I remember wanting to be a forum mod when I was like 15 and thought that it would make me cool on the forum. As a grown adult… no way. I am so busy between work, grad school, and my personal life, I have no time for such silliness. I have a lot of respect for mods that donate their own time to run communities.

As someone with a background in linguistics, my jimmies are indeed rustled.

My last Ford was a Focus with the dual clutch transmission, it was a complete fucking lemon (to the point where they were successfully sued over it and have done multiple recalls to fix it). I can excuse an automaker for the occasional shit car if their overall lineup is good and they’re honest with customers, but they knew the transmission was majorly flawed and continued to manufacturer vehicles that used it anyway. I’ve had it refuse to shift while I was driving on the highway before, which left me redlining at maybe 45 MPH. Dangerous and it could have gotten someone killed. I will never buy another Ford.

https://www.freep.com/in-depth/money/cars/ford/2019/07/11/ford-focus-fiesta-transmission-defect/1671198001/

AI-generated articles, books, coloring books for example, are all a thing now. Behind the Bastards did a podcast episode on the latter two.

Remote workers are overall more productive, report a better work-life balance, and suffer less from occupational burnout. It also saves companies money because they don’t have to spend as much on office space.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/intentional-insights/202303/the-surprising-truth-about-remote-work-productivity

My time is the most precious commodity I have. Unfortunately I’m in a career where I can’t work remotely, but if I was I would refuse to go back to the office. Life is too precious to waste it sitting in traffic if you don’t have to.

The actual signs exist (get yourself a planisphere or a stargazing app, find some dark skies, and discover them for yourself!), it’s just all the magic personality nonsense associated with them is bullshit.

I’ve been in education for a few years and can tell you that a lot (most?) of teachers are cheering on the inside when they see a bully get his ass beat. These school policies aren’t being set by teachers.

I have very little faith in businesses to do the right thing for the right reasons. Publicly traded companies in the US literally can’t do that legally if they think it will hurt their bottom line.

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/how-often-do-happiest-couples-have-sex-it-s-less-ncna828491

Once a week or so is the average. I’m at about the same amount of time in a relationship as you and we’re about once a week. Personally I feel like sex is nice but it takes time and effort and I’m not always in the mood to spend time pleasing someone else (and I’m not going to initiate unless I’m willing to do that). I could see myself having sex a little bit more often if I had a better work-life balance where I felt less pressed for time. This gets me thinking that I should check in with my partner about this topic though!

It would be funny if people were forced to do something akin to mandatory military service but for working at a school as a paraprofessional or other aide for a little while. I feel like most people really have no idea how much teachers have to juggle and deal with on a daily basis. Come see how my kids behave when left to their own devices and then judge me.

I’m a teacher in training. We had reading “homework” over the summer for our incoming students. Their families were instructed that if their child read every day (15-30 minutes or so), and they kept track of it on a chart we sent them, they would win prizes when they came to school. I think it was something like a pizza party if they read a certain number of days. It wasn’t mandatory and there was no punishment for not doing it. I thought it was a great idea.

I built a trellis using T posts, electrical conduit, and PVC pipe and it has worked extremely well.

https://ladyleeshome.com/how-to-build-tomato-trellis-2/

It’s basically this. Takes some work and some money but it was well worth it to me. I will have this for years and it performs much better than cages.

And yes, indeterminate tomatoes require pruning but it’s well worth the trade-off to me to have tomatoes ripening all the time instead of all at once.

Try cherry and grape tomatoes. I’ve grown cherry tomatoes for the past two years along with starting grape tomatoes this year and I’ve had much more success with them than larger varieties. I think they tend to be more disease resistant, more vigorous, more productive, and fruit matures more quickly.

Also try growing them in bags or raised beds where it’s kept away from the ground where pests can get at them easier. Another thing you can do is cover the soil around them with straw mulch in order to reduce soil splash onto the plant when it’s being watered–this can transmit diseases to the plant. Pick off all the bottom half foot of leaves or so on the plant when it’s big enough too to reduce soil splash hitting leaves.