Like most unnecessarily-gendered things, this thinking falls apart under the slightest hint of logical scrutiny…

Jalapenos have become victims of their own success.

They’re so popular and mainstream now that buyers (especially food processors) have started demanding high levels of consistency in terms of spice; Tostitos and the like want to ensure that every batch of salsa and such they mass produce is going to have the same spice level, which is understandable. Unfortunately this drive for increased consistency has led to an overall weakening of flavor, similar to what happened to produce like tomatoes and apples once industrialized farming and food processing created demands for longer shelf lives, consistency in appearance, etc., and like tomatoes and apples, the jalapenos you buy at most stores nowadays are going to be much weaker in flavor than they were in the past.

Jalapenos not sourced from these industrial-oriented seed companies are going to vary much more in terms of spice level based on growing conditions, like temperature and rainfall. There even exists nowadays the “nadapeno,” which has jalapeno flavor but minimal spice. You can also remove the seeds and veins of the pepper before eating it, which makes a huge difference in reducing spice levels. Picking them earlier and growing them in “ideal” conditions for lessened spice is trickier, but can also help.

That privilege is heavily dependent on your maintaining a strong garlic harvest. The first year that slips (or your basil/oregano perform too well) you’re getting downgraded to nonbinary. Then there’s a three year grace period before you’re sent straight to full-blown woman. So make sure to fertilize your alliums well!

Which is too bad, because including flowers in your garden (even if it’s only in the form of bolted vegetables) helps attract critters that will pollinate your “productive” plants as well as those that will help protect them from pest infestations. A balanced ecosystem lifts all boats, to mix my metaphors.

Traditionally it’s been similar to cooking:

Farmer/chef? That’s a man’s work.

Gardener/home cook? That’s a woman’s work.

Fortunately we’ve got shows like the Great British Bake Off and a myriad of popular YouTube gardening and home cooking channels featuring men to help shake this up, but sadly it’s still something that’s seen as gendered by way too many folks. Still, if spicy peppers and cacti (and on the cooking side dishes like pizza) help get insecure men in the door, that’s great. But I’m with TTF: it may not be a strong stereotype, but I’ve also observed it.

21.5% of South Koreans have the surname Kim.

Not last night, they saw the Aurora down in fucking Florida!

Also >:( for AI image

Epstein asked Wolff what he thought an ideal response from Trump would be. “I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff responded.

And the ironic statement of the decade award goes to …

I haven’t heard of (or personally experienced) hard water being a problem, but I’ve been told chlorinated/fluoridated water can be. Filtered water, or water that’s sat out for 24+ hrs (this allows chlorine to evaporate), is supposedly better for plant health. Some species are more susceptible to these chemicals than others, but I’m uncertain if chlorine/fluoride alone is enough to kill a houseplant.

I think it could work well if you’re the type of person who can follow a daily schedule better than a weekly or biweekly schedule (for instance, if you build it into your routine, e.g. “every day after finishing breakfast the first thing I do is water the houseplants”). It could also work well if having to make a judgment call (“water only when the soil is dry”) is too intimidating or can’t be scheduled into a calendar app with automated reminders.

I know of some plants that can tolerate irregular watering, but can’t think of many that thrive with it. Even in the wild, the seeming randomness of rainfall has at least a seasonal pattern to it, and the plants that are best suited to irregular watering are generally not ideal houseplants for various reasons, like they go dormant during dry spells and start looking ugly, or drop a bunch of leaves when underwatered and make a mess, or require huge root systems, etc. Probably the best houseplants for the truly incapable of following a watering schedule are the drama queens: those plants that have big, showy leaves that droop significantly when thirsty, but quickly perk back up after watering. Noticing this still requires attention, of course, but wilting leaves are much easier to notice than dry soil. I’ve never grown a houseplant like that so I can’t come up with specific examples, but I know they exist.

If you want a plant that does well in lower light and with frequent watering, I’d recommend the maidenhair fern.

Mine gets cranky if it’s not watered at least daily, and it would probably prefer twice a day! In the wild, these plants grow in places with constant water, e.g. alongside a waterfall. Still they’re fairly hardy plants somewhat acclimated to weathering dry spells; I’ve almost killed mine then had it return from the brink of death multiple times following a week of neglecting to water it. Ironically the maidenhair fern’s love of water means you won’t need a plant sitter to come over and water when you go on vacation: if you’re going to be gone for more than a few days, stick the pot in a tub of water a few inches deep; maidenhair ferns doesn’t seem to mind wet roots at all (I’ve done this for up to a month, no prob).

They do need at least a little light, such as an hour or so of direct morning light or hours of indirect light, making them a great choice for north-facing windows and other conditions where many houseplants would struggle.

Obligatory IANAP (I am not a paleontologist).

My understanding is that many (most?) living plants did die; what survived were seeds that could wait around for conditions to be a bit less apocalyptic before sprouting, kinda like what happens with major wildfires. Similarly, the animals that survived were a lot of creatures that could live off seeds and other remaining plant matter (such as small mammals, which had previously been an underdog in the Mesozoic).

Nice to know there might still be hope for me yet!

For me currently, it’s Ursula K LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. I’m a little over halfway through, but for whatever reason I can’t seem to read more than a few pages before I have to take a break, making progress really slow. I also struggled to get through A Wizard of Earthsea, even though I enjoyed the setting, plot, and characters, so I think the problem is simply a matter of not jiving with her writing style.

Fortunately the book isn’t in high demand at my library so renewing it hasn’t been an issue, but I just picked up three other books (holds that finally came in) and I’ve been struggling to justify starting them until I can get LHoD finished first. Ironically one of the new books is a long-time stuck book for me: as a teenager I dropped Xenocide midway through (IIRC it wasn’t as fast-paced as the first two Ender books so I got bored) and now years later I’ve challenged myself with finally finishing it.

In this thread: a lot of chocking

Are you still teaching English or did you manage to get out and do something else? My understanding of English teaching in Asia is that it’s a bit of a career trap.

You only need to plant sorrel in your garden once. It’s the ultimate volunteer crop. Quite winter-hardy too, and perennial, plus it tastes like lemon. Halfway between an herb and a green.

First glance def had me thinking this was gonna be tampon related

Yeah but this is Daily Beast; calling out the DT administration (albeit in click-bait ways) is their shtick.

I know about razor bumps and I don’t mean to make it out to be a total non-issue; my problem is with the headline and byline, which seem to make light of what was actually a deeply disturbing speech. “Look at this idiot, ranting about beards, much ado about nothing, don’t even bother reading about what he said, it was just stupid fluff, shoulda been an email lol!” is not the message that the media needs to tell the public when both Hegseth and Trump made several horrifying, fascism-escalating statements today. (And let’s be real, most people don’t actually read the articles, so burying the lede like this is functionally similar to not reporting on it at all.)