I’m using the free version and not missing the paid features!

Same with great results! Especially if you have hard water.

I prefer pull vs push media. Less intrusive. I have a feeling lemmy users may also like RSS feeds for the control it provides. I know in mastodon you decide who to follow, but the whole culture to encourage re-blogging means a lot of potential unwanted crap in our feeds.

As far as TV shows: The Expanse and Foundation. I really want to like them but the first 3-4 episodes left me quite meh. Someone tell me it’s a slow start and gets better?

I tend to put more priority to story line vs special effects or action scenes.

I had to create a “if you add one, you sell one” rule after running out of shelf space.

European expansion is worth it! I like the round end goals!

You raise good points. The expensive part for me was the discovery aspect. Once you know what you like it’s not bad but the learning part…trying all the different greens and oolongs and pu’er and black teas - that was a little nuts at the beginning.

Now I have about 10 varieties that I like for different occasions and I stick to those and it’s not too bad.

Biggest splurge for me was an ember mug. Im a little embarrassed by how expensive it was, but honestly no regrets. Perfect temp tea for hours.

I have! …then full circle back to grandpa style. I still use a gaiwan from time to time on the weekend but I like bringing a container up with me at my desk without needing to refill constantly.

Similar but different : tea! You go from cheap bagged tea to going down the rabbit hole of loose leaf variations, temp control kettles, brewing vessels and brewing styles.

This handy aspirin holder. Could save the life of someone having a heart attack. https://www.saveaheart.ca/

I mix them. Not sure if this is weird or common. Honey Nut Cheerios and Rice Krispies are a good combo. Vectors with Rice Krispies too. Alone: Golden Grahams.

Agreed. I find myself using Siri on walks via AirPods quite a bit. Siri what’s the weather going to be like tonight . Siri what’s in my calendar tomorrow. Siri what’s the latest news. (That opens up podcast app and plays local news I love it. ). Siri let me know when it’s 12:30. I just wish it got better at answering simple questions. A few articles mentioned Apple started looking at incorporating a GPT style AI with Siri.

Hidden Brain, Search Engine, The Knowledge Project

It’s great for quinoa, farro and couscous too. Love our tiger rice cooker, it’s a work horse!

Little things that make solo hikes even more enjoyable:

• Merlin Bird Sound ID app.
• Bringing one piece of hard candy with you
• If you must listen to something, get earphones with a transparency setting where you can still hear birds and leaves crunching under your feet
• A dog

I’m not sure what you mean by the source. In this case Ground News is an app.

https://ground.news/app

There are daily news podcasts if you like consuming information that way. Apple News , AP News and Ground News are good news aggregates. Reuters has a cool app where you get to pick the amount of time you have (5 minutes to 30 minutes I think ) and it shows you the top stories in video format. RSS feeds of your favourite news sites with a RSS app like Feedly.

Random list but I am told I am a unpaid ambassador for:

• Vitamix
• Zero inbox for work
• Stoic mindfulness / negative visualizations / Momento Mori
• Birkenstocks , even if they went a bit downhill
• Star Trek
• Chimes peanut butter ginger candy
• Tea…in general
• Merino wool socks
• Lemmy

The natural world. Both at the micro level of looking at the symbiosis between tiny insects and plants, to the macro of untouched natural landscapes. Also clouds! We forget to look up and see how cool clouds are.

News apps, RSS feeds and online communities.

Apple News is decent in that you can pick and choose your interests and hide certain news sources. Associated Press AP News app is great too. I’m in Canada so I also have the CBC and CTV apps. For RSS, I use Feedly app. It has a good discovery mechanism but most the time I manually add urls of sites I want to follow.

Other than that, I get shared links in different slack workspaces and discord servers.