Instead of Steam forcing any disputes with them to go through an “impartial” 3rd party company they choose and pay for to oversee and rule on disputes, they are saying that disputes must go through the courts.

Basically forced arbitration has always been seen as anti-consumer and unfair because the company is paying for the arbitration and is thus considered more likely to be found in favor of. Steam is doing the opposite and as such this is seen as pro-consumer and a good thing

I live in suburban Kansas City and these are the distances to the things you mentioned -

• Convenience store - 1.2 miles (1.9km)
• Chain supermarket - 2.8 miles (4.5km)
• Bus stop - 1.2 miles (1.9km)
• Park - .4 miles (650m)
• Big supermarket - 5.5 miles (8.8km)
• Library - 1.9 miles (3km)
• Train station - 7.4 miles (11km) (trains are not really a viable transport option here)
• Airport - 29.1 miles (46.8km)

The closest publicly accessible business to me is a fast food restaurant about a mile away.

Basically if I need anything, it’s a 30 minute walk one way to get there. It just isn’t really viable as a regular thing to spend an hour walking to get to/from a convenience store, or 2 hours for a grocery store. Instead, I spend 10-20 minutes in my car for those errands, and save the extra time for walking my dog (since he couldn’t go into any of the places mentioned above either, so his walks would have to be in addition anyway.)

Part of why cats like you is probably because you don’t like them and seek them out. Most cats are wary of people directly trying to approach them without invitation or greeting. In general cats will find the person ignoring them the least threatening and most approachable.

It never fails that cats tend to flock toward the person that is allergic to them, because that person is typically entirely disinterested in them lol. Not being interested in the cats is likely why you make friends with them so quickly!

How many times are you going to post that link? We have seen it, and at this point you’re just spamming.

We get it, you don’t like Kagi. Stop spamming the thread.

While I agree with your sentiment, there is a difference between not understanding and actively disparaging. The former is fine - there’s plenty of stuff I don’t understand, and I just don’t comment on it because I have no business doing so. Where I take objection is when the lack of understanding transforms into bigotry and disparaging remarks.

By all means be ignorant (and I don’t mean that in a derogatory manner - we are all ignorant about various things), but don’t let your ignorance manifest into negativity.

Sleep As Android is hands down the #1 app on my phone I cannot give up. It’s THE reason I could never switch to Apple. I’ve gone beyond basic use and now have it automating things based on sleep actions and I kind of love it.

I would argue that if the attacker has physical possession of my yubikey, that alone means the accounts tied to it are vulnerable. While the information isn’t technically wrong, I feel like that headline is misleading and this isn’t as big of a deal as some would like to make it out as.

In my opinion it depends on the game. Games as good as BG3, with no micro-transaction crap and a bit of updates for bugs and some patches? I would pay more for it and gladly. BG3 feels easily worth $120 to me.

The problem is, other studios will see BG3 able to charge that, then go try doing it themselves, riddle it full of micro-transactions, release it half baked, and then gaslight us by telling us we’re being unrealistic with our expectations.

Generic Epipens still cost $300. They can all go fuck themselves.

100% agree. I’ve been using Kagi for a bit over a month now and I love it. My one and only complaint is business hours can be harder to find - I have to actually click into their website for it. That’s it though! Everything else is dramatically less painful in my opinion. I don’t need business hours frequently enough for it to matter though, and if needed I can use Google for that one thing.

Kagi has been a breath of fresh air

I’m not fully de-Googling, however I have been migrating things that Google does badly over to other services. Kagi for search was the latest, and admittedly hardest mentally for me to do. Not because the search engine itself isn’t fantastic (it is), but I’ve been using Google since its inception when I stopped asking Jeeves or Hotbot. Just feels weird to jump ship, but I’m so tired of how bad and enshitified their search has become that I just can’t do it anymore.

I actually have a Proton acct already but only use the VPN. Sounds like it’s time to look further into the other offerings.

Minecraft

Stardew Valley

Baldurs Gate 3

We just finished Prodigy, and are in the middle of Dr Who. Soon we’ll start up House of the Dragon 😊

My husband and I don’t watch TV together a lot, but Sunday nights are the one night a week we set aside for it. I often find myself looking forward to Sunday evenings when we get to catch up on our favorite shows and hang out. It’s also typically the only night of the week I eat ice cream, so it’s an extra treat.

I’m usually busy enjoying my Sunday evenings and don’t even think about the fact that the weekend is ending.

Eh, I don’t agree. Sports are a good way for people to get exercise and recreation time in, which are vital for mental and physical health. There are definitely ways to incorporate animals into sports that the animals enjoy and is also good for their mental and physical well-being. We just need to collectively stop being shitty stewards of our animal companions.

Absolutely this. There IS a scenario in which I would love a “smart” or “AI” fridge, but it’s gotta be damn impressive to even be worth my time.

It needs to know everything in my fridge, how long it’s been there and it’s expiration date, and I want it to build grocery lists for me based on what is low, and let me know ahead of time that I should use something up that’s going bad soon. Bonus points if it recommends some options for how to do that based on my tastes. And I want to do this without having to manually input or remove everything.

But we’re still SO far from being able to do this reliably, let alone at any kind of acceptable price point, and yet fridge makers keep shoving out dumb fridges with a screen on them and calling them “smart”. I hate it.

Honestly, look into the Breeze litter boxes. They’re not automatic or anything crazy expensive, but it really does make a HUGE difference. I’ve been told by multiple strangers “I thought you had a cat?” after being in my house a while because she hides and the box generally cannot be smelled. If you change the pads regularly (i.e. before they are full), replace the pellets 2-3 times a year, and clean the box itself when replacing the pellets, the only smell you will have is from poop. I personally buy the bioplastic dog poop bags in bulk, and just use those to quickly grab and dispose of it.

When we used regular litter the cats tracked it everywhere, flung it out of the box, and it always had a smell, even when cleaned daily. I have none of those things with the Breeze boxes. We were using two when we had 3 cats and I had to replace the pads every 3 days. Now with one cat I replace the pads every week to two weeks depending on whether she divides her usage or fixates on one. We pick up the poop as soon as we notice it, which is usually very quickly because they can’t really bury it as well. I will never go back to traditional litter.

Moats were cool until I learned that toileting holes were often positioned such that the urine and feces wash down into the moat. I’m gonna have to take a pass on that lazy river…

My big wool cloak is my absolute favorite winter garment. It is unbelievably warm and cozy, blocks wind better than any other coat I own, and as an added bonus I can wrap someone else up in it with me to keep THEM warm.

I am unabashedly the cloak girl. Bring back cloaks!

Not really. I haven’t looked into why it caused the issue it did. Presumably it is not actually intentional by MS, and there is some conflict going on that’s causing it. I’ll eventually get around to trying to let it install that update again, but life has been busy :)