Around 10 years ago I switched to a specific big airline and started building frequent flyer status. Before that I was willing to do the regular budget airlines (Southwest, Frontier, JetBlue) for $100 savings or the ultra budget airlines (Spirit, Allegiant) for another $100 savings over that.

But I’ve had bad experiences with Frontier (canceled flight, next available flight not available for 3 days) and Spirit (more time on the tarmac than in the air). Both resulted in missed events (and for the Frontier flight I needed to just buy a last minute ticket, out of pocket, with another airline).

So now, when it’s important for me to be on time, I tend to prefer airlines that have multiple flights per day between my origin and destination, and have some redundancy and resilience against the unexpected. There are still network effects that provide some major value, to where I’m generally willing to pay $200 more for flights on my preferred airline.

We made steampunk a reality by developing the technology to transfer steam power efficiently over long distances through metal wires.

That’s not even a government thing. It’s a finance/banking thing, as most major banks are still using mainframes and legacy COBOL code for most of their business logic.

Power is what matters, and power (in watts) = current (in amps) times voltage (in volts). US residential power outlets are 110V and typically cap at 15A, for a power output max of 1650W. But it’s also pretty common to have 20A outlets in kitchens, which would max out at 2200W. Still, there aren’t a lot of 2000W kettles in the US, and it’s pretty standard for the ones you’d buy in a store to only draw about 1500W.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the standard outlet is 230V, rated for up to 13A, for about 3000W. And culturally, in terms of consumer expectations in the UK, the kettles are generally designed to max that out to use the full capacity of that outlet.

So on average, the typical US kettle is only about half as powerful as the typical UK kettle. It’s a combination of the US electrical norms and the cultural/consumer expectations, because it is entirely possible to have a 2200W kettle on a pretty standard kitchen circuit in the US.

It doesn’t have to be structured. It just has to give opportunities for repeat interactions, and maybe a promise of future interaction with the same person, in that low pressure environment.

Dog parks have a bunch of dogs mingling, so their owners will often have the opportunity to get to know each other.

Neighbors who see each other often have an opportunity to get to know each other. That goes for work neighbors, too, even if they work for another employer entirely (but in the same building or something.

Regulars at a coffee shop, restaurant, bar, or gym might learn to recognize each other and go from exchanging pleasantries to actually getting to know each other (and the staff).

Church isn’t as big a thing as it was a few generations ago, but any kind of social meetings, from support groups to volunteer associations, give the opportunity to work together for a common goal.

This is where hobbies and free time come in. And I’m not going to knock video games and other hobbies where you might interact with people online, but there is something fundamentally different about repeated in-person interactions. So it’s worth making sure that your routine includes regular interaction with people in low-stakes settings.

Carbonation adds bubbles. The bubbles in water dissipate very quickly, whereas bubbles in other drinks with sugars or other compounds tend to have a bit more stability in the bubbles (think about how long the foam takes to settle from a beer being poured).

So when you force carbonate in a bottle, the bubbles tend to rise to the top, and when the pressure is released, will spray out it every direction, causing a huge mess.

It can be managed by being very slow and methodical at adding pressure, and, more importantly, by being slow and methodical and slowly releasing the pressure. But you have to be ready for it to make a mess.

Tim Whatley

The developers of the Lemmy software are the admins of the lemmy.ml instance and are problematic. The complaint is that the software itself can’t be separated from the priorities of the .ml instance.

Piefed doesn’t have the same issue, even if the flagship instance federates with .ml

It’s a California Kong, which is two California kings tied together with gorilla leather.

I think the parent comment is talking about piefed the software, compared to Lemmy the software, not the specific piefed.social instance they’re posting from.

slightly niche

Sports is like the most mainstream of interests, and lemmy still doesn’t have a critical mass of sports discussion in general, much less specific sports/leagues, specific teams, specific games/matches, or specific players.

So I keep my reddit sports account.

I also keep an account for my local city subreddit, and one for my career field, because Lemmy doesn’t have those either.

A lot of young people don’t realize just how difficult post-school dating was before online dating. Once we exhausted the pool of 5-10 single people who were friends of friends, that was basically it. We’d have to go find strangers at the bar.

That conditioned everyone to be slightly more willing to settle for less perfect matches, knowing that there wasn’t necessarily a replacement available. That could be a good thing (people more likely to have the patience to let a spark develop) or a bad thing (a higher percentage of couples who just resented each other).

I can see an argument that things were better before online dating for some subset of people. But having lived that period, I can say from experience that it wasn’t easy then, either. And for someone like me, who is a better writer than I am a speaker, especially over the phone, the rise of text-based communication was helpful for navigating the early stages of relationships when that became the norm.

I still use reddit.

Lemmy is still missing a few things:

• Sports discussion. There’s nothing quite like the absurdity of some of the sports communities that really brightens my day, from really deep analytical insights to the dumbest meme jokes in existence.
• City-specific local discussion. I still spend time on my city’s subreddit, which helps keep me tuned in on local happenings.
• Non-tech related career discussion. My field (law) has several subreddits useful for talking shop, growing careers, making fun of shitty lawyers, etc. That doesn’t really exist here.
• Hobby discussion. I’m trying my best to participate in fitness and weight lifting related subreddits but there just isn’t a critical mass of commenters to get a discussion really going. Plenty of my other hobbies and interests are missing here, too.

I’ve deleted the reddit alts I used to use for technology related topics, parenting/relationship topics, political discussion, and stupid general purpose humor or memes, as Lemmy has enough of that I don’t need Reddit for those topics. But for the ones I’ve listed above, I’m still using desktop “old” Reddit.

I’m also still on Instagram, but only follow people I know personally. It’s the easiest way to keep up with my acquaintances’ lives: who’s marrying who, who’s having kids, where people have moved, etc.