I’ll go first: r/kitty. One of the hundred grillion cat subs back on Reddit, the culture in this one was you posted a cat picture, and the only word allowed in the title or in any comments or replies was “Kitty.”

Someone is using that subreddit for covert communications, I just know it. Either on the level of “if u/PM_me_your_nostrils posts an orange cat, we attack at dawn!” or there’s some steganography going on with the pictures, but that subreddit was too stupid to be as active as it was.

  • Lianodel@ttrpg.network
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    3 months ago

    Paper straws were pushed by big corporate polluters to build a negative association with environmentalism.

    Plastic straws are single-use plastics, but seem unexceptional by those standards. It’s almost a meme that they’re being singled out like they’re the single greatest source of plastic waste, or uniquely damaging to ocean life.

    On top of that, there are way better ways of reducing straw usage. I’ve used bioplastics that seemed way better. You could redesign the lids. You can do the plastic bag thing and charge people a nickel for a straw or whatever. Hell, you could just not give straws with every drink, and plenty of people will just drink from their cups and glasses. Instead, we get paper straws, something that is so obviously a bad idea it sounds like a joke, or a metaphor for a useless invention. Often served with cups and lids made entirely out of plastic.

    So you get a bunch of people who have their drinks kind of ruined by a frustrating straw. It’s a small thing, but it’s just a little nudge away from environmentalism. You build an association with disappointment and inconvenience. Maybe it doesn’t cause a big sway, but it makes people maybe a little more anti-environmentalist than they already were, or just less passionate about environmentalism.

  • Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    My city has a local company that rents storage units and they have entirely too many locations relative to the population of our city such that I believe they’re a criminal enterprise. I believe they construct so many new buildings for money laundering purposes and to facilitate human trafficking and drug running out of them.

    Breaking news, I just googled them and one of the owners was convicted in his 20s of trying to sell poached falcons to Saudi Arabian royalty. The plot thickens.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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      3 months ago

      We have a computer repair shop in my town that does not do computer repair. Ask them if they can fix something, the answer is always “we don’t do that.” Even simple shit like screen repair on cell phones, which they have signs on their windows saying they do. “We don’t do that.” My landlord owns the local radio station, he says they’ve tried to get them to do computer repair for them. “we don’t do that.” Factory I worked out tried them. “We don’t do that” Friend needed keyboard repaired on laptop. “We don’t do that” I’m so convinced at this point that whenever I meet a local business owner I ask them who they use for any computer repair, and it’s always the same answer as to why they don’t use this one place, that’s a big store, in the only strip mall in town. They only have one dude in the store, who’s constantly got some right wing radio or YouTuber on. There’s no other employees, no reasonable way they’re affording the outrageous rent for such prime real estate. There aren’t many businesses in this town, and almost all of them use someone from the bigger city 35 minutes away

      On top of all of that, there used to be a Mexican grocery store in town (in the same parking lot, in fact) that never actually sold any food, and would always say they were closed if you walked in. They got shut down because they were apparently part of a group that was bringing in undocumented workers. The dude who owns the computer repair place is the cousin of the guy who owned the Mexican grocery store.

      • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        What always confuses me is why don’t they hire a few people that actually do repair and take the business? It seems like a simple way to keep the locals from getting suspicious.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Soda bottle caps for newer types of soda fit worse onto the bottles. They’re harder to re-thread on, for example, the new Oreo Coke than they are on the old Diet Coke.

    The reason that newer bottle designs are harder to thread is that they’re trying to make people drop the cap, leading to just giving up on re-capping.

    This is to reinforce the narrative that people lose their bottle caps.

    Which is to lend support for the drive to make caps attached to a little ring on the bottle, like in Europe.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago
        • It treats adults as children
        • It gets in the way
        • It’s a reduction of individual freedom, and complementarily, an expansion of government power
        • Worx@lemmynsfw.com
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          3 months ago

          Having bottles at all is government overreach. I want you to pour the drink into my cupped hand for me to lap it up. No Big Government is going to tell me I have to use a bottle like a goddamn baby!