When I have a perfectly flat four row stack and the 4x1 tile appears.

They (all) just keep increasing prices. I’m sitting here with no subscription to anything and waiting for the day when this business model crumbles. Everyone complains they can’t afford groceries, can they afford entertainment?

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There was an influx of “truckers” in the media of the 1970’s and '80s. Movies like Over The Top and Smokey and the Bandit and songs like Convoy come to mind. I don’t know why this was the case but in my mind it marks the beginning of a cultural milestone. I was also born in '76 so my perception is skewed.

I submit Exhibit A.

People could be asking things out of curiosity or sheer innocence.

I understand that and that’s how I responded. Again, ask yourself why men choose adopt this look. Why do you believe trans people are different?

That may be true in some places but I don’t think so across the board. Don’t let the news cycle or the vocal minorities twist reality. Gay marriage is legal, we have gay members in congress and the president’s cabinet, and trans political leaders. Overall, things are better than they were 20 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transgender_political_office-holders

Edit: Actually, re-reading your post, I’d shorten my entire response to: why not also ask men why they adopt the goatee trucker guy look?

The problem with all of this, in my opinion, is the societal stereotypes and expectations on men and women. Requiring people to fit into a classification for the convenience of others does not allow them to “just be who they want to be”. Who are you to tell someone they should look one way or another? If we could all just accept people dressing how they want or enjoying the pleasures of life however they want, most of this entire cultural conversation would be irrelevant. People struggling to conform to the stereotypes set by others is causing mental and emotional instability. Thankfully, things are getting better and, most of us, are accepting of people for however they want to present themselves. Personally, I don’t believe that means they need to “identify” as a male or female but that’s what they need to do in order to subvert expectations.

Why do you dress the way you do or like the things you do? Why do you believe someone who is unlike you needs to justify how they see themselves and what they like? I dress and act the way I do because it’s what feels like “me”. I’m a guy and look at the vast majority of “male models” (whatever that means) and find I have nothing in common with them at all. To be honest, I’m more comfortable dressing like an old lady than a “trucker guy look”. So, are you going to question why I dress the way I do as well?

We used to make peanut butter sandwiches with potato chips. I haven’t had one since I was like 14 and need to try one again.

I’ve had similar pizzas in the US. “Sweet pizzas”, so to speak, were all the rage in the mid 2010s. More often, they were branded as flatbreads.

I’ve made pizza topped with a brandy peach sauce (peaches sautéed in brandy, nutmeg, butter), bourbon blueberry syrup, and taleggio. Even better is peaches, arugula, and brie.

Mastodon seems like it could work relatively well.

The other side of the issue though is for social media to feel “social” now, people, consciously or not, want to feel connected to brands and advertising and popular culture. Social media, now more than television or magazines used to, generates our water-cooler moments. It generates the content we sit right here and discuss - it generates memes. These fringe alternatives aren’t popular because the they lack gravity. Gravity comes from investment. Investment comes from potential; typically, potential to make money.

But yeah, group ware, et al, could work for smaller groups. The friction there is getting people to install, and give a crap about, another app on their phone.

What used to be apps for catching up with your friends and family are now algorithmic nightmares that constantly interrupt you with suggested content and advertisements that consistently outweigh the content of people that you choose to follow.

In the case of Facebook, the decline is either reflected in — or directly facilitated by — two specific features: People You May Know and the News Feed.

Yep. I was screaming to bring back the chronological timeline when they pushed out the “beta testing”. I actually stopped using social media regularly because I was missing events that were happening in my neighborhood. There was no point once they chose what to show me. But, I’m not the target demographic for their platform.

Someone who wants to interact with their community and keep in touch with their friends and family is not what social media is for. It’s for selling ads. It’s for maintaining your attention. It’s for engagement and making you feel a way they’ve determined will keep you scrolling.

And honestly, it’s tough to complain. The more successful a platform becomes, the more content is uploaded and viewed. This doesn’t cost them nothing. Without charging to use or upload to the platform, they have to sell ads. The more engaging the ads are, the more successful business are with posting those ads. So they double down and post more ads - they engage more with the audience the platform has directed towards them. It just keeps snowballing from there until the platform no longer represents what it did initially.

The actual problem is that no one is willing to pay for “social media”. They’ll pay out the butt for streaming services and two-day delivery but connecting with real people and getting unbiased investigative news, not so much.

The second link is interesting. I’m in the Philadelphia area which is one of the greater percentage increases. I’d like to know what exactly is being indexed.

I’d be interested in learning what items increased and by how much over time.

Edit: I guess this covers that question https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t07.htm#cpipress7.f.4

I’m not seeing specific items in that link. I’m thinking, for example, a 3 lb chicken, a pound of 80/20 ground beef, a pound of honey crisp apples, a head of romaine lettuce, etc.

Good. It should have been the whole time.

I’d be interested in seeing a price comparison of some specific items over the course of the last four years.

I’m well aware of the reporting and personal stories people have shared about rising inflation. Inflation is real. Price gouging is real. Climate change, environmental factors, livestock disease are real. I am not at all questioning that. However, I am curious as to how these factors have had little impact on my personal shopping experiences.

I live in a major east coast city. I buy 85% of my groceries from a local produce market. I rarely buy packaged foods or prepared items. Most of my groceries are local in-season fruits, veg, protein. I’ve been paying the same $5-$6 for a dozen eggs for nearly ten years. My grocery bill for the week is typically $80.

So, it’s been weird observing, from a distance, the conversation about inflation and how people are struggling to buy groceries.

I’d like to know if and / or how a small grocery store can maintain prices for over half a decade. Is it because the products are limited in their interactions with others - less inflation due to shipping it all over or compensating for rising prices of ingredients (milk, flour, eggs, etc). Is it because the metrics for “bills seem high” is based on grocery items I’m not purchasing. Is it based on geographic location or the store items are acquired? Is it because people are buying more at the store to take home rather than spend money out for dinner (because that certainly has increased). Is buying local actually a life hack for saving money?

I mean, I’m reading the chart and it’s saying prices are up 21% since '21 but I am not personally seeing that. I’m curious as to why that may be. The 22% for ‘food away from home’ though, I can absolutely confirm in my experience.

Thank you. I really don’t understand how people feel it’s okay to reject math and the meanings of words. Moreover, their inability to accept they don’t know everything and instead live a life where they believe they’re more intelligent than facts and science is a little heartbreaking.

Personally, if I were going around using a word to describe something and someone told me I was incorrect and offered a source, I’d thank them for correcting and educating me.

butt game changer.

It’s upsetting to me that seemingly intelligent people are unable to live in reality. Living in a delusion means a lot of the judgements you make can impact others.

All you have to do is read some words. You could have learned something in a quarter of the time it’s taken you to respond to me. You could have spread facts to others like yourself. You’ve simply chosen to mad at one thing while blaming something else unrelated. All you have to do is direct your frustration towards the group and policies you’re mad at. It’s very simple.

You’re probably pretty smart but you’re really coming off here appearing quite ignorant and stubborn. I’m trying to help you remove the nearly transparent veil you’re having trouble seeing through. You’ve rejected a scientific mathematical measurement to make yourself feel better. There’s no defending that. Please swallow your pride and take five minutes to read and another five minutes to understand your confusion.

Fair enough. Plex may not have the bells and whistles but it’s simple and intuitive to use. I’ve also tried the QuMagie app on my QNAP which does have all those features but found it to be a bit more cumbersome than it was worth.

I tried Google Photos briefly as well and was very shocked at how bad it is, compared to Apple Photos. It took me several days just to figure out how to delete more than one picture at a time. I have to assume it’s much more robust on an Android than on an iPhone but even their web interface was horrible.