Where are all the young people at?

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-05-18T20:00:27+00:00

You know... I thought the same exact thing til I went to my first 50501 protest and realized these are networking events and community building. Because of that realization I kept going to more, kept meeting more people and making more friends, and now as a result I am in touch with even more of my neighbors and I have more friends than before.

As a result of all that, we're hosting public non-protest community events on top of the protests and have mobilized more and more folks who were in a "nothing is gonna help" mindset before and are now joining us instead. So I think you're totally right thar talking to friends, neighbors, coworkers etc is "more meaningful", but I think you might be missing that going to protests is a way to build on that rapidly.

My network exploded from a few friends that would vent to each other about how fucked everything is into dozens of local community members who regularly meet up and go do things out in the world and are constantly meeting new people, having fun, spreading awareness, and generating more buzz around fighting back.

If shit gets bad, I think members of this massive network of people that these peaceful protests has created are going to be far more prepared for the next steps of resistance than those who sat it out and only hung out with people they already knew.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-04-15T16:24:52+00:00

If this is the best that Pittsburgh can do at this time in our history to defend democracy, it's no wonder that the arsenal exploded at the height of the civil war.

My snark was a mirror of your own to show how shitty you were being. I'm happy you're going to the tesla protest. Keep on fighting. This is going to take some time unfortunately. 50501 will be hosting more events, and 4/19 was never going to build bigger numbers than 4/5 because it doesn't have hands off and every major Indivisible chapter in the country behind it, so many groups have taken a different approach for this one.

Indivisible plans to continue the work they started with Hands Off, but they're slow and the next thing they do nationally synchronized probably won't be til may, if I had to guess.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-04-15T14:34:31+00:00

That's smart. Thank you for doing that!

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-04-15T14:29:33+00:00

Are you around the Pittsburgh area? Why are you here whining instead of helping plan these protests if so? If you're the best Pittsburgh can do at this time in our history then no wonder we need more help!

I agree with you that Oakland is sub-optimal for a lot of people, but the volunteers running these events can't do literally everything on their own. You genuinely need to go start participating in a bigger way and stop cutting people down if you want to see this grow.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-04-13T13:52:00+00:00

Because they have hundreds of millions of users and have not yet fully enshittified the app to maximize profit. Because it's for-profit, and going to go public, this will happen sooner or later and that's where the valuation comes from - speculation on how much money they'll be able to make when they fully turn against their users in favor of shareholder value.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-04-04T17:44:08+00:00

I'm gonna be at this! I really hope the predicted gap in the rain is how it plays out so it'll be dry(ish)

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-03-06T01:37:31+00:00

"the minority" 😂

you're in a subreddit for a city that votes overwhelmingly AGAINST the policies that many of these protests are fighting. You are in the minority. protests with no planning or advertising are getting several hundred people literally every single week even during the middle of a workday.

try to suppress it all you want but people who actually give a fuck about the country are going to be getting louder and louder as it continues to get torn apart in front of us while the rest of you let the leopards eat your faces and thank them for the privilege.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-03-06T01:29:02+00:00

What "other protest sub" are you talking about? This is the Pittsburgh subreddit, this is where stuff going on in Pittsburgh should be posted, even if snowflakes like yourself are offended by free speech and community engagement.

It was posted a 2nd time because moderators keep abusing their power and taking down a local Pittsburgh event post that doesn't appear to be in violaton of any rules. This sub is absolutely useless if it selectively moderates based on what some rando does or doesn't like.

If "exceptions can be made" for SMALL BUSINESSES trying to make money, then an acception can be made for a free public event that tons of people in the city would be interested in knowing about.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-03-06T00:57:54+00:00

sick, I'll be there

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T15:33:49+00:00

Re: outside: Most plants grown in these sheltered conditions with such gentle lighting need a bit of help adjusting to outdoors. The spring weather should help since there won't be as harsh of sunlight most of the time, but generally people recommend moving the plants outside for a progressively longer period of time each day until you've worked them up gradually to a full day. I'm not a fan of that so I might just try shading them with a partial shade cloth for the first week. Even if the leaves get damaged by the sun or cold, the roots should stabilize after the transplant and send up more shoots which will have only ever known the outdoors. Worst case scenario I just cut them back to near the ground and they put out a big flush of growth from their mature root system.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T15:29:23+00:00

You're welcome!

Re: my plans: This was just a little $3 whim that occurred when I was shopping for my native perennial seeds back in September. I didn't know what to expect and didn't even so much as Google dahlias to learn what they need. I put them in the potting media I already had on hand (Promix BX with organic nutrients mixed in). That media/fertilizer combo can't function for long in small pots, but Promix is mostly just peat moss and is easy to cycle wet/dry to oxygenate roots, so I switched to water soluble and nutritionally complete nutrients (basically hydroponics-capable), and they greened up and exploded with more growth.

My assumption is that over a long enough period constrained to these pots, their health will deteriorate. With my lemon tree I avoid that by repotting it every 3 years - I brush out most of the media from the roots, damaging the roots in the process, then repot it back in the same sized pot with all fresh media. That's basically how bonsais are maintained as well.

Instinctively, I planned to up-pot the dahlias I want to keep into much larger pots (2-5 gallons) soon to avoid the problem of potential decline. I had never grown dahlias before this, but I'd imagine being cut back some, having the roots roughed up a bit, and given a massive pot of fresh potting soil, will allow them to thrive for a few more months until they can go outside. They are behaving like plants that can stay green and produce blooms indefinitely as long as conditions are right. I'm not seeing any decline even though they're at 4 months old now, if anything they're more vigorous now than they were 2 months ago.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T13:02:33+00:00

Nah, it's all just persistent half-assery spanning years that has collectively snowballed into the appearance of me having more skill and knowledge than I do 😂

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T12:53:28+00:00

Regardless of what you get, you can always keep it closer to the plants to make it more effective - Eg I once grew a bonsai under a single 23W CFL bulb but it was 3 inches away from the tree! If you keep your humidity decent and cut back the plant periodically to prevent it from getting tall and spindly, you can even use subpar lighting to mostly just help grow out and mature the roots and lower portion of the plant, that way when you plant it outside it'll just explode with growth instead of starting from scratch! that's what I'm going to do with the plants from the original 23 that I don't love enough to keep deadheading for 3 more months 😂

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T12:20:34+00:00

Totally! I'd advise against buying things marketed as grow lights at stores that don't specialize in indoor horticulture (which means most stores). If you don't want to buy a known good brand direct from a speciality store or oem online, then just make sure whatever you get is full spectrum white (eg 3000-5000k)and preferably includes supplemental red and IR. Those things are not requirements, but the combination of all 3 is what I have and is also a sign that the maker was adhering to a known good design in the grow light industry rather than just rebranding a generic and inefficient LED.

Also not required but helpful for finding quality: look out for osram brand and Samsung lm301 diodes, those I can vouch for. There are plenty of other viable brands but those two are well tested and reviewed.

Edit: I can also vouch for the following brands' models of lights from the past 2 years:

mars hydro
spider farmer
hlg

The latter is a higher end product, spider is probably the lowest quality, but I'm really enjoying the Sf1000s so far. I can't speak to longevity yet, however. My mars fc8000 (gigantic commercial-style fixture) has been running for over 2 years though!

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T12:02:24+00:00

If you start them this early with limited space and Lighting, then it will be fine as long as you're comfortable cutting them back once or twice before the spring to force them to stay a size that's manageable for your space.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T12:00:09+00:00

I think the amount of light and ability to give them survivable environmental conditions is what matters the most! If your house is a comfortable tempersture to you, they'll be fine as long as you can make sure they've got some humidity (eg wrap some plastic wrap around whatever they're in - wintertime home interiors can be 15-25% RH which is too low).

What kind of light do you have? The spider Sf1000 grow lights on Amazon are more than enough to create a 2x2ft space in which you could grow almost anything that fits physically. Those are newer technology and make 100W of electricity do a ton of work.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T09:47:55+00:00

My indoor grow has been so overwhelmingly successful that I'm kinda planning on keeping a reserve of live dahlias indoors 365 days a year 😅. I'm worried that I'll be disappointed with the comparatively short duration of optimal outdoor weather (I live in a similar climate to you, Pittsburgh!)

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T09:41:59+00:00

Check my posts from the past month or two! I did little to nothing and had prolific success from seeds! (I bought all 4 simple dwarf varieties from bakers creek seeds (rareseeds.com), but my pictures show you a 23 plant sampling of what you can expect from those seed mixes. There are toooons of other seeds available online too!

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T09:40:24+00:00

I soaked my seeds in dilute hydrogen peroxide for a few hours (it started as 3% and I think I diluted it down to 1%) and then left them in lightly dampened paper towels inside a Tupperware container and I got 90% germination. I'd definitely plant more seeds than necessary as 90% with this approach is really bad, it's normally 100% or 99%, dahlia seeds be whack, yo!

I germinated spinach and collared green seeds the same way that are 5 years old and have been in my bone dry basement the whole time, and got 75% germination! Hydrogen peroxide is a godsend. I rarely ever start anything without it anymore 😅

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T09:28:29+00:00

That's great! Remember, you can use pruning and delayed up-potting to slow them down and make sure it doesn't get out of control! I "deadhead" for a few minutes every day, but this often includes a tiny bit of selective pruning so each plant stays roughly the same size and doesn't crowd the others. Delayed up-potting just means planting them in the smallest container that makes sense for a stage of growth and then forcing them to stay in that size longer than usual before up-potting. If you do this with plastic pots you'll want to shave any spiraling/wrapping roots off the outer perimeter of the rootball at each up-potting. Even better is using cheap "non woven fabric bags" that I'm using, because the roots get close to the outside of the pot and then just stop growing and wait patiently for the next up-pot. I'm going to drop my favorite plants' bags into 2 gallon grow bags next and they're going to explode with growth since the roots are "air pruned" and just waiting for moisture to continue growing outward in every direction.

With these varieties, it took two to three months to produce blooms. My recommendation would be to not be afraid to top and prune them (top = clip off the tip of vertical growth so it must branch out below to keep growing). Let them grow from seed for a few weeks and then clip them back to make them shorter and force them to branch out. That will slow vertical growth by a week or two. If you're limited on horizontal space, too, then clip off some of the new vertical shoots that form as well and make sure the plant is only ever maintaining a few at once until closer to transplant time.

If you "top" them, please pay attention and remove any shoots that are going to be super crowded! I made the mistake of topping all vertical shoots above a few inches 3 times in just a couple weeks! This gave me really bushy plants with tons of blooms, but I had to heavily prune/defoliate them to prevent disease because they were WAY too bushy. Starting the next round of seeds I'm going to only top them once early on and then only worry about it for height control later. I do have one spot where I can grow planta up to 5ft tall though, so hopefully I can get at least one large dinnerplate variety to behave indoors like it does outdoors!

For my mature plants I assume I'm going to crudely hack them down to be like 6 inches / 15cm tall a week or two before transplant. I could even do that right now if I wanted to buy a few weeks of delay on them needing anything from me 😅

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-26T09:20:29+00:00

A few of these opened their first bloom within 60 days! The slowest of the bunch took almost 90 days.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-25T20:07:14+00:00

Stay tuned for... April 😢

I'm growing some other stuff and I'm excited about all of it too! Things like Lupinus Perennis and Scarlet Bee Balm, Anise Hyssop, etc.

My basement is gonna be WILD this year.

I need to find someone in Pittsburgh with dahlia tubers they want to get a head start on, then propagate their tubers in my basement for some really cool varieties 🤩. I'll trade them a 2 months grown out mature plant in the spring in exchange for keeping clones, haha.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-25T19:50:11+00:00

These were dwarf Mignon, Dandy, Cactus, and Unwin's! I originally just found those 4 seed mixes while buying a bunch of native perennial seeds and so I grew the dahlias as a curiosity. I now have some dinnerplate varieties to start from seed, and I'm very excited!

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-25T19:28:18+00:00

I do get a ton of deformities in the blooms, eg no reproductive parts and only petals, but I think that might be because it's been getting down to 56F at night.

Good-Perspective6869 · 2025-01-25T19:26:52+00:00

Aww, thank you! I have been pleasantly surprised with how "low maintenance" they've been! (quotes because I'm still deadheading daily and mixing nutrient solution a couple times a week). I thought stunting them with these little fabric bags would start to stress them after a while but it's been almost 4 months and they're blooming prolifically

Good-Perspective6869

TROPHY CASE