I remember really enjoying How I Met Your Mother when it was airing. I tried for a rewatch recently and only made it a few episodes in because I was so disinterested. It felt empty, and the humor wasn’t hitting. I think it’s a combination of I’ve changed (I’ve aged out of the “20-something singles fool around in a fantasy version of NYC” demographic) and TV has evolved (good comedy shows are no longer just goofy hijink situations and setups for one-liners).

So instead I rewatched Archer season one (same era as HIMYM) and fortunately that one still slaps.

You might want to consider a priest for the damned lakes (which were presumably corrupted by the damned rain?)

Make a post about it and let’s find out!

I don’t see why not

When I started learning Japanese I was impressed by how reliably phonetic their alphabets are, with only a few exceptions (and even the exceptions are phonetic, just by a different set of rules). I was like damn, would be real nice if English’s letters were like this. Then I found out that Japanese wasn’t always this way; prior to the 19th century reading it was a huge pain, with a lot of “i before e except after c…” rules to memorize, no diacritics to distinguish pronunciations, etc. At some point they had a major overhaul of the written language (especially the alphabets) and turned them into the phonetic versions they use today. Again I was like damn, would be real nice if English could get a phonetic overhaul of its written word. But it’s a lot easier to reform a language only used in a single country on an isolated island cluster with an authoritarian government and questionable literacy rates… Can you imagine the mayhem if, say, Australia decided to overhaul the English language in isolation? It would be like trying to get all of Europe to abandon their native tongues in favor of Esperanto.

Yeah but people don’t make a big deal about “save the deer!” and then start a cattle ranch

This is one reason why I love my native lupine plants. They occasionally get honeybee visitors, but I’ve noticed honeybees struggle with getting the flowers open to access the nectar. Bumblebee lands and his big fat body causes the flower to open right up. Gee it’s almost like they co-evolved!

I’m not engaged in “guerrilla gardening” myself, but generally it’s recommended to scatter seeds in empty/underutilized lots, along highways, etc rather than parks, trails, and other spaces that are either maintained/monitored or are already wild. So maybe look for somewhere like these:

Good luck!

My list (United States, Pacific Northwest):

Prunella vulgaris (selfheal): can grow interspersed with grass in lawns, ala clover. Small purple flowers. Native to a wide swath of the United States. Produces tiny black seeds that look a little like poppy seeds. Evergreen and perennial in my area (zone 8-9). Appropriate for container/small-space gardening. Apparently has medicinal qualities, hence the name.

Chamerion angustifolium (fireweed): great meadow flower that can grow up to 4-6’ tall. Striking stalks of pink flowers in late summer that bees adore. Produces fluffy wind-blown seeds in autumn that are fun to watch. Dies back completely in autumn and resprouts in the spring. Established patches will grow in size every year. Flowers are edible!

Lupine (all varieties): I’ve grown multiple varieties of lupine, from annuals that were less than a foot tall to perennials that got to be 6+ feet tall (and just as wide!). In my experience, most lupine varieties share the following traits: blue/purple/pink flower spikes in late spring that bumblebees love, they’re a magnets for aphids, which in turn attract ladybugs, they grow very quickly once established (for perennial varieties, starting in the second year), and they produce many (depending on the variety, dozens to thousands) of medium-sized seeds in pea-like pods that are easy to harvest. In my experience they appreciate frequent watering until their long taproot can hit the water table. Cold stratification of seeds does not seem necessary, although I’ve had success with scarification by taking a very sharp knife and slicing a tiny piece out of each seed’s hard outer shell. Evergreen in my area (zone 8-9). Every spring I find lots of volunteer lupine seedlings in my garden from fallen seeds. Present in much of North America, be sure to source seeds for a variety native to your area (they can become highly invasive outside their native range). (Photo is of broadleaf lupine, a west-coast species)

Achillea millefolium (western yarrow): native to a wide swath of the United States and in my experience stupid-easy to grow. It produces pads of tiny white (sometimes pinkish/purplish) flowers that look similar to queen anne’s lace. In my experience the flowers are very long-lived; I’ve had flowers persist into late December! Yarrow seems to mostly attract small flies and wasps (I grow them in an attempt to attract beneficial wasps to my vegetable garden). Mostly evergreen in my area (zone 8-9); temps around 20F seem sufficient to knock them back, but they rebound quickly. I’ve managed to grow them in large containers, although they would probably be happier in the ground.

You’re generally not going to find many native plants in big box stores (or often you’ll find non-native varieties of native plants); online shopping is really your best bet for seeds, and local garden shops (vs national chains) for starts.

For your region, Prunella vulgaris aka selfheal, is a good option for scatter-and-forget. The plants are a little shorter, so they will grow in mowed grass lawns like clover does, although if they’re not mowed they’ll get to about a foot tall (this means they may struggle to survive if planted among tall grasses/shrubs). Each plant produces many seeds each summer, so the seeds are small and plentiful. The purple flowers are small but pretty splashes of color. In my region (PNW) they are evergreen. On the taller side, Chamerion angustifolium aka fireweed, is another easy-grower. It grows 4-6 feet tall and produces stalks of lovely pink flowers that bees absolutely adore, and fun wispy seeds in the autumn. The plants die back entirely every autumn and resprout in the spring, propogated by both root and wind-blown seed. They make lovely clumps that are good along fences or a sunny corner of the yard, and can grow in more crowded meadow-like conditions. My final recommendation for a seed-scattering choice is lupine; there are many lupine varieties so make sure you get the right one for your area. It looks like Lupinus perennis aka sundial lupine is native to most of PA and is a smaller, more manageable variety (some lupine varieties can get to be 6+ feet tall and just as wide!). Bees also love lupine flowers, and lupine are less wild-looking than selfheal or fireweed, in case you have neighbors who care about that kind of thing (lupine are popular garden flowers). My final recommendation is Asclepias syriaca, aka common milkweed. This is a critical plant for monarch butterflies (it’s the only plant the caterpillars can eat), but it has questionable benefit for other insects so don’t plant it in isolation. It also is toxic, so keep it away from where children or pets play. The plants die back in autumn and resprout in the spring. All the above recommended plants produce many seeds every year (and many are perennial or will resprout from established roots) so once they’ve gotten established you should be good to go. I know you said you want to be hands-off, however giving them a little help during their first year will greatly increase success rates; this means clearing away competing vegetation and watering during dry spells (as well as being strategic where you scatter seeds, rather than blindly yeeting them wherever).

In doing this research I stumbled across https://www.keystonewildflowers.com/, which is based in SE PA; I’m sure they have additional recommendations for you!

Generally for toss-the-seeds species I recommend spreading the seeds in the autumn (you can try a few handfuls once a month from August to October) to best simulate what happens in nature. You can also try again in early spring (March and April). Some plants (e.g. milkweed) require a cold cycle before the seeds will sprout, while for others it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Where you sprinkle the seeds makes a big difference; most flowering plants like sunlight, and too much competition from tall grasses/shrubs/trees will prevent growth.

I don’t know of any seed bomb companies per se, but there are numerous plants that I can think of off the top of my head that grow relatively easily from seed, even with minimal care. Can’t give you any specific recommendations without knowing where you live, but in my experience where I live (PNW) fireweed, lupine, yarrow, rabbit brush, milkweed, and selfheal are easy to grow from seed. Miner’s lettuce also grows easily from seed, although I don’t know if it’s beneficial to insects (the leaves are edible, however! Hence the name)

For where to source the seeds, it’s best to find a place as close as possible to where you live. Plant starts are expensive to buy online (cuz shipping) but seeds are usually pretty cheap. Some example companies I’ve bought from before that have expansive native seed catalogues: https://westernnativeseed.com (Colorado), https://klamathsiskiyouseeds.com/ (South-Central Oregon), and http://www.insidepassageseeds.com/ (NW Washington). There are some directories of native seed companies out there, but many are out of date. Best bet is to do an Internet search for [your state] + native seeds and see what pops up, or to search for [desired plant] + seed for sale and select the location closest to you. Most of these companies are passionate and knowledgeable about native plants and may be able to give you curated advice on the easiest-to-grow seeds they carry for your region.

In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations […] What’s gone wrong?

Answer: Shit’s bad and getting worse (especially for younger generations) while the old & rich people in charge twiddle their thumbs because “I got mine, fuck you.” Any other questions?

I definitely wouldn’t conclude that anything the mental health industry did or didn’t do has anything to do with the mental health of youth today; given current circumstances the kids who are alright are the abnormal ones.

I think it’s because a lot of things are bad (and many are getting worse) yet the only power most people have to do anything about them is to raise awareness of the issues, which means engaging with negative news. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what’s real news and what’s rage bait; sometimes non-news can seem like news when it’s part of an ongoing pattern (such as “Elon’s dumb take of the day”). I think there’s also some degree of trying to maintain one’s sense of reality. To the previous example, despite being a massive fuckwit, Elon is still among the wealthiest people in the world, is incredibly influential, and has maintained some degree of fanboy army; posting/reading/discussing/upvoting an article about what dumb thing he said today is grounding for some folks because it reinforces reality by demonstrating that yes, he is still a fuckwit, even though somehow everything still hasn’t come crashing down around him like it karmically should.

“Hiking” is like any other kind of outdoor activity: it can range from a literal walk in the park to scaling a mountain. You’re describing hiking the same way someone who wants to get into swimming might describe preparing to cross the English Channel; if you want to get into swimming, start with a shallow indoor pool and then if you feel like it, work your way up from there.

I will say that there is a lot of misleading hiking info on the web (as in, maps of trails that are inaccurate, don’t exist, or that go through private property); I’d recommend finding a book (as in, made of paper) of local hikes from your library or bookstore (if you live in an area with an outdoor store like REI that’s a great resource). Select an “easy” hike of 1-2 miles from the book, ideally a “popular” hike (as in, one that’s likely to have a lot of other people on it) that’s somewhere within a short transportation distance, and do that for your first hike. Short, easy hikes don’t require anything more than comfortable footwear, and maybe a water bottle if it’s a hot day. Until you start getting into very long, very remote, and/or technically difficult hikes, assuming you’re in decent health there’s really very little to hiking other than stay on the trail, keep an eye on the weather, and don’t push yourself beyond your limits… or more generally, “if in doubt turn around.” I do recommend getting an Open Street Map app for your phone, as it’s generally more accurate than Google Maps; some trails are marked better than others, and OSM is a good backup to have in your pocket if you get lost or turned around, although it’s mostly only necessary if you’re going into an area that has a lot of intersecting trails.

I thought this was going to be about turmeric’s lead contamination problem…

Confirmed. There are many, many lupine species, however, and each have their own growing conditions. So I’m not sure about the “sandy soil” bit (likely it’s because the seedlings do better in sandy soil?). A single lupine plant will produce thousands (tens of thousands?) of seeds each year, and the plants mature quickly; some are annuals, but even the perennials grow at a prodigious rate once established in the right conditions. Because of their ability to fix nitrogen (take nitrogen from the air and store it in the soil where other plants can access it), as well as reproduce and spread quickly in the right conditions (i.e. lacking competition) they are used in places with severely depleted soil to revegetate; they were introduced in Iceland for this purpose with resounding success, although now they have the problem of a prolific non-native species.

The replier doesn’t even know the plural for “company”

Why are we elevating this anti-intellectual drivel?

I’ve never seen (or even heard of) it, but that movie poster is not doing it any favors. IMO it reads like a fake/parody. Maybe it hit harder in the 80s?

Hedgehogs of the sea. Their babies even look the same!

I haven’t done Bojack yet (it’s been a few years since I watched it and I like to review these things fresh), but I will next time I rewatch it. It’s an amazing series, up there with The Good Place in the “comedies that completely surpass the genre” category.