Jessica W 🏳️‍🌈

BREAKING: James Talarico (D) is now favored to win the Texas Senate election

This pool guy was called to find a leak that no one else could find. Within a little while he detected the leak around a jet. He wasn’t sure why no one could find it. The only way to permanently fix the leak was to jackhammer into the concrete and replace the pipe which would roughly cost $5K. Or, you could temporarily fix the leak with some putty for about $25. This is why I don’t own a pool anymore. If it could go wrong it would. Seems like there is always an issue with a pool. If you were the homeowner, would you spend the $5K to replace the pipe and not worry about it for a long time or would you just keep temporarily fixing it with putty?

She accidentally described one of the most replicated findings in behavioral psychology. Harvard and Duke researchers found in 2011 that people value things they build themselves 63% higher than identical pre-assembled versions. They called it the IKEA effect. Labor alone, even assembling a standardized box from instructions, is enough to make people overvalue their own creations. Gardening runs this effect at full intensity. You chose the seeds. You dug the holes. You watered daily. By harvest, your brain has priced that tomato at roughly 10x grocery store rates, and the math feels completely justified. Now stack Kahneman and Tversky's loss aversion on top. Losses register at approximately 2x the emotional intensity of equivalent gains. One of the most replicated findings in behavioral economics. So the aphid eating her garden is triggering both simultaneously. She built something her brain values at 163% of objective worth. She's watching it get destroyed in real time. Her nervous system is processing that destruction at double intensity. The grocery store tomato being out of stock? Mild annoyance. Zero labor investment means zero IKEA effect, means proportional emotional response. The garden tomato carries months of accumulated effort justification. The aphid isn't eating a $4 tomato. Her brain priced it at $40 and is processing the loss at $80. Gardening is the only common hobby that combines the IKEA effect, loss aversion, and a live adversary that reproduces faster than you can respond. The violence tracks.

I’m not celebrating the man’s death. I was honestly horrified by it. NOBODY should die that way. People shouldn’t be killed for simply exercising their first amendment rights. I took offense to what he said about women and minorities, therefore, I choose not to mourn. I do however, mourn for our country. For what it’s become. So polarizing and hateful.

James Lovell dies at 97. He commanded the troubled Apollo 13 spacecraft and was played by Tom Hanks in a Hollywood film. He was one of my childhood heroes. I grew up in that exciting Apollo/NASA era...and had lots of astronaut related toy stuff. RIP, Commander Lovell.

Wow.

On Tuesday June 17, 2025 Barret "Dr. Demento" Hansen, aged 84, announced his retirement, ending a 55-year career as a radio personality known for championing novelty, comedy, and bizarre music. The announcement came during the final regular episode of The Dr. Demento Show, with Hansen stating, “I’m now 84 years old, and I have been doing this show for nearly 55 years — about two-thirds of my life. It’s been a blast, but I have come to the decision that I need to hang up my top hat soon.” The show, which began in October 1970 on KPPC-FM in Pasadena, California, will conclude with its 55th anniversary on October 11, 2025, featuring retrospective episodes and a final broadcast highlighting the top 40 songs in the program’s history.

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the way my jaw just continued to drop further and further😭