Basically, the writers always envisioned Riker and Troi would marry at the end of the series, but Rick Berman overrode them and forced the Worf romance because he wanted to mix things up.

Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes both hated the Worf romance because they felt their characters were basically destined to end up together from the very beginning.

It was never actually explained canonically, but basically everyone hated it except Rick Berman and Michael Dorn and if they married Deanna and Worf in Generations Nemesis (mixed up which movie they got married in), I guarantee it would’ve led to a lot of very angry fans.

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-next-generation-worf-troi-couple-dating-bad/

Rattlesnakes and alligators (and non-unionized automobile manufacturing facilities)

Biden said he saw the pictures.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/meeting-with-jewish-leaders-biden-confirms-reports-that-hamas-beheaded-israeli-children/

“Howdy” for me. I’m from and live in the Northeast.

Started saying it ironically on work calls to break up the monotony of saying “Hey” when the host joined the meeting and said hello. It was pretty much just a joke at first. Now it’s about 50% of what I say in response to someone joining the meeting saying hello.

Honestly, I kind of like it. It’s folksy, friendly, simple, and informal. It’s slipped out a couple of times when guests arrive at a family party and are walking in the door and saying their hellos, but it’s mostly relegated to work meetings.

A few of my coworkers have even started doing it occasionally, so it seems like it’s catching on.

Just to reinforce your point, the difference between a cheap running shoe and an expensive running shoe is incredible. When I first started running a few years ago, I was using a very old pair of running shoes I’ve had for a long time. I’ve since been sticking with the New Balance Fresh Foam X 880s (because I have very wide feet and NB seems like the only brand that actually makes their best running shoes in 4E) and it’s like running on a cloud.

And then there’s also the Garmin watch that cost $300 (that I’m now stupidly considering upgrading to the new $600 Forerunner 965), the $120 HRM Pro chest strap, the $3000 Nordic Track x22i for indoor runs I got lightly used on Craigslist for a steal at $900, etc.

And then there’s the races where you’re spending $40, $50, $100+ depending on whether it’s a 5K or 10K or half-marathon. And good running clothes are pricey too.

While I agree with you, and I do dearly love garlic, I feel obligated to give you a word of caution:

If you eat too much roasted garlic, for the next 24-48 hours, every room you enter will smell like garlic, your sweat will smell like garlic, your farts (and there will be many) will smell like garlic, and your poop will smell like garlic. It will not be a pleasant experience.

Don’t ask me how I know this.

That’s not really a solid argument. Blocking is likely implemented as a very tiny piece of what is already very likely a massive table join operation. Computationally, it’s likely to have as much an impact on their compute costs as the floor mats in your car have on fuel efficiency.

Everyone already sees different content. It’s an inherent part of Twitter. It’s not a static site where everyone sees the same thing. You see the tweets of who you’re following, and don’t see tweets of those you’ve muted. All that filtering is happening at the server level. Any new tweets or edited tweets or deleted tweets change that content too, which is happening potentially hundreds of times a second for some users.

Anyway, caching would be implemented after a query for what tweets the user sees is performed to reduce network traffic between a browser and the Twitter servers. There’s some memoization that can be done at the server level, but the blocking feature is likely to have almost no impact on that given the fundamental functionality of Twitter.

People like to stick with what they know, and anyone who used Sync on Reddit will now be that much more inclined to give Lemmy a try because they get an interface that feels familiar. I can see this only benefiting the communities on Lemmy over time as the user base increases. Other popular apps like Boost coming to Lemmy would also draw in new users.

It’s great to have a base layer of free, good quality apps to accomplish some goal because it creates a very low barrier to entry. I keep F-Droid installed on my phone because there are times I need a very basic app to do something simple and the risk of malware is inherently lower in an app whose source is public vs private. I can check out the repository and take a look for myself if the permissions it requests are concerning.

That said, there are real advantages to a proprietary app. The developer has a financial incentive to keep the product up to date and add more features to maintain or increase the user base. This benefits not only paid users but also unpaid, ad-supported users.

Like you said, it’s about choice. If FOSS is important to you, go ahead and pick one of those clients. If you like snazzy new features or you want to stick with a client you’re familiar with, go ahead and do that. Nobody should be shamed or criticized for their choice either way.