I wouldn't consider it a "hack", but I'm always baffled by the number of people who don't use any kind of content blocker on the web, then complain about full-page ads, pop-ups, and autoplay videos. It's like going to a cheap motel with a lady of the night without bringing condoms.
I work on peoples' PCs at work (regular people and not business IT), and one thing that I do for every PC I work on is add uBlock Origin Lite to Chrome and uBlock Origin on other browsers no matter what. As 8 or 9 times out of 10 the shit that caused someone to bring in their PC for cleaning are actually full-screen scam messages and scummy ads on sites or from emails. The only times I ever randomly get someone that is upset about the blockers being installed are from either the pickup person not showing them how to use them. Or I get a random person that actually uses those "news" start pages like MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc. not understanding that the blank slides in the main slideshow are not actual articles and are ads.
Mine is that, except they DON'T complain. Like when someone is showing me a YouTube video on their device and an ad shows up 30 seconds in... I lunge for the mute button while I scan the room for a blanket, clipboard, or other item to shield us, yelling "AVERT YOUR EYES!!" but next to all of my commotion, they're just nodding along placidly like "Oh Coinbase, interesting."
Like... Aren't you affronted that some company paid another company to make it less convenient to do the thing you're trying to do?! Does the gaudy, pushy tone change to too-loud propaganda designed to coax you away from your money not gall you?!
"Idk sometimes the ads are interesting. Free month sounds good."
if I suspect something was spilled, I always let them know that we have accidental damage coverage and things like spills are covered and that makes the truth come out a bit smoother.
But it’s ok because they did too. So no social awkwardness, but you need to let hr know they lied about damaging company property and they should start packing their desk.
Honestly, this feels like a meme. I have been eating man ass for years and I am yet to find someone with an unwashed butthole. Considering how often I see this claim, one would think it would be a more common problem.
Not saying it can't happen but, Do you have any first hand experience to support the "So many men don't" part?
Continuing study after school. Whether its science, political theory, or anything, a lot of people stop reading or studying anything after college / school.
Doing something creative as an outlet (music, art, knitting, anything). A lot of people are just consumption machines nowadays, mostly consuming things other people have made, rather than creating something.
Physical exercise.
Having explicit long-term goals and working towards them.
None of those things needs a big time requirement. You could work out for 5 minute a day if you want, study for 5 minutes, and do something creative for 5 minutes.
Most people don't prioritize vitally important things like self study.
I agree, but putting the time to make space and pull out study material has to have the value of learning enough. I do actually study regularly, but we can't pretend it doesn't require significant energy and dedication to produce a result.
I would agree, except for the continue studying. Everyone has at least 20 minutes of downtime that they could put towards learning a new concept every day
They may have months without any time surplus. And then maybe some months where they do have a significant time surplus.
But never assume everyone has the same time to dedicate to things.
My mom is currently working 50h weeks and I'm sure that's on the lower end for some people. I'd prefer her to focus on not getting burnout so she is able to survive a bit longer, and that means she physically can't.
Everyone has the time, not everyone has the priorities (this isn't a dig, it's a reference to some inspirational speech I heard in high school). 50 hour work week and 56 hours of sleep leaves 62 hours in the week. Probably another 12 hours split across 7 days for cooking, eating, etc. which leaves 50 hours to recover, study, exercise, or do whatever she pleases.
She values using those 50 hours to recover from the 50 working hours more than learning a new concept. That's not invalid or wrong in any way, everyone has their priorities and values and they're allowed to do whatever they want with their time.
That being said, everyone has the time they just might not have the mental space. But increasing your human capital by learning something new is often a great way of reducing stress. Learn to handle something in a new way, learn a little about financial theory, learn something that helps you at work. The best weapon you have against the injustice of daily life is knowledge. If you have the mental space, find the time to learn something
ETA: Coming from the perspective of a full time student who spends 6+ hours daily searching for a job because I've been down on my luck since quitting a year ago. I grew up poor and watched my mom work full time, put herself through school, raise three kids, and continues to fight every day for the right to live; I know the struggle you're going through right now. Spend your time better than I did.
You didn’t mention: caring for elderly parents, getting out of an abusive relationship, working two jobs, having a disabled kid, having a chronic illness, being in a legal fight with a neighbour, the list goes on. How many hours a week does one of those take? What if you have two?
Sure, but if you're working 50 hours a week (assuming US, I dunno laws elsewhere) you're guaranteed 2.5 hours of mealtime per week that could be spent watching an informational video or reading an article.
I'm not saying "go back to school or you're wasting your time" I'm saying "you have a few minutes where you could be reading a new idea instead of sitting on social media"
Nah, real “people who can’t afford [blank] are just lazy” energy here. You have no idea what others have to do in their day to day lives. To some, working 50 hours a week would be a luxury, let alone time to go to school.
You're injecting malice into my words. The point was "if you have the mental space for it, you should spend your time learning because it helps reduce stress by being both cathartic and relieving issues in your life"
Same. I don't own any subscriptions except for YouTube premium. There is an endless amount of educational content on there and it's the only content I really watch.
As a programmer, same. Endless content on every programming concept, language, or niche that you can think of. Math videos often as well. Numberphile is one of my favorite math channels. They have a computer channel too.
Yeah, I am also a programmer. I'm nearing the end of a double degree in mathematics and computer science. Finding a new video at this point is honestly exciting because I've seen pretty much everything! (or so it feels)
I have ADHD with ASD tendencies, despite not being autistic (long story). People like us are more frequently the types who find something new to be interesting, then dive in and learn EVERYTHING about it. For example, I recently bought a new car and spent days near obsessively learning about it. How it works (first electric car), how to model current vs acceleration, how to tear it down and rebuild it, etc. I'm now in the process of compiling a FAQ for my wife, who doesn't share my obsessive tendencies and can't retain my frequent "hey sweetie, this is interesting!" data dumps, and setting up monitoring and automations for it on our home lab.
I used to think this was what everyone did. Turns out it's not normal.
Vote early. Almost every single area in the US has early voting at least 2 weeks before elections. People complain about long lines and lack of ballots on election day. You know what you get if you stumble into a polling place before that? A couple of bored poll workers in an otherwise empty building. You get your ballot, fill it out, and leave within 5 minutes. I seriously don't understand why this isn't used more.
There's been a misinformation campaign for years that early/mail votes "don't count" or get thrown away, so people wait until "real" election day to make sure things are "handled properly"...
In Ohio you have to vote early at the county election board and last I checked it was only open regular business hours. For me that means 30 minute drive in, pay for parking, 30 minute drive home. Waiting until election day I can walk to my piling place in 10 minutes, wait in line for 30-45,then walk home in 10 minutes. For a lot of places it's not as easy as voting on election day.
Using password managers. All of my friends and family refuse to use them but always complain about getting locked out of accounts due to forgetting login details. I leave them too it now.
When someone asks a thing like this on Lemmy, look up the same thread on Reddit (guaranteed to find it was recently also posted there) and copy-pasta some of the top posts. Guaranteed worthless internet up arrows.
I mean... you're not wrong. Just thought that it would be a great question to ask here. Also, with fewer users on Lemmy, there tend to be more genuine answers than on Reddit.
I'm really bad about actually swapping my toothbrushes when I should so they end up completely spent by the time I replace them and are unusable for anything else
So I play guitar. I had a problem where I would sometimes drop my pick. Then, one day, I had an idea. I took some copper wire and attached it to a pick through a small hole I burned into it with a needle. I wrapped the wire around my finger. Now I physically cannot drop my pick.
That’s without counting the extra money spent on replacing strings, I’m sure using this kind of thing regularly would seriously shorten their lifespan.
Mask. N95 or better. My wife and I never stopped, and she never gets sick despite being immunocompromised. I work in a place where illness is common due to the environment and I’ve been sick once in the last year, meanwhile all of my coworkers come in sick like twice a month. Apparently they’d rather be sick and miserable all the time than wear a mildly uncomfortable thing on their face.
My oldest just started Pre-K so we're now having a fresh plague circle the house for the second time this month. Hopefully within a year or so we'll have developed enough immunity to enough children's plagues to not get sick as frequently
Yes yes yes! I work facing the public and I interact with people from all over the world. Me wearing a mask just feels like a basic courtesy. I could potentially spread diseases around like mad.
I'm glad it's more accepted now, but I have had a lot of people "looking out for my safety" to put it mildly. That's what they say they're doing. Really, they're just confronting me and demand answers to personal questions as they "educate" me.
Agreed. We have kept wearing masks in specific places (public transit, crowded events, airplanes) and it really does make a difference. I never get sick from airplane trips any more, which used to be a fairly regular occurrence.
I will say, I was never able to figure out how to stop a properly fitted mask from giving me a terrible headache after 8 hours of use so I'm glad I work from home and don't need to make the choice of mask vs comfort at work.
While wearing a mask is never a bad idea, it is absolutely not necessary to not get sick. I am also immunocompromised and I have stopped wearing a mask. I wash my hands very often and never eat handheld food without washing first. Zero issues since getting covid back when I was wearing a mask religiously.
I thought masks wouldn't protect against a virus (being tiny) but might help slow the spread to others by stopping spittle/moisture filled with virus from covering real world objects.
How do they help you if no one else is wearing them?
I recommend giving this a read when you have the time, it should hopefully answer any questions you have and better than I can.
An assumed droplet and contact mode of transmission leads to prevention policies that center on handwashing and surface cleansing, maintaining 2-m physical distancing, wearing medical masks (whose waterproof backing is designed to stop droplets) within that 2-m distance (especially when attending an infected patient), using physical barriers (e.g., plastic screens) and providing health-care workers with higher-grade respiratory protection only when undertaking AGMPs. However, if the virus is transmitted significantly by the airborne route, different prevention policies are needed, oriented to controlling air quality in indoor spaces (e.g., ventilation and filtration), reducing indoor crowding and time spent indoors, wearing masks whenever indoors, careful attention to mask quality (to maximize filtration) and fit (to avoid air passing through gaps), taking particular care during indoor activities that generate aerosols (e.g., speaking, singing, coughing, and exercising), and providing respirator-grade facial protection to all staff who work directly with patients (not just those doing AGMPs)
This is why I specified N95 respirators in my first comment. If you are unfamiliar, N95 is a NIOSH air filtration rating, which is used to describe the ability of a respirator to protect the wearer from airborne solid and liquid particulates. The review I linked goes into more details on this as well. I recommended N95 or better specifically because Covid is the illness I’m most concerned with avoiding, and the evidence suggests that they provide meaningful protection over lower grade respirators or surgical masks. Another quote from the link above that stood out to me:
The certification of surgical masks for particle/bacterial filtering efficiency (P/BFE) does not reflect equivalence to respirators as the filtration is typically compromised by poor face seal. The ASTM F2100-21 P/BFE certification, for example, requires at least 95% filtration against 0.1-µm particles and at least 98% against aerosolized Staphylococcus aureus, but this is on a sample of the mask clamped in a fixture, not on a representative face. In terms of filtering aerosols, N95 respirators outperform surgical masks between 8- and 12-fold. The effectiveness of certified surgical mask material against transmission when used as a filter was demonstrated in a hamster SARS-CoV-2 model. Infected hamsters were separated from non-infected ones by a partition made of surgical mask material; when the partition was in place, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was reduced by 75%.
In addition to protecting the wearer, respirators provide very effective source control by dramatically limiting the amount of respiratory aerosols emitted by infectious individuals. In one study, risk of infection was reduced approximately 74-fold when infected, and susceptible individuals both wore well-fitting FFP respirators compared to when both wore surgical masks.
As for one-way masking, well, it is unfortunately significantly less effective (from what I understand), and is a big part of why I’m so concerned by others not masking. I simply cannot avoid being around others all the time, and their lack of effort is directly endangering me and my wife. If it really all came down to personal choice, I wouldn’t care if people wanted to risk their health. Still, while I don’t have any studies or anything to link you at the moment specifically on the effectiveness of one-way masking, all I know is that I mask and don’t get sick, and they don’t mask and do get sick. It’s anecdotal, sure, and I’m certain the mask is not the only thing affecting this, but as far as I can see it’s the largest difference in our behavior. I’ve heard as well that wearing a respirator will reduce viral load should you be infected despite the filter, and so your sickness will be less severe, but I don’t have any evidence on hand for this.
Because the virus is transmitted via spittle/moisture from other people not wearing masks. The virus doesn't just hang out in the air on its own; it's suspended in aerosol particles.
To reduce spread of respiratory diseases, we need to understand the mechanisms of spread. There is strong and consistent evidence that respiratory pathogens including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, tuberculosis, and other coronaviruses such as MERS and SARS-1, are transmitted predominantly via aerosols. Infected individuals, whether symptomatic or not, continuously shed particles containing pathogens, which remain viable for several hours and can travel long distances. [Emphasis mine.] SARS-CoV-2 is shed mainly from deep in the lungs, not the upper respiratory tract, and the viral load is higher in small aerosols (generated in the lower airways) than in larger droplets (generated in upper airways). Whereas large respiratory droplets emitted when people cough or sneeze fall quickly by force of gravity without much evaporation, those below 100 µm in diameter become (bio)aerosols. Even particles tens of microns in diameter at release will shrink almost immediately by evaporation to the point that under typical conditions they can remain airborne for many minutes. In contrast with droplet transmission, which is generally assumed to occur via a single ballistic hit, the risk of airborne transmission increases incrementally with the amount of time the lung lining is exposed to pathogen-laden air, in other words, with time spent indoors inhaling contaminated air.
Respiratory infections may theoretically also be transmitted by droplets, by direct contact, and possibly by fomites (objects that have been contaminated by droplets), but the dominant route is via respiratory aerosols. The multiple streams of evidence to support this claim for SARS-CoV-2 include the patterning of spread (mostly indoors and especially during mass indoor activities involving singing, shouting, or heavy breathing), direct isolation of viable virus from the air and in air ducts in ventilation systems, transmission between cages of animals connected by air ducts, the high rate of asymptomatic transmission (i.e., passing on the virus when not coughing or sneezing), and transmission in quarantine hotels when individuals in different rooms shared corridor air but did not meet or touch any common surface.
The sentence after the one you emphasized seems to be saying what I was: the virus is in aerosol particles or potentially droplets, which are what your mask protects you from.
Key word being occasionally, and also not with a disease that causes serious health complications, cognitive decline, and that itself damages your immune system.
Exposure to one virus rarely leads to a resistance to another one. That's why they have a new flu vaccine every year even though they're all closely related. Cow pox immunizating against small pox was a fluke
It's more about being exposed to everyday bacteria, pollen, and hot/cold cycling that gives your immune system exercise.
Where did you live? I always wore a mask around other people, but I also live in a rural area, so I didn't need to wear a mask for that many hours comparatively.
Also in a more rural area. After Covid was over I got pretty sick 4-5 times from just normal colds. What used to be a slight headache had me bedridden. This happened a few times but gradually improved.
Now years later my immune system is back up and running again.
The level of sick for which this is true is below the threshold of what we normally call "getting sick". You're always fighting off something. That's what's good for you. Not the getting overwhelmed and having to stay in bed amount.
When you come home after a night of heavy boozing, just chug an entire liter of water before you go to bed. It prevents the worst part of the hangover, headaches, which are just from dehydration.
This used to work for me but these days the only way it works is if I pace myself with a big glass of water in between each alcoholic drink. The "chug a liter before bed" only somewhat helps now, but barely.
I dont drink often anymore, and not heavily, just a few glasses of wine or a beer or two. I don't feel like the pear affects the high at all. Maybe I don't get hungover because I don't drink enough, but I like to credit the pear.
Using shift + scroll wheel to horizontally scroll in a UI. Whenever I see my project manager going all the way to the bottom of the application and dragging the scrollbars to move horizontally it just kills me a bit inside haha.
I'm just glad that KDE now has an option to disable pasting using the middle mouse button (mousewheel). Only available on Wayland though - AFAIK this behaviour is deeply rooted in X11 and it's not easy to disable it.
I had a Logitech MX Ergo mouse that allegedly had horizontal scrolling. The wheel could tilt left and right which clicked like a button, and the screen would scroll very very slightly to the side. Worst trackball I've ever had.
Just before they stopped making PCs, I saw an IBM computer with a mouse that had one of their Thinkpad clits instead of a scroll wheel. So a proper XY input. I think a blackberry ball would work too.
Email management. Like at all. Set up filters and use the archive. There is a key to do that. And holy fuck 2432 unread emails? You should be ashamed of yourself
Used to work in a public library. Majority of the job was walking people through "forgot password" which was never a simple affair, and getting to see what a Hotmail/Yahoo/AOL inbox looks like with like 90,000 unread because they gave their email to every store and web form they ever encountered.
Problem I have is I got my [email protected] as my email address. Many times when people with my same last name they'll type firstname[email protected] for their email address. And guess who gets signed up?
At first I unsubscribed, replied back to emails that were meant for someone else, etc. But the number of things to unsubscribe from unmanageable and it gets to be too much of a chore.
Holy cow, we have the same problem. I only got [email protected] so I only get folks with permutations of my first and last name, but to this day I still get my Nigerian counterpart's bank statements. I've got my UK counterpart's PayPal payments for artwork they did. I've had my Australian counterpart's job recruiters reaching out to me for months. It's kind of embarrassing when I tell them they have the wrong email...
i don't use my fingertips on public. door knobs, rails, etc. i use knuckles or fist or elbow or whatever. my finger tips are not for public use. started during covid, never got covid. barely ever get sick.
Mine is wear a medical grade mask in public spaces.
It does multiple things.
First it protects you from air borne pathogens like viruses and especially COVID.
Second, if you are confronted or people get mad at you for wearing one, it immediately let's you know what kind of people are around. If they're the type that will get mad at you for wearing a mask, it's definitely a place to leave and avoid in the future. A mask is a great way to weed people out in public.
My wife has lifelong lung problems now and we can't risk any infections. So wearing a mask is necessary for me ... and at this point in my life, it's normal now and I find that it's normal for most people. 90% of the people that see me in a mask notice but immediately understand and don't make an issue of it. It's 10% of the loudest idiots that make it a problem and a mask is a great way to unmask them (pun intended)
Cancel subscriptions when you sign up, fuck auto renewals and save some money if there's a gap before the next time you need or use the service, and gives you a chance to consider if it's worth the money or ethical concerns when manually renewing subs.
Years ago, a family member (who was on my mobile phone family account) was getting charged monthly for some mobile game. I would point it out every month, and they were like "Yeah...I need to cancel that..."
It took over a year for them to get around to canceling it.
My credit card offers virtual credit card numbers AND the ability to auto-lock the virtual numbers so you can set a date and after that the number will not accept new charges.
I make sure to use a virtual card number for everything subscription based, then I immediately set the auto-lock feature to expire in a few days (give the initial charge time to clear but still plenty of time before the subscription would otherwise renew).
Some subscription services make it super tough to cancel. This method fixes that issue for the most part. Some subscription services terminate immediately once you cancel the subscription, even if you still have "time left" otherwise. This way you don't really have to formally unsubscribe. It's easy peasy pumpkin breezy as the common folk like to say.
I saw a similar thread on Reddit about 12 years ago and one of the suggestions near the bottom that didn't have any comments on it is something I've incorporated into my daily life and it has made a huge difference: Adjust your car mirrors so you have no blind spots.
Most people have their side mirrors adjusted where they can see a portion of their own car in the mirror. This leaves you with large blind spots. To adjust them where you have no blind spots, sit in the driver's seat and lean your head over to the left as far as you can (basically putting your head on the window), then adjust the driver's side mirror to where you can just barely see your car in it. Then lean your head over to the passenger side about the same amount and adjust that mirror.
When adjusted properly if you can see a car in your rearview mirror, you shouldn't be able to see that car in your side mirrors, but as soon as a car is no longer visible in the rearview mirror it should be visible in one of your side mirrors. Then when it is no longer visible in your side mirror it should be in your peripheral vision.
It takes some getting used to, but once dialed in and you're used to it then it makes changing lanes a breeze. It also helps at night if someone behind you has bright lights because you'll only see them in one mirror instead of all 3.
I happen to know from own experience that my Firefox will become slow and crash randomly when I get near 1000 tabs. Then I discovered OneTab extension and I just all the open tabs to a single OneTab page where it can be found later If needed (but I rarely do 😅). But feels much easier than just closing all.
Keeping an insulated water bottle around to drink from. How do people go to sleep knowing they either have to get up to take a drink or settle for some lukewarm side table water from a glass or plastic bottle??? Not to mention the waste I see with people using disposable water bottles (which have the time and place of course, but at home ain’t it.)
To add: drink water throughout the day in general. Especially where tap water is safe to drink. You're going to pass up the opportunity to improve your health and daily wellbeing, easily and for free? WHY?
Random side note. I actually prefer room temperature water. Sensitive teeth. And i try to keep my backpack as light, so it's a one layer water bottle for me.
If I’m doing any kind of physical activity it has to be room temp or my stomach complains. But otherwise I like it a bit cold. And I agree on the weight thing, if I’m camping or otherwise away from convenience, I want a single walled, lighter container.
I use a half gallon insulated metal water bottle/jug and it's incredible. I love it so much, and I couldn't go back to even a normal sized one. I drink easily a half gallon a day now. I'm about to upgrade to a 1 gallon, because the lid on my half gallon is difficult to open, and the 1 gallon has a much better lid. I know it seems ridiculous, but it made a carry bag for it with a strap to wear almost like a messenger bag. I can carry all my shit and get hydrated at the same time. So fantastic.
Also, buzio is the brand on Amazon (I know. God, I know, but we don't have a lot of options where I live. If anyone knows a better one, I'd love to hear it). They're great. Everyone in my family has one in different sizes
Yeah, I started with 32, upgraded to 40, and then decided screw it and jumped to a half gallon. I keep the 40 around for when I make smoothies or something. It's oversized, but it has a straw and keeps everything nice and cold
Buying another box, bag, etc. of soap, toilet paper, tooth paste and whatever long lasting product before it runs out. It doesn't expire (fast), therefore I always have a second, full bag as a buffer, and as soon as I have to open the second one, I put it on the shopping list so there is always a buffer bag and I don't get annoyed if I still forget to buy one or it's out of stock.
It's been years since I had to use some weird substitute for toilet paper.
Use https://fallingfruit.org/ to get free, fresh food. Maybe once a week ill hit up the fruit trees and get a huge amount of free citrus, mangoes, almonds, loquats and fresh herbs (lemongrass, rosemary and lavendar mostly). There is also a ridiculous amount of olive trees on public land in my city, if I had the time and inclination to brine them properly I could probably make 20kg a week during the fruiting season. But I could never use or even give away that much olive.
I havent paid for limes, lemons, oranges or mandarins in years and I consume at least a couple kilos a week.
In the US, if you're a first time homebuyer you can buy a home with zero cash in hand. You can roll closing costs into the mortgage and have no down-payment. You'll pay more out of pocket for a few years but in many areas it's still cheaper than rent - and rent just keeps going up while a mortgage stays the same. Many states also have free programs where you can take a class and they'll give you a grant towards buying a home.
Credit unions tend to have the best rates. Get into a credit union even if it's just a secondary account that you toss $5 into each paycheck.
Also, there are programs through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for first time homebuyers that prioritizes them over investors. This is the easiest way to get into homeownership but the houses are usually fixer uppers.
People don't do this because it's not a good idea for almost everyone. If you don't put money down, your monthly payment will be astronomical, and THEN you will have to pay PMI on top of that (which isn't applied to the mortgage OR interest) until you hit 20% paid. That money is thrown away and depending on where you live, it can be close to a rent payment on its own, without the actual mortgage payment. If you can afford a massive mortgage with PMI, you can afford to save a down payment. The only time I would do what you suggest is if my income was way more than rent and I was in a rush to move into a house.
In what reality is PMI close to a rent payment? It doesn't seem like you know what you're talking about.
I think you're dramatically overestimating how much it will add to a mortgage to use this strategy. For example, let's look at a $250,000 home - the average for my area.
If you put 20% down, your payment will be $1242/mo plus Property Taxes. Certainly cheaper than rent, but most folks don't have $50,000 sitting around.
So let's say you put $0 down and roll $9000 closing costs into your mortgage. Your monthly payment will be $1,843 of which only $214 is PMI. Still cheaper than the average rent in my area.
Even if you're buying a $1mil home with this strategy, the PMI would only be $850/mo. Where are you getting that PMI would be close to a mortgage payment?? You seem to be regurgitating bad faith advice that keeps people scared of homeownership when the reality is that it's an excellent move for many folks.
We live in very different places. Multiply most of those numbers by about 6 and you have my area. I'm not exaggerating - 3 bedroom attached house of 1.5million, mortgage of 6.5k, PMI of $2500. Average rent is 2-3k for a 1 bedroom.
I've lived it. If your average home is $250k, your situation is nothing like mine or half the country that lives in cities. Your advice only applies to rural areas with extremely low cost of living.
I worked at banks for most of my career and was engaged to the lead mortgage lender, and together we hosted quarterly free events for our community to show people how to get into homeownership. I suspect you're lying in bad faith to try to scare people out of homeownership and push the agenda that Millennials and Gen Z can't own a home. I encourage anyone reading this to do their own research and contact their bank's mortgage team to determine if its feasible for them.
Over half of millennials are already homeowners, and I'd love to see that number go up.
Can you recommend anything for learning more about this? We've been trying to go through the USDA because we cannot afford a down payment, but they require the house to be in basically perfect condition, meaning there's nothing we can afford.
I went thru USDA for my first home and they had similar constraints. Talk with your bank's mortgage lender. It's possible that an FHA loan would do you better.
FYI if you get a FHA loan, you can't remove the PMI at all without refinancing. This was implemented after the crash in '07/'08. You can still get a conventional loan without doing the full 20%. I put around 10% down and just dropped PMI after about 4 years, though I likely could have removed it earlier if I'd paid for a new appraisal due to the increased property value.
Home cooking. It is super easy and about 100x healthier. Don't know how? Get the America's Test Kitchen Best Skillet Recipes book. Lots of super easy things in there. Once you get in the habit you really only have to do it 3-4 times a week, and there are lots of frozen meals.
using an ad blocker. personally, i use ad blockers for years and when i work on a friends laptop im shocked how much ads there are actually.
i cant count on a hand how mucn i told my father he should use ad blocker browser and extenstion. and he wont do it. recently, i changed the DNS server on a router level to nextdns, where it blocks ads and trackers. he told me its amazing how smoother the experience is now
password managers. as an IT specialist i have about 300 login details for many services, personal, work and clients. every login has its own password and eventually email too.
and i know sooooo many people who forgot their passwords (they have about 3 very similar ones but ok) and try them all until they find out they had to creat a new for that specific service. and they are so unaware about the dangers (for example fishing, SE, ...) with this method.
For me it's reminders. I use slack for work, and whenever anything comes up that I need to take care of (personal or work related) I'll tell slack "/remind me about tomorrow/next week".
I've been doing this for years. I have it on my phone and computer so it's easy to view and add new reminders whenever I need. I didn't think slack is crucial to use but I find it to be the most convenient, even more so then dedicated reminder apps
I use Notion+Notion Calendar for this and I delegate to it a lot of stuff: bureaucracy, booking the barber, changing the bedsheets, all my work, birthdays, etc etc. How can people trust their brain with more than two or three items is unfathomable to me. I mean, when I was younger I could keep in mind a dozens upcoming appointments and go through them every few hours to make sure I wouldn't miss anything, but as soon as your routine is disturbed by work stuff, it's impossible.
I've heard notion calendar is the best calendar software out there. If it also supports reminders really well (and I'm already a notion user), then maybe this is worth checking out.
Having hand sanitizer in your everyday bag. I’ve been doing it way before the pandemic and it’s a quick and easy way to disinfect while you’re out and about and not near a restroom to wash your hands.
Want to get free food a couple of times a month? Just go on eventbrite and meetup and look up free events in your area. If you are in a relatively large city, chances are there are a ton of free events every week where you can just show up and get free food in exchange for a little socializing.
Well technically you can avoid the socialization part (eat-and-run). As long as you can get to the food without having to talk to someone first, you should be good.
A user on Lemmy a while back (can't recall their name) had said that when they get fast food fries, they don't salt the fries, they salt the ketchup.
I will confirm that this is a fantastic idea because it makes every fry taste equally salted, and gives the salt a way to actually adhere to the fries instead of just ending up in the bottom of the container or on your table.
My own recommendation where I can't believe more people don't do it is buying no name/store brand stuff when getting groceries and supplies. I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't do this because marketing has pushed them into thinking these are "inferior" or are not as good, but 7 times out of 10 the no name/store brand stuff is equal in quality or better while also being something like 20-40 percent cheaper. Just because something is different than the name brand stuff does not make it worse, just different. Like you DONT need a more expensive type of aluminum foil for example, the cheapest aluminum foil is identical in quality.
that sounds actually excellent. I got a sack of potatoes and a deep fryer, would a pre made bottled sauce be worthy or should I just look up a recipe and do it the real way?
This one is sort of very specific and niche, but as a caregiver of someone with an ostomy, you can take a roll of this disposable plastic produce bags from the grocery store. Terrible for use as a produce bag because they're plastic and disposable and whatnot, but for bag empties when you need to use something disposable no matter what? They're invaluable.
Also doggy poop bags. Great for that. Just grab one of the small almost empty rolls, and tell the cashier "I'mma take these" and no one gives a shit
Simple, next time you wipe, first wipe the excess, but no scrubbing.
Then take another piece of twice folded to and put a blob of spit it in.
Gently scrub your abus.
Repeat as needed until tp comes out still leave.
Not only will this get you way more cleaner more faster, you abus will suffer much less damage per event.
Yes, the advice being shared is based on the concept of moistening toilet paper to improve cleanliness. Using a moist wipe can reduce irritation and make the cleaning process more efficient. Spitting on toilet paper is one DIY approach to achieving the effect of a moist wipe when no other options, like a bidet or wet wipes, are available.
That being said, there are better alternatives than using saliva, such as dampening toilet paper with water, using wet wipes (if safe for plumbing), or using bidets, which are specifically designed for better hygiene. Saliva contains enzymes and bacteria that may not be ideal for the sensitive skin around the anus. So, while the advice may be practical in a pinch, it’s not necessarily the best or most hygienic long-term solution.
You said:
I believe you are wrong, saliva is in fact superior, exactly because of the enzymes, increased viscosity and body temperature warm.
ChatGPT said:
You're correct that saliva has unique properties, such as enzymes (like amylase), increased viscosity, and being body-temperature warm, which can aid in certain situations. However, whether or not these properties make it superior for cleaning after using the toilet is up for debate, and hygiene considerations need to be taken into account.
Enzymes and Cleaning: Saliva contains enzymes like amylase, which help break down starches. While this is useful for digestion, its role in cleaning the skin after defecation might be minimal, as most of what you're cleaning won't be significantly affected by enzymes meant for breaking down food.
Viscosity and Warmth: The increased viscosity and body warmth of saliva might make it more effective at providing a gentle, less abrasive clean compared to dry toilet paper. This could also be more comfortable and reduce irritation.
Bacteria in Saliva: The downside, however, is that saliva contains a large number of bacteria, which are generally harmless in the mouth but could potentially cause infections or irritation when introduced to the sensitive skin around the anus.
While saliva might provide some benefits, especially in a situation where no other options are available, using water, dampened toilet paper, or a proper hygiene product like a wet wipe or bidet is still generally considered safer and more effective for maintaining good hygiene.
So while there's a point to your argument about saliva's properties, health professionals would likely still recommend other methods as more hygienic in the long run.
Huh, I've always just bought small trashbags, never crossed my mind to just grab the whole roll of those produce bags. Still might not, feels wrong to just take them. :)
Someone just suggested to me that I should be putting my chocolate bars in the freezer first. I've never heard of this, but apparently it's a thing that I've been missing out on for a while.
So I guess I'm the one who can't believe that I don't do it.
I feel like most intelligent people are now on the bidet bandwagon, but it still blows my mind how many people I know that still resist using one (even when readily available). Quit being fuckin disgusting!
Some of these same people wonder why their sex life is mediocre at best. Maybe it's your hygiene. Just sayin.
During my first trip to Japan I was reluctant to use it.
My manager was traveling with me and he bought one to take home and he already had one from a previous trip and he kept talking about how life changing it was
I finally decided to use the bidet on my last day of the trip and it was a life changer. I had to go back to Japan a month later and I got a nice Toshiba that unfortunately died early this year but now you can find bidets easily on Amazon or Costco
I actually saw those once! Was so confused what they were at first, I was visiting the USA at the time and they had them in some of their public toilets.
But then they also have a huge - intentional - gap in the doors on those cubicles, so that people outside the cubicle waiting to use it were just watching me poop.
It was really fucked up, and not just a one off design mistake, this was EVERY public bathroom. Mental.
If you're going to make simple syrup, use a stick blender.
Firstly, it's easier and faster than heating the sugar and water in a pot, which is the most popular method.
Secondly, you don't lose any significant amount of water to evaporation. That's not a big deal if you make 1:1 simple syrup, but if you're going 2:1 (which I prefer), you're already very close to the maximum solubility of sugar in water at room temperature. Losing a few grams of water can make it supersaturated, which leads to sugar crystals falling out of solution over time. Not a big deal, but a little annoying.
If you give it a try, bear in mind that you're going to get a cloudy syrup at first. That's totally normal, and it's not undissolved sugar, it's just air bubbles. They'll float out over time.
Neti Pots. I clean our my sinuses every night before bed, and I rarely get sick. Of course it's not a miracle cure, but it's great at preventing a viral infection before it starts.
Doesn't frequent cleaning of sinuses cause irritation? I believe healthy sinuses should be mostly self cleaning. Of course if you have some long-term condition then it's different
I don't have any irritation, but I'm a big robust guy, so perhaps milage may vary.
And sure, I would assume that the sinuses are self-cleaning to an extent, but they are also designed to be a filter to keep junk out of our lungs. The way I see it, I'm just cleaning the filter out before I go to bed.
Warm salt water. That makes sure that the water is not pulling salt out of your cells. Doing it without salt is painful and dangerous. Also the salt should be without iodine added.
I too feel like there is like one or more reasons some people say to not use them (I haven't used one myself). Though I think that one thing is that if you don't clean the pot very thoroughly, it might cause some bad infections. But that would be true of anything like that since bacteria can thrive on warm moist devices that come into contact with our bodies (and from the buildup that you would be trying to clear).
No, using them is fine. It's every night that I was concerned about. They sell a special packet that you mix with water and I believe it says not to do it too often. I believe regular salt water would probably be okay.
Buying & steeping loose leaf tea instead of bagged garbage. Higher quality, lower price, actually tastes decent with multiple steeps. If I don’t finish the leaves, I fill the teapot with water to have cold brew the next morning. If you get into it, an electric kettle that lets you set the temperature is essential since you can avoid burning leaves much easier & unlocking more delicate leaves that require lower temperatures. Last tip which should be obvious: no milk or sugar & if you think it tastes bad, why do you keep buying black tea instead of something good?
When eating chicken wing flats, if you pry the bones apart you can slip them out and you're left with a single piece of meat you can eat whole. You don't have leftover bits in the middle of the two bones.
Also, keep nitrile gloves in your glove box or purse and use them when eating messy things like wings and ribs and cake.
I wouldn't consider it a "hack", but I'm always baffled by the number of people who don't use any kind of content blocker on the web, then complain about full-page ads, pop-ups, and autoplay videos. It's like going to a cheap motel with a lady of the night without bringing condoms.
More like going to a cheap motel and not expecting bedbugs.
Bed bugs do not discriminate. You can get them in the nicest hotels. Always check.
I work on peoples' PCs at work (regular people and not business IT), and one thing that I do for every PC I work on is add uBlock Origin Lite to Chrome and uBlock Origin on other browsers no matter what. As 8 or 9 times out of 10 the shit that caused someone to bring in their PC for cleaning are actually full-screen scam messages and scummy ads on sites or from emails. The only times I ever randomly get someone that is upset about the blockers being installed are from either the pickup person not showing them how to use them. Or I get a random person that actually uses those "news" start pages like MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc. not understanding that the blank slides in the main slideshow are not actual articles and are ads.
Mine is that, except they DON'T complain. Like when someone is showing me a YouTube video on their device and an ad shows up 30 seconds in... I lunge for the mute button while I scan the room for a blanket, clipboard, or other item to shield us, yelling "AVERT YOUR EYES!!" but next to all of my commotion, they're just nodding along placidly like "Oh Coinbase, interesting."
Like... Aren't you affronted that some company paid another company to make it less convenient to do the thing you're trying to do?! Does the gaudy, pushy tone change to too-loud propaganda designed to coax you away from your money not gall you?!
"Idk sometimes the ads are interesting. Free month sounds good."
Jesus christ he's too far gone.
Some of the ad revenue goes to pay the people that made the content tho.
That content blocker's name
-- Ublock Origin
Working in IT.
Tell the truth.
We will get lied to straight to our face and when proven they are lying they double down and get annoyed.
We don't care that you spilt coffee on your keyboard, we just need to know it happened so we can get you a new one.
I think medical doctors have this same problem with lying and embarrassed patients.
Honestly, I was naked after the shower and just fell on it!
"Million to one shot, doc!"
Ah the ol “toilet plunger lodged 1.3m in the rectum” caper.
Happens every time.
"Everyone lies" - House, MD
House:"everybody lies"
if I suspect something was spilled, I always let them know that we have accidental damage coverage and things like spills are covered and that makes the truth come out a bit smoother.
And then you tell them you lied.
hahahahaha, in my case, I've been lucky that the places I've worked we actually have always bought the accidental damage coverage!
I also practically start the conversation with this info so I don't get lied to initially.
But it’s ok because they did too. So no social awkwardness, but you need to let hr know they lied about damaging company property and they should start packing their desk.
Wash their hands after using the bathroom.
Use a bidet in the bathroom.
do both, please
😭
Also actually cleaning yo buttox. So many men don't and it's disgusting
Huh, how do you know this? Not that I envy you though.
Butt inspector
Honestly, this feels like a meme. I have been eating man ass for years and I am yet to find someone with an unwashed butthole. Considering how often I see this claim, one would think it would be a more common problem.
Not saying it can't happen but, Do you have any first hand experience to support the "So many men don't" part?
Having time for all that would be nice.
None of those things needs a big time requirement. You could work out for 5 minute a day if you want, study for 5 minutes, and do something creative for 5 minutes.
Most people don't prioritize vitally important things like self study.
I agree, but putting the time to make space and pull out study material has to have the value of learning enough. I do actually study regularly, but we can't pretend it doesn't require significant energy and dedication to produce a result.
When you’re studying for a class you need to study hours to hit those deadlines. In adult life you can do 5 minutes a week if you want.
Yeah this screams privilege lol
I would agree, except for the continue studying. Everyone has at least 20 minutes of downtime that they could put towards learning a new concept every day
No.
A lot of people do, but a lot of people don't.
They may have months without any time surplus. And then maybe some months where they do have a significant time surplus.
But never assume everyone has the same time to dedicate to things.
My mom is currently working 50h weeks and I'm sure that's on the lower end for some people. I'd prefer her to focus on not getting burnout so she is able to survive a bit longer, and that means she physically can't.
Yes.
Everyone has the time, not everyone has the priorities (this isn't a dig, it's a reference to some inspirational speech I heard in high school). 50 hour work week and 56 hours of sleep leaves 62 hours in the week. Probably another 12 hours split across 7 days for cooking, eating, etc. which leaves 50 hours to recover, study, exercise, or do whatever she pleases.
She values using those 50 hours to recover from the 50 working hours more than learning a new concept. That's not invalid or wrong in any way, everyone has their priorities and values and they're allowed to do whatever they want with their time.
That being said, everyone has the time they just might not have the mental space. But increasing your human capital by learning something new is often a great way of reducing stress. Learn to handle something in a new way, learn a little about financial theory, learn something that helps you at work. The best weapon you have against the injustice of daily life is knowledge. If you have the mental space, find the time to learn something
ETA: Coming from the perspective of a full time student who spends 6+ hours daily searching for a job because I've been down on my luck since quitting a year ago. I grew up poor and watched my mom work full time, put herself through school, raise three kids, and continues to fight every day for the right to live; I know the struggle you're going through right now. Spend your time better than I did.
You didn’t mention: caring for elderly parents, getting out of an abusive relationship, working two jobs, having a disabled kid, having a chronic illness, being in a legal fight with a neighbour, the list goes on. How many hours a week does one of those take? What if you have two?
Sure, but if you're working 50 hours a week (assuming US, I dunno laws elsewhere) you're guaranteed 2.5 hours of mealtime per week that could be spent watching an informational video or reading an article.
I'm not saying "go back to school or you're wasting your time" I'm saying "you have a few minutes where you could be reading a new idea instead of sitting on social media"
Nah, real “people who can’t afford [blank] are just lazy” energy here. You have no idea what others have to do in their day to day lives. To some, working 50 hours a week would be a luxury, let alone time to go to school.
You're injecting malice into my words. The point was "if you have the mental space for it, you should spend your time learning because it helps reduce stress by being both cathartic and relieving issues in your life"
Careful, you're going to get priviledge checked by the g*mer who thinks reading books and exercise is something only rich ppl have time to do.
Dude it's not a dig lmao
You just have some privileges that allow you to have more free time. If I was you I probably wouldn't do anything differently
As someone with both ASD and ADHD, I'm practically allergic to not learning. Blows my mind that most people aren't the same in some regard.
Same. I don't own any subscriptions except for YouTube premium. There is an endless amount of educational content on there and it's the only content I really watch.
Yeah, I also have premium. I'm a mathematician and it's always great getting suggested all the new channels posting interesting videos.
As a programmer, same. Endless content on every programming concept, language, or niche that you can think of. Math videos often as well. Numberphile is one of my favorite math channels. They have a computer channel too.
Yeah, I am also a programmer. I'm nearing the end of a double degree in mathematics and computer science. Finding a new video at this point is honestly exciting because I've seen pretty much everything! (or so it feels)
I prefer reading Wikipedia. For learning, I need stuff to be written down in a well-structured, indexed way.
What do these diagnoses have to do with learning? In my experience, these conditions can manifest in many different ways for people.
For the most part, you can over generalise by saying it causes me to obsess/hyper focus on these topics.
I have ADHD with ASD tendencies, despite not being autistic (long story). People like us are more frequently the types who find something new to be interesting, then dive in and learn EVERYTHING about it. For example, I recently bought a new car and spent days near obsessively learning about it. How it works (first electric car), how to model current vs acceleration, how to tear it down and rebuild it, etc. I'm now in the process of compiling a FAQ for my wife, who doesn't share my obsessive tendencies and can't retain my frequent "hey sweetie, this is interesting!" data dumps, and setting up monitoring and automations for it on our home lab.
I used to think this was what everyone did. Turns out it's not normal.
When working two jobs in third world country. Time is luxury to sleep and rest the body and mind. There is no time for the rest of it.
Vote early. Almost every single area in the US has early voting at least 2 weeks before elections. People complain about long lines and lack of ballots on election day. You know what you get if you stumble into a polling place before that? A couple of bored poll workers in an otherwise empty building. You get your ballot, fill it out, and leave within 5 minutes. I seriously don't understand why this isn't used more.
There's been a misinformation campaign for years that early/mail votes "don't count" or get thrown away, so people wait until "real" election day to make sure things are "handled properly"...
People like to procrastinate
Or they don't know it exists... my state just started this year and I had no idea until this comment caused me to check.
In Ohio you have to vote early at the county election board and last I checked it was only open regular business hours. For me that means 30 minute drive in, pay for parking, 30 minute drive home. Waiting until election day I can walk to my piling place in 10 minutes, wait in line for 30-45,then walk home in 10 minutes. For a lot of places it's not as easy as voting on election day.
I always found it weird that voting in the US takes so long
The longest I had to wait in queue was 5 minutes. Normally I just walk in, vote, had out
Using password managers. All of my friends and family refuse to use them but always complain about getting locked out of accounts due to forgetting login details. I leave them too it now.
When someone asks a thing like this on Lemmy, look up the same thread on Reddit (guaranteed to find it was recently also posted there) and copy-pasta some of the top posts. Guaranteed worthless internet up arrows.
I mean... you're not wrong. Just thought that it would be a great question to ask here. Also, with fewer users on Lemmy, there tend to be more genuine answers than on Reddit.
Please keep doing this because I'm never going back😎
The real hack is always in the comments or something
I just said to someone that Lemmy comment sections have a little bit of that Reddit 2014 vibe and here you are with the Reddit 2014 meme.
The real Reddit 2014 memes were the friends we made along the way.
The ol' Lemmy-switch-a-roo?
Reddit comment section nostalgia activated
I can tell I’m going to like it here
/j
I encourage this only because I never again want to touch that god forsaken site
The only one i can think of is people not saving their old toothbrushes. A small brush comes in real handy for a lot of situations
Gotta get that deep clean in the shower ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I'm actually lost here, butthole?
oh I know, I just wanted an excuse to call someone a butthole
Well played.
Wait I’m still a bit confused. Do people use the brush part?
I'm really bad about actually swapping my toothbrushes when I should so they end up completely spent by the time I replace them and are unusable for anything else
Yeah I used to be like that, just not something I'd think of. Now I just automatically swap it out when I finish a tube of toothpaste.
So I play guitar. I had a problem where I would sometimes drop my pick. Then, one day, I had an idea. I took some copper wire and attached it to a pick through a small hole I burned into it with a needle. I wrapped the wire around my finger. Now I physically cannot drop my pick.
You just made these things obsolete.
I thought that's so you can throw picks at the audience
Actually they are just for looking like a big rock star that can afford to throw away a fistful of picks every night.
What could a pick cost, 20 dollars!?
That’s without counting the extra money spent on replacing strings, I’m sure using this kind of thing regularly would seriously shorten their lifespan.
I've got one of these. They're great for if you accidentally drop your pick.
They are not, however, a goddamn pick souvenir dispenser! No, you can't have a free pick you skeezy little jerk! Get off my stage!
I bought a pack of thumb picks out of curiosity and I actually really like them. I don’t use them every time I play but they’re nice to have.
By Vectron, you're right!
Seen it before... watched it again anyway. Praise Vectron!
By vectron's creaky ankle that's a great video!
Be careful where you drop your pick, by Vectron!
I used to do this with a piece of thread
"I laugh in the face of ground faults!"
Mask. N95 or better. My wife and I never stopped, and she never gets sick despite being immunocompromised. I work in a place where illness is common due to the environment and I’ve been sick once in the last year, meanwhile all of my coworkers come in sick like twice a month. Apparently they’d rather be sick and miserable all the time than wear a mildly uncomfortable thing on their face.
Do ypu have kids? No masks, also barely ever got sick. With kids I'm sick 5 or 6 times a year. Could be the same for your coworkers.
My sweet friend with two childs is CONSTANTLY sick. My partner and I mostly WFH and have no kids and have gotten sick twice since 2020.
I do not have kids, and I don’t know about all of my coworkers, but I know the overwhelming majority of them do not have kids either.
My oldest just started Pre-K so we're now having a fresh plague circle the house for the second time this month. Hopefully within a year or so we'll have developed enough immunity to enough children's plagues to not get sick as frequently
Yes yes yes! I work facing the public and I interact with people from all over the world. Me wearing a mask just feels like a basic courtesy. I could potentially spread diseases around like mad.
I'm glad it's more accepted now, but I have had a lot of people "looking out for my safety" to put it mildly. That's what they say they're doing. Really, they're just confronting me and demand answers to personal questions as they "educate" me.
Agreed. We have kept wearing masks in specific places (public transit, crowded events, airplanes) and it really does make a difference. I never get sick from airplane trips any more, which used to be a fairly regular occurrence.
I will say, I was never able to figure out how to stop a properly fitted mask from giving me a terrible headache after 8 hours of use so I'm glad I work from home and don't need to make the choice of mask vs comfort at work.
My only dislike about the mask is that it sucks for people with glasses... If it wasn't for that I would be using it all the time.
I liked to be allergy-less in my work lol.
I like having a face for expressions
While wearing a mask is never a bad idea, it is absolutely not necessary to not get sick. I am also immunocompromised and I have stopped wearing a mask. I wash my hands very often and never eat handheld food without washing first. Zero issues since getting covid back when I was wearing a mask religiously.
We’d rather not take risks. Plus, we’d like to not accidentally contribute to the spread of disease ourselves if we can help it.
I thought masks wouldn't protect against a virus (being tiny) but might help slow the spread to others by stopping spittle/moisture filled with virus from covering real world objects.
How do they help you if no one else is wearing them?
Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review
I recommend giving this a read when you have the time, it should hopefully answer any questions you have and better than I can.
This is why I specified N95 respirators in my first comment. If you are unfamiliar, N95 is a NIOSH air filtration rating, which is used to describe the ability of a respirator to protect the wearer from airborne solid and liquid particulates. The review I linked goes into more details on this as well. I recommended N95 or better specifically because Covid is the illness I’m most concerned with avoiding, and the evidence suggests that they provide meaningful protection over lower grade respirators or surgical masks. Another quote from the link above that stood out to me:
As for one-way masking, well, it is unfortunately significantly less effective (from what I understand), and is a big part of why I’m so concerned by others not masking. I simply cannot avoid being around others all the time, and their lack of effort is directly endangering me and my wife. If it really all came down to personal choice, I wouldn’t care if people wanted to risk their health. Still, while I don’t have any studies or anything to link you at the moment specifically on the effectiveness of one-way masking, all I know is that I mask and don’t get sick, and they don’t mask and do get sick. It’s anecdotal, sure, and I’m certain the mask is not the only thing affecting this, but as far as I can see it’s the largest difference in our behavior. I’ve heard as well that wearing a respirator will reduce viral load should you be infected despite the filter, and so your sickness will be less severe, but I don’t have any evidence on hand for this.
Because the virus is transmitted via spittle/moisture from other people not wearing masks. The virus doesn't just hang out in the air on its own; it's suspended in aerosol particles.
This is somewhat misleading. Here’s a section from near the beginning of a scientific review I linked in my reply to @[email protected]:
The sentence after the one you emphasized seems to be saying what I was: the virus is in aerosol particles or potentially droplets, which are what your mask protects you from.
Oh, okay, I think I misinterpreted what you said before, but rereading it now I understand.
Getting sick occasionally is good for your immune system if you do not have a condition like your wife.
Key word being occasionally, and also not with a disease that causes serious health complications, cognitive decline, and that itself damages your immune system.
COVID linked to 65% of new onset cognitive impairment, dementia
Mounting research shows that COVID-19 leaves its mark on the brain, including significant drops in IQ scores
Every COVID Infection Increases Your Risk of Long COVID, Study Warns
SARS-CoV-2 infection weakens immune-cell response to vaccination
Yes, Everyone Really Is Sick a Lot More Often After Covid
Cognitive performance of post-covid patients in mild, moderate, and severe clinical situations
Incidence of diabetes after SARS-CoV-2 infection in England and the implications of COVID-19 vaccination: a retrospective cohort study of 16 million people
Being outside is good for your immune system. Being near other people is unnecessary.
Don't we need viruses to build resistance?
Exposure to one virus rarely leads to a resistance to another one. That's why they have a new flu vaccine every year even though they're all closely related. Cow pox immunizating against small pox was a fluke
It's more about being exposed to everyday bacteria, pollen, and hot/cold cycling that gives your immune system exercise.
I was much more susceptible to sickness after wearing a mask for years on end during Covid.
Where did you live? I always wore a mask around other people, but I also live in a rural area, so I didn't need to wear a mask for that many hours comparatively.
Also in a more rural area. After Covid was over I got pretty sick 4-5 times from just normal colds. What used to be a slight headache had me bedridden. This happened a few times but gradually improved.
Now years later my immune system is back up and running again.
The level of sick for which this is true is below the threshold of what we normally call "getting sick". You're always fighting off something. That's what's good for you. Not the getting overwhelmed and having to stay in bed amount.
Covid is a retrovirus. It destroys your immune system.
When you come home after a night of heavy boozing, just chug an entire liter of water before you go to bed. It prevents the worst part of the hangover, headaches, which are just from dehydration.
This used to work for me but these days the only way it works is if I pace myself with a big glass of water in between each alcoholic drink. The "chug a liter before bed" only somewhat helps now, but barely.
This also should be the norm. It doesn't even reduce your drunkness, just makes it more enjoyable and less unconfortable
My trick is to eat an asian pear before drinking. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23587660/
Damn that's pretty cool. Wonder how their ethical committee responded. Does it affect the drunkenness?
I dont drink often anymore, and not heavily, just a few glasses of wine or a beer or two. I don't feel like the pear affects the high at all. Maybe I don't get hungover because I don't drink enough, but I like to credit the pear.
Some good kebab helps too, probably due to the fat and salt, but water over kebab, if you have to choose.
kebab will always be my top choice, unless shawarma is also an option
Yeah, I find having something to eat helps too.
Could be a double edged sword, just make sure you don’t miscalculate and end up with “twice the taste no calories”.
When I was younger and drank more I did this, and it sure helps with hard liquor.
When you're drunk that big glass of water can be hard to get down, but do it anyway.
Using shift + scroll wheel to horizontally scroll in a UI. Whenever I see my project manager going all the way to the bottom of the application and dragging the scrollbars to move horizontally it just kills me a bit inside haha.
Horizontal scrolling with shift + scroll wheel is so slow compared to dragging the bar though.
Which is what middle mouse button scrolling is for... horizontally or vertically, and fast, too.
I wish that worked everywhere, but it doesn't.
Hmm maybe shift+middle button can override it on certain UIS.
Unless you're on Linux
I'm just glad that KDE now has an option to disable pasting using the middle mouse button (mousewheel). Only available on Wayland though - AFAIK this behaviour is deeply rooted in X11 and it's not easy to disable it.
Firefox will still cause a paste though, so you have to disable it separately over there.
I'm using arch btw, and it doesn't.
As an "arch btw" user, you should know, you need to configure your stuff yourself.
Otherwise, you're just an arch user.
KDE once made it easier with a GUI https://pointieststick.com/2024/07/05/this-week-in-kde-autoscrolling/
This should be coming in 6.2, I suppose. Until then, you can do it with libinput
I'm using arch btw for the meme. Wouldn't say I'm an Arch user though.
Fair enough, I'll do some testing. This specifically came about on a react based page in ff esr.
Because some mice have a secondary scroll wheel, or the scroll wheel can tilt to scroll sideways
I had a Logitech MX Ergo mouse that allegedly had horizontal scrolling. The wheel could tilt left and right which clicked like a button, and the screen would scroll very very slightly to the side. Worst trackball I've ever had.
Just before they stopped making PCs, I saw an IBM computer with a mouse that had one of their Thinkpad clits instead of a scroll wheel. So a proper XY input. I think a blackberry ball would work too.
I use these for switching tabs in browsers/IDEs by remapping them to Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab using Input Remapper
Email management. Like at all. Set up filters and use the archive. There is a key to do that. And holy fuck 2432 unread emails? You should be ashamed of yourself
I am ashamed.
damn I've been making a new email when it gets too spammy and keep a list of accounts for changing all my accounts over
I think the better solution is to simply set up a filter for the word "Unsubscribe".
You might be able to select all. Wait 3 hours. Press 'mark as read'. Wait another 3 hours. And then unsubscribe as the bullshit hits your inbox
Also. Move read emails to the archive people. That's what it is there for.
🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Used to work in a public library. Majority of the job was walking people through "forgot password" which was never a simple affair, and getting to see what a Hotmail/Yahoo/AOL inbox looks like with like 90,000 unread because they gave their email to every store and web form they ever encountered.
Near drove me to madness.
Problem I have is I got my [email protected] as my email address. Many times when people with my same last name they'll type firstname[email protected] for their email address. And guess who gets signed up?
At first I unsubscribed, replied back to emails that were meant for someone else, etc. But the number of things to unsubscribe from unmanageable and it gets to be too much of a chore.
Holy cow, we have the same problem. I only got [email protected] so I only get folks with permutations of my first and last name, but to this day I still get my Nigerian counterpart's bank statements. I've got my UK counterpart's PayPal payments for artwork they did. I've had my Australian counterpart's job recruiters reaching out to me for months. It's kind of embarrassing when I tell them they have the wrong email...
Hah. I've a counterpart that I'll happily pass stuff on to as I've worked out her actual email but the rest are super annoying. So many sign ups!
I had 6000 ish, recently went through and started unsubscribing and deleting. Got it down to 1200
i don't use my fingertips on public. door knobs, rails, etc. i use knuckles or fist or elbow or whatever. my finger tips are not for public use. started during covid, never got covid. barely ever get sick.
Until out of habit you rub your eye with your knuckle. Doh!
Mine is wear a medical grade mask in public spaces.
It does multiple things.
First it protects you from air borne pathogens like viruses and especially COVID.
Second, if you are confronted or people get mad at you for wearing one, it immediately let's you know what kind of people are around. If they're the type that will get mad at you for wearing a mask, it's definitely a place to leave and avoid in the future. A mask is a great way to weed people out in public.
My wife has lifelong lung problems now and we can't risk any infections. So wearing a mask is necessary for me ... and at this point in my life, it's normal now and I find that it's normal for most people. 90% of the people that see me in a mask notice but immediately understand and don't make an issue of it. It's 10% of the loudest idiots that make it a problem and a mask is a great way to unmask them (pun intended)
I use my knuckles for pretty much any object that is public. If I must pull a door handle I use my pinkie (or my foot if no one's looking).
sometimes i'll use the bottom of my shirt as a glove until i can use my foot to swoop.
/jk
Nope, knuckle sandwich to the face!
It's good for your health, buddy!
Long sleeve shirts ftw!
Palms ftw
Cancel subscriptions when you sign up, fuck auto renewals and save some money if there's a gap before the next time you need or use the service, and gives you a chance to consider if it's worth the money or ethical concerns when manually renewing subs.
Years ago, a family member (who was on my mobile phone family account) was getting charged monthly for some mobile game. I would point it out every month, and they were like "Yeah...I need to cancel that..."
It took over a year for them to get around to canceling it.
My credit card offers virtual credit card numbers AND the ability to auto-lock the virtual numbers so you can set a date and after that the number will not accept new charges.
I make sure to use a virtual card number for everything subscription based, then I immediately set the auto-lock feature to expire in a few days (give the initial charge time to clear but still plenty of time before the subscription would otherwise renew).
Some subscription services make it super tough to cancel. This method fixes that issue for the most part. Some subscription services terminate immediately once you cancel the subscription, even if you still have "time left" otherwise. This way you don't really have to formally unsubscribe. It's easy peasy pumpkin breezy as the common folk like to say.
Using an ad blocker
Fact checking.
So many people just believe anything they see or hear if it agrees with their worldview.
I saw a similar thread on Reddit about 12 years ago and one of the suggestions near the bottom that didn't have any comments on it is something I've incorporated into my daily life and it has made a huge difference: Adjust your car mirrors so you have no blind spots.
Most people have their side mirrors adjusted where they can see a portion of their own car in the mirror. This leaves you with large blind spots. To adjust them where you have no blind spots, sit in the driver's seat and lean your head over to the left as far as you can (basically putting your head on the window), then adjust the driver's side mirror to where you can just barely see your car in it. Then lean your head over to the passenger side about the same amount and adjust that mirror.
When adjusted properly if you can see a car in your rearview mirror, you shouldn't be able to see that car in your side mirrors, but as soon as a car is no longer visible in the rearview mirror it should be visible in one of your side mirrors. Then when it is no longer visible in your side mirror it should be in your peripheral vision.
It takes some getting used to, but once dialed in and you're used to it then it makes changing lanes a breeze. It also helps at night if someone behind you has bright lights because you'll only see them in one mirror instead of all 3.
Middle clicking links to open in a new tab
Using chip clips when you can tuck one side of the bag in and roll the other down.
You can also hold Control and left click to do the same. Then just Control+Tab to cycle through your tabs.
Or ALT+NumberRow to select a tab
What if I have over 1000 tabs open?
Then you have lost control of your life and shortcuts are the least of your problems.
I happen to know from own experience that my Firefox will become slow and crash randomly when I get near 1000 tabs. Then I discovered OneTab extension and I just all the open tabs to a single OneTab page where it can be found later If needed (but I rarely do 😅). But feels much easier than just closing all.
Then it is time to use the all mighty Left Click.
Then you’re using tabs as bookmarks
But I have over 10,000 bookmarks!
You mean Control+NumberRow.
This is neat.
Different commands on different interfaces. On windows it used to be CTRL but on Linux I've found it's ALT more now
Keeping an insulated water bottle around to drink from. How do people go to sleep knowing they either have to get up to take a drink or settle for some lukewarm side table water from a glass or plastic bottle??? Not to mention the waste I see with people using disposable water bottles (which have the time and place of course, but at home ain’t it.)
To add: drink water throughout the day in general. Especially where tap water is safe to drink. You're going to pass up the opportunity to improve your health and daily wellbeing, easily and for free? WHY?
Random side note. I actually prefer room temperature water. Sensitive teeth. And i try to keep my backpack as light, so it's a one layer water bottle for me.
If I’m doing any kind of physical activity it has to be room temp or my stomach complains. But otherwise I like it a bit cold. And I agree on the weight thing, if I’m camping or otherwise away from convenience, I want a single walled, lighter container.
I use a half gallon insulated metal water bottle/jug and it's incredible. I love it so much, and I couldn't go back to even a normal sized one. I drink easily a half gallon a day now. I'm about to upgrade to a 1 gallon, because the lid on my half gallon is difficult to open, and the 1 gallon has a much better lid. I know it seems ridiculous, but it made a carry bag for it with a strap to wear almost like a messenger bag. I can carry all my shit and get hydrated at the same time. So fantastic.
Also, buzio is the brand on Amazon (I know. God, I know, but we don't have a lot of options where I live. If anyone knows a better one, I'd love to hear it). They're great. Everyone in my family has one in different sizes
My family does Iron Flask but any insulated bottle will do. I also started on a small 20oz and upgraded to 40 and it’s still not enough haha.
Yeah, I started with 32, upgraded to 40, and then decided screw it and jumped to a half gallon. I keep the 40 around for when I make smoothies or something. It's oversized, but it has a straw and keeps everything nice and cold
Best side effect of the insulated bottles is not having to use a coaster because they don't sweat.
Lmao
I never drink in the night. Why is that even a thing? Are you some sort of frog that needs to be kept wet?
I really enjoy a swig of fresh chill water in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t mind being a frog, seems like I would have much less to worry about.
Buying another box, bag, etc. of soap, toilet paper, tooth paste and whatever long lasting product before it runs out. It doesn't expire (fast), therefore I always have a second, full bag as a buffer, and as soon as I have to open the second one, I put it on the shopping list so there is always a buffer bag and I don't get annoyed if I still forget to buy one or it's out of stock.
It's been years since I had to use some weird substitute for toilet paper.
Use https://fallingfruit.org/ to get free, fresh food. Maybe once a week ill hit up the fruit trees and get a huge amount of free citrus, mangoes, almonds, loquats and fresh herbs (lemongrass, rosemary and lavendar mostly). There is also a ridiculous amount of olive trees on public land in my city, if I had the time and inclination to brine them properly I could probably make 20kg a week during the fruiting season. But I could never use or even give away that much olive.
I havent paid for limes, lemons, oranges or mandarins in years and I consume at least a couple kilos a week.
In my climate, mmm, crabapples. I guess do find a raspberry plant I think I can pick from, occasionally.
Near me it only shows dumpsters of supermarkets. Great initiative though
The iPhone app doesn’t appear to work
In the US, if you're a first time homebuyer you can buy a home with zero cash in hand. You can roll closing costs into the mortgage and have no down-payment. You'll pay more out of pocket for a few years but in many areas it's still cheaper than rent - and rent just keeps going up while a mortgage stays the same. Many states also have free programs where you can take a class and they'll give you a grant towards buying a home.
Credit unions tend to have the best rates. Get into a credit union even if it's just a secondary account that you toss $5 into each paycheck.
Also, there are programs through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for first time homebuyers that prioritizes them over investors. This is the easiest way to get into homeownership but the houses are usually fixer uppers.
People don't do this because it's not a good idea for almost everyone. If you don't put money down, your monthly payment will be astronomical, and THEN you will have to pay PMI on top of that (which isn't applied to the mortgage OR interest) until you hit 20% paid. That money is thrown away and depending on where you live, it can be close to a rent payment on its own, without the actual mortgage payment. If you can afford a massive mortgage with PMI, you can afford to save a down payment. The only time I would do what you suggest is if my income was way more than rent and I was in a rush to move into a house.
Fannie and Freddie are legit, use them!
In what reality is PMI close to a rent payment? It doesn't seem like you know what you're talking about.
I think you're dramatically overestimating how much it will add to a mortgage to use this strategy. For example, let's look at a $250,000 home - the average for my area.
If you put 20% down, your payment will be $1242/mo plus Property Taxes. Certainly cheaper than rent, but most folks don't have $50,000 sitting around.
So let's say you put $0 down and roll $9000 closing costs into your mortgage. Your monthly payment will be $1,843 of which only $214 is PMI. Still cheaper than the average rent in my area.
Even if you're buying a $1mil home with this strategy, the PMI would only be $850/mo. Where are you getting that PMI would be close to a mortgage payment?? You seem to be regurgitating bad faith advice that keeps people scared of homeownership when the reality is that it's an excellent move for many folks.
We live in very different places. Multiply most of those numbers by about 6 and you have my area. I'm not exaggerating - 3 bedroom attached house of 1.5million, mortgage of 6.5k, PMI of $2500. Average rent is 2-3k for a 1 bedroom.
I've lived it. If your average home is $250k, your situation is nothing like mine or half the country that lives in cities. Your advice only applies to rural areas with extremely low cost of living.
PMI would be $1200 in your example, not $2500.
Argue all you want. I gave you real numbers. That was my quote without a down payment.
I worked at banks for most of my career and was engaged to the lead mortgage lender, and together we hosted quarterly free events for our community to show people how to get into homeownership. I suspect you're lying in bad faith to try to scare people out of homeownership and push the agenda that Millennials and Gen Z can't own a home. I encourage anyone reading this to do their own research and contact their bank's mortgage team to determine if its feasible for them.
Over half of millennials are already homeowners, and I'd love to see that number go up.
What search terms should I use to find such a class?
FHA loans
Reach out to your bank. If they have nothing, call your local credit unions.
Can you recommend anything for learning more about this? We've been trying to go through the USDA because we cannot afford a down payment, but they require the house to be in basically perfect condition, meaning there's nothing we can afford.
I went thru USDA for my first home and they had similar constraints. Talk with your bank's mortgage lender. It's possible that an FHA loan would do you better.
I will do that. Thank you very much
FYI if you get a FHA loan, you can't remove the PMI at all without refinancing. This was implemented after the crash in '07/'08. You can still get a conventional loan without doing the full 20%. I put around 10% down and just dropped PMI after about 4 years, though I likely could have removed it earlier if I'd paid for a new appraisal due to the increased property value.
Home cooking. It is super easy and about 100x healthier. Don't know how? Get the America's Test Kitchen Best Skillet Recipes book. Lots of super easy things in there. Once you get in the habit you really only have to do it 3-4 times a week, and there are lots of frozen meals.
What would someone do if they didn't cook their own meals? Hire a butler? Just get takeaway for their entire lives?
That would be mental. Everyone, except the truly weird - or in special situations, home cooks the majority of the time, right? O.o
Eat microwave food. Or "remove foil and put in oven" food. I wouldn't call that home cooking.
Yeah just walk through Costco and see the massive varieties of ready to eat stuff. But a ton of people here just eat out all the time too.
I got tired of cooking and eat our a lot more nowadays, yes.
using an ad blocker. personally, i use ad blockers for years and when i work on a friends laptop im shocked how much ads there are actually. i cant count on a hand how mucn i told my father he should use ad blocker browser and extenstion. and he wont do it. recently, i changed the DNS server on a router level to nextdns, where it blocks ads and trackers. he told me its amazing how smoother the experience is now
password managers. as an IT specialist i have about 300 login details for many services, personal, work and clients. every login has its own password and eventually email too. and i know sooooo many people who forgot their passwords (they have about 3 very similar ones but ok) and try them all until they find out they had to creat a new for that specific service. and they are so unaware about the dangers (for example fishing, SE, ...) with this method.
For me it's reminders. I use slack for work, and whenever anything comes up that I need to take care of (personal or work related) I'll tell slack "/remind me about tomorrow/next week".
I've been doing this for years. I have it on my phone and computer so it's easy to view and add new reminders whenever I need. I didn't think slack is crucial to use but I find it to be the most convenient, even more so then dedicated reminder apps
I use Notion+Notion Calendar for this and I delegate to it a lot of stuff: bureaucracy, booking the barber, changing the bedsheets, all my work, birthdays, etc etc. How can people trust their brain with more than two or three items is unfathomable to me. I mean, when I was younger I could keep in mind a dozens upcoming appointments and go through them every few hours to make sure I wouldn't miss anything, but as soon as your routine is disturbed by work stuff, it's impossible.
That sounds like exactly the app I've been looking for.
I've heard notion calendar is the best calendar software out there. If it also supports reminders really well (and I'm already a notion user), then maybe this is worth checking out.
My ADHD would not allow me to function without reminders.
Having hand sanitizer in your everyday bag. I’ve been doing it way before the pandemic and it’s a quick and easy way to disinfect while you’re out and about and not near a restroom to wash your hands.
Want to get free food a couple of times a month? Just go on eventbrite and meetup and look up free events in your area. If you are in a relatively large city, chances are there are a ton of free events every week where you can just show up and get free food in exchange for a little socializing.
Socializing for free food sounds too expensive for me.
Well technically you can avoid the socialization part (eat-and-run). As long as you can get to the food without having to talk to someone first, you should be good.
I could give away food if that would reduce my socializing
A user on Lemmy a while back (can't recall their name) had said that when they get fast food fries, they don't salt the fries, they salt the ketchup.
I will confirm that this is a fantastic idea because it makes every fry taste equally salted, and gives the salt a way to actually adhere to the fries instead of just ending up in the bottom of the container or on your table.
My own recommendation where I can't believe more people don't do it is buying no name/store brand stuff when getting groceries and supplies. I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't do this because marketing has pushed them into thinking these are "inferior" or are not as good, but 7 times out of 10 the no name/store brand stuff is equal in quality or better while also being something like 20-40 percent cheaper. Just because something is different than the name brand stuff does not make it worse, just different. Like you DONT need a more expensive type of aluminum foil for example, the cheapest aluminum foil is identical in quality.
When eating fries, salt the ketchup. All the salt usually just falls off the fries. Game changer
The real pro tip is to not eat fries with ketchup. Eat them with satay-sauce instead
Nederlander?
Nee. Duits, helaas.
Helaas pindakaas...
I've been on the internet since 1996 or so, and this is the first mention (in English) of Satay. Amazing.
Satay with some mayo is nice as well.
Or curry sauce or mayonnaise.
ಠ_ಠ
Very popular in the Netherlands.
Try it.
I like using Sriracha, or peri-peri sauce from Nando's or Trader Joe's.
that sounds actually excellent. I got a sack of potatoes and a deep fryer, would a pre made bottled sauce be worthy or should I just look up a recipe and do it the real way?
I'm totally going to try this.
For those that enjoy eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches, use a hot dog bun for the bread. I know, it genius.
Wash dishes while you cook. It was a game-changer for me.
Not smoke.
This one is sort of very specific and niche, but as a caregiver of someone with an ostomy, you can take a roll of this disposable plastic produce bags from the grocery store. Terrible for use as a produce bag because they're plastic and disposable and whatnot, but for bag empties when you need to use something disposable no matter what? They're invaluable.
Also doggy poop bags. Great for that. Just grab one of the small almost empty rolls, and tell the cashier "I'mma take these" and no one gives a shit
Spit in your toilet paper I am not kidding, it will significantly improve your life.
Hmmm, sure....
You are welcome Obama
Hell yeah! I do this everyday when I'm away from my bidet at home.
I hate shitting without my bidet so much
It is crazy that it took my 40 years to figure out this life changing information on my own.
I'm... Gonna need further elaboration
Simple, next time you wipe, first wipe the excess, but no scrubbing. Then take another piece of twice folded to and put a blob of spit it in. Gently scrub your abus. Repeat as needed until tp comes out still leave. Not only will this get you way more cleaner more faster, you abus will suffer much less damage per event.
And here is further further elaboration
Is this advice real ? ChatGPT said:
Yes, the advice being shared is based on the concept of moistening toilet paper to improve cleanliness. Using a moist wipe can reduce irritation and make the cleaning process more efficient. Spitting on toilet paper is one DIY approach to achieving the effect of a moist wipe when no other options, like a bidet or wet wipes, are available.
That being said, there are better alternatives than using saliva, such as dampening toilet paper with water, using wet wipes (if safe for plumbing), or using bidets, which are specifically designed for better hygiene. Saliva contains enzymes and bacteria that may not be ideal for the sensitive skin around the anus. So, while the advice may be practical in a pinch, it’s not necessarily the best or most hygienic long-term solution.
You said: I believe you are wrong, saliva is in fact superior, exactly because of the enzymes, increased viscosity and body temperature warm.
ChatGPT said:
You're correct that saliva has unique properties, such as enzymes (like amylase), increased viscosity, and being body-temperature warm, which can aid in certain situations. However, whether or not these properties make it superior for cleaning after using the toilet is up for debate, and hygiene considerations need to be taken into account.
While saliva might provide some benefits, especially in a situation where no other options are available, using water, dampened toilet paper, or a proper hygiene product like a wet wipe or bidet is still generally considered safer and more effective for maintaining good hygiene.
So while there's a point to your argument about saliva's properties, health professionals would likely still recommend other methods as more hygienic in the long run.
Huh, I've always just bought small trashbags, never crossed my mind to just grab the whole roll of those produce bags. Still might not, feels wrong to just take them. :)
My mom uses them for dog poop too
Not sure I could get used to using transparent bags for dog poop.
Someone just suggested to me that I should be putting my chocolate bars in the freezer first. I've never heard of this, but apparently it's a thing that I've been missing out on for a while.
So I guess I'm the one who can't believe that I don't do it.
Next time you're eating the chips at a Mexican Restaurant, get a side of lemons/limes.
Apply citrus to chips and sprinkle desired salt amount.
The salt will stay on the zesty chips throughout the salsa dipping process.
I feel like most intelligent people are now on the bidet bandwagon, but it still blows my mind how many people I know that still resist using one (even when readily available). Quit being fuckin disgusting!
Some of these same people wonder why their sex life is mediocre at best. Maybe it's your hygiene. Just sayin.
Wow, I’ve never seen someone try to link bidet use to intelligence before. It’s almost impressive.
Nor I to a better sex life
I was using a shower after every shit to wash properly.
You clearly haven't met a Southern European. We divide the world in civilized ass washers and uncivilized smelly barbarians
This comment is slightly ambiguous. Who are "we" and who are the barbarians?
We: Italians, Spanish, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Vietnamese, South Asians, Japanese.
Barbarians: everybody else, especially the French
During my first trip to Japan I was reluctant to use it.
My manager was traveling with me and he bought one to take home and he already had one from a previous trip and he kept talking about how life changing it was
I finally decided to use the bidet on my last day of the trip and it was a life changer. I had to go back to Japan a month later and I got a nice Toshiba that unfortunately died early this year but now you can find bidets easily on Amazon or Costco
wow. shitty attitude is shitty lol
You'd understand if you had one
we have tons of them here lol
This is high level trolling, very impressive sir
Use those paper toilet seat covers so you don't sit right on someone else's butt cheek grease
I actually saw those once! Was so confused what they were at first, I was visiting the USA at the time and they had them in some of their public toilets.
But then they also have a huge - intentional - gap in the doors on those cubicles, so that people outside the cubicle waiting to use it were just watching me poop.
It was really fucked up, and not just a one off design mistake, this was EVERY public bathroom. Mental.
No one was watching you poop, Americans don't look between the cracks, we know better.
If you're going to make simple syrup, use a stick blender.
Firstly, it's easier and faster than heating the sugar and water in a pot, which is the most popular method.
Secondly, you don't lose any significant amount of water to evaporation. That's not a big deal if you make 1:1 simple syrup, but if you're going 2:1 (which I prefer), you're already very close to the maximum solubility of sugar in water at room temperature. Losing a few grams of water can make it supersaturated, which leads to sugar crystals falling out of solution over time. Not a big deal, but a little annoying.
If you give it a try, bear in mind that you're going to get a cloudy syrup at first. That's totally normal, and it's not undissolved sugar, it's just air bubbles. They'll float out over time.
Neti Pots. I clean our my sinuses every night before bed, and I rarely get sick. Of course it's not a miracle cure, but it's great at preventing a viral infection before it starts.
Doesn't frequent cleaning of sinuses cause irritation? I believe healthy sinuses should be mostly self cleaning. Of course if you have some long-term condition then it's different
I don't have any irritation, but I'm a big robust guy, so perhaps milage may vary.
And sure, I would assume that the sinuses are self-cleaning to an extent, but they are also designed to be a filter to keep junk out of our lungs. The way I see it, I'm just cleaning the filter out before I go to bed.
I am fairly certain there is a reason you shouldn't do that. Are you using just warm water?
Warm salt water. That makes sure that the water is not pulling salt out of your cells. Doing it without salt is painful and dangerous. Also the salt should be without iodine added.
Cool. Idk about every night. But I might do it in the allergy seasons at least 😊
I too feel like there is like one or more reasons some people say to not use them (I haven't used one myself). Though I think that one thing is that if you don't clean the pot very thoroughly, it might cause some bad infections. But that would be true of anything like that since bacteria can thrive on warm moist devices that come into contact with our bodies (and from the buildup that you would be trying to clear).
No, using them is fine. It's every night that I was concerned about. They sell a special packet that you mix with water and I believe it says not to do it too often. I believe regular salt water would probably be okay.
Having a IRA or 401k.
I'm 40 and the amount of people who kinda know what a IRA is is terrifying. Like, you're gonna die in poverty.
Buying & steeping loose leaf tea instead of bagged garbage. Higher quality, lower price, actually tastes decent with multiple steeps. If I don’t finish the leaves, I fill the teapot with water to have cold brew the next morning. If you get into it, an electric kettle that lets you set the temperature is essential since you can avoid burning leaves much easier & unlocking more delicate leaves that require lower temperatures. Last tip which should be obvious: no milk or sugar & if you think it tastes bad, why do you keep buying black tea instead of something good?
When eating chicken wing flats, if you pry the bones apart you can slip them out and you're left with a single piece of meat you can eat whole. You don't have leftover bits in the middle of the two bones.
Also, keep nitrile gloves in your glove box or purse and use them when eating messy things like wings and ribs and cake.
To add to that, use those nitrile gloves when you cook. It's a game changer for food prep, especially when working with raw meat
And for hot peppers.
Open a banana from the seed end and not the bunch end. It's much easier.
Knock your knuckles against your car door to zap static electricity on something less sensitive.
Store your toothbrush rolled in a piece of sanitary paper. It's so much cleaner than having it laying around, where dust gets on it.
Using curbside pickup at Chick-fil-A. The line is a mile long, people. I'm in and out in 45 seconds.
I get HelloFresh boxes and cancel after one week