numberfour002 @ numberfour002 @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

In a way, I'm glad people are slowing starting to come around and pay attention to this. For years, any time I would publicly complain about Amazon customer service online, it was very common for people to be completely dismissive or even blame me. I'd hear statements like "sure Amazon sucks, but they have great customer service" and I'd think to myself, just wait until it's your time to find out that the customer service isn't what you think it is.

Long story short, the item came with a broken part. Should have been quick and easy to rectify (send a replacement part, send a replacement unit, or refund the purchase). The seller was completely unhelpful. Amazon customer service would not intervene and insisted that I continue fruitlessly corresponding with the vendor, even though they had an "A-to-Z" money back guarantee if something goes wrong. It literally took months of back and forth between me, the vendor, and Amazon customer service before things were finally refunded in full.

So, basically I gave them another chance and they showed that things hadn't improved a bit.

This seems like it involves gore.

So what you're saying is, I need to go ahead and take some vacation from work and real life and go ahead and dive head first into this game. Gotcha.

You're such an enabler. I love it! Stop enabling me.

I know I'm not necessarily representative of the average gamer, but Hades is and was one of my favorite modern games. I feel like it's almost pointless to not buy this game as soon as I can, even if I don't have time to play it right this moment. Have you played it already at this point, and if so, what are your impressions?

Solid point. But I want it now. I guess I'm still holding out hope that I might have some time to play while I'm traveling in the next month or so.

Does the early access stuff sometimes stop being available? Like if I don't buy it soon, is it something that might go away until they're ready to do a full release?

I'm usually a patient gamer type. I think I got Hades in 2022 or 2023 on discount. I've also never purchased an early access game. But I'm seriously considering this one.

Main thing holding me back is that I just don't get to play games very much this time of year, and I probably won't have much time again until Fall.

If you’re having a problem with fire ants it’s likely due to overuse of broad spectrum pesticides. Fire ants have tons of natural predators, but they are usually taken out by broad spectrum pesticides a lot more effectively than the ants.

Let me preface this by saying, I agree with your overall message about avoiding broad spectrum pesticides in the lawn, but I'm curious where you got this information from your first paragraph?

I ask because these things seem completely at odds with my experience and with most of the information I've read about fire ants.

I really don't know anybody that uses broad spectrum pesticides in large areas of their lawns or gardens, but fire ants take over yards anyway. I certainly don't use them here and none of my neighbors do.

While fire ants may have tons of natural predators in their native territories, the issue in most of the areas where they are invasive is that there aren't any/many natural predators that are actually capable of keeping the populations under control. They breed and migrate so aggressively that critters who predate them don't make a dent. And the native ants don't have much defense against fire ants.

Additionally, I'm not sure there are any current nematode products available in the US that are known to be effective against fire ants. Doesn't mean that won't change or that there aren't new products I'm not aware of, though. Just saying, that general consensus is that it's not a viable solution.

Although plenty of people do it, most aren't treating their whole yard or entire garden in pesticides on a regular basis. Most people who are using pesticides are just spot treating here and there, maybe spraying their home's foundation to keep out ants and termites and things of that nature.

People who use pesticides in their lawns will have different reasons and different approaches, but some common reasons (real and imagined, I'm not defending the practice) are typically to control pests like fire ants, Japanese beetles, yellow jacket wasps, termites, fleas and other parasites, and many other things that are region specific.

And honestly, some people just don't like bugs. I think that's ridiculous, but it's way more common than you might think. Any tiny creature in their house warrants the nuclear option. A wasp nest on the underside of a deck terrifies them.

Lightning bugs are really cool! Where I live, people are usually surprised to find out that there are dozens of species native to the region.

A few years ago, I went on a trip to a different part of the US and they had a species of lightning bug where they all flash synchronously. Instead of flying around the yard, blinking seemingly at random like all the lightning bugs I'd ever seen up to that point, the synchronous ones crawled around in the bushes and trees and then when they flashed, they all flashed at the same time. It was super cool to see.

Another thing I've noticed about adult lightning bugs is that the populations can vary greatly from year to year around here. We might have a year or two with large numbers of them each night during the warmest parts of the year, then a year where they are few and far between.

I’ll have some cake please. Nothing fancy, no frosting, just plane.

Unless your life insurance policy is all paid up and your Earthly affairs are in order, I hope it's not a Boeing.

Translated for the hard of hearing:

Master Lock closed down. I used to use Master Lock all the time when I was a little child.

I take mashter-lacka goomp een naste lots a naste liddum puzzles yah puddum.

This is second hand info, but everyone I know who has ever worked for him basically hates him. He's a raging asshole, difficult to work with, and just a horrible human being on a personal level. I've never met him myself, but the people I'm referring to are all pretty awesome, wholesome people so I do trust their judgment.

Strictly speaking, it doesn't. But this isn't a "one of" thing, numerous examples of them have been found throughout Europe. It's been awhile since I've read about them, but in some instances, they've been found in situations that imply they had some kind of special value or significance to their owners.

And at the end of the day "use" is pretty open ended. Even if they were considered art pieces, made while training to build other things, some unknown religious decoration, or just a status symbol -- that's all still a use.

I've noticed a downward trend, not necessarily "dropped off suddenly". One of the most notable signs I've seen is from the new comments sort.

When I'm interested in seeing what's actually active and where the action is at, one of the things I will do is click to sort by "New Comments" and change my view to Comments. Typically I go to that page, see if any of the headlines or comments catch my attention, then go read or reply.

In the past couple of months, I'm seeing more and more new comments on that first page of results that are 5+ minutes old. When I get to the bottom of the page and click to refresh the results, there are times now when I don't even get a full new set of comments because there haven't been enough new ones to bump the prior comments off the first page.

That didn't used to happen much at all, it was rare enough that it really sticks out when it does happen. Typically, the comments on that first page would be anywhere from seconds to maybe 2 or 3 minutes old and every time I hit refresh (I wasn't spamming the button), I'd have a completely new set of comments to peruse (other than a bug in older versions of Lemmy that would cause some comments to get stuck at the top of that page even when they were significantly older than anything else).

My overall interpretation of this is that it appears there's less commenting, at least during the times of day that I tend to be most active on here. Of course that's not the only possibility. But like OP, I'm noticing a lot fewer posts in those top 6, top 12 filters with lots of comments than I used to see. So, those types of observations do have me thinking things are on a bit of a down trend. It could be a seasonal thing, perhaps a temporary lull.

If it hadn't been for hydrogen, oh. I'd been married long time ago. Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from hydrogen, oh.

OH NO So what's a good way to cook edamame for people who aren't used to eating it?

Maybe relevant:

You wake up.

You're still a lizard sunning on a red rock.

It was all a dream.

The concept of selling "Feet pics" to pay back "Student loans" is already losing its meaning as you open and lick your own eyeballs to moisten them.

Time to eat a bug.

Fish don't stink underwater the fish don't stink.

Some of it depends on your circumstances, honestly. What's applicable and works for me, may not be applicable and work for you in your situation.

One thing that really helps me in my situation is a product called Mosquito Bits. It's a microbial product that you add to anything that might contain standing, stagnant water. It kills mosquito larvae and is quite effective at it. I place this in the saucers of outdoor plants, in equipment that tends to collect water after rain, and even sprinkle it in plants that tend to collect water (ex: bromeliads).

I've also read and heard that using aromatic wood mulch, like cedar, around the outdoor living areas can help somewhat.

The biggest disappointment in terms of products that don't seem to be terrible effective was a Dynatrap. I had acquaintances raving about it, saw some people on other sites like the R-word saying good things about it, so even though they are expensive and require yearly bulb replacements, I gave it a try. It really did not make a dent in the mosquito population, and worse, it traps so many other kinds of insects including beneficial insects that I consider it to be a failure. I've opened up the trap to empty it, and there just aren't many mosquitos in there, just lots of moths, flies, beetles, etc.

I can't speak to growing or shrinking in terms of number of users and I try not to bring "feels like" into this since that's subjective. However, anecdotally speaking, I've been noticing signs of a down turn over the past month or two. Perhaps just a seasonal thing, perhaps due to some other cause such as the upgrade to 0.19.X.

The most telling thing to me is that I'm seeing fewer comments during my active hours. One of the ways I browse for active discussions on Lemmy is to sort by "New Comments' and switch to the view that shows comments instead of posts. So, I do the sort/filter, view the results, looking to see if there are any interesting comments or topics.

Historically speaking, other than a weird bug that would seem to pin some slightly older posts to the top of the list, everything on the first page would be somewhere between seconds to several minutes old. It was incredibly unusual to see anything over 5 minutes old on the first page and also very unusual to see any of the same comments if I refreshed the page.

More recently though, it's more common to see comments that are 5+ minutes old on the first page of new comments list. It's also much more common for me to reach the bottom of the page, hit refresh, and then see some of the same comments in the list after it refreshes. And I don't exactly speed run through this page -- I check out the post titles, if it's an interesting topic, I'll often click through and read more in the post, sometimes I'll even respond to comments directly, then return back to the new comments, etc.

As I mentioned, it could just be a seasonal slowdown. Perhaps the 0.19 upgrade results in a slowdown or backlog of things that show up on the new comments list, I know other things have changed like the fact that I can no longer view anything except the first page of results. Others have suggested there are fewer posts/posters, but that what gets posted "feels like" it's higher quality, but I'd counter that with the fact that what I "feel like" is that's not actually the case based on what I'm seeing in the new comments list.