Have you considered https://givin.gifts? They see themselves as the unofficial successor of redditgifts (they even let you import redditgifts gallery posts back when they were still online). They opened their Happy Holidays 2026 signups a couple of days ago and any premium user could also create a custom fediverse Secret Santa exchange.

I took part in every givin.gifts Happy Holidays exchange since redditgifts shut down and I’m happy with it. If there are any problems with your gifter, their team is really invested in smoothing things out and getting you a rematch if needed.

Getting a ban from lemmy.ml is a badge of honour that many like to collect.

@tbr sounds louder than here in Klaukkala, directly under the flightpaths. 😱

Dear random generic company,

When recently perusing your store I obtained an unremarkable mug that holds coffee about as well as any other mug in my possession for which I paid you $3. I believed the providing my card details and obtaining a receipt was the closure of our interactions on this matter. But alas my email inbox is repeatedly troubled by your misunderstanding that we have an agreement for ongoing engagement. You are of the belief that I am to provide you insight into the qualities of this mug about which there is little to say. Should you wish to engage my services for market research a formal agreement denoting payment in cash or gift cards shall be required.

Unkind regards,

Me

@glynmoody

Karp is such a wanker.

For a while, I was under the impression that all spiciness, or burning sensation in food flavoring, would come from capsaicin, the compound that causes it in chili peppers. Then I realized that Sichuan peppers are a quite different kind of heat. Wasabi (horseradish) is different yet again.

How many hot-flavored compounds are there? At least five!

Kalsec: "The Elements of Heat"

kalsec.com/insights/crafting-t…

@arstechnica ono

I stopped secret santa after 2 years in a row of not getting a gift. People would sign up to get free stuff essentially and never send out anything. Kinda ruined it for me to be reminded that people are generally shitty

if someone actually makes this for fedi: please don’t slop it and provide e2e encryption for the addresses

GoToSocial? More like GayTransSappho

I did it 3 years in a row, lots of research (had a custom jigsaw puzzle made for one)… I got crap in return, like, on person got me a (tiny!) lego set… the others were just garbage. I think someone sent me a pair of unboxed figures from some anime…so yeah, it’s a good idea, wouldn’t mind giving it a try again, but … eh

@bigzaphod yeah he couldn't get cellular. It was either Starlink or very flakey DSL.

La une de l'Equipe 😁

Datarama Tuatara Week, #1:

Unless you're a terminal-stage herpetology nerd like me, you probably think this animal is a lizard. It's not, though - it's a tuatara. The last living member species of a group of reptiles (the rhynchocephalians) that had its heyday some 245 million years ago, just a short while before the rise of the first dinosaurs.

There are *many* distinctively unlizardlike traits to a tuatara, and I'll cover some of my favourites throughout this week. And I'll start with the one that is most clearly evident without close examination: Their gait.

Tuataras move in a slow, distinctive "waddle" with a completely consistent diagonal footfall pattern; a trait they share with salamanders (and 400-million-year-old early tetrapods). They cannot change their gait at all - they can't trot or run, only walk. They bob up and down while walking (basically vaulting their centre of mass up and over their legs as they walk), with only relatively little lateral movement. Most lizards have at least 4 different gaits that they dynamically switch between as they pick up speed (over 50 species can do a fully bipedal sprint).

There are anatomical reasons for this. While their legs sprawl out sideways similar to those of lizards, they have much less flexible spines than lizards do - and they have a much longer ribcage, with rigid ribs all the way down into the abdominal area. Lizards throw their bodies from side to side in wave patterns (which is how you can maximize stride length if your legs face sideways) and usually keep their centre of gravity vertically constant, so more energy goes into going forward than up and down. Furthermore, tuataras have primitive single-chambered lungs without bronchia - basically mostly smooth air-filled bladders - and simple hearts without all the valves that allow for controlled blood flow during a sprint.

However, you won't see tuataras walk much. They live life very, very, *very* slowly. They're purely sit-and-wait ambush predators, and adults are (unbelievably) apex predators who never have to run to escape anything.

@Benhm3 when everything goes to poop

The couple times I participated, I only got one really nice thing: whisky glass with custom engraving. Still use it today

But honestly, the best was the reactions of the receiver when you absolutely nailed it

One time I had someone from a neighboring country who was insanely into all kinds of sausages and cheese

So I bought a styrofoam insulating box, filled it with several kilo of the most extravagant sausages and cheese I could find in my city, packed it with a bunch of cooling packs and sent it express to the receiver

They were absolutely thrilled

I think that year I got a mug with a dirty joke in return

@tante AI is as fascist as 'the internet' being militaristic war technology. It depends on who writes the narrative.

I disagree with everything you said and I poop on your enjoyment. Just kidding, howdy.

Software is so used to customer lock-in and monopolies that I suspect that if the industry as a whole were made to sit through an introductory microeconomics course everybody would come out of it at the end with angina, hypertension, and the kind of heart murmur that makes a cardiologist frown with worry.

Imagine, t'es milliardaire.

T'as dépensé une fortune pour racheter tous les médias français : Journaux, TV, radio ...

Tu diffuses ta propagande libérale de merde, matin-midi--soir, jusqu'à la nausée.

Et puis tu vois ça :

😭😭😭