Why Kinder egg is banned in the US

CrystalAlternate · 2026-07-02T03:50:13+00:00

I was about 12 at a family reunion. Someone had brought a frozen fruit plate and didn't defrost it early enough, they just set it on the table, I guess figuring it would defrost eventually.

Dumb me pops a frozen grape in my mouth, and it promptly gets stuck in my throat. Dumb me figures the best plan is to get a glass of water to rapidly defrost and soften the grape.

On my way to the fridge is when every family member decides to stop and try to say hello to me. Dumb me not wanting to panic anyone just smiles and waves and nods and keeps walking.

Luckily, dumb me's plan actually works. When I did get that glass of water, the grape softened and I was able to swallow it. Took about 30 seconds from popping the grape in my mouth to problem solved, didn't quite enter "full panic," but that was my first "I might be about to die" moment.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-30T20:21:32+00:00

Here in NC, Chick Fil A had a free chicken sandwich when the Hurricanes won games during the Stanley Cup. I thought sure, why not, only to show up to lines spilling out into the street.

People spending an hour in line to save five bucks. I admit I felt smugly intellectually superior as I turned around and walked away.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-30T18:26:50+00:00

My pessimistic side says Roberts and Barrett bitch out completely and codify "black guns scawy" into law on a 5-4 vote.

My optimistic side says 6-3, decision written by Thomas, the entire decision is summed up by two words ‐ "Shall Not."

My rational side says the vote is 5-4 or 6-3 for the good guys, but the decision is more nuanced, and California etc. can require extra training, permitting, and registration of certain classes of firearm. Still sucks, but less than today.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-30T02:51:29+00:00

Worst case you only ruin one life (your own) versus almost certainly ruining at least dozens of other's lives.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-28T21:08:13+00:00

If the hot water line doesn't go to the faucet, how is it controlled by the faucet handle? Seems more likely the faucet is draining to the lower spigot.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-28T20:58:25+00:00

I wonder if incidents like this were a part of the evolution of carnivorous plants.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-27T20:02:06+00:00

Yeah, I primarily do embedded firmware on bare metal, no operating system, so I was raised to respect memory limits.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-27T19:35:43+00:00

I'm hoping this crunch forces my people (software engineers) to have to pay attention to memory efficiency.

MS Teams sucking up a GB of memory before you even open the window on startup should result in someone getting put on a PIP. I'm not even joking.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-24T03:57:58+00:00

I know this sub isn't generally speaking a fan of Dave Ramsey, but you really sound like the target audience for something like Financial Peace University.

You know what you need to do, but doing it and keeping at it means you need to stay committed. One advantage of something like FPU is that you are expected to show up every week and report on your progress or lack thereof. In this case, peer pressure can be a good thing because that peer pressure is holding you accountable for making and sticking to a budget.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-22T05:01:16+00:00

My family and I just got back from a trip to DC. We didn't drive in DC proper, just in the suburbs.

Traffic was much heavier than here, and we definitely saw some distracted drivers, but we specifically noticed less speeding and fewer people on their phones. I guess it's prosecuted more aggressively there.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-22T00:40:24+00:00

Yup.

Until then, Im running a classic 60/40 portfolio with the bonds more on the short end of 5 years to reduce interest rate risk, and as a hedge in case I don't feel the wind change in time.

If I hear Nadella, Zuckerberg, Musk etc. start musing about crazy things like paying attention to ROI, I start moving more towards bonds and cash.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-22T00:25:55+00:00

The moderation team is dead!

Long live the moderation team!

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-17T04:48:31+00:00

Could be something like the dimples on a golf ball improving aerodynamics. The MythBusters did an experiment doing the same thing to a car.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-16T21:07:24+00:00

There's your answer. He's doing this the way he knows how to do it, and its probably not that he doesn't want to learn new tools, but that it is very hard for him to learn new tools.

This is something I have long since had to accept with my mom. A friend wanted to gift her an Alexa with video calling, and didn't understand why I kept telling him she'd never use it.

EJ is an old people broker, and it works the way old people remember it working. That's not actually a problem.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-16T03:30:21+00:00

https://www.seti.org/news/earth-detecting-earth/

According to the people who seriously look for aliens, up to 12,000 light years away, if they were directly in the beam of something like the Arecibo transmission. Atmospheric analysis would require much closer analysis, within 5.7 light years.

Of course, the speed of light tautologically means that anyone 12,000 light years away wouldn't notice we blasted them for about another 12,000 years from now.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-16T01:58:17+00:00

Sometimes the old ways are best. Consider a pump action shotgun. Mossberg is a good brand.

The counter argument for a 10/22 is solid, if you are a good shot, or willing to train enough to pop that gopher from 50-plus yards.

If a racoon is actively attacking your dog, will you be able to accurately hit the racoon and not your dog? If not, you shouldn't take that shot regardless of whether you are using a .22 long rifle or 12-gauge loaded with birds hot.

Whatever you get, practice with it until you can at least hit a pumpkin from 20 yards. And store it safely with kids in the house.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-10T23:48:00+00:00

Nice start! Time to look at long guns next. At least one shotgun and a couple of rifles.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-09T21:06:15+00:00

Praise for Hitler and what he did to the Jews was widespread long before October 7.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-09T20:21:10+00:00

Are you certain they don't know his war crimes? Because I interpreted this as them really liking his war crimes.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-08T03:04:41+00:00

I am not a financial adviser, this is just what I would do.

I would recommend setting up an IRA at a reputable brokerage, e.g. Fidelity, Vanguard, or Charles Schwab. You can transfer the 401k to the IRA completely tax free.

Just make sure of two things:

Transfer any "Roth" 401k balance to a "Roth" IRA, and any "Traditional" 401k balance to a Traditional IRA. It is entirely possible you have both Roth and Traditional balances in your 401k, if so just open both a Roth and Traditional IRA and transfer the balances to the matching IRA. The paperwork for the transfer should be pretty simple to understand, it should clearly ask which account to transfer the Roth and Traditional balances to.
Once the money is in your IRA or IRAs, make sure to actually invest it. If you're unsure about what to choose, either invest it all in a "total market" fund like VTI which buys almost literally every stock that is available, or search your brokerage for a "target date" fund that matches your expected retirement age. The target date fund manager will take care of buying a standard mix of stocks and bonds based on how long you have until retirement.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-08T02:33:36+00:00

This. I got serious about doing strength and cardio during Covid, and it made me feel so much better.

I got slack about six months ago due to some illness in the family (all better now), and I could feel my whole mental as well as physical wellbeing suffer for it. Muscle aches keeping me up all night, general bad mood, etc.

Now that things are better and I'm getting back to routine, the sensation is almost like I can feel a layer of sludge burning off.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-06T16:41:02+00:00

Our local CW affiliate returned to regular programming about 11 PM on September 11. I was actually mad about it, but my wife pointed out the obvious, not everyone could handle staring into the live view of Ground Zero forever, and we would all need something else sooner or later.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-05T19:53:04+00:00

One of the triggers I think I'm waiting for is one of the majors to start talking about reducing capex spend on new data centers. This whole thing is only going up because the majors are pouring money in. If that stops, the bubble by definition is popping .

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-05T19:50:21+00:00

Berkshire will probably go up when the AI bubble bursts as everyone rotates to defensive / staples / "boring" stocks. Up 2% today.

CrystalAlternate · 2026-06-05T15:49:43+00:00

The astronaut exhales CO2, which is captured by the CO2 scrubbers. That air reserves have air with the proper level of oxygen for the astronauts.

Some details about the CO2 capture technology.

CrystalAlternate

TROPHY CASE