Forums were awesome until the ads took over. Then apps like Tapatalk made reading them easier. Then Tapatalk went to shit and power users migrated to reddit (mainly for the easy to use wepage and awesome independent apps.).

Then reddit shit the bed so now Lemmy is filling the gaps.

Hey now, I feel attacked.

We had half the typing lab full of IBM’s with 5.25" floppies running WordPerfect 5.1

The other half was the IBM selectric typewriters.

Oh and “Get off my lawn!!!”

It’s a very distinctive area from the pictures. It also helps that I have been there.

1:10 do not recommend a visit - too hot, no booze, mediocre food, and everyone smokes way too much. The oppressive culture isn’t that great either.

That is in Saudi Arabia. Not that far from the border with Jordan.

GPS 30.0095403, 38.3257591

Those are mostly alfalfa fields that Saudi decided to use a fossil aquifer to water. Their wells are running dry and which is why there is so many abandoned fields. These are areas they don’t have enough water. It’s mixed in with date palms now as well.

Uh-oh

Windows 11 adoption to business customers is really bad. Most of the adoption to 11 has been from people purchasing new home computers and being stuck with 11 (I have two win 11 computers now).

Since the bulk of Microsoft’s revenue comes from business customers, they have a huge impact on decisions.

At this point the only decision Microsoft can make is to write off win 11 as a failue. Resuming feature upgrades to win 10 makes business sense.

Oopsy, the credit cards are maxed out already due to their gouging So purchasing will remain low until credit card debt declines.

Oh wait, that’s not going to happen anytime soon because the landlords are price fixing.

The first one is the main reason we could afford to have kids.

We were able to buy our first house because of three things. First the housing market crash in 2008-9. My wife’s car was totaled by a rich bitch in a Mercedes. Our rented duplex was robbed and we had renters insurance. The combination of insurance payments and cheaper prices allowed us to purchase our first home.

My house payment hasn’t changed since 2009. It made up 36% of our take-home income then. Today it makes up less than 11%. I pay less per month than it costs to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in my area.

The older I get the more I see that landlords are a parasite on society. They extract huge amounts of wealth from the suffering of others.

This is a really, really, bad idea.

The issue is that sticky traps are non-specific. Any insect the size of a trip can be trapped. Then when predators are attracted to all the free food, they are potentially stuck or damaged as well.

Thrips are also one of the easiest species to control using predatory species.

They are not all bad. In the early 2000’s a breeder created a logistical method create tetraploids in 6 years (5 generations every 2 years). He used 3 countries to do it in if I recall correctly.

He integrated some of the small seeded deep red fleshed Chinese germplasm combined with the old flavorful allsweet types to make dramatically improved tetraploids.

Other companies have followed suit and the average quality of the fruit has improved. Some of the newer ones have really excellent flavor.

Also a bit of trivia I had to double check.

The seedless watermelon against Catholics image.

The original picture is one I took.

A. They have no significant difference in nutrition than non-GMO. In fact many GMO’s have been created to improve nutrition but sadly not used because of dumbfucks like Greenpeace who would rather have people go blind or die than accept GMO food. For example, rice that produces vitamin A and folic acid have been created but never used.

B. The “Terminator” GMO gene was created by the USDA-ARS and was NEVER released. No seed on the market has ever had a GMO sterility gene. Contrary to public opinion, it was designed to be integrated with other GMO genes to prevent the outcrossing and spread into the environment, not as an IP control mechanism.

Now why seedless watermelons suck is an interesting story.

The first intentional creation of a seedless watermelon was done in 1939 in Japan. University breeding programs in the southern U.S. after WWII began using the technology to create the first hybrids. In the early '50’s and '60’s multiple tetraploids were created by the university programs and released to private companies to produce seed with.

These tetraploid lines were “greys”. “Greys” were selected to have a thick hard rind for long distance shipping. They were barely red on the inside and tasted slightly bitter. They all sucked for flavor.

A seedless watermelon hybrid is made by crossing a tetraploid female by a diploid male. The resulting hybrid (triploid) has 3 copies of every chromosome and is sterile.

Fertile stable tetraploids take a long time to create - around 15 generations of you are lucky. Seedless watermelons also took a long time to gain popularity in the market. So nobody put significant money or time into creating more tetraploid inbreds for over 40 years.

From the 1980’s when seedless watermelons were introduced until around 2010, everyone used those shitty old tetraploids as 2/3rds of the hybrid. Since 2010 companies have created new tetraploid to use, but a significant portion still use 70 year old shitty ones.

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Don’t forget Baccilus cereus and Clostridium perfringens.

Although the abdominal cramps and extreme diarrhea might be considered a normal day for those morons.

Full dinner for my family of 4 at McD’s us $65.

Full dinner at my locally owned restaurant that offers takeout plus lunch the next day from leftovers - $70.

My wife still thinks that the box filled with school books was not an appropriate TV stand. Sheesh… I wrapped it in a blue blanket to class it up.

Cheese made from raw milk is a great way to get all sorts of fun diseases like listeriosis.

The cheese making process is also unlikely to kill then virus but the aging process likely will.

Pegging the fine against the personal assets of the executives/board responsible for the crime would be more effective.

Fining a corporation just hurts the the employees.

I had a non-compete handed to me when I lived in California. I laughed my ass off and signed it. When I left the dumbass VP of HR threatened me with it.

My response was “Could you pretty please try to enforce it? My lawyer would absolutely love to represent me in court. FYI you know my lawyer. He was the paralegal that told you the non-compete contract wasn’t legal. You then screwed him over and got him laid him off. Guess who passed the bar exam 6 months ago!”

Most people enrolled in those programs are frequent business travelers who charge it to the company.

When I was traveling all the time I did global entry. Since it was for work, I paid for it with my companies credit card. I also did the interview during company hours, drove to the interview in a company vehicle, and paid for parking and lunch on the company dime.

Nobody blinked at the expense. Of course it was the same month I traveled for 3 weeks, hit 5 countries and 10 states. It took me a full day to do my expense report.