I kinda wish Pokemon go did more of what its sister game ingress did and make all the stops more of a thing to look at and do rather than just an icon you blindly spin. I get it's Pokemon and the Pokemon are the focus but like, it's also a niantic game. Hunting around for local points of interest is like a core gameplay mechanic.

In ingress (which is made by the same company) each individual point of interest has a little photo and a blurb and there's a game mechanic where people can make walking trails of points or even better, a fully fledged scavenger hunt where each point has a clue about where the next point is or each location has a quiz you gotta do about the thing in question in order to count as visited.

Geocaching was absolutely fun in the wilderness and more remote areas, but I felt like it fell apart a bit in big cities. You kinda look suspicious hunting around for weird objects and was limited by accessibility. When it's more virtual you can do stuff like "look up at the facade and translate it into English for your next clue" or "speedrun the salesman problem with your local churches GO!"

Actually no, Australia has quite strict rules regarding poppies. You have to get a permit to grow these poppies and outside that it's illegal, even on a personal level. Even varieties that have been altered to not produce the opiate precursor aren't allowed.

I know the headline is funny and the article really undersells it, but this is genuinely a really easy thing to do. Carnation poppies are a popular ornamental plant, bread seed poppies are a big part of some European deserts, and all of these types of poppies are the exact same Papaver somniferum. You probably have some in your cabinet right now as bagel seasoning or as a spice, and planting it might be considered a felony. Hell in some countries like South Korea poppy seeds in all forms even for culinary purposes are illegal because of this.

I imagine what happened is that a European seed company (where opium poppies are a common garden plant) sold this thinking that it would be OK because this subspecies has been altered to have lower alkaloid levels.

if your mum grows poppies for using in recipes, she's definitely growing opium poppies. And if you have some poppy seeds in your cupboard, that's the exact same poppy.

poppy seed is a common ingredient in central/east European deserts and you need a lot of it. And the poppy used - the breadseed poppy - is the exact same plant as the opium poppy. This isn't a 'hur dur opium recipes' thing, it is legitimately the same poppy. Those alkaloids that can make opium when harvested as latex degrade into something inert but tasty by the time the bud has turned to seed.

Alternatively if you have any carnation poppies, they are, once again, Papaver somniferum. Opium poppies.

Man I love how everyone here has all these super nice scissors and yet for some damn reason my 'buy it for life' scissors are a pair of overengineered kids scissors that are bright pink and a bit too small for me that I pinched off my sister in middle school and am still using today at uni age. Behold - the Okut kids scissors. Ten(?) years old with frequent use and they're still sharp enough to slice your finger (which is...worrying for a pair of safety scissors) and solid enough to withstand an awful lot. And they're ambidextrous. Give 'em to your kid and they'll still be using them when they're an adult. If they have small hands.