ComradeWeebelo

@ComradeWeebelo@lemm.ee
0 Post – 46 Comments
Joined 9 months ago

I love when people who have clearly not had bedbugs link the Mark Rober video as if its the gold standard for eliminating bedbugs. There's good bits in there, but he doesn't tell the whole story and makes it seem like they're easy to get rid of, which is actual misinformation.

The methods discussed in that video only work if you catch them from day one or as preventative measures to not get them in the first place. Bedbug females can hold onto the materials they need to reproduce for weeks before they actually start laying eggs. Furthermore, bedbugs release a stress pheromone when their environment is upset that alerts other bedbugs in the area that they should run and hide. Once this happens, you are SOL as you just made your situation far, far, worse.

DE, steam, and heat are only viable as control methods, not elimination methods. Methods that kill on contact will only make the situation worse as you need to allow bedbugs to return to their hoarding to spread the exterminant around. That's why professionals use residual sprays to deal with them, not on-contact killers.

DE can and should be used alongside a professionally applied treatment, but you should never use it with the expectation that it alone will completely eliminate them. Bedbug nymphs are very similar to cockroaches in that they can squeeze into surfaces slightly larger than the human hair. If you see any bedbug regardless of life cycle stage, especially during the day, odds are you already have an infestation and should treat it as such.

I highly recommend working with a pest control company that uses Apprehend. Its a state of the art fungal insecticide that leaves a residual that survives for a minimum of three months after being sprayed and kills bedbugs within 24-48 hours of making contact with it. You can buy it online, but most people aren't going to go the lengths necessary to learn how to properly spray it or how to treat for bedbugs longterm, which is what you need to do.

Also, for those using DE: Rockwell makes an insecticide called Cimexa. Its 10x more effective than DE and can be used on baseboards, crevices, and other nook and crannies in your house or apartment. You can also mix it with water and it will leave a residual spray that is good for 30 days after treatment.

Bedbugs in each life cycle can live up to 18 months without a blood meal, but they require a full blood meal to molt to their next life cycle stage. When treating for them, you want to seal anything you suspect of being contaminated in an air-tight container and not disturb it for at least 18 months, otherwise you risk reintroducing them to your living situation and starting everything all over again. Anything you want to be able to use immediately, you can seal in an air-tight container with a Nuvan strip for a minimum of a day or heat treat it using a specialized heat treatment enclosure if the item in question is not heat sensitive.

If you suspect you have them, check your mattress (especially in seams or tufts) and box spring first and be on the lookout for obvious blood stains or black pepper like markings on your sheets. Those are obvious indicators of a possible bedbug infestation and are the first things an exterminator will look for other than moltings or live bugs.

In order of preference bedbugs prefer living in:

  • wood
  • fabrics
  • metal/plastic

Wooden furniture in particular is extremely susceptible to them. Once they establish a foothold, its usually better to throw the furniture out then attempt to salvage it. Bedbugs can and will live in anything if it means not being exposed or otherwise easily detected. This includes electronics like TVs, computers, laptops, remote controls, amongst other common household items.

If you think you have them, most extermination companies will do a free consult if you call them or visit their website to setup an appointment.

Source: I lived in an infested apartment complex for three years before being able to move elsewhere. Obviously, I didn't know this before moving in or I would have looked elsewhere.

P.S. Most governments do not recognize bedbugs as anything more than a nuisance because they do not spread disease. In the US at least, we nearly had them eradicated in the late 80s before the EPA made the decision to ban heavy chemicals to treat them without offering any viable alternative. Private companies do not receive subsidies to treat them and due to their pervasive nature, once an infestation happens in a neighborhood or shared living arrangement, they spread very easily and make for very valuable repeat business. The best thing most people can do is educate themselves on the signs and proper response scenarios when they are detected. You want to approach them rationally. The natural response is to trigger a fight or flight scenario where you either go crazy trying to treat them yourself or you throw out all your furniture. Both approaches are wrong, and both approaches cause far more damage than good.

14 more...

I don't understand why people pick on tradesman as if they're somehow lesser than them.

There's lots of skill and knowledge that goes along with doing any trade.

Also, while it's back breaking work, and you often work overtime, construction workers make bank.

This is an aged and outdated take that devalues the contributions of a very important job.

All jobs are skilled labor.

6 more...

You don't sound like you're from NA, but here in the US we have trucks that are colloquially known as "Child Killers" because when you're driving them, you literally can't see what's in front of you. They are all over the roads, and make for an extremely bad experience for people in smaller vehicles, people on bikes, and pedestrians. Not to mention, they're often driven by people that lean heavily into road rage.

5 more...

Voter disenfranchisement is a powerful weapon of the Republican party. It's one of the key reasons why much of the south is the way it is despite attempts otherwise to address it.

This is very ironic if you work for an insurance company.

Now let's all pretend that MS and Phil aren't buying up publishers to have another monopoly full of Xbox/PC exclusives. Tbf though, I think Sony started this whole exclusives thing and really pushed hard for it. They do, however, seem to be relenting now by publishing their games to steam.

9 more...

If the rumors regarding the performance for the sequel are true, they won't even have a working game on launch.

3 more...

Titanfall 2. Its the only game I've ever played to successfully integrate time travel in a way that makes sense and feels good. They could have built an entire game around that mechanic alone and you only get it for a single level.

Also, the campaign in general is top-notch storytelling for an FPS.

It'll never be in the play store either because the play store terms of service forbids apps that interfere with Googles revenue streams.

Why wouldn't it be? I don't understand the point of this article. It's not like some other direct P2P communication medium is going to come along and upend it. It doesn't really make sense to run fiber inside your home. You don't need that kind of bandwidth for such a small number of devices and it would be prohibitively expensive since you need a specialized, highly trained technician to run it - unlike Ethernet, where any sufficiently motivated person can do so. I've heard that the people that run fiber for ISPs make something like $200/hr or so.

6 more...

Incoming "We are completely impartial and not beholden to political parties or outside influence." from the big three bois on the bench.

Yes, they can. You should only be throwing things out if they are clearly infested or your pest management professional tells you to.

It sounds like you'd be better off with a DE or WM that isn't gnome. The GNOME Project has been progressively sticking more and more of the customization features of the DE behind either gnome tweaks or the command line, likely to unify the experience for all users and improve the ability to provide support.

Personally, as far as gnome-based DEs are concerned, I prefer cinnamon, but I'm fine running Mint to just have it come pre-installed. I don't know what dependencies it pulls in now if you install it standalone from Mint.

I'm really happy this approach worked for you. It is possible to get rid of them yourself if you come up with a plan and stick with it.

I am, however, surprised to hear that bombing your house worked. Commercial fogging products, despite their claims, are not strong enough to kill them and will just drive them into hiding or into nearby units if you're in an apartment building. Every pest management professional I've worked with has always told me to never fog for bedbugs.

I will say to anyone that reads this in the future, just because the immediate situation cools down and you don't see them anymore, doesn't mean you are free from them just yet.

Bedbugs take 10-20 days depending on environmental conditions to hatch. Their eggs are always laid in out of the way places you usually wouldn't look and are cemented in place so even vacuums won't pick them up. They're smaller than a grain of rice and usually require magnification to see. Fogging products are ineffective against these, so even if they work against the bugs you can't see, they won't damage the eggs.You have to wait then out until they hatch. Residuals get around this by sticking to the surface of the egg and surrounding surfaces from adult bed bugs spreading it around. When nymphs hatch, they walk on the surface containing the residual and pick it up themselves.

If you do self-treat, you'll need to repeat your treatment at least 2-3 times with a regular cadence to be certain that they are gone. Commercial bedbug extermination supplies usually come with instructions telling you how long you have to wait before reapplying it as well as how many times you should.

Some more facts about bedbugs that people might not know: Your average bedbug moves at about the speed of an ant or thereabouts. If recently fed, they move significantly slower, hence why they generally feed in the night, or during any other period where you are having an extended rest. Just like every other parasitic insect, they inject you with a combination anti-coagulant and numbing agent so you stay bleeding for a while and don't feel a thing while they're doing it.

Your bodies reaction to it varies from person to person, but you generally become desensitized to it over time. I've seen cases where the person doesn't have any reaction to the bites at all, either during the time they are bitten or afterwards. That's the worst type of reaction to have since most people only detect them when they're actually bitten or after their body reacts to it and forms a welt or scab.

Also, bedbugs do not bite with a puncturing device like a mosquito. They scoop like a bulldozer would. If you look really closely with a magnification device, you should be able to tell that rather than a pin style hole at the site, you'll see what appears to be more of a recess or well in your skin. Its not a guaranteed method by any means, but it can help differentiate their bites from those of other insects.

Due to the destruction they cause to your skin, you should never pick scabs that form on them. They will stay bleeding for whole minutes at a time and only a styptic pen can reliably stop it. They cause prolonged damage to your skin. I have what is essentially a scar on my left ankle from one where for over a year it looked like the surrounding skin had just died. It only recently started to heal back to a normal appearance/lighten.

Note that you should never rely on bites alone for identification as there are a whole array of common household insects that bite humans.

1 more...

I always figured their grocery section would end up like their in-store pharmacy,, i e., no one would use it and it would end up a vestige of a failed business model.

It surprises me when I see people buy food from target since there are other stores with the same or similar quality items for cheaper. I don't think target has much value proposition from their own brands like Archer Farms (if that even is a target exclusive brand anymore).

If anyone sees this comment and shops at target for their groceries, would you mind explaining why?

1 more...

Federal student loans are not just difficult to discharge, they're practically impossible to discharge. There are so little valid cases for it, you could count them on one hand. And that does not even take into account the fact that the sitting President and their cabinet can just say, "No, **** you." Even after you qualify and a court agrees with you.

Edit: Just gonna point out that the only guaranteed way to discharge student loans without the federal government possibly overturning the ruling is to simply die. Its an excellent system perfectly designed to ensure that both the public sector and private sector can continue reaping the benefits of social mobility while preying on the most vulnerable segments of the population.

I find syntax wise, Rust is very closely bordering on esoteric. My employer is currently considering switching to Rust and I can say working in a department with a bunch of Data Scientists with varying degrees of programming experience and capability, this switch, if it happens, will probably be poorly received.

7 more...

Tbf, US companies brought this upon themselves when they agreed to China's guidelines for working within the country.

Lots of industries in China have a barrier to entry for foreign manufacturers/businesses that require either partnering with a local Chinese business or rebadging your product to sell under a local Chinese business brand.

Such conditions are rife for IP theft. Especially in a country that is famous for ignoring IP laws of other nations. Shenzhen doesn't even leverage IP laws at all, it's the wild west.

Must be real hard to make decisions at Nvidia when you're almost a monopoly and have the power to tell consumers what they are going to pay for products that get comparatively weaker each generation.

1 more...

Latest season broke EAC on Linux. The devs are actively working on fixing it.

Yeah, the drafters of our constitution really fucked up in that regard.

I'd attempt to solve the problem by creating an independent judicial review board entirely separate from the US govt. similar to other "professional" professions. Let these judges go up for review every 5 years and if they are found to be in breach of conduct, remove them from the bench.

Also, rework how they get to the bench in the first place. Of course the SC is going to be politically motivated. They only get their seats because one of the two big parties literally puts them there. Impartiality is really hard to claim when you owe your entire existence as a SC judge to a giant money machine.

33 more...

You forgot about Supply-Side Jesus.

Most paradox games I've seen have an unlocker you can find online that just enables all the DLC.

This type of mentality is how Trump gets re-elected. And it's looking more and more like it will be the end of democracy in the US if that happens.

60 more...

There are significant differences between statistical models and AI.

I work for an analytics department at a fortune 100 company. We have a very clear delineation between what constitutes a model and what constitutes an AI.

1 more...

There were a lot of fundamental changes under the hood going from DX11 to DX12 concerning fundamental programming paradigms in the API that a lot of devs are still grappling with. It's probably just something that will take some time for people to get used to.

This is what happens when your political role models are all authoritarians.

But blaming others for this is not really accurate. Trump was raised to be a POS from birth.

Just want to point out that this statement makes it very clear that the original decision was reactionary discrimination against a minority in the first place.

Following the closed meeting, a board member, Wendy Vellotti, put forward the motion to reinstate the original version and cast of the production as it was before the gender rule was created.

Edit: The school board is now launching an investigation into the actions of the superintendent.

https://www.kxii.com/2023/11/14/sherman-isd-board-trustees-discuss-superintendent-position/

Hopefully. I don't really see Intel going toe to toe with Nvidia in the enthusiast market with the 4080/4090 but I could see them targeting something like the 4070 from Nvidia or the 7800 and future cards from AMD on their high end.

He's also the creator of JavaScript if that irks you any more.

I think a lot of those CRPGs were built under the premise that your companions were meant to die as expendable fodder for the player character. I know old school Fallout was built like that. It's a real challenge keeping everyone alive till the end of 1 and 2.

Replaying AC Odyssey as Alexios. It's weird to see angry Kassandra.

So far I've been disappointed in dialogue and interactions with NPCs, even in the main story, where I expected things to change between the two characters, but the dialogue has been mostly all the same.

But hey, I get really fun, ancient Greece ship combat. 10/10 recommend the game just for that.

Edit: Also playing through Hades for the first time since purchasing it. I love how Supergiant put their own spin on all the Gods and Demi-Gods while keeping them mostly true to their depictions in Greek myth.

Ah yes. Promotional ships that sell for $1000s of dollars irl that are only available in limited runs that you get to keep when the game launches into stable release.

Oops, forgot to mention that some of these ships might not ever be available outside of alpha besides for those that already own them. That means new players in stable will encounter ships they'll never be able to own.

Most of my friends that play it say it's a fair trade since you're paying so much for them, but it still feels largely like a scam to me. You could do so such much better for yourself with that kind of money than just owning a digital asset.

Oh and those ships? They're not tradeable to other players afaik.

Edit: This isn't really fine at all and is in fact a P2W mechanic inside a game you already have to pay for up front.

They got the same vibe going on as the 7 days to die devs.

It's not surprising if one considers the goal of the Republican party in education is school choice ala charter schools. Stripping the public education system of it's ability to effectively do it's job has been their goal for a long time. Indoctrination is a tool that the right in the United States takes full advantage of.

Not sure why you're being down voted tbh. I had a chance to fiddle around with the 1 IV when Sony sent me the wrong phone by mistake with my online store order.

I have no idea why they are priced as high as they are either. I was not impressed by it at all.

Pending United States government if the Far Right ever gets their way.

If this is true the crowd on here that often says Firefox is really owned by Google because Google pays Mozilla to have their search engine be the default search engine on Firefox really need to look at their claim and rethink their understanding of how Mozilla and Google interact.

Why are you white knighting for big US companies? They don't even know who you are outside of a personal identification number.

When fallout 4 was in development, Bethesda had to crunch and have non-developers who had little to no experience in the engine (like writers) work in the creation kit to flesh out the rest of the game. This led to many quests being implemented entirely separate from each other with little to no input from other teams or staff members and is a major reason why fallout 4 base game feels so disjointed once you actually start exploring it.

It wouldn't surprise me if they had to do the same thing with starfield.