Io Sapsai 🌱

@Io Sapsai 🌱@lemm.ee
2 Post – 67 Comments
Joined 1 years ago

Seeing the comments here and people don't even realise how widespread glitter is. It's in everything and used in a variety of industries. From pharmaceuticals to construction, to transport, vehicles, military... in fact the one of the biggest consumers of glitter is kept secret so who knows, could be the military. It won't surprise me. We really need to find an alternative.

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Death metal. Death metal while birding (or more like processing footage). Death metal while cross stitching. Death metal while crocheting. It's a weird outlet that I mostly keep to myself.

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R****t felt like the place for tech savvy people when I first joined a decade and a half ago (I feel old now). It was confusing and I had no idea how to use it but the content was better than 9gag which was hugely popular at the time. Felt the same way about the fediverse half a year ago. Now it's all natural to me.

While it really does feel like it, as a person working in healthcare, I do see some change after the whole shitstorm from recent years.

  • There are people who actually wear a mask, few, but they are around.
  • A lot more people seem to be conscious of spreading their illness to other people be it a cold or COVID.
  • People definitely wash their hands more often. I know we do.
  • Some people started getting their annual shots when they didn't intend to before.
  • Local businesses open their windows and doors a lot more than they used to.

But also I also see some negative tendencies:

  • Interest in flu shots has waned. That might have something to do with the govt introducing a free flu shot programme from your GP if you're above 65 or with specific conditions (which is a great thing) But I definitely see a lot more vaxx-scepticism and fear of combining both shots (infant vaccination plans are a lot more intense and the vast majority are fine).
  • People politicising a disease.
  • This is country specific but food supplement companies aggressively promoting "immune system stimulants" to the point where in the beginning of The Plagueβ„’ they somehow managed to include them in hospital treatment plans.

This came out longer than intended but there were some things that I needed to get out of my system.

I actually agree with you but the mental health communities on Lemmy haven't caught up yet, and I figured one could find more people here that could relate.

That sparkly quartz kitchen top? Yeah...crushed quartz and glitter to make it sparkle. As I said, it's everywhere.

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Not sure how much I agree on the dairy part. Apart from the inherent ethical problems associated with it, dairy is an all around promoter of cardiovascular disease. My anecdote is that while I was vegetarian, I suffered from high BP and had to be put on meds. Once I went vegan, my BP dropped to the same levels as with meds before. I'm also prone to gout due to genetics. This change in lifestyle had to be the best step I took for my body.

Now, I see why this study had great results. Eating a varied diet, especially rich in whole foods is a good thing, dairy or no dairy. People just want cheese in their diet and that's a compromise a lot of studies do to reduce dropout rate and make people stick to a diet. It also makes dairy companies happy.

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Might be talking out of my ass here but prog metal artists tend to have high education, usually in music. In fact I saw a bachelor's degree programme for progressive metal in the university of Gothenburg!

If you were cold then you would catch a cold.

There is a startling amount of people here (most people I know) that believe this. I work in healthcare and we constantly have arguments about the AC in summer for that exact reason. Yeah cold weather can make it easier to catch a cold but it's interesting to see how many people believe that you need to get warm to avoid catching a cold.

Carrots will allow me to see in the dark if I eat enough of them.

Partially true. If you're vitamin A deficient, your night vision worsens and carrots can help with that. But you won't get Minecraft night vision

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As an eastern European nearing their 30s in a situation much less extreme than yours - do not fall for "patriotism". I do not mean the "go and fight for your people" type. That takes guts and mentality I do not possess.

I mean the "doing X is unpatriotic" type. Usually comes from "patriotic" formations who follow a certain narrative and work for the interests of other countries. Look for buzzwords like traditional values, us vs them, targeting a group of people as a whole, claiming to get back "what is ours" (territory lost centuries ago, not currently occupied land). Big social media presence coupled with self-produced "reports" and "news articles" (bonus points if they have their own mass media channels) are also a giveaway.

Thank you but I won't let your aggressor, through puppet parties, dictate what about my attitude and views is patriotic and what isn't.

Bulgaria has Pernik. A declining polluted mining town near Sofia which is infamous for people wearing (counterfeit) Adidas tracksuits, driving VW Golf, and settling their scores with long pieces of metal. Think Russian gopniks.

It's been a rather productive year so far:

  • I did a lot of cross stitching.
  • Went vegan.
  • Dabbled into gardening (my partner did most of the work sadly but I'm more interested now than I was before!).
  • Got into birdwatching so I started exploring nature with a much more different perspective.
  • Set up a bird feeding station that got really popular among the birds AND the neighbours.
  • Learned how to crochet.
  • A combination of the aforementioned things somehow taught me how to manage my depression and anxiety better. I'm in a much better spot now than when I was mostly playing video games.
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Half of the people I regularly talk to are on WhatsApp. I don't like it but that's reality, it's hard to get them to migrate because this means that people THEY talk to would have to do the same. Also a good chunk of them use rakuten Viber. Now why do they use THAT? It's bloated, ad-ridden, and buggy. Almost nobody I know is on telegram. In fact most are still using Facebook messenger.

My coworker opened edge when they added the new ai bullshit and thought the desktop was infected by a virus and started panicking.

Not sure about that but in my native language the words for "if" and "poop" are spelled the same, so every time I type "Π°ΠΊΠΎ" I get the πŸ’© as a suggestion.

It probably doesn't contribute much to the discussion but I felt compelled to share.

Edit: also "правя" which translates as making/doing (i.e making dinner, doing everything possible" automatically suggests "sex" and "blowjobs" despite me never sexting...

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On a similar note, many coffee brewing devices are made out of plastic. I bought a ceramic hario v60 for that exact reason, despite all sources claiming that plastic is safe and brews better. The aeropress is a different question. It's made of polypropylene and just now they made a glass version (which knowing me, I would break it within a week). I rarely brew in it partly because of it being plastic but brewing temperatures are between 80 and 92Β°C. Should I be worried?

Lately when I'm looking for tutorials, my search results are overwhelmingly weird question and answer style "articles", akin to chatgpt prompts, some of which are barely related to what I'm looking for. I'm having a hard time looking for articles written by a human. In fact oftentimes I question whether or not the article is written by a machine or a person who sucks at writing.

I learned what being "gay" was. I've always been a bit effeminate, low crying threshold, I didn't enjoy playing soccer with the boys. That was in first or second grade before even being attracted to anyone. They told me it was bad, gross and that the "gays" look just like me. It was the norm to be homophobic in my country. It still mostly is but not as much. This bullshit was repeated over and over until I left middle school. It took me until my late teens to realize I was indeed attracted to everyone.

So long story short the first bigoted people were my classmate kids, the second was myself.

Went.

My mobile plan. The standard is signing for 24 months. I can't really choose a plan that suits me, they stick virtually unlimited calls (which I barely use), and add mobile data that I can't use up either. Settling for less barely reduces my bill if at all for whatever reason. On top of this, despite me signing for a set fixed amount to pay, they decide to "index" an extra 10-15% every year due to "unforseen circumstances" like inflation. And every time I sign a new contract I get an extra 10% on top of my bill for the same features I don't use. Oh and they add a "happy call" where the call signal sounds like a piercing annoying very low quality melody, despite me denying the service. Switching to another telecom doesn't really remedy the problem, the other two on the market here seem worse than mine in every respect.

Looking at the prepaid features, we're looking at a 40-50% reduction in monthly fees, just paying for what I use, whenever I want to use it. It's needlessly annoying switching from a subscription to a prepaid plan. You'd have to switch telecoms for a month and switch back to the one you like the most if you want to keep your number.

So yeah, as soon as my contract expires, I'm done with renewing. I'm sick of this.

Cleaning chemicals have labels that require reading. Janitors tend to use those often.

Removing all the popups at work about scheduled updates, news, ads in a workplace with 8 desktops and zero people who speak English is my favourite past time. Thanks Microsoft.

Also that post prompted me to remove windows from all my devices that still run it. Not that I didn't think of it yesterday.

I'm familiar with debian-based Linux distros and run Xubuntu on my travel laptop. It occasionally freezes and needs a forced reboot but otherwise runs ok. Any suggestions on what to install on this more powerful one? I use it for gaming but play older games.

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Tales of Maj'eyal. A free to play open source roguelike that I hate. This game is amazing. Fuck this game. Also definitely recommend. But fuck this game. After numerous 10-12 hour long runs, I have yet to win.

If you move a bit east of Italy, to that peninsula that should not be named, Viber gets real popular.

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  • PS2 with a barely working optical drive. Easily fixed by adding a cannibalised HDD from a broken laptop.

  • last week I found a solar powered water fountain pump that we used for a bird bath.

  • Metal tapestry needles to finish my crochet projects

  • A really nice LED lamp that I use for cross stitch and crochet at night.

  • A couple of crochet kits with missing hooks, one of them is missing the buttons too. I have yet to start those.

  • Garden chairs!

A lot more things but these are what I was excited about the most.

It was fun having to go to work yesterday morning. Nothing was cleared up, no way for cars to get to my house so I had to make a trek by foot. This morning was worse because some of the snow had melted during the day yesterday and it refroze. Everything is slippery now.

One thing outside observers need to know is how incompetent the municipality services are. They knew in advance that this storm was coming. There were warnings all week. It came a day late here so they had extra time. The municipality website showed no information, just some cultural events and an article from two days ago that "the municipality is ready for the winter". At this point we have a saying for poor organisation during winter time when everyone knows it's coming in advance:

"The winter surprised us again!"

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Bulgaria is an example. The LGBTQ+ community is discussed only during the annual pride parade. Sofia is rather liberal but the rest of the country is highly conservative. The people in power are likely in favour of marriage equality (or most don't care that much so they just vote with the flow) but it's a political suicide given the opinion of the most active voters. If you decided to run a country-wide poll, most people would be against gay marriage. The general attitude is "I don't mind gay people as long as they're not in my face". Except many have stronger opinions than that. Especially men.

Speaking of men, the Balkan macho culture created a fear of gay people (literal homophobia). On a regular basis I hear men speaking about being afraid of being raped by gay men in certain situations (think massage rooms, men's locker rooms, bars).

Football hooligan extremists are especially dangerous because they go on witch hunts for marginalized groups and would attack (and sometimes murder) anyone who looks gay, Turkish, ir has a darker skin colour just for sport. There are still partly unresolved murders of LGBT youth commited a decade ago.

In fact I'm surprised about Greece, they must be the first ortbodox christian country to legalize same sex marriage and they're very religious compared to us.

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Some brands seem to make it crunchy. I just eat that like cereal with soy milk or yogurt. I made the mistake of buying cheap muesly from the local convenience store and it was exactly how you described it. It was the "let sit overnight" type. Except it had cornflakes in it that would get soggy and fall apart.

I forced myself to eat most of it, the rest went to my local murder of crows who picked at the dried fruit and cornflakes and left the oats to the pigeons to deal with. I guess I wasn't the only one who didn't like them.

As for the crunchiness, maybe try making it into granola in the oven? Not sure if that would work but it's worth a shot.

I share a name with a famous Russian scientist that has some principles named after him. People from my country don't make the association, it seems like a common enough name. Other people instantly recognise it and can't believe that's my real name.

How do you even curate a fb feed. When I tried that I got an algorithm that shoved "recommended" posts down my throat that got worse the further down I scrolled. Not to mention looking for posts older than a day is a pain because they're not chronological. AND the cherry on top is when you finally reach the place where that post might be and the page just decides to reload. Awful, awful user experience.

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I second this. Either ddg has come a long way with sesrch results or Google enshittified theirs to oblivion. Maybe it's both. I only use Google search for really obscure stuff that ddg has a hard time fetching. And more often than not Google fails as well.

A cashier because people throw money at me all day. Also a scientist because science is cool. Now I spent 5+ years studying my favourite sciences only to realise the job I've been studying for is a cashier... Yeah I should probably go for a PhD

It’s generally legal and heavily subsidised. See also animal agriculture.

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Discworld is my go-to these days. Goes well with cross stitching

In contrast I would never want to listen to a Terry Pratchett book while doing something else

Ah well. Sarah J. Maas was also a fun experience. It's so bad it's good. I went with A court of thorns and roses but I hear her other series follow a similar vein. It's hard to miss the important details. Look for the Graphic Audio releases.

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As a cross stitcher - !lemmy_stitch@sh.itjust.works

I use streaming services these days but my next phone will definitely still have a 3.5mm. I'm not an audiophile but my 10€ Phillips wired earbuds audio quality would be matched by bluetooths at 5-10x of their pricetag. The wireless buds I have are only 4 imes as expensive as the wired and audio quality is worse, they often lose signal and they tend to fall out of my ear regardless of which rubber plug I use.

Lately I find myself listening to The Ocean Collective, Mors Principium est, Be'lakor, Soilwork, Between the Buried and Me. Generally more melodic and progressive stuff. Sometimes I put on metalcore which can also be a banger like Monuments (saw them live earlier this year, they were amazing), Periphery, Bleed From Within.

I know some purists would jump on my classification but it's hard for me to put labels on music these days with bands having a much more unique style, rather than fixing themselves into a specific genre.

I remember the info campaign of my country's change of currency when it got pegged to the Deutschmark after it did a Venezimbabwe. It was by a popular children's/teen tv show host.

I was about 2 or 3 but the only thing I remember is the news anchors repeating the word "Chechen" all the time. I understood nothing but it sounded funny.

We had a stereo with an inbuilt vinyl record player, as well as cassette tape player.

I played NES games on Terminator-2. Post-soviet collapse flooded the market with knockoffs which were decent for the price.

I remember watching Bill Clinton's scandal on the news though I had little idea what happened, nor what impeachment meant.

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Oh, the patent expired? No problem, we'll just methylate the structure, see that it makes no difference and put it out on the market as a new drug. Or maybe take the active part of a racemic mixture and half the dosage. Same drug double the patent. Semisynthetic insulin is even worse in that regard.

I thought that if enough time passed old photos would turn black and white like how they were b&w in the 80s and turned colour in the 90s.