2 years ago we planted a lime tree in our backyard. It was already about 5-6 feet tall when we planted it. There's a lemon tree next to it that is probably 50 years old and produces more fruit than we can use. We're constantly giving away lemons to our friends and neighbors, baking stuff with the ones we keep and we still too many left! But our lime tree barely produces anything. The first year it produced 3 limes, all of which were hard and almost juiceless. This year, so far it has produced a single fruit which doesn't yet look ripe. The thing is that it produces tons of buds that look like they're going to become limes, but they either die or are eaten by squirrels, I guess. I've heard a similar story from a coworker about her lime tree. Is there any secret to getting a lime tree to produce fruit?

I went to college in Massachusetts, and after awhile the winters began to get to me. A study-abroad trip to Paraguay helped me fall in love with palms. After I graduated, I explicitly looked for work in areas of the Southeast where I could grow palms, eventually settling in the Midlands of South Carolina (USDA Hardiness Zone 8a), which can grow a reasonable variety (our state tree is the cabbage palmetto, Sabal palmetto, and it is incredibly common in the area). I’ve currently got two potted palms: a European fan palm, Chamaerops humilis, and pygmy date palm, Phoenix roebelenii (the latter needs to be housed in the garage during the winter).

I terminated my position over 4 months ago and I'm still not able to apply for jobs. I'm frustrated with my inability to move on from the previous toxic work environments. My background is in a male dominated field and there was always something either insensitive, sexist or racist said in all my previous workplaces. I feel, I know I'm going to be met with some sort of comment in my next work place and I no longer want to put myself in those situations anymore. I don't know how I'll react, I feel like I may explode if I hear another ignorant phrase.

I want to be able to make money. People say I must not have liked what I did very much if I wasn't able to put up with the comments. Other people say that that's just how the world is, "get used to it!" I've also heard that I'm just going to have to wait for change because drastic/fast pace change causes recoil. All of these comments literally tell me to suck it up and allow the same rhetoric to propagate. And, of course, all of this has been told to me by white men, those who aren't effected by the comments said to me.

Things that have happened to me or that were said to me:

• Smile more
• I'm too soft spoken/nice
• I'm too aggressive
• "Do you want to fix your hair?"
• A project manager bought me hair product, I didn't ask. I have curly hair and it took me a long time to love my curls, but it's seen as "unprofessional"
• A Director was staring at my hair throughout an entire interview
• "I'll put you up there" when the males were talking about strip clubs
• "Why are women crazy?"
• I've been kissed on my face and told "if only I met you before my wife"... never had a fucking conversation outside work with this person. I didn't even speak to him more than once a week!
• "We were surprised that you and Mohammad spoke English". Both me and Mohammad were born and raised in the United States. When I responded with "Why did you guys think that?" they conveniently stumbled and changed the subject.
  ... Many more things happened, but require too much context.

I just don't get it. Am I suppose to let ALL these things slide? Am I suppose to hold empathy for people who don't have empathy for me? Who don't empathize with me and how what they have said may have made me feel? Should I forgive people who would rather hide the fact that they said something rather than apologize? (And yes, I filed reports for some of these comments/experiences and the rhetoric was "She got X fired", not "X's own behavior got them fired".)

And more importantly, how do I move on from this knowing that it's going to happen again? The last job had the most amount of sexism in it. The thing about sexism (and racism) is that it's meant to make you feel devalued, and shocker, I felt devalued. It took me so long to gain my self confidence back. And I want so badly to protect myself. I never want to feel those feelings again. But the world is still sexist and racist and homophobic and xenophobic... all the phobics. And how do I tell my next work place that the reason why I left and why I took a break from working was to deal with the emotional repercussions from a very toxic/sexist work environment (when workplaces see whistle blowers as a red flag)? And how to I prepare my little sister who is in college studying a male dominated field knowing that she'll have to deal with the same things I went through?

It's been 4 months and I'm still angry and still jobless. I've grown to hate social interactions for fear of someone saying some ignorant shit. I've grown a distrust of all people. I hate how much this thing has affected me, how belittled I feel and how I can't move on from this. I feel emotionally paralyzed and money is running out and jobs are hard to come by especially because I'm not white nor am I a male and my hair isn't straight Billie Holiday - I Love My Man.

I'm tired of confusing people with how my looks don't match my attitude/personality that they've been conditionally taught to think it was like. I'm tired of confusing people with how unashamed I am of my existence.

Heya!

Man I haven't been on Tildes for a minute. How the heck is everyone?

I've been on a bit of a roller coaster since I posted about looking for a new phone and have been keeping busy.

Just right now I really should be:

• Editing a book my dad wrote about our ancestors in the US - think Little House on the Prairie. It's going to be a surprise gift for his 90th. I'm having it printed all nice and whatnot.
• I need to contact the free lancer I work with in India to help me put together new online courses for the website I run as a side hustle. Hoping for a break out cycle next time and have it become something that might replace my primary income in the next 4-5 years. It's paying off but the work can be super boring.
• I have a lawn care landscaping guy coming over today to see about putting a french drain in around the basement foundation to get some water away. I am working from home full time now so I want to make the basement nicer (where I work from). Basically it's going to still look like a basement, just nicer. Going to epoxy the floor and put up that commercial type baseboard, fresh white paint on the walls and ceiling, then new lights. Then I'll add storage for things we don't use everyday. Should be cool but a ton of work.

Other stuff that's happened since I last talked to you all:

• I need to get passport photos for the family for a cruise in Nov that we probably will end up canceling unless the kids can get vaccinated by then. Bought it cheap at the height of the pandemic.
• Just yesterday I was at Costco and do you ever get annoyed by the check they do before you leave? Like normally its cursory but this time they really went through everything and it was this much older guy with a lot of Veteran-wear and he like really went out of his way to touch each item in our cart multiple times. I literally said "Are you going to touch everything?" But I don't think he heard me. I guess the issue was we had what looked like 11 items and only 10 on the receipt but one thing was a two-pack of shirts. We also weren't dressed particularity well and probably smelled like weed so there's that too. But no fun for sure.
• I took up stock trading during the March lows and lost about $8K then after a lot of work and mostly luck made that back plus $2k. Then I took a break for a while because it was hella stressful. Then I got in on gme early in my retirement account. So now I don't have to worry about retirement so much. Really mind blowing. I'm going to a financial advisor soon.
• I kind of called the pandemic early ... I have some neighbors who are Chinese and they told me how bad it was getting over there. So we went and got n95s when you could still get them at the big box stores and bought supplies including a handgun and a o2 machine. I remember driving up to the bank drive through window and getting $10k in cash out just for saf e keeping. We've basically been hunkered down ever since.

It's been a long strange trip man, how have you all been?

tl;dr: Got a Samsung Galaxy 8. Generally like it but dislike having to deal with both a Samsung layer and the Google layer - having just the Apple layer on the iPhone is nice. I didn't put any cool OS on it like I was talking about. The fingerprint reader works really well so I totally get why people use those.

note: I posted this on hacker news, some people here seem knowledgeble about hacker news so i though i would ask here also.

basically in Reddit enhancement suite you can filter comments to only show comments that are “unread”, you click on a comment to mark it as read (or with email when clicking on a message marks it as read and you can even mark it as unread).

Is there something like that for hacker news? (a browser addon or some custom client).

There was a recent discussion about the Windows App Store where people said they don't like using it. I'm in the Apple world, and people here constantly complain about the Mac and iOS app stores. I grudgingly use Steam to download games that are only available there. Everyone seems to hate using app stores, but most agree that having them is better than having to find stuff on the web or in bricks and mortar stores.

I don't tend to "shop." When I decide I need a product, I do research. I try to find unbiased sources, though that's problematic in itself. But I don't go browsing for anything because it's largely pointless and tends to drive you towards what the company that's best at selling wants you to buy rather than what's best for your needs. So for the most part, my interaction with app stores is searching for a specific program and either finding it or not.

What do people think would make app stores better? Complaints I've heard include:

• Too hard to find a product you want when you don't know the specific name of a particular one (like you want a photo editor that can make a photo mosaic, but don't know the name of a specific photo mosaic app)
• You search for a specific product and the top hit is a paid placement for a competitor
• Stores are full of crapware with similar names and similar keywords
• Top apps are all games

How could app store makers improve the situation? What would make using an app store a joy for you?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

The US, EU and assorted allies have gradually gotten into the habit, in recent decades, of using targeted sanctions (a lot) against both individuals and govts when the targets do something the West does not approve of.

Do they work? Do they help?

I think Obama-era sanctions on Iran played a part in getting Iran to at least consider the nuclear accord that Trump promptly renigged on ... but I also think Rouhani also wanted to develop a better relationship w/the US (and I'm sure he had at least grudging support from the Ayatollah), and gladly used the sanctions as the justification for speaking to the Great Satan.

Details aside, I think sanctions helped in that case. I can't think of any other examples where they were effective in helping achieve their intended effects.

OTOH, I think aggressive sanctions against North Korea have, at best, done no good at all, and have probably made the situation worse.

Any other successes come to mind?