I literally never understood the appeal of urinals. Its less sanitary and literally a bathroom fixture that physically can’t be used by many people. Just sit to pee, its nicer and cleaner

The USDA and FDA regulations make it basically a requirement for food to be processed in the US, hence why there’s so many massive food processing facilities in the US. Based on the recalls they’ve been caught up in, Aldi works with the same white label processors as other grocery chains and quite clearly works with them to set the taste, quality & ingredient expectations and of course the price.

There is a noticeably less sugar in Aldi’s goods than most other brands, but I also see far more packaging errors in Aldi’s goods than other budget brands, for example. Their packaging is also heavier into recyclable materials and uses less plastic

Back in the day when I worked at an American grocery chain they had a rule that you were not allowed to drink water where customers could see. Literally the only person who ever cared was the franchise owner. I’m sorry, I’ve been scanning and bagging hundreds of products for the last 3 hours during a holiday rush, I might need to wet my mouth between customers from time to time.

When they initially put in the self checkouts the delay for scanning was set to similar to a manned checkout, and as someone who spent my formative years cashiering at a grocery store, I greatly appreciated being able to quickly scan through my stuff. They upped the delay between scans after a few weeks, so now its like 10 seconds before you can scan another of the same item, so I’ve just gotten creative in alternating items to scan faster

For me I found they struggle to cook the very center in the microwave, so I’ll usually give them 60 seconds to thaw, cut it in half then another 60 seconds (or was it 30?) to finish cooking. Only problem is my kids very consistently try to steal them from me if I dare to eat them when they’re around so I’m quickly better off just making something else

Yeah I get almost everything from Aldi because the quality is consistently comparable to name-brand while being significantly cheaper. Its also nice that the stores are so small so you can focus more on shopping and less on getting through the store itself

There’s a few items where I do prefer from other stores (particularly meats and fresh fruits/veggies as the Aldi ones tend to go off faster and are lower quality) but generally I’ll hit Aldi, then my local grocery store for the last couple of items from my list, thereby keeping me well-within my grocery budget and getting the best of both worlds. Plus I can usually get it all done within about an hour thanks to only needing to hit a couple of isles in the big grocery store

What is your threat model exactly? What are you trying to protect against? Commercial VPNs have an extremely narriw spectrum of threats that they protect against, and most customers don’t realize this

That’s the thing with anything cybersecurity is trust. Unless you wrote all of the firmware and software and websites and webservers yourself you are ultimately placing trust in another entity.

VPNs are just a technical means of shifting trust. Corporations use VPNs for remote work because the VPN connects the employee to the corporate network which they already trust, rather than trusting whatever wifi the employee happens to connect to. For a consumer using a commercial VPN the only thing you’re doing is shifting your trust from the network provider to the VPN provider. You’re not even really hiding anything from websites thanks to modern browser fingerprint techniques, they just see “user #64742258 but from a known VPN endpoint instead of the usual Spectrum residential network in Maryland, 86% match”

I think RDR2 was so memorable because the Western genre is so underrepresented these days. Sure it was such a popular genre with ton of movies and books for a while decades ago before video games were really a thing, but what was the most recent Western movie or TV show any of us have seen? I think the newest one I’ve seen was 1999’s Wild Wild West. Maybe 2004’s Home on the Range if that counts?

If we were getting 3 AAA titles released each year that fall in the Wild West genre RDR2 would just fade into the noise. Its a brilliant game but the only thing it notably did differently from any other open world RPG was unabashedly be a Wild West game that hit every possible trope of the genre including the silly ones like dueling quick draws

This was literally the model of YCombinator initially. Get a bunch of inspired young graduates, give them the tools and resources to build a successful business in exchange for a stake in the business then roll in the dough in a decade when they own 10% of Google for example.

I suppose you could argue it’s the model of venture capital as well, invest in a company with a lot of potential when it’s in its infancy, then rake it in when they happen to own 30% of Uber 10 years later

It is funny though that the games industry seems to not see this and adapt this model because it seems like the big studios would love it

Some “DLC happy” games seem to work in niches while mostly avoiding the micro-transaction trap

Dude you should see the hardcore simulation scene, such as Dovetail’s Train Sim or Auran’s Trainz you buy the base, then you buy whatever maps and trains fit your niche interests within the niche of people interested in these simulators to begin with.

Auran literally has a subscription option for around $100/year that gives you access to everything and that’s actually a pretty decent price given the cost of the base game and whatever routes you may want!

Mr Fish + Cosmo makes my brain completely skip the fun show made by a horrible person and go to A Fish Called Wanda for whatever reason

Well did she ever give his nose back?

For a company with 11 billion in revenue that 700k is pretty small potatoes. I say that as someone who among other things manages a database that has a similar amount as the annual license fee at a company of a similar size to Uline. Its an amount large enough that it is considered in any strategic planning and is a major line item every budget season, but it’s also an amount that the company continues to pay every year

My point was less “do nothing” but rather “do things other than stare at screens for entertainment” with a touch of “be mindful of what you’re doing when you do stare at your screen for entertainment”

I mean that’s kinda been his schtick is being the “conservative boy genius” except he’s pushing like 40 now so he’s been shifting his style before he completely outgrows his old style. Letting some stubble grow, wearing leather jackets, and generally hitting that “divorced dad trying to look cool but not too much y’know” look

I’ve seen some of the most terrible people inaginable manage to find themselves in a relationship. There really is someone for everyone

There was this one dude I met at an event, literally would hit on every single conventionally attractive woman he encountered. If he was sitting in a space with multiple women he’d hit on one woman for a bit then realize he’s not getting anywhere and turn and start hitting on the next woman as if she didn’t just witness him hitting on 3 other women before moving onto her. Personality of soggy cardboard that constantly tries to cheat on you. Yeah he had a girlfriend while this was all going on. I got to hear him have half-ass phone sex where he both called her “baby” and “mommy” within 2 sentences. Then that evening he cheated on her with a friend of a friend who I’d really hoped had better standards than that.

Point is, if a dude who literally repells everyone around him the moment he opens his mouth (and he doesn’t stop opening his mouth) can get in a relationship, you can too.

Hey that’s honestly super awesome. Most folks don’t have that kind of financial discipline when they’re young.

When I was first on my own I was just proud that I was a able to pay extra on my possibly-illegal car loan that I got from a place that was shut down a couple of years later for credit fraud

As a former nu metal fan this definitely sums up the genre perfectly

But what will the other 6 members of the band play then?!