…are we describing the same restaurants? Unironically all the restaurants I go to generate less waste than me cooking at home lol…

As in, every time I go to a restaurant they would always bring in washable dishes/utensils, and I assume they would probably have to fill the dishwashers to the brim (in contrast to me living alone & only filling up half each time). The one time I ordered a takeout, the restaurant put all the food in insanely high-quality takeout boxes that were freezer and microwave friendly, I used them for meal prep for a full year…

Granted these are fine dining and all cost a fortune. I guess fast food/takeouts do describe that a bit better

The worshipping of the self-made man and entrepreneurship in popular American culture

I think I was just too young and fashionable, maybe I was one of those guys that saw themselves as a “temporarily embarrassed billionaire”… then got old enough to see through the nonsense

I believe no one else mentioned this but… China is a case study of why this is a terrible idea

The entire PRC uses the same time zone, even though in any other parts of the world, China should have been split to at least 3 different timezones

It is very disorienting to try and go for breakfast in Tibet at 9 am to find that nothing is open and the sun is just out… So yeah. Imagine if this is extended to 12-hr differences

Wikipedia has a nice summary of this

Proper Belgian waffles. I have seen two US supermarkets selling proper Liege waffles that you can take home and microwave yourself, and they taste phenomenal

I hope the ones properly made in Liege would be even better, but yeah the supermarket version is still good

On laptop:

• Primary LibreWolf, as it does everything I need, and I don’t 100% trust Mozilla anymore after recent incidents so I wanted a non-Mozilla fork of Firefox
• Secondary Chromium, when something refuses to run on Firefox and derivatives

On phone:

• Primary FOSS Browser, I think it might be some guy’s passion project… It works so yeah
• Secondary Vanadium, basically GrapheneOS’ in-house Chromium fork. For when the primary browser doesn’t do the job, which happens more often because I have FOSS Browser set on blocking all JavaScript…

Absolutely not. There is a reason I’m personally noping out of the US and told every international person at my former workplace to do the same so…

Disclaimer, was an international student for many years, not a law expert

I think realistically, an administration has many ways to make it incredibly difficult to recruit international students even without a blanket ban…

Such as making overseas visa applications even more difficult (it already happened between US-China and various Muslim countries during Trump’s first term), making legislation that require more from unis if they have international students, general societal xenophobia, …

I’m not sure if an actual blanket ban would be permitted under US law though

Edit: that’s just my take on whether a blanket ban is feasible. If you ask me personally I recommend every international student to get their rear end out of the US as soon as possible so…

I left town the entire day yesterday and my parent was watching the cats for me. Apparently both kitties were staring at the apartment door from 6 pm onwards until late at night for me to come back…

I had to leave again earlier today and Tommy (one of the cats) seems to not really want me to leave. Poor Tommy is really bonded with me but is scared of just about any other human so…

Autumn. All the places I’ve stayed the past few years have hot & humid summers and cold frigid winters… and Spring has pollens. So yeah Autumn/Fall seems to be the one with the fewest issues for me

donate it to me

Jokes aside… If you don’t use Mac stuff at all and don’t mind bricking the computer, would you be interested in trying out Asahi Linux for science?

I’m not familiar with the project at all so I’m not sure how it works, but it might be cool to try. The lead developer had some personal issues recently but is otherwise quite active on Mastodon

Making two final trips to visit friends/grad school before I leave US for good! A bit exhausting… but good

Also there has been a bunch of massive shitstorms in different gacha games and it has now hit the game I main… Highly suspect it has something to do with Tencent. Don’t judge me for this I just want an outlet from all the politics and stuff

No joke but this somewhat describes me… I never hoarded TP, but I tend to buy toilet paper in large quantities (too lazy to go to grocery store) anyway, so I think my COVID stash lasted longer than my apartment at that time… I think I only used up all of it 2-3 years later. My then-roommate even took half of my stash when he moved out since I had so much lol

Sooo what I find funny is… all things considered, French Press isn’t even that sophisticated; it doesn’t involve adjusting the speed at which one pours the water, so it’s a lot less technically demanding than using like a V60 or something… I think the last time I went to a coffee class the instructors were all scoffing at the French Press lol (including one of them not wanting to “waste” a really high-quality batch of coffee on a French Press)

Also James Hoffmann has an alternative technique for using a French Press that makes coffee that is less “muddy”… basically doing the same as usual, but after 4 minutes instead of plunging, try to us a spoon to remove all the foam, and then keep the coffee inside for another 5-10 min. Then pour out coffee without plunging

Slay the Spire, on ascension 20, I lose most runs… I think I enjoy torturing myself

• Strength 6
• Dexterity 6
• Constitution 2
• Intelligence 20
• Wisdom 16
• Charisma 2

I’d wish to reroll my stats or at least try a different build

Tommy does have yellow and green/blue eyes; the exact color seems to depend on lighting and the person

I actually have something fun planned! My now-former employer offers public short-courses in various hobbyist topics. These usually fill up quickly so I registered for a dining etiquette course this Saturday a month or so back. Not an employee at this uni anymore but I am still allowed to attend the course so

I’m so sorry to hear… I have just recently left a job with a shitty supervisor and I’m still in recovery mode even after 2-3 weeks, so I feel it. I don’t know how but I hope situation on your end improves

Short answer is yes, long answer is I’m conflicted… I’ve already decided to get everything that could be affected by tariffs back in November/December… but things changed, I already have job & stuff lined up out of the US, and I might not ever coming back. On one hand I really want to make some splurges on experiences (restaurants, concerts, things to do), but on the other hand I really need all the money I have, and I don’t have a salary at the moment…

Yup I was referring to Sinder

I only really watch clips so I wasn’t that personally invested in the drama itself (other than finding it intriguing). But it did hit a bit too close to home since my boss was almost exactly like that so…