and give the appearance that their opinion is majority opinion, even if it is not. I’m not saying that doesn’t happen elsewhere, just that it seems especially pronounced here. People would complain about group think on the r-word site, but it’s often amplified here.

One thing I like about some of the bigger communities here is that it seems like it’s more visible when unprovoked rudeness and incivility are called out. Not that it never happened on the corporate r-word site, but I do run across that a bit more here.