I'd like to get into grafting fruit trees, my uncle was a major fruit eater and filled the yard with many varieties of apples and pears. The apple tree where I live was a mess and I've jsut started the pruning to get it under control.

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/13/nx-s1-5494517/strange-but-tru...

I've been in an online community where some users do a group buy for certain lottos when the prize is big enough. Sending $2 by paypal/venmo is easier and lower friction that going to one of the stores near me where I can but a ticket myself. I still think it's kinda dumb, but I do plenty of dumb things and I buy one infrequently enough to be ok with it.

There are fake games, and even leagues, made specifically for people to bet on. To me there is no appeal, but I'd expect to someone gamblign there must be some appeal. See this article, there have been cases in cricket, but I know less about that game. https://josimarfootball.com/2024/10/21/childs-play/

I tend to agree with the parent that friction is useful for many 'sin activities' I might extend this to most drive through restaurants. For gambling having to go to a casino, a racetrack, or a bookkeeper who isn't legal all act as points where users drop out of the process. Having it on your phone is always available and the path of a user can be modified to get them to spend/bet more.

Unfortunately some of the production people aren't comfortable enough pushing for changes in the documentation so some of my job now is to ask what they've noted and get it added.

I'm not convinced that food delivery is a net good for a culture, but that is a different discussion.

Elder care is hard, and expensive. Friends have worked in various levels of it at various times, from food services on up. There is clearly some good for people to be around a community and there are real needs that require constant attention for some. But there is a drive to do more with less which almost always seems to end up with stories of people not being attended to as quickly as you might hope.

Memory care is particularly difficult, on the family and on the businesses. It is just so all consuming and from the outside it can be hard to know if adequate care is being taken. Of course I do know someone who's mom put her dad into memory care, then moved and basically started a new life with a boyfriend while still married so she had access to the money.

My parent's solution is to day they don't want to draw things out. But I think that is easy to say from a position of health and barring any significant diagnosis there is more of a slow slide to infirmity than a clear juncture to make such a choice. We'll see, my family is close and I expect we will provide care in person. But also life is complicated and that is a ways off.

https://wp.wwu.edu/livingsnowproject/

Do you mean the lion's share of food imports or imports in general? Lots of seafood is processed elsewhere and imported the US. Strangely it appears ground beef is imported to the US even though we are a net exporter of beef.

There are lots of nondiscretionary products that take a while to flow through to the point you notice them. The parts to repair the machines that make things for example. Or at a low level, the inserts used in mills to make things out of metal. There are other inserts available, but they aren't as good so they need replacement more often.

I keep bookmarks for specific things, sometimes ephemerally and sometimes to keep the link for reasearch, etc. Every so often I make a pass through a bunch of bookmarks and delete the ones that have rotted. Or try to point to an archive mirror if available. That process does a decent job getting rid of the junk. I do need to work on isolating my personal from my work reading when at home. I use different windows but I should be using different profiles or something.

I bought Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form by Paul Jackson on a whim several years ago and found it fun to work through. I think he has a new edition and some other books but I don't have any experience with them.