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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • They made it the default option for businesses that routinely buy computers with less local storage than their users need. Pretty much every company I have worked for.

    They then pushed it out hard into the consumer market when SSD came out and the average storage space on lower end models dropped by 75%.

    I see why they did it, how they did it was in usual Microsoft fashion, idiotic.

    It’s sort of their pattern.

    1. Introduce new changes.

    2. Screw it up royalty.

    3. Fix the features that are salvageable and revert most of the remaining except: Double down on the shitty ones that they think will make them more money.

    4. Rinse and Repeat



  • I personally think three things have driven the degradation in the movie theaters

    The lack of competition with theatres as monopolies have formed. This has allowed the average theatre to degrade in quality.

    Most major “blockbuster” style movies are designed for the international market. Lots of long action sequences with little dialogue. Simple character development and plots for easier translation. They are all pretty boring.

    And last, the improvements and price reduction of TV’s and home sound systems. Combined with the fast release of movies onto streaming platforms or pirate sites.

    So what exactly is are theaters selling anymore? A shitty service for a shitty product that is better consumed at home.






  • I support the theory that it was the cats who started it. They are also only partially domesticated. When humans began farming grains the rodent population near them exploded. Cats who were less timid around humans got more rodents. Humans seeing the value of having cats fed the cats during times when the rodent population was low.

    If you’ve ever been around feral barn cats this pattern is the same today. They are constantly on the edge of being wild/domesticated.





  • It’s all about profits. Seedless watermelons usually sell better with American consumers.

    In order to produce fruit on triploid watermelons there has to be regular seeded (diploid) varieties in the field. Traditionally they would use a large oblong traditional seeded (allsweet types). Mainly because there was a market for them and they looked different than the seedless varieties.

    The growers had to dedicate 1/5th of their acres to growing a seeded melons which they could sell at 50% or less than seedless varieties.

    That’s when seed companies introduced dedicated pollinators (non-harvested). These untilized several different dwarf genes and could be interplanted with seedless varities with no loss of space.

    With the exception of the big party markets like the 4th of July, most fields utilize the dedicated pollinators in the U.S. now. For production in Latin America, they export the seedless ones to the U.S. and sell the seeded ones l ones domestically.

    Bottom line, today you only occasionally seeded watermelons in grocery stores in the U.S. and Canada.


  • I was an advanced learner and started college at 16. The only reason I didn’t start at 14 was because I had to get a highschool diploma or GED to qualify for financial assistance. It took me 18 months after acceptance into university to get the adult education diploma.

    Up until then I had moved along with my class, always placed in the advanced courses.

    Basically school sucked for me.

    In my experience being in the 99+% sucks socially growing up and even into adulthood. There is no easy path for these kids. They do not fit in anywhere. There is no “right” path for all of them. Each has to figure it out on their own and suffer through it.


  • They are not all bad. In the early 2000’s a breeder created a logistical method create tetraploids in 6 years (5 generations every 2 years). He used 3 countries to do it in if I recall correctly.

    He integrated some of the small seeded deep red fleshed Chinese germplasm combined with the old flavorful allsweet types to make dramatically improved tetraploids.

    Other companies have followed suit and the average quality of the fruit has improved. Some of the newer ones have really excellent flavor.



  • A. They have no significant difference in nutrition than non-GMO. In fact many GMO’s have been created to improve nutrition but sadly not used because of dumbfucks like Greenpeace who would rather have people go blind or die than accept GMO food. For example, rice that produces vitamin A and folic acid have been created but never used.

    B. The “Terminator” GMO gene was created by the USDA-ARS and was NEVER released. No seed on the market has ever had a GMO sterility gene. Contrary to public opinion, it was designed to be integrated with other GMO genes to prevent the outcrossing and spread into the environment, not as an IP control mechanism.


  • Now why seedless watermelons suck is an interesting story.

    The first intentional creation of a seedless watermelon was done in 1939 in Japan. University breeding programs in the southern U.S. after WWII began using the technology to create the first hybrids. In the early '50’s and '60’s multiple tetraploids were created by the university programs and released to private companies to produce seed with.

    These tetraploid lines were “greys”. “Greys” were selected to have a thick hard rind for long distance shipping. They were barely red on the inside and tasted slightly bitter. They all sucked for flavor.

    A seedless watermelon hybrid is made by crossing a tetraploid female by a diploid male. The resulting hybrid (triploid) has 3 copies of every chromosome and is sterile.

    Fertile stable tetraploids take a long time to create - around 15 generations of you are lucky. Seedless watermelons also took a long time to gain popularity in the market. So nobody put significant money or time into creating more tetraploid inbreds for over 40 years.

    From the 1980’s when seedless watermelons were introduced until around 2010, everyone used those shitty old tetraploids as 2/3rds of the hybrid. Since 2010 companies have created new tetraploid to use, but a significant portion still use 70 year old shitty ones.

    .