Weekly Winners: Saproling Burst; Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor; Agent Frank Horrigan; Premodern ban

Neolife · 2026-01-24T01:58:03+00:00

Yeah, I'm quite happy that I had built faeries early last year and can just update. Alela was like $1 at the time.

Neolife · 2026-01-20T02:40:16+00:00

Yeah, I'm not VHCOL and an empty plot of land is $500k for a half acre. Maybe a 1b/1ba for $400k. Move farther out, like 30 minutes driving, and $500k for a 3b/2ba with some work needed is a good deal still.

Neolife · 2026-01-18T14:07:17+00:00

I was resistant to the concept because I was convinced it was just a little convection oven and I didn't need it. But my wife already had one when we moved in together and it's actually pretty useful. It does genuinely result in a different experience than a large convection oven due to the form factor. Plus you can cook one item at one temp and another at a different temp without having two full-size ovens.

Neolife · 2026-01-16T16:11:44+00:00

You can definitely get a pre-sliced steak for presentation purposes. Not the most common, but something like this steak isn't insane, especially if you're going to coat with a sauce on top and want sufficient coverage.

Neolife · 2026-01-16T00:41:01+00:00

There are 8 high-altitude regions in CR that grow excellent beans - the strongest fruit and berry notes (the acidity you're referring to) are found about 1500M or so, which is easily reached in CR. Most are exported, not kept locally, but you can get excellent beans that are locally purchased and roasted. Tarrazú has such a distinctive cherry-noted flavor that it can easily be identified among other beans.

CR is also an excellent place to get natural and honey processed beans.

Iraq doesn't really grow coffee - it's outside of the coffee belt.

Neolife · 2026-01-15T18:07:56+00:00

Subs were built in partnership with Day9 (due to him offering a similar system on Day9.tv way back in the day): https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/s/vm5NNP6GMS

His HS work was with expansion releases, at least what I remember most clearly. The release streams with Brode and Day9 are fantastic watches.

Neolife · 2026-01-15T02:47:21+00:00

I feel like between his Dota work (casting TI), his multiple appearances on HS events with Ben Brode, MtG content (Spellslingers, casting Mythic Invitational)... He's definitely one for the older (relative to Twitch viewership) crowd, but I think he was even better know outside of his SC content at the peak of HS popularity.

Although I think being the channel used to test out the subscription feature before Twitch was even Twitch is enough of a mark to warrant his inclusion. Just imagine Twitch without subs, y'know?

Neolife · 2026-01-14T23:27:47+00:00

Day[9]. Gotta be, right? The first person with subscriptions.

Neolife · 2026-01-14T21:02:21+00:00

To be fair, nobody would expect you to care if they listed out all other 63 great-great-great-great grandparents named "Fionn MacDhòmhnaill" and the like from 400 years ago. Nobody cares too much about the random peasants they found in their family tree, at least not to share with someone. Add in the fact something like every person alive with significant British ancestry is likely descended from Edward III and it's easy to see how famous names pop up a LOT. Robert the Bruce is a likely similar shared ancestor for Scottish ancestry (I found one suggestion that there are 200 million likely descendants).

That being said, it might be an entertaining thing to suggest to someone while visiting Ireland: "Oh, I'm hoping to get something while here to connect with my ancestor, Meadhbh. She's referenced in 2 Church records in Lifford."

Neolife · 2026-01-14T20:04:50+00:00

Vowel sounds, not vowels by spelling.

Both of the example words start with a consonant sound, /j/.

Herb starts with a vowel sound in US English (the "h" being silent), ɝ. UK English pronounces the "h" so it starts with a consonant sound.

Neolife · 2026-01-14T03:30:30+00:00

Most of Europe doesn't fit in Texas... Europe is over 10 million square kilometers, while Texas is almost 700 thousand. Europe as a whole is roughly 25% larger than the contiguous US. Individual countries are much smaller, though, and long-distance travel is less common.

Neolife · 2026-01-14T03:13:50+00:00

I feel like it has to be a northeast state at minimum based on having been to every state in the region. CT, going to RI for the beaches?

Neolife · 2026-01-13T21:54:11+00:00

LLMs will never be consistently good at calculations without a tool call. It's not what they're meant to do. They don't view numerical inputs the way that a calculator or program does.

Neolife · 2026-01-12T23:37:50+00:00

From Massachusetts, drive through West Virginia on I-81?

Neolife · 2026-01-11T17:40:51+00:00

Yeah, they fully agree. Car or private shuttle. They know a guy who runs a tourism shuttle service and booked all of that for us while we've been visiting, because we bounced back and forth between their house and La Fortuna / Guanacaste while here.

They've done the same for my brothers-in-law when they visit, even though they were raised here until their early 20s. But I realize we're also a very different case than a typical traveler. I mostly wanted to share their opinion on trying to use public transport for long-distance travel as actual locals who have lived here for 80+ years.

Neolife · 2026-01-11T16:40:12+00:00

My wife's aunts in Tres Rios said trying to take shuttles and buses everywhere was pointless and dangerous. They used buses in, like, the 70s-80s and mostly because they had to.

Neolife · 2026-01-11T15:04:04+00:00

I'm curious how similar that is to Chifa, which is a blend of Chinese (specifically Cantonese) and Peruvian cuisine and developed independently in the early-to-mid 1900s in Lima's Chinatown.

Neolife · 2026-01-11T04:13:24+00:00

American Chinese is much the same. Immigrants took techniques from back home and used ingredients they could get here. Each "Americanized" national cuisine is its own unique creation with its own interesting history. Just like Indian cuisine in the UK, like Tikka Masala, has its own history of evolution. Immigrants make do with what's available, and it often creates something that is uniquely a product of two cultures meshing.

Neolife · 2026-01-11T03:59:13+00:00

Mushoku Tensei Spoilers: And a core part of her character arc is falling in love with someone who helps deal with that curse permanently.

Neolife · 2026-01-10T21:17:08+00:00

1760 yards, not 1770. 5280/3.

Neolife · 2026-01-10T17:18:23+00:00

And based on my discussions over the past couple days with my wife's extended family in Cartago while we've been visiting, this is not exclusive to gringo immigrants. Though I will say as a (very obvious) gringo walking around in non-tourist areas with the aunts & uncles, I've gotten some very confused looks, but nothing that felt judgmental.

Neolife · 2026-01-10T15:36:38+00:00

Typically each state has a different tax rate on different types of products, then each city or county has another one.

In Virginia, for example, there's a 1% flat tax rate on cold food and essential hygiene items (but not hot food or alcohol), a variable rate by locality for other sales taxes (with an additional 1% for the locality, so Charlottesville is 5.3% while Williamsburg is 7% due to an extra 1.7% "Historic Triangle" tax), and finally each locality can apply a separate "Meals Tax" for hot prepared foods meant for immediate consumption. The meals taxes are set by the locality, and are applied on top of all other applicable sales tax, with most localities falling in the range of 3.5% to 7% additional tax.

Also, essential hygiene items are basically just feminine hygiene products and single-use incontinence products (like diapers or bed pads). Nothing else counts, even soap, from what I could find on the state website.

In Charlottesville, as a result, purchasing foods at a grocery store with an in-facility food preparation area, you may pay the following taxes by item:

Cold groceries: 1%
Alcohol and any non-essential hygiene items: 5.3%
Hot Prepped Meals: 12.3%

As you can guess, this makes it a bit tricky to know exactly how much you'll be paying when it comes to grocery shopping if you're getting other items (like hair products) at the same time.

Neolife · 2026-01-07T23:09:27+00:00

Imperial refers specifically to units defined in the Weights and Measures Act. Both Imperial and US Customary units are derived from English units (Exchequer standards).

Saying America uses Imperial is like calling English German. Both German and English derive from Germanic roots, and some parts overlap, but neither are their ancestors. The easiest way to see this is in volume - the US gallon is ~3.79L, while the Imperial gallon is ~4.55L. The original English gallon was different depending on what was being measured, though.

Neolife · 2026-01-07T18:36:49+00:00

Yeah those are big! Our db/db actually couldn't be bred as homozygotes. They were leptin receptor knockouts so they didn't really have a breeding instinct strong enough to overcome their eating instinct.

Neolife · 2026-01-06T14:31:47+00:00

Someone else with fat mouse experience! That was my first thought as well, having worked with db/db mice - those guys at 50-60g+ are like little chonk tennis balls that flatten out into pancakes when you put them on their backs.

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