Steam Machine is (or will be) a PC, so I’m not sure how they would/could make HL3 and not have it be compatible with PC. Or am I missing something?

Humor is lost on the humorless.

ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME

Honestly, I think your dog’s behavior and reactions would be highly individualized. In other words, you would probably need to do some exposure and experimentation to find materials that are “just right” for him. Having said that, if he’s calm watching dramas, then couldn’t you just stick to dramas? Also, if you play the same specific materials often enough, even ones he reacts to, you may find that he becomes less reactive to it over time. But again, it’s hard to say as each dog is going to be different.

Decades ago, when most TV watching was on CRT, I heard stories of different cats and dogs “watching” TV but I personally never witnessed it. Basically, it seemed like the animals had performance anxiety and would not watch TV if anybody except the owner was around. So, honestly, I was always a little suspect. Not to say that I believe no dog ever watched CRT TV, just that it probably wasn’t as common as claimed.

However, with modern LED and LCD TVs with higher refresh rates, it’s much more plausible and in fact, I have witnessed it several times. Not just a fleeting reaction to one thing on the screen or maybe the sound of another animal playing through the speakers, either. It’s more like the dog is somewhat actively engaged with the on screen action, rotating ears and their head, things like that.

The only thing I have to say about cottage cheese is that large curd is vastly superior in every way that counts, but it’s almost impossible to find these days in my part of the world.

Great Value has a “large curd” option, but it is in fact not anywhere close to being large curd and none of the Walmart stores in my area carry it anymore. Same thing with Breakstone’s. One store in my area carries it, but it does not qualify as large curd. They should be ashamed of themselves, they put the label on there but the curd size is indistinguishable from small curd.

Peanut Butter

Sayin’ hey to the peanut butter gang!

For me it’s a big ole scoop of peanut butter and a small glass of milk to wash it down.

Someone who lived at my current address back in the 80s and 90s and who died almost 25 years ago still gets mail delivered here.

But also, does this mean that people with very common names are nearly second death immortal? Should I change my name to John Smith so that I don’t die that second time until the very last piece of mail gets delivered to the very final John Smith that ever exists? I need to know. I NEED TO KNOW.

And for the past 40 years, people and companies have been selling their “user data” from one entity to another, so it really doesn’t require any particular one of them to last more than an average human lifetime.

Granted, I’m 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% sure the comment you replied to was really only making a joke, so no pedantry is really required.

About 4 or 5 years ago, my neighbor’s adult children (and by extension my neighbor) got really big into the raw milk craze. For awhile, he’d mention all the benefits compared to store bought milk that’s homogenized & pasteurized and supposedly it’s those processes that make it unhealthy.

I don’t remember exactly when they stopped talking about raw milk, but at some point that topic stopped coming up anymore. Then one day, my neighbor told me he was going over to his daughter’s to drop off a gallon of (store bought) milk, and I replied with something like “I thought she only drank raw milk”.

That’s when he told me that the family stopped drinking raw milk a while ago after everybody got sick from a bad batch.

Anyway, I have had raw milk as a child one time when a local farmer dropped some off for us to try. I don’t recall it very well since I was pretty young but I vaguely remember not liking it because it tasted too much like the way cows smell and it was thicker (more viscous) than I was expecting so there was a bit of “gross factor”. I’m sure it wouldn’t be gross if I had grown up drinking it, though.

Yes, I did get hit with a “Do you know who I am?”. It’s not an exciting story and it took place about 20 years ago so my memory is faded. However, it was a bit weird.

This was a 50 or maybe 60 year old white man and he was neurotic about everything but also felt as though the policies that cover every other customer did not apply to him. For example, he was a habitual “I’m going to park right in front of the entrance to the store in the no parking zone” customer. But at the same time, our company policy is that we were supposed to greet customers a specific way (ex: like the chickfila people who are supposed to always say “my pleasure” instead of “you’re welcome”), and if we didn’t greet him that specific way, he’d ask to speak to the manager and tattle on us.

He was mean, nasty, rude and super arrogant. Apparently, he was also a lawyer, so management would basically concede to this guy’s every whim and request, no matter how absurd.

This guy was a regular customer at the main store that I worked at in a town about 25 miles from where I lived. When I switched store locations to be closer to home, I noticed that he shopped there, too. This guy lived in the same town as me. Yuck.

His “Do you know who I am?” spiel came about when I was calling customers about bounced checks, which was part of my job at the time. I had no idea what the guy’s name was at the time (and I’ve forgotten it now all these years later). But when I called him about the bounced check, he insisted it didn’t bounce and yes, pulled the “Do you know who I am?” line on me. This is also how I learned that he lived in the same town as me, since his address was on the check.

The weird part of this story is that I was telling my dad about this guy because he was such an ornery cuss, and my dad knew who he was because this guy also shopped at a store my dad was working in at the time. my dad lived in a town and worked at a store that was over an hour away from either location I’d worked at.

It honestly sounds like the “Do you know who I am?” guy spent his days driving around and shopping at different stores all over the state simply being an irritating and infuriating asshole of a customer. Like whether or not he actually was a lawyer, I could see him being the type of person who intentionally tries to cause trouble in order to give himself opportunities to sue people/companies and that’s how he makes all his money. I don’t know that for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

And the corollary: People don’t support local / grassroots candidates who have a desire to change that.

I don’t know about the southern border of Texas, but much of the Southern / South-Eastern USA is experiencing varying degrees of drought this spring with very little relief in sight. The last time things were this bad in my part of the country was about 20 - 25 years ago.

I wonder how that will play into the spread of these parasites. Will they spread more quickly due to sicker/weaker wild populations of host animals spreading out trying to find ever more scarce food and water resources?

It’s not quite the same thing, but that prior major drought I mentioned from a couple decades ago is widely discussed as having been the source event for the spread of fire ants to my area. A lot of our agricultural products like animal feeds are grown, produced, and consumed locally. However, in drought years, things like hay have to be transported in from other parts of the country and it’s believed that the fire ants hitched a ride from out of state that way.

Simultaneously it’s saying things but also not saying things.

Definitely not the only place, but certainly one of the more predictable.

This must be the insect version of a Durian because those shield/stink bugs smell awful and I know ants can smell it.

Nearly half is less than half.

Truthfully though, there are just some statistics that sound absurd and counterintuitive at first glance, but start to make more sense once you spend a moment thinking it through.

For one, the USA is in the midst of a K-shaped economy / K-shaped recovery. People above a certain level of wealth and income are literally doing just fine. In fact, many of those solidly higher middle class individuals are doing better than ever. Those folks are largely, not terribly anxious about finances. Now, I’m not claiming that group is literally half the population, nowhere near it, just that it represents a solid chunk. Then there are the unrepentant MAGA folks. You know, the ones saying “the current economic situation is entirely Obama’s/Biden’s/Democrat’s fault” and/or “I don’t mind this economic hardship because I trust the president” and the majority of voters back in 2024. Hate to break it to you Lemmy Communist Socialist Liberal Leftist Demon-warshiping Atheists, those MAGA voters are the salt of the Earth type people. And there are a lot of them. And they aren’t worried, or at least won’t admit to it. Because Trump is their god and that would be a sin. Then there’s a whole contingency of people out there who have lived paycheck to paycheck for the past several decades. Doesn’t matter if they’re rich or poor, they spend whatever they get the minute they get it, so they aren’t any more worried about it than they were back when Obama was president. Plus, let’s not forget the huge contingency of people who are virtually 100% politically disengaged. You can pretend like it doesn’t exist, but all you have to do is look at the voter participation rate for your local elections or even for the average mid-term federal election. Obviously that doesn’t directly translate 1-to-1 with people being anxious about finances in relation to Trump’s handling of the economy, but once you start highlighting the political angle, people turn off.

I could keep going with listing all the different segments of people who aren’t or would say they aren’t anxious, but I won’t. The point really is that there are a lot of such segments, some of them large, so by the time you stop to add it all up, it starts to seem more understandable that only “nearly half” said they were anxious.

PFAS compounds have been detected in literally the most remote places on Earth. Are you sure your spring water is isolated enough?

Either way, reverse osmosis (RO) filters remove virtually all the PFAS from water. I’m not discouraging you from getting 100 gallons of spring water from a VERY isolated source, just wanted to mention that there are possibly other options for those of us who don’t have the ability to get 100 gallons of spring water from a VERY isolated source.

I really don’t want to think of the implications of there being grave stones in Heaven.

Neat-o.

Hilarious to think about how this video is now considered ancient history, one of the oldies.

I don’t know you. You might be a loser, but you probably aren’tish. However, not having 200+ guests at your wedding does not mean you are a loser. Having only a handful of guests at your wedding does not mean you are a loser.

Usually there’s an element of one or both parties getting married have a familial tradition, culture, and/or history of large marriages as well. Often at least one of the people getting married comes from a large family, but not uncommon for both. Also, one or both sides tends to have money and/or generational wealth. Having that kind of money means you can afford a big wedding with 200+ people, but also generational wealth tends to give people and families the luxury of attaining and maintaining long term & multi-generational ties as well as a sense of duty to one another.

But also, it might be easier to to have 200+ people come to your wedding than you realize, depending on circumstances. Like if you and your future spouse come from large / larger families, don’t have tons of mutual friends/acquaintances, and things like that, and you invite pretty much every relative, acquaintance, friend, coworker, neighbor and so on, you’ll probably get more folks in attendance than you might expect. Particularly if you give them long enough notice that they can plan for it and you’ve picked a good location as well as time of year to make it happen. Also wouldn’t hurt to provide support for accommodations, food, travel for those who might struggle to afford them.