Again, I make my own judgment call. If something has tons of negative reviews, then I might read some just to get an idea what everyone’s upset about.

If it’s a common complaint about a specific thing, then I’ll decide whether that thing is a deal breaker for me, or not that important. If it’s just a bunch of random complaints, then I won’t trust any of them and make my own call.

But in general, I don’t really pay attention to reviews. I guess Steam reviews on games are pretty much the only ones I ever read, simply because they’re displayed prominently right at the top of every game’s store page. If a game is review bombed, I might read some recent reviews to see what the deal is. But I’ve definitely bought games that have tons of negative reviews, simply because people didn’t give reasonable explanations for their negative reviews.

I don’t trust others’ reviews. Some people rave about a product or service and then I try it and it’s actually garbage. Or worse, you can’t really tell what’s a legit review from a customer and what’s a paid review by someone within the company. Or AI generated.

In the end, I prefer to make my own judgment call rather than trust reviews. So I don’t expect anyone to trust my reviews.

Which is kind of ironic, seeing as I write lengthy movie reviews and video game reviews. But in my defense, I do that purely as a hobby, so I can rave about something I really like (or on occasion, dislike).

I do it for fun and I don’t make money on anything I post. Which, in my opinion, makes it a more pure review because I’m not motivated by pushing a product or meeting a deadline. I’m not required to highlight certain features, push a popular trend, or promote an event or sale. I can just speak from the heart, write whatever I want, and geek out about something I personally enjoyed.

tik taks

As a middle-aged man who’s never used TikTok before, this is how I’m gonna refer to it from now on.

“There’s is no Dana, only Zuul.”

Note for those passing through and not reading articles:

This is not a summary of the article, but OP’s suggestion for a solution. The article talks about creating a yeast product that’s lacking in bees’ diet due to climate change and a lack of diversity in flowers.

OP suggests combatting the effects climate change has on biodiversity by planting your own diverse flowers. Which may work, or climate change may just kill those too.

I would watch this show.

I don’t pay for streaming sites. 🏴‍☠️ And I definitely won’t give YouTube any money. I’ve always been able to browse their videos without paying a cent. I’m not about to start now.

Besides, I don’t like how everything has become subscription services nowadays. You used to be able to pay once and own a product. Now you need to pay monthly to have temporary access to a constantly changing library. No thanks, I’ll only spend money on things I can own forever.

Even if they keep the screen black for 30 second to a minute, I’d still gladly wait in silence than be subjected to advertisements.

If they ever make it impossible to watch videos without first watching ads, then I’ll just leave the platform. I have no loyalty to YouTube and I’ll sooner dump the platform and move on to other video sites than deal with enshittification and ads.

When I served (2002-2022), we were always told that warrant officers are technically officers, so treat them the same as any officer. So we would’ve addressed them as Sir or Ma’am if we came across them. As well as saluting them if we met them outside.

I don’t recall ever addressing anyone as “Mister” in the service. Heck, I retired a few years ago and now I feel weird when people call me Mr. [Last Name]. I got so used to being called by my rank and last name for 2 decades. Mister just sounds wrong.

I served in the US Air Force. Everyone was “Sir” or “Ma’am” and it was very gender-specific. Even for the few years we allowed transgender folks to serve (before Trump banned them), you referred to them by their preferred transition title.

We don’t have warrant officers in the Air Force, so I can’t speak to their title of address.

As much as I enjoy this meme, I hate that Moe calls him Bart. Moe never found out who the prank caller was in the actual show.

I spent 20 years working as a sys admin, moving to new offices around the globe every few years. No matter which country I worked in, every single sys admin I’ve ever worked with always pronounced it “sequel.” I’ve never met anyone in real life who spelled out the letters when speaking it.

As a former sys admin, this clicked immediately for me.

I retired about 4 years ago, but before I did, my office was using Teams, Slack, and Outlook to manage communications at work, and occasionally text messaging or social media (FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, etc.) outside of work to get information outside of business hours.

To keep things organized, we always had a singular database where we tracked all tasks and projects, as well as who they were assigned to. We used to have this on SharePoint, but with Teams expanding their toolkit, we rebuilt our SharePoint sites there. No matter where the communication came from, it was everyone’s responsibility to update the master task list with new items, but core projects were always added and tracked by upper management.

It became habit to update the status of projects at least once daily. If a project went 2 or 3 days without a new status - even a simple note stating that no work had been done that day on this particular task - then upper management would come asking questions. Yes, there was a bit of micromanagement, but it kept us task-oriented and productive. We always reviewed everything on the master task list every morning and prioritized our day based on what could be accomplished. Nothing was missed.

I personally would also make bullet lists throughout my day with simple checklist-type objectives. Anytime someone asked me to do something, it’d go on the bullet list. Any new update I needed to add to the master task list, I’d make a quick bullet reminder. A new idea pops into my head… into the bullet list so I don’t forget about it later.

I have ADHD, so keeping focused on multiple things throughout my day was difficult and I’d always forget some important details. Keeping my own simple checklist on my person let me hyperfocus on one or two projects at a time without completely losing track of all the other things I needed to deal with that day.

I got real quick at jotting down notes as information came to me, so I could track dozens of projects a day and never lose details on any of them. At the end of my work day, I could settle down and take my time writing out detailed logs in the master task list so upper management would be satisfied with the effort put into my projects that day. The more detailed my logs, the less likely they’d come to ask me questions and interrupt my workflow during the day.

If checking age on social media is all it ever does, then sure, whatever.

You’re forgetting an important detail: you submitted an official ID to prove your age. Which means your face, address, and legal name are also on record. So every time you get age-verified, you’re basically checking in with your full legal identity, leaving a breadcrumb path across the Internet of everything you do. That data can be used to track your online activities and build a database on who you are as a person, based on the things you access.

THIS is why age verification is a terrifying thing for computer access. It’s a form of government tracking that should be illegal. Cops can’t legally barge into your home anytime they want and go through your stuff. They can’t take your computer and scan it for data collection. Not without a court order.

With age verification embedded within your OS, it won’t matter if there’s a court order or not. If your computer is connected to the Internet, you’ve just publicly broadcast all your data to the world, and anyone - cops or not - can tap into that data and build a profile on you. You don’t even need to be browsing the Internet; if your OS is verifying your age, it could also be broadcasting that verification for every program you use locally on your computer. None of your data is safe; it’s all tied to your legal identity and trackable.

That’s Google for ya! Their motto was, “Don’t be evil.” That was the two original founders’ motto, which was silently changed sometime after the company was sold.

Chronologically, Metal Gear Solid 3 is the first game in the series. It shows Snake’s origin story, which leads into the original Metal Gear 1 and 2 games for the old Nintendo Entertainment System (long before the Metal Gear Solid series). So it’s a perfect place to start if you’re picking up the Metal Gear franchise for the first time.

Metal Gear Solid ∆ is just a modern remake of Metal Gear Solid 3, so it’s basically the same thing but better graphics and controls. I read once that due to the falling out with Hideo Kojima, Konami can’t legally re-release the original MGS3 game, so a remake from the ground up was their legal compromise.

Now Metal Gear Solid 4 is the only Metal Gear game that hasn’t been re-released on any other platform since it debuted on the PlayStation 3. But Konami plans to finally release it for PC and all modern consoles in August this year. Woo!

I had planned to review Metal Gear Solid ∆ for my Lemmy screenshot series, but I was having so much fun with the game, I forgot about preparing a review and just played my way through it. MGS3 is my favorite of the entire franchise! There’s something rewarding about actually trying to avoid detection in a game. It’s easy to go in guns blazing, but sneaking past guards and not alerting anyone? That takes skill and dedication.

I live in a forested countryside in the Northern Midwest. Leaving the windows open invites in bugs and other small critters. Even with screens on the windows, insects crawl through the cracks, and I’ve definitely had several field mice chew their way through screens. I also have rabbits and possums who tend to nest up against the foundation of my house, and if a lower window is left open for prolonged periods, I sometimes find babies nesting in the window frame.

If I open my windows, it’s for a limited time to get some fresh air moving through the house. I’ll turn on strategically placed fans in various rooms to encourage rapid airflow through the house so I can close the windows sooner.

I only open windows in the winter if I need to cool a room quickly. For instance, I’m renting my first floor to a friend and I live on the second floor. But I only have one HVAC unit and thermostat for the entire house. The first floor always stays a few degrees cooler than the second floor (heat rises), so I keep it a little extra hot upstairs to ensure I’m not freezing out my friend. But I’m always hot in general, so I’ll either have fans on me all winter, or I’ll occasionally shut myself in a bedroom and open the window for 15-20 minutes, just to lower my body temp a bit and help me tolerate the hot house.

There have been a few winter nights where my wife and I have left the bedroom window open to cool down our bedroom, while burying ourselves in thick blankets. We don’t sleep well if we’re sweaty and stuck to the bed. I usually get up a few hours later and close the window, so we don’t freeze overnight.

This is why I keep a tablet next to my bed. When I want to recline in bed but watch something, I can do it on a decent-sized screen instead of squinting at my phone.

But my couch also has two “zero-G” recliners on either end of it, which basically means they recline so far, my feet are slightly elevated over my head. So I don’t really need to go to bed to lie down and watch something.

It’s more about if I’m trying to settle down for the night or not. I have wireless headphones for my TV, so I can watch shows late into the night without disturbing anyone, but if I’m gonna fall asleep myself, I’d rather be in bed already so I can just set down my tablet and sleep without any more effort.

The Gary Jules cover of Mad World, for the Donnie Darko soundtrack.

Similarly, the original song by Tears for Fears sounds really upbeat and happy, but you’d never know it was a sad song unless you paid attention to the lyrics. I love both versions!