I'm so confused. Whose dishwashers are you talking about? I'm in the US, you're describing every dishwasher I've ever had, except that we always hook it up to the hot water line. Our unit takes very little water, it takes hours to run a load due to efficiency features. It has a heating element inside to take whatever water it gets and keep it hot for the cycle.

I don't really see why it's any less efficient to use the hot water we are already heating with our water heater (which heats much more efficiently than a small electric heater would). The water originally arrives to my house cold, it has to be heated one way or another. My dishwasher is less than 10 feet away from my water heater, water is not losing appreciable heat on the way to the dishwasher.

No. Tipping culture 100% existed before COVID. This isn't an opinion. It's well documented. You are either willfully ignorant or a troll. This discourse has run its course.

The article is saying "before" as in "before the changes that happened because of COVID". I don't know when the inflection point was where we shifted to shit wages for traditionally tipped jobs, but it was many many years ago. When COVID hit we were not giving living wages to servers.

Man I haven't thought about kkrieger in a looooong time. Thanks for that!

I agree though. I think it's been happening for years. Hardware has gotten so fast compared to where we were a few years ago. But it hasn't caused rapid innovation like everyone thought it would. It's just made devs lazy and we get massive unoptimized piles of shit released that take hundreds of gigs of space, require 8gb of vram and 16gb of RAM and still run like trash.

I'd love to see another era where we have game developers truly innovating and really trying to get the most out of hardware but I wonder if things have gotten so complicated that those days are gone.

That's a good question. If I'm honest I haven't seen UT in probably 15 years.

I think it was the cornfield chasing parts? I also recall just being super creeped out by E.T. himself. The way he made sounds, the way his fingers move, etc.

The biohazard stuff you're talking about scared me, but I think just the sounds E.T. was making, not the guys in suits specifically.

E.T.

I saw it when I was probably 4 or 5? I had recurring nightmares for YEARS. Like, well into my mid teens. I'm pretty sure I even had one or two as an adult. I'm recovered now and I've watched the movie without incident, but I don't like it and I don't really want to willingly watch it again.

I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid and convinced my parents to let me see it in the theater when I was 6. I was so fucking terrified at the opening scene I pretended I needed to pee so I could step out for a minute.

I did come back and loved the movie though, so I guess it wasn't that bad.

I think colloquially people have begun expanding use of the word to include anything where features or product are removed but the price stays the same.

Maybe there's a better word for that, but I understand the parallel.

Why would you eat pizza for breakfast

???

Please tell me this isn't an Americans-only thing. I don't understand how it could be. Do you mean to tell me when you have leftover pizza in your fridge you don't sneak a piece in the morning? What do you do? Save it for later? I don't believe you. You've never, out of curiosity, just taken a bite straight out of the fridge? At which point you'd have discovered that it is positively sublime?

Cold pizza for breakfast is one of my favorite parts about eating pizza for dinner. If this is somehow not a thing outside America, it needs to be. For once this isn't something fatter or grosser, it's just eating it at a different time of day and at a different temperature and it's life changing.

Whoa whoa whoa. That's a strong statement to make as a generalization.

Lol this has to be the silliest take I've seen.

"The Americans made us fat!" Like there's an American sitting behind you with a riot stick, tapping their hand with it menacingly..."eat this shitty food you imported and no one forced you to buy, or else I'll whack you in the head!"

Sounds like you just had a badly made one. Not all franchises are equal.

A well made big Mac tastes good. There's a reason it's been around this long.

You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese??

It's worth trying if you're interested, IMO.

Nothing mind-blowing (except the morning crunch wrap, which is mind-blowing). But they are pretty consistent, and have a lot more options than most fast food places when it comes to healthy-ish options.

It's not Mexican food, it's not even tex-mex. It's just taco bell. It's its own category of food. Go in without preconceived ideas of what it should be and you might find that you enjoy it.

I like McDonald's. I know, wrong opinion.

Maybe it's because it was an occasional treat when I was a kid, but there is something nostalgic about it. Sometimes I just want it.

But it's definitely hard when eating at McDonald's with our family of 4 is equivalent to eating at a fast casual place, and starting to approach the cost of a sit-down restaurant. The big happy meals are over 6 bucks now, and that's starting not to be enough food as our kids get older. If we get a value meal it's $8-10 each for me and my wife. So even if we go minimal, which usually results in people still being hungry, we are already at ~$30. It's not hard to get up close to $40.

Remember the dollar menu?? I mean if we break each of those meals down to their components of sandwich/fry/drink, if we stayed on the dollar menu what now costs $30 could have been bought for $12. Obviously inflation comes into play a little bit but I'm not sure prices needed to nearly triple.

Sit down restaurants obviously have increased a ton too, but if they have a reasonable kids menu we can do it for $50 or $60 depending on the place. Yes, more than McDonald's, but McDonald's also has no business being that close in price.

The movie, despite being unrelentingly bleak, actually isn't quite as soul crushing as the book. At least it wasn't for me.

Appreciate you finding numbers when I didn't go to that effort. It makes me wonder if numbers are pretty similar globally. 2% having chronic insomnia doesn't sound completely out of line to me.

I think because it's a pretty gross mischaracterization of the demographic? Usually hyperbole is used for effect to more emphatically illustrate a generally true or accepted point.

The number of Americans who use nightly sleep aids is extremely low. Like, a vast vast majority of people never take them. I don't know anyone who regularly takes them, and honestly I don't know many who take them even occasionally.

So this meme uses hyperbole to drive home the idea that Americans have a pill problem regarding sleep aids and no one in Europe does. I have no idea how the numbers shake out in Europe but I can say in America it is not as characterized. So it's less hyperbole (exaggeration of a fact) and more like a lie.

I've just started dipping my toes back into the waters again too, also after many years of downloading absolutely nothing. It's a combo of things prompting me.

First, costs have gotten out of control and prices just keep creeping up. This is happening at the same time as content libraries per service dwindle. I make more money than I used to, yet it feels like it goes not nearly as far these days with prices of everything skyrocketing.

Second, it's becoming a bigger and bigger pain in the ass to find things. Part of the issue for me is interfaces (though I can get around that, generally). Part is content shuffling from one service to the next. But a big issue is all the trash content companies like Netflix are shitting out to pad their libraries. You have to wade through oceans of garbage to find a single thing worth your time. This experience is exactly why I dropped traditional cable years ago! I hate endless filler trash. I don't want the illusion of a large library to make it seem like I'm getting value. I just want actual good content.

I totally get wanting to play the game when it's fresh. You miss out on being part of the buzz of a new game if you wait to play it. Every gaming site is full of memes about a new game for the first few months after release and it's definitely part of the experience to be on the "in" side of that.

With that said, I just pick and choose which games matter to me for that nowadays, and I commit myself to actually beating the games I buy (assuming I don't hate them). Committing to beating them before buying a new game has really cut back on my buying of new games only to have it languish in my backlog and see price drops before I ever play it.

This way I do get to be part of that community for the games that really matter to me, but I also am not just buying everything out there at full price.

Just checked this morning and it is not detectable inside the car. And it is definitely stronger near the exhaust (and/or is coming from the exhaust).

Good question on the inside vs outside thing. It is definitely more pronounced outside. I'm usually loading kids so the doors are open when I start the car in the morning. I'll have to do a test with getting in first then starting.

Interesting! I am pretty sure the smell is stronger by the exhaust. That would make sense!

So even if it just seemingly started out of nowhere, nothing to worry about?

I really appreciate the reply!

I don't think this conversation is happening in good faith. I wish you the best.

But surely some land or homes have more desirable features? Should an acre of beautiful lakefront property command the same value as a dirt lot next to a dirty industrial park?

Either way, let's say your idea for how land and homes should be valued is executable in the real world. I still don't understand why acknowledging the way things are in reality as things stand right now is the same as normalizing it. Ignoring something doesn't get it changed.

So what is your contention? That people should just say that land doesn't cost what it actually costs? I don't understand.

Well no, they couldn't. The article literally says that prior to this only that one bar in New Jersey could use it because they had a statewide trademark on it. Because they dropped it, anyone can now use it including other small bars in Jersey.

What this is doing is ensuring it remains open for use by anyone. Taco Bell, Taco Johns, Taco Suzy, whatever. Before, anyone could register for the trademark if no one else had, and start screwing over other small players.

Is it normalizing? Or just pointing out how things are today?

It's possible to describe reality without approving of it.

I don't like that lakefront property is so expensive, but it surely is. I've been casually looking for years and I don't know if I'll ever afford it. And the headline is complaining about a shed selling for $225k when it's pretty obviously the land and lakefront access that comes with it that is selling for that amount. The structure is a throw in and there's a good chance whoever buys it simply demolishes it to build what they want.

Don't focus only on reddit users. That unnecessarily narrows the scope of the issue.

Lemmy has significant barriers to joining that other sites or services do not have. And then once people manage to join there are basic usability issues with simple things like finding communities.

Until these core issues are solved it feels pointless to try to target users from a specific site.

I've heard that from people and I'm eager to eventually have a chance to try one. Our gas stove is under 10 years old and works fine, so a new induction range isn't really on the horizon for us financially.

But I'm definitely interested to try one.

Sorry if it sounded like a freak out. That wasn't intended.

How did I change the point? You said all electric ranges are fine. I contend they are not and tried to support that argument. Happy to hear your interpretation of what I said beyond dismissing it.

And again what I said wasn't intended as a personal attack on you. But if the argument is that electric and gas are equivalently effective at cooking, that's a difficult discussion to have because it's coming from a place of factual inaccuracy.

Completely fair question.

Tons of things require this. Eggs are much easier this way. Anything that needs to be brought to a boil then dropped to a simmer. Anything that needs to not be overcooked but still needs to hit temp. Fish and chicken come to mind. It also just enables fine adjustments while cooking. If I am searing something but realize I crowded the plate and things have started steaming instead, it's easy and fast to turn the heat up one notch.

Granted some of this comes down to what kind of pan you have too. I cook a lot with a carbon steel pan and it's very quickly responsive to heat changes. I have a set of all-clad pans and they also respond relatively quickly. But like, my cast irons obviously don't so it's a bit moot for them.

I'm sorry, it is unbelievable to me that anyone who has done a good amount of cooking on both gas and old-style electric stoves would say they are equivalent. It simply tells me you do not have adequate experience, or are not observant enough to notice.

I don't mean this as a personal attack. It's just...this isn't an opinion. Gas is dramatically more responsive and precise for heat control. This is objective. If the way you cook does not leverage fine heat control or require quick changes to heat levels, then no you will not notice.

But the difference is stark and noticeable for someone who wants and uses this level of precision.

Multi comms are a good idea, agreed.

As for weak discoverability encouraging tendency to gather on larger comms...I agree, but I would just add that it does require motivated and proactive users. This isn't a given. In my hypothetical, those people started their own communities about something they like, and had a few users but not many. Do they at some point decide to give up and search for another community? Or do they just forget about it because there's never any activity and they don't go there? How many searches should they do without finding anything?

As a real life example of my own, I'm a Green Bay Packers fan. I wanted to find a place to take part in active discussions about the team. I joined what seemed to be the biggest community and posted a few things, commented in threads. Most would get one or maybe two replies. Often nothing. A month or two later I searched again and found a few more communities that had popped up. All around the same size and activity level. Joined them, also crickets. The members there didn't congregate around a larger instance, they created more small instances and then all of them ended up largely abandoned.

I don't know exactly why that is, but I've had this experience with other topics too. Maybe instance tagging with a recommendation algorithm that suggests similar communities in the fediverse based on the community you're in?

The problem really is that lemmy doesn't have the critical mass of users to support many small communities that are all self sustaining. And discoverability is so bad for communities it's entirely likely that if there are 8 people out there that want to discuss X in the fediverse, 3 are in one community, 2 in another, and 3 in a third, and none of them ever finds the others. The lack of users causes a lack of content and they all the up not engaging at all.

If you have enough users the idea of multiple communities holds water a little better. But I think it's a significant barrier to actually gaining those users.

Fully agree with you on artists not getting their fair share, and I would argue that the issue is sadly endemic across the entire music industry and was that way long before streaming services even existed. Spotify is merely the most visible representation of a long festering issue that spans generations.

I can only speak for myself but I do actually still buy CDs for bands I really like. I will also occasionally buy merch or go to shows. Some of these bands I very certainly would never have discovered without Spotify (or a service like it).

Ultimately I agree that I'd like people to understand their options. I think the biggest likely barrier is convenience. I have a NAS server, and a virtual host set up that runs a Linux server with Plex on it, and I have that open so I can use Plexamp to play live albums or any other stuff I own that isn't on Spotify. But like... That's a massive barrier to entry to simply create something close to the experience Spotify offers out of the box. And it's definitely not as polished. I do it because I'm a hobbyist, but most people aren't like that. So then if you want to buy music individually, you're stuck listening to actual physical CDs, or ripping them and loading them on your phone or mp3 player. Old school cool for sure, but new school convenience is sure hard to beat once you've had a taste.

This is your rationale and that is ok for you. Ownership is important to you. That is ok. But people who make the point you are making never understand the point those of us who like Spotify are making.

We do not care that we don't own anything after paying. I am not paying to own it. Never felt like I was, never felt like I needed to. In fact, it's almost a perk that I don't because then I am not sitting amidst towers of CDs (something that was definitely possible if I had continued my pre-spotify trajectory). Anyway, I pay for access. No more, no less. I pay for access to Spotify's library, which is many orders of magnitude larger than anything I could ever hope to amass myself, even if I was pirating shit.

I want to listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, instantly. I don't want to go pirate it, I don't want to go find it at a store, if someone suggests me a song or album or artist I want to go listen to it right now. Spotify enables that. I have discovered so much music I would absolutely never have tried without Spotify.

And again, I am 100% comfortable paying for access to something not owned by me. I'm a member at our local zoo. I don't expect to own the animals, I pay to just to get in. I'm a member at our museum. I don't feel like I should own the artifacts, I pay for the privilege of seeing them. I am a member at a community pool. I don't own the water, I pay to get in, and have someone else handle all the hassle of maintaining that pool.

Spotify is the exact same for me.

I've been reading that there are ways to roll your own version of some of the old 3rd party apps using your own API key. I might look into it, if only so I am not relegated to using the shit web interface when I do need to check a few things on reddit. I refuse to install their official app though.

Probably.

I should point out that RCV wouldn't at all prevent people from running "spoiler" campaigns like this, it would actually encourage them. But they wouldn't actually be spoilers the way they are now. They would just allow people a way to vote for candidates that more closely align to their actual beliefs without that also meaning that the lesser of evils would get a de facto vote out of it.

I think it would be disastrous for the GOP in particular, but honestly even Democrats are often against RCV because it would remove many of them from power as well.

Hey, you too buddy. Thanks. As with anything there are ups and downs. We just take each day as it comes.