I've had to deal with huge swarms of these things every summer for the few years I've lived a mile away from a lake. I assumed they were mosquitoes until recently.

Is it some kind of midge fly? How can you tell? If I were to make an uneducated guess, I'd say it's not a mosquito because there's not a straight proboscis.

Please go easy on the downvotes—the point here is to try to understand a perspective that many of you probably won't share.

I get hella stoned and watch Foodfight! at least once a year. It’s my “favorite” movie.

Everything about it, from the implied beastiality between Charlie Sheen and Hillary Duff, to the weird gay bat, to the shitweasel is a masterclass in what not to do in a movie. It transcends badness and becomes something sublime. The entire plot is about how store brands/generics are Nazis, and one of the Nazis absolutely chews the scenery in a way that makes Brian Blessed look reserved.

So I've started getting into fan cam footage from live band shows posted by some dude in Japan (Tokyo I think) which has exposed me to music/bands I dig that otherwise would have never, EVER crossed my radar (shoutout to q23 on Youtube)

This got me thinking: what other music could I discover by putting in 'Live at [x]', in the appropriate language, in Youtube (bonus points if someone can point me to another service or someone on Peertube or something)?

Will share my own venue list for Ottawa, ON Canada in the comments later today/tomorrow.

We all now the meme of "I am not Gay but" and then you list a celebrity(or character) you find out. What about the opposite team?

Mine is Shego from Kim possible and Karlach from bg3

I feel like I'm a really good judge of character; I can tell if I'm not going to get along with someone or how they will treat me in the future. When it comes to high profile celebrity figures, i can get a sense of their character through very minimal data. This is why I predict Andrew Tate (toxic manosphere influencer) will pivot into becoming an alien conspiracy influence. But I have no evidence for it, thus the prediction is baseless.

Anyone have any similar beliefs/predictions?

I've noticed that there seems to be an emphasis on being extremely serious at all times, as if every single comment is a PhD dissertation being evaluated or something. There's like this weird, subtle one upmanship about every little thing and a lot of people are very nitpicky and judgmental. It kind of takes the fun out of being on here, TBH. Or am I the only one experiencing this?

Pink collar positions are office jobs that have been dominated by women for the past 70 years or so--secretary, receptionist, administrative assistant, scheduler, etc.

In my life, I've only ever met a single man who worked as a receptionist in a medical office.

Recently in a thread about AI showing bias against job applications, someone mentioned male names being thrown in the discard pile for women's positions.

If you're a man who is in the field OR has tried to get into it, what's your experiece been?

Context: I’m 19 and completely inexperienced when it comes to dating. Two days ago, my friend, her boyfriend, and I were supposed to go see Backrooms together, but one of the boyfriend’s friends joined us last minute. This guy insisted on paying for my movie ticket, snacks, dinner afterward, and even 3 books when we stopped at a bookstore, and then he drove me home. After the movie, I mentioned that I wanted to see Obsession next because, in my mind, they’re kind of sister movies, and he said we should go see it together, which we did yesterday. He acted the exact same way then too. He’s also going fishing on Sunday, and I’m going with him. I’ve never had a guy act like this toward me before, so I honestly don’t know what to make of it. But I really love it, and I can’t stop thinking about him.

McDonalds has a multinational presence, along with taking regional pricing into account (meaning the prices of food items differ and adjusted based on GDP per capita), like a Big Mac is $6 before tax while the same is $2 in another country.

The menu is different by country (certain menu items are only available in that region, like how Japan has burgers with teriyaki sauce or rice buns) along with the menu being around ¥1500 for a tray while the same is $40 in the US.

I mean, have you tried McDonalds overseas? If so, is it cheaper when you consider regional pricing and what item do you wish was available at US McDonalds but only remains in that country? Is McDonalds in other countries better or worse?

It's the summer of 2026. Is AI really cheaper than humans or is it an outright lie? People said AI models be improving, becoming ten times more efficient and cheaper, but what is the reality? What can we really expect in 2027, for example?

I have a friend who sings and I'd like to give them a looper as a birthday gift. Do you have any recommendations? My budget is 500 dollars, preferably cheaper.

I got this reference from the video (linked) where he's talking about the differences between Mandarin and Japanese, mainly involving 漢字 which is present in both languages but there are actual differences (besides simplified or traditional characters) associated with either printed text and handwritten formats, kind of like this:

I mean, it's literally the same word in both languages but they're different if you look closely. No wonder why people mistake Japanese for CHINESE! It's infuritating when you know what Kanji actually looks like and how it's pronounced. The issue is that characters for the most part inherit same unicode between Japanese & Mandarin.

Mainly talking about word processors and how Kanji / Hanzi is encoded onto computers, what ends up happening is that they overlap depending on the font used (as Japanese has it's own font set while Mandarin uses a completely different one). Look at it like this, which language is the "A" looking letter from (shown below):

Both use the same font, but have the stroke on top facing different directions indicating they are from different languages. However if one doesn't pay close attention to the letters present within a word, they can face confusion over which language it belongs to. That's the kind of crap happens when discussing Kanji or Hanzi.

For example, the unicode for 軍 is U+8ECD which is present in both Japanese and Mandarin. Basically, the same as to why the letter "Í" (U+CD) appears in multiple languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Icelandic, Hungarian, Czech all inherit unicode U+CD so you may get mixed results in one of those languages.

I have unintentionally become pescatarian recently because I've come to realize that fish have a lot of nutritional value. So far, my meal plan looks like this:

Breakfast

• 3 eggs
• 1 slice of Ezekial bread toasted
• Mixed berry smoothie with banana, peanut powder, collagen peptides, chia, creatine, non-fat greek yogurt, and water

Lunch

• 2 tin cans of sardines, mashed
• Non-fat greek yogurt
• Tzaziki sauce
• Lemon
• Black pepper
• 2 slices of Ezekial bread toast or one ezekial tortilla, depending on my mood

Dinner

• Shrimp kebabs made with olive oil and veggies
• 1 corn roll or asparagus

Some days I'll switch out my dinner for a salmon salad / salmon wrap, or I'll change the shrimp kebabs for a shrimp ceasar wrap with a nice avocado oil based dressing. Being pescatarian is really great because it's easier to make, shelf life lasts very long, and it's generally cheaper than buying meats.

Thursday-Sunday?
Friday-Monday?
Saturday-Tuesday?

Thought in my head about if you suspect someone of being poly and your interested them, is it worth asking?

This does relate to my previous post and I like the "just flirt" route since its got the best case for it

Any kind of gambling.

My recently widowed father (72) is planning a trip across the country to meet a woman who he claims called him by accident and with whom he has since built a romantic (remote) relationship. Here's what he's shared with me:

• He received a "wrong number" call from a woman that led to a number of other conversations online and on the phone that started to take on a romantic tone.
• He believes she is real because he has checked her out online, including validating that she is indeed the CEO of her company, is 40 years old, and is originally from Taiwan. Haven't seen this myself.
• She says she runs this company with her brother in Canada and her father back in Taiwan. The details of the company were not clear to me.
• They have exchanged photos but not video because her webcam is not working.
• He is planning a trip to Los Angeles (from the East Coast of US) in a few months to meet her in person. She said her driver will pick him up at the airport.
• No money has been asked for or sent, according to him.

This is obviously a scam, right? But, without there being an ask for money I can't figure out the angle and haven't been able to convince him to disengage.

It is either going to be an ask for money to help her overseas family or a "can't lose" investment in her company. I'm guessing she'll back out of the travel plans last minute so they never meet OR he's going go there and have his organs harvested.

Does anyone recognize this scam? What should we expect next? Has anyone else successfully talked their elderly loved ones out of one of these?

Either being a cheater, being cheated on or both. I wanna hear about it.

I'm lucky enough to have disposable income, I could afford to buy one without it hurting. That said, idk just off principle it feels like an insane ask. Especially considering its not doing anything a PC can't do (as far as I know). For those not in the know, the cheapest edition will be about 1,000 USD and the most pricy will be around 1,500. To my knowledge, consoles themselves aren't profitable historically. So, do you think even at this price point Valve is taking a hit? Do you think if this sells well it will drastically increase the cost of other consoles (completely independent of the external factor being hardware shortage due to AI). General steam machine discussion post as well, just dont be a dickhead to anyone.

Some context does involve me opening up to this person and they telling me it's cute that I open over text, being lonely might make me get attached to them quickly.

The whole thought is if they didn't have same feelings about me; should I be open and say I should pursue a healthy relationship or just not say anything and let it come out through my actions

I spent years, but I didn't find any interesting acquaintances, and I came across such people that I thought I was in the Stone Age, I seemed to be dumb by 25 percent at least when I communicated in discord or I was terribly bored, it's difficult to explain, but that's about how I can describe my experience.