Me too, the clouds overhead parted just before totality and the corona was so dazzling and magnificent. I really hope there aren’t clouds in the way during this one.

A lot of the trees being cut down are old growth forests, there are nearly no old growth forests left on the whole continent and some animals specifically need old forests with their diversity of species and with different ages of trees throughout. Things grow back differently when you clear cut a section than when an old tree died and falls here and there or is harvested sparingly without destroying the surrounding trees and underbrush, so the lack of selectivity when harvesting is also harmful. Cutting down everything and replanting one species that grows ok in a clear cut area doesn’t restore the forest. Look at longleaf pine forests, for example. Nearly the entire southern US used to be longleaf pine and now it only exists in 3% of its former range. The southern US is still covered in pine, but it mostly got replaced with loblolly pines. You can replant some trees, but you can’t replant a whole complex forest ecosystem, and many of the trees people replant are ones they think they can personally profit from like the fast growing loblolly pines rather than slow growing species that need special care and land management practices to maintain good growing conditions.

It only passed the Senate, the House wouldn’t even look at the bill.

I hate potatoes, so mashed and drowning in gravy is my favorite presentation. The butter, milk, pan drippings, and seasonings really carry the day and mask the potatoeyness. I have no idea why fries appeal to so many people, they are bland and their crisp texture vanishes in a heartbeat to become a very sad heap of soggy trash.

If you said “I brought some guys back to my place last night”, do you really think people would be imagining a mixed gender group? Do you think they would ever imagine you brought a group of women back with you when you said that? Guys is masculine sometimes used to generalize across a group that includes non-males. It only applies when at least one male is around.

My boyfriend’s nephew calls me buddy and I am a woman about ten years older than him, we are both adults so he isn’t a confused toddler either. It might vary regionally. It simply means friend in our case. I don’t think he is trying to make me out to be younger than him. Maybe it is his way of declaring I am “one of the guys”, however.

If everyone starts using it, it won’t sound southern any more. C’mon, you know you want to.

The term upstate has no relation to the capital city, that was a mistaken assertion. It isn’t used very widely at all, it’s just a local term in a couple of states for their northern portions. Most states don’t have an area that is referred to as upstate.

I live in the US and sometimes German music on YouTube is blocked from my region because of their licensing laws, but it isn’t something I encounter often.

I have a cat that has been an overeater since birth. His siblings would nurse until they were full and then back off to take a little cat nap, but he would nurse until mom left the box the kittens were in and he couldn’t get to her anymore. I feed each of my cats on a schedule and each has a separate place to eat so they can’t steal from each other. Left over food from the other cats gets picked up before the overeater is let out. There are a lot of complicated slow feeders on the market, but a cheap and simple one has worked great for me. It is a narrow, deep bowl with a wide lip that he can only pull a few pieces of food out of at a time with his paw. Wet food hasn’t been as much of a problem with vomiting, so I haven’t tried any slow feeders meant for wet food. Mine eat wet food in the morning and dry food in the evening.

I am linking the feeder I own, I haven’t seen one by any other brands but the design is so simple that they might exist if this one isn’t available near you or you may even be able to craft a DIY version. https://catit.us/products/catit-multi-feeder

The median is the one that splits a data set in half and picks the middle.

What makes you think this isn’t how I code? Offices love me, this is way cheaper than a bunch of ergonomic equipment.

One option that is kind of a middle ground is to learn a craft. Knitting, crochet, making fly fishing lures, sculpting. There are lots of things you can do with your hands while listening to a podcast or audiobook, so while it still involves content consumption it also engages your motor skills and creativity and you end up with something to show for it by the time you are finished.

ICQ is still around, seems like it is mainly used by Russians now.

Have you not noticed the rise in groups like Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and the Three Percenters? Patriot Front has people on overpasses waving signs in my area and they are in the news several times per year for marching in different cities. Just the other day they were recorded in New York City, unable to figure out how to swipe metro cards to get into the subway, so dozens of them charged on through without paying, so it isn’t like they are staying holed up in rural militia compounds out of sight. Far right extremism is both active and on the rise locally and globally.

This article was a wild ride. I have not been keeping up with Square Enix so I had no idea they were all in on the web3 hype and now AI, too. I am wondering what is going on with the title “Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai”, did AI come up with that wordy name? What even is a Strash?

Someone needs to teach this company about sunk costs. Just because they invested in blockchain and AI doesn’t mean they need to keep throwing money and resources at it. Maybe they would have a better marketing budget and better market research into the new trends in their field if they weren’t so busy constantly salivating over all the latest tech bro hype.

If there wasn’t a weird monster, backpack, or out of place alarm clock in the middle right one, that would’ve been my favorite. The alarm clock isn’t even within reach of a bed to snooze it or turn it off. The backpack makes it too cluttered. The view through the window and the colors are my favorite, however.

As-is, the bottom two are the ones I like most. I love the color of the bottom left and I like the nature of the bottom right though I am not a fan of so much orange.

I do check one niche subreddit for a TV show about once every week when a new episode drops, but I hadn’t used reddit at all until this season came out. I will go right back to not using it pretty soon here. I used to read reddit during the majority of my down time, but the attitude Spez had was so awful that I have no desire to return to regular use. I spend a lot of my time on discord, some on Firefish, and a little bit on Lemmy. I do more things offline now. I thought it would be difficult to replace reddit, but it hasn’t been.

I remember Postal Service profitability being a political issue under the second Bush, too. Trump didn’t start that. He probably even benefited from the previous rounds because he bought a historic post office in DC when it was sold off and he turned it into a hotel. That’s the same hotel where people stayed during his presidency to curry favor with him.

My cousin visited Texas from Germany and took a train from Dallas to Austin. The track sharing with freight was insane, the trip took 9 hours due to freight having right-of-way on the tracks. It’s only about a 3.5 hour drive. He was not impressed at all.