“Up to” in terms of anything. Up to inherently also contains zero.

I feel exactly the same way about “a fraction of” especially when it’s “a fraction of the price”, because 99/100 is a fraction, as is 100/100.

The upper portion of the Midwest US used to, specifically kwik trip gas stations. They have their own line of goods, and until like 2 yrs or so ago that included bagged milk. Very disappointing it’s no longer available. They said it wasn’t worth replacing the old bagging machine.

This is the second reference to elbows I’ve seen related to this topic, and I really don’t understand. Would you mind providing context?

I love those but my partner feels the same way you do, with the added perk that they hate the way the candies smell when I’m having one lol

No, not for many years now. This all happened 2008-10. I threatened a restraining order, and claimed I was sending everything to my attorney, including over a year worth of unanswered monthly “still made at me?” type of messages, and never heard from them again.

Several years later I learned they became a felon for sexual assault of another person (idk the person, but it does make keeping tabs on the stalker very easy as they are on the offender registry).

Soon I’ll be moving away from the area entirely and I’ll feel a lot better.

Honestly that caught me too.

I’d have to guess his family suspected/knew he was a piece of shit and wanted proof. Maybe he was also abusive? I don’t imagine someone like that would be like… super kind otherwise, you know?

I wouldn’t call it clingy so much as my ex was a stalker who followed me 1300 miles…

Close all your windows, and the blinds, watch Christmas movies with ice cream and cookies.

Always helps for me, lets me convince myself it’s winter and cozy

I don’t have air conditioning, other than window units that I try not to use to cool the place, but I do use them for dehumidification a lot when it’s hot out, and that helps an absolute ton.

It depends how I shove the tray back in. I add eggs to them more often than I take them out.

Currently I’m sorting my quail eggs between small and large because I’m going to use the small ones for chive blossom pickled eggs, and the large for a big batch of cookies, but usually they just end up wherever they fit, one tray at a time.

My chickens are going to be another month or two before they start laying.

I’m always home and don’t care if solicitors know it. If they look in the window they walk past, they see me. I used to try to hide but now I just watch them.

I have a no soliciting sign I wrote myself and taped to the door that says simply “no soliciting, no exceptions”. If they knock or leave their shit on my door I report them to the company they came from, as that’s illegal in my area. I frame it as their canvassers needing up-training and remind the company that if it continues they are breaking the law each and every time, and if it happens again I won’t contact them about it, I’ll report it elsewhere. I submit the thing anonymously through whatever contact us portal they have and a bullshit email address, so they can’t tie it to an address.

The only people who are legally allowed to knock are canvassers for political shit (and census people but that’s rare) so during election seasons I have a separate sign that says “I refuse to talk about politics with strangers. Go away and take your junk with you.”

I don’t get bothered much. But I do see people walk up to my door, then leave, at least once a week.

I’ve never had a problem with uninvited guests tho, as I’ve never ever had an open door policy for anyone. If I don’t expect you, you don’t come in. End of.

I don’t have a counter for you. I’m not sure I’ve ever come across your stuff before. At least not on this account. One of the others may have found you.

I mean I do now from this post, but before that.

Lactose intolerance is rough.

I don’t know this company but fiber came into my area (central WI) a few years ago and I couldn’t be happier.

Prior to that the infrastructure I was on for cable internet was old and would have frequent problems.

The brand new infrastructure is figuratively worth its weight in gold, imho, even if the company itself is just as crap and your price ends up the same.

Even better, the fiber cables run underground, so other than having them severed when digging, they won’t go out unless there is a major widespread outage. No random branch taking out your service in a wind storm or whatever nonsense.

I don’t see how that refutes what I said about why people don’t want to pay for it…?

lol ok, sure.

In what way? Give examples plz.

Nobody wants to pay for all the little individual piecemeal services and shit, because it’s wildly expensive and inconvenient, and because they keep adding ads to the paid stuff anyway because greed, so what benefit is there to paying?

Idk if it’s still a thing or how widespread it is, but they sell/sold live fish and small reptiles/amphibians as keychains… basically a small soft plastic pouch filled with oxygenated water so they can get crushed or suffocate in a week (turtles can probably survive a bit longer but… regardless it’s gross). First article I found was from 2015, this one is from 2023…

https://thoughtnova.com/animals-trapped-alive-in-keychains-sold-for-1-50-in-china

Is I/O in this context input/output? I’ve seen it used this way before but I’m not super techie so no clue.

In no particular order, here are my thoughts:

• most languages need to reform in large ways due to being at least partially tonal/inflection based (such as a rise in inflection to indicate a question). All languages need to add an additional conveyance mechanism to account for the loss of tone and inflection to indicate feeling, and anything else speech patterns normally convey, as suddenly all language works like texting
• people suddenly suck at talking in exactly the same ways they suck at writing, because they have to pick the right conjunction or homophone. Good luck two us all
• directional blinder hats would be a thing almost immediately (something that shields the light but has a covered hole in front to selectively open however wide you need, probably with hand controls and color filters and shit)
• light pollution dies down to facilitate conversation, but dark sky areas have to shutter their projects due to conversational twinkling (sad outcome :( )
• indoor light gets dimmer to facilitate conversation. 60 more stubbed toes happen every month
• sunglasses become the new unplugged headphones
• someone develops filtering goggles that cut the specific human communication wavelengths for people with epilepsy. They are a big hit with commuters and parents
• since people can no longer talk but it sounds like all else remains the same, someone would develop a translation device that does “blinks to speech” for blind and epileptic people, who could maintain use of the auditory old language and still function fine in society (good outcome, yay!) (I considered how they communicate back, but there’s no reason their light thing wouldn’t work so this is fine)
• more people opt to have their outer eyelids removed so they can eavesdrop on conversation while looking like they are sleeping (weird outcome, but it is a surgery that exists and divers sometimes elect to get it done to avoid wearing a mask. Inner eyelid is left in place, can’t tell from outside, but you can see through it apparently)
• private conversations become much more difficult, which forces everyone to act nicer in public, which reduces the amount of time people can be shitty, which in turn makes everyone nicer (yay happy outcomes!)
• it gets a lot harder to hide that you are watching porn or kinky boning when the blinking light gives away the… dialogue. Blackout curtain and door light stopper sales skyrocket literally overnight
• people rarely go missing in the woods or in wrecks. Everyone has a beacon every night, and there are huge social awareness campaigns to use your light this way. An international help pulse is developed so no matter where a person gets lost, they can blink for aid. 1km is quite far, meaning they would light up the area around them, especially multiple people blinking in unison. A project is launched to have satellites scan the night-facing surface looking for the pulse pattern, and is wildly successful. There is a brief trend among young teens to cry wolf, until the bills for wasting global resources start rolling in
• lots of famous people suddenly find themselves jobless, as singing is no longer a career. Since light pulses are completely sensually unrelated to music, instrumental music makes a big comeback, as do poetry recitations and stage plays. All the weirdo instruments from over the course of history are resurrected (best attempt) to add variety to the cultural landscape once filled with voices
• television and movies lose cultural significance as they lose the ability to tell many of the stories they do now (blinky light gives away your location in horror, ruins ambiance for romance, interrupts action sequences, etc. it’s just not amazing for the current form of visual entertainment)
• translation becomes a lot easier, as the effects of accents and dialects diminish. The light pulses can easily be read by software and translated to a different pattern (human speech sounds are so so much harder to parse)
• people have an easier time learning other languages now that everyone shares the same blinks framework; no pronunciation difficulties, just new patterns
• animals mostly very much dislike humans, and find us quite alarming. The blinking doesn’t help. Animals trained to respond to verbal cues have to be retrained to understand the blinks are an attempt to communicate something to them. Many animals now have problems in their homes due to the change (very sad outcome :( )

Thanks for taking the time to write all that out for me! I appreciate it and I’ll look into some of those!

Have a great day, friend!