Squiddles

Can you clarify the certifying body you’re referring to when you say “certified organic”? My comment only pertains to the USDA Organic program, as that is the subject of the original post, and I linked the regulations which govern that program. Most of those regulations are not related to pesticide use and its residual levels.

“USDA Organic” gets misrepresented a lot. It doesn’t mean there are no pesticides. Hell, if a pest problem is bad enough the program has provisions for using the big-gun pesticides that conventional agriculture uses. You just have to go through a process of gradual ramp-up and have an approved plan to minimize crop contact.

As for it being a “marketing term”: Yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same product with a different package. It’s a marketing term in the same way as “Certified Humane” eggs are, or “Fair Trade” coffee, or “locally-grown”. The actual product you receive has no guaranteed difference in flavor or nutrition–which is what the OP quote is about–the difference is in how it was produced. I’m not advocating one way or the other, and I understand that there are other issues where Organic can be worse (e.g. lower production density, some organic pesticides potentially being more harmful to the ecosystem in some circumstances, etc). I’m just saying that it’s a term that actually means something and isn’t just an expensive advertising label.

There are rules for how pesticides may be applied, sources of fertilizer, fertilizer application methods and frequency, a requirement that mechanical pest control be attempted before chemical methods, land management requirements, additional random inspections for compliance with Organic and general agriculture regulations, and many many more things. Here is a link to the actual regulations governing it. I highly recommend at least skimming it. I used to roll my eyes when I heard the term “Organic”, but it does actually tell you something meaningful about how the crops were produced, if that’s important to you.

Screen sharing is fine, handled by Pipewire. OBS is adding (has added?) streaming through Pipewire too. And I’ve had no issues getting screenshots using grim, which isn’t tied to a specific compositor. Not everything is copacetic, but the things you’re talking about are mostly non-issues these days.

Great name, btw

Fair enough. I used XFCE for 15 years and decided to give Hyprland a go. Still some rough edges, and some shockingly basic things are still being figured out (should multiple windows from the same process be able to set different icons, and windows being able to set–or even hint–where they want to go), but overall I’ve had basically zero issues, and I’m enjoying it enough that I made the change permanent. Screen share and streaming work fine. I wouldn’t call the overall functionality mature, but it’s perfectly workable. Unless, you know…Nvidia. I’ve heard it’s gotten a bit better lately, but I wouldn’t have switched if I hadn’t gone AMD for my new GPU.

Yep, using Pipewire.

Other things helped–like drinking half a liter of water before going to bed so biology forces the issue–but the sunrise light was the key for me too. I set it to fade in over 10 minutes, ending 10 minutes before my alarm goes off. I used to set alarms in three minute increments and still take an hour to get up. Now I’m usually up with the first alarm, and much more alert.

I heard Japan described as being “stuck in the year 2000 since the 1980’s”. I think South Korea fits the original question better than Japan nowadays.

Sensory processing disorder associated with autism is exactly what came to my mind because it’s exactly what I deal with. I usually shut down instead of melting down, but kids playing at anything past a barely-audible level is extremely difficult for me. Other attention-grabbing noises are also difficult, like dogs barking, car doors closing, people yelling, etc., and other stimuli cause me to shut down too, like dogs jumping/breathing on me (basically everything about dogs, unfortunately) or someone touching the back of my head/neck.

It took a lot of research into how my sensory processing reacts to different things, and I still struggle frequently, but I’m a father now and most days I’m very happy about it. I have noise canceling headphones for when I get overwhelmed, and I keep a clicky mechanical keyboard switch and barrette in my pocket to fiddle with, which helps a lot.

OP, I can obviously only speak from my own experiences, but I think dissecting what exactly causes these sudden emotional bursts and finding sensory distraction or blocking techniques to dampen them might work for you too. Headphones are a godsend.

Edit: Definitely seek a professional opinion (if possible for you) and look into misophonia, especially if specific sounds are your only issue. I just wanted to provide my perspective because for me the exact same issue the original post describes was part of a broader thing that needed addressing.

Definitely second Dyson Sphere Program! I’m not at all interested in the combat (it’s optional), but now that they have that completed they’ll be updating other features too. I’m hundreds of hours in and still come back to it.

I just ran a quick check and private games (whether installed or not) are still shared. Seems like a weird oversight.

Lots of possible uses for private games, beyond the obvious. Off the top of my head: when working on mods I’ll relaunch a game dozens of times and Steam will spam the in-game notification to my friends unless I sign out of chat. Now I can stay in chat and just make the game private until I’m done modding. Some games get left open a lot (like idle games) and I don’t want them cluttering my profile’s recent games. Sometimes I just want a dumb-fun game without advertising it to friends because I’m self-conscious about it. Some people have coworkers as friends on Steam so they can play socially, but some games may give away political/personal information that they would rather keep private (eg, LGBTQ+ focused games). I have young family members who are friends on Steam and I’d rather they don’t see certain games in my library.

I wish it was implemented like an access control list instead of just private or not-private, but being able to keep the games I want to play with others public and keep other games private is absolutely brilliant. Now I can take private mode off, which makes figuring out which game to play with friends much easier since they can see my library and the “what games do we both have” library filter will work.

I don’t even think you need one for eggs necessarily. I switched from PTFE nonstick to all metal (stainless/carbon steel and cast iron) a few years back. Eggs were no problem once I figured out heat control. I cook scrambled eggs and omelettes every week with no sticking.

I did eventually get a ceramic nonstick for making soft tofu in a sticky sauce. Definitely don’t try that in a stainless steel pan. It worked okay in the carbon steel wok, but was obnoxious to clean.

It’s a reference to the way that a certain youtuber ends their videos. “Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t”. Highly recommend checking out that channel–dude just loves botany and running his mouth.

Broadly, I agree with what you’re saying. Totally just devil’s advocate-ing and speculating to provoke thought, so feel free to ignore. I wonder if the enormous number of games available plays into this. I can almost always dig around and find at least one 10/10 game from the last couple of years that I haven’t played which is already on sale for cheap. Comparing that to a 7/10 game that just came out at full price… I’d almost certainly enjoy the 7/10 game, but I’d spend less money and likely have more fun with the 10/10. The newness factor may not be enough to bump the 7/10 game to the top of the queue.

With so many great games available an 8/10 might actually feel like a logical minimum for a lot of people, which may influence the scale that reviewers use. If people tend to ignore games with 7- scores and a reviewer feels that a game is good enough that it deserves attention, they may be tempted to bump it up to 8/10 just to get it on radars.

Meanwhile, back in the day there wasn’t such a glut of games to choose from. And with better QoL standards, common UX principles, code samples, and tools/engines, games may legitimately just be better on average than they used to be, making it fiddly to try to retrofit review scores onto the same bell curve as older games. To reverse it, I can see how an 8/10 game released in 1995 might be scored significantly worse by modern reviewers for lack of QoL/UX features, controls, presentation style, etc, or even just be scored lower because in modern times it would lack the novelty it had at the time it was released.