The only thing I know about vesicles is that microvesicles are gross… thanks to paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler.

What little blue house?

I get the concern, and it’s a good concern to have when you’re talking about what would be such a huge shift in so many ecosystems…

…buuuuuut…

I have to believe this change would happen slowly… mosquitoes wouldn’t just go extinct over a holiday weekend. It’d take years, if not decades, of dedication to the eradication strategy and even then, certain populations may prove immune to the best efforts of science.

That being said, even if it did execute as planned, I feel like the gradual decline of the mosquito would coincide with a gradual increase in other invertebrate species that would fill that niche. So as mosquito populations slowly declined in a local pond or creek, you’d see things like say chironomids (midges) thriving with the reduced competition for habitat, and the fish that ate mosquito larvae replacing that part of their diet with more midges.

Not saying there couldn’t be other complications, but I don’t think we’d see results fast enough that we’d end up with a broken link of the food chain leading to ecosystem collapse.

Exactly.

My thought when opening the post was basically, “Can you imagine the depths that American corporations would sink to in a market where they can totally conceal the flavor, size, quality, etc. of their products until after the sale, and not have anyone from the company present, making them totally immune to any negative feedback?”

Presumably the companies behind these things in Japan are at least delivering a somewhat acceptable food item. I wouldn’t be surprised in any way to find an American version of this thing dispensing literal dead rats.

As beautifully as the name fits, I feel bad for the actual muskrats of our creeks and marshes.

Would the victim be officially dead?

After working retail for the holiday season as a younger person, and seeing how that started in October…then working in the beer industry, watching seasonal creep pushing those beer releases ever earlier (combined with the ramp up and logistics meaning that we were in full on “get ready for Oktoberfest” mode by mid-April…

I think I was just totally burnt out of any capacity for seasonal creep outrage a decade ago.

I saw a Christmas display while grocery shopping this week. Didn’t even register as odd, let alone annoying. Which is saying something, coming from me, who tends to treat getting annoyed about random shit as a sort of relaxing pastime.

Chocolate with raisins is super common though…

Yep. Doesn’t even have to be a group of armed people doing “maybe illegal” things. It can be a single person doing absolutely illegal and horrific things…like Uvalde.

Not that we need to open this can of worms here, but it’s a pet peeve of mine that “vanilla” has become a term used to mean plain, boring, sheltered, standard, mediocre, underwhelming, basic, and uninteresting.

Vanilla is an amazing flavor that comes from orchids that must be hand pollinated to cultivate at scale, and has a long and interesting history. It’s the second most valuable spice after saffron.

Just feels wrong to use that as a synonym for bland and blah.

Most jobs like that, or really any pay scheme other than piece work or an hourly wage usually has the process of:

1. You can take as much PTO as you like.
2. You can take as much PTO as you like…provided you get all your work done.
3. You work like a dog, get all your work done, and take time off.
4. Since you were able to get everything done and have time left over to not work, your boss increases your workload, so now you have to work like a dog, all the time, or else you’ll never get everything done.

It’s like playing chess, and while the other player can’t change the rules as they go, but a condition for playing with them is that they get two moves every turn.

Right.

One of the things I won’t miss about my last apartment (which was overall pretty fantastic) was how the plumbing was under-built when they constructed the otherwise overbuilt building back in the 60s or 70s.

This meant that on my end of the building, all 4 apartments (mine, the other one on my level at the end of the hall, and the two above us) all shared the same undersized drainage piping.

I was there 6 years, and averaged about 1.5 horrific backups per year that required a call to management, who had to come out, try to fix, then give up and call professionals (and twice in that 6 year span, the professionals even gave up and had to call in even more capable professionals).

In every case, I always asked them if there was anything I could be personally doing…or not doing…that might help.

In each case, the plumbers always said I was doing everything I could, even above and beyond considering the more capable drain filters I used on both sink and tub, and that the real issues were the long hair from the ladies in all 3 other apartments (not a criticism on them, just an observation that many of the clogs were long hair, vs my buzz cut), and in a few of the worst cases, flushed hygiene products (which prompted a mass email from the landlord that these things were not to be flushed, both feminine hygiene stuff and “flushable wipes”)…and in the worst backup, the two young girls in the family above me had flushed a wash cloth.

That last one was the worst by far. Had disgusting, chunky shit water/gray water cocktail backing up into toilet AND shower.

Also, it’s not just targeted at people perceived as “other” in many of these traditionally masculine realms.

Often, it seems like so many of these men see patronizing and second guessing as the only ways to establish and defend their own credibility on their given subject. It’s not just the “oh it’s a woman/someone who doesn’t look the part…I bet they don’t know what they’re doing” factor, it’s also that they’re a product of the culture that tells them that the most important thing is that they’re perceived as more knowledgeable than anyone else, and that the only way to establish that is to have their own opinions and views on every subject in the field, and then aggressively defend and promote those views while dismissing, undermining, and discouraging any views that conflict with theirs…or the people who hold those views.

And it’s not just big picture “world view” type stuff. It’s crap like, “which brand makes the best widget in your hobby?”. If they’re a “brand red” guy, they feel the need to not only let everyone know that they like brand red…they have to let everyone know that brand red is the best, and that it’s objective, and that if you prefer brand blue, you’re just a clueless newbie who hasn’t learned yet. If you like brand green, well you’ve just been taken in by their marketing. And if you’re one of those brand orange people, well you know what they say about those people…

I avoid the non-preferential result by…well…not dropping things in the toilet.

I’m in my late 30s and have literally never dropped anything in the toilet that I wasn’t intending to.

Sounds like a personal issue; maybe try not to be so clumsy?

Fucking cormorants…they kill lots of fish that they can’t even eat, plus a ton of fish that they do eat…and they’re federally protected.

Also wild seeing this…I had never heard of them till I started dating my gf. She and most of her friends are big fans and I just saw them live a few weeks ago.

My thought is more along the lines of, “Regardless of his talent level, is this really the kind of person that his country wants representing them on the world stage?”

Like, okay even if he’s the absolute best by an order of magnitude…if he were from my country, I’d rather lose every match than win on the talents of someone like that.

Not only that, but there’s a 100% chance they sell this shit to you as a forever mouse, then in a few years if it’s not making them money hand over fist, they’ll discontinue it and keep your money.

You said, and I quote:

if they gave me a lump sum

That’s payment. For your work.

It doesn’t change that fact whether they are paying you before the work is done or after. It’s still a transaction. You contribute time and effort to them, they contribute compensation to you for that time and effort.

And everyone needs money, it’s just that some have more than others.

If you hit the lottery tomorrow and won 500 million dollars, maybe not immediately, but you would almost definitely not continue to work at your job volunteering your time and labor to help them make money (and if you would, you shouldn’t, because that devalues the labor of your coworkers and everyone else in your field).

Mind you, I’m not at all saying this is a bad thing. If anything, it’s a good thing. I’m not sure why you seem to feel the need to make yourself an exception, but really, the only people I’ve encountered who are an exception to this rule are people who are both working in a field where the labor itself is intrinsically rewarding (teachers, caregivers, medical professionals, artists, chefs, brewers, etc.) and would be financially supported by another when the pay stopped (usually a spouse but sometimes wealthy parents, etc.).

And in those cases, it’s really not even an exception so much as it is splitting the circumstance across two people, because even then, they’re just getting a free ride to do what they want and ignore the need for money that drives the labor market.

I’m also certainly not saying “everyone hates their job”. Lots of people enjoy their work and that’s great! But for the vast majority of people, if they were no longer to receive a paycheck from their employer, they’d do something else. Either because they needed money, or because there are things they’d enjoy even more than their job that they can do with that time. It’s not a criticism, just an observation.

That’s a very creative and roundabout way of saying you do expect to be paid for your work and would quit your job if they quit paying you.