It’s wrong, but also, it’s right a surprisingly good amount of the time.

It’s like when mommy and daddy buy their precious little Timmy a car and then he doesn’t take care of it, doesn’t keep it cleaned and maintained, and runs it into the ground. Timmy doesn’t care, it cost him nothing, and mommy and daddy will get him another if that one breaks down.

Compared to:

Timmy worked his ass off to buy an expensive, high end pickup truck for the work he does. It took a lot of work and sacrifice to be able to afford it, and without it, he doesn’t make money. So, he takes excellent care of it, keeps it clean and maintained, and he’s careful about how and when he uses it.

This sounds like it’s coming from someone who cannot differentiate between AI slop and actual real responses. Not surprising in the least, of course.

Youtube is a world-wide technology and the videos can reach an impressively large percentage of the human population. No matter how good the average person is, there will always be some percentage of bad actors, and the larger the audience, the larger number of bad seeds there will be. Additionally, the nature of relevance algorithms and online social networks, amongst other factors, tends to silo like minded people into networks of similar content. And finally, there are a myriad other factors such as engagement metrics, relative anonymity, and plenty of other things that serve to provide encouragement and cover to comment and create content which would otherwise not be acceptable in most circles in person.

This means a video which draws attention of people with nazi tendencies as well as allied groups who are simply attention seeking can end up attracting a higher than normal percentage of those groups, and others from congruent social spaces. So long as there’s little to no impactful negative repercussions nor effective moderation of the rules, comment sections can fill with undesirable, despicable, illegal, and/or rule breaking replies.

Be a queen. Don’t be a drag.

Founding fathers wore wigs.

I had to sleep in my car from time to time when I was in college.

I’d park in a well-lit spot in an active parking lot (back in the before times, many major retailers were open 24/7) in a safer part of town. The backseats of my car were pull-downs that opened directly into the trunk. So, I’d sneakily climb through and into the trunk, then curl up back there to sleep.

It was a dark space and since nobody could see me back there, there was less chance of someone targeting me for robbery (sleeping person = easy target) or calling the cops on me (sleeping person = drugs or medical emergency). But those were still factors that added lots of stress to an already shitty situation.

I know times are harder for more people these days, but I figured I’d share since a lot of people don’t actively recognize that things were also difficult for many people back in the day as well. While there’s obviously a problem that needs to be solved here, and it sucks that we’re at a point where this is considered a solution, I would just say, don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.

Of course we should strive for a situation where everybody has a home, familial / social supports, good stable income, etc. But, also, even a little added comfort from having a safe® place to park & sleep as well as access to things like showers and bathrooms is a tiny little step in the right direction.

Humans are already imposing upon our pets and depriving them of their autonomy, simply by keeping them in captivity. Any argument against merciful euthanasia grounded in concerns about how it is imposing are moot.

As for pulling human euthanasia into this context, do yourself a favor and don’t. You might be surprised at how common euthanasia is in humans. At least in my part of the world, it’s largely a wink-wink nudge-nudge situation, but it does happen with some regularity. Also for people who are actually suffering in decline, there are all kinds of supportive care options being provided that simply aren’t feasible or economical for pets. There’s also not really the potential for the same kinds of perverse intentions with pets as there might be for people. Like, the list goes on.

So, basically from either of those two perspectives, let alone the fact that both apply, the argument against euthanizing pets that you’ve presented fall apart.

Having said that, this is often not a simple and straightforward decision. But since we’ve already established that we’re imposing upon them one way or the other, it really comes down to what kind of imposition do you want? The animal is going to die soon one way or the other. You can impose upon it and force it to experience the pain and fear and discomfort of its body naturally shutting down over the course of days, weeks, or months. You could impose upon it and decide to euthanize. What can you live with?

On a more personal note, I’ve had to have 2 pets euthanized.

One was a cat who managed to escape outside, it got hit by a car and then a neighbor’s dog mauled it. Literally pieces of broken rib and punctured lung exposed as well as untold other injuries. No hope of recovery. The idea of letting it suffer another moment was not something I could live with and it was going to die anyway.

The other was a dog with congestive heart failure. There comes a point where there are no more medications and no higher doses that are effective. The animal literally is experiencing the sensation of drowning. They’re terrified and in pain, exhausted, and suffering. The vet might be able to alleviate it a few hours or even a couple of days with a procedure to manually remove the fluid, but then you’re just going to put the animal through this again and soon. I could not live with myself forcing the dog to endure that knowing there was another option.

Plus, I have seen the pet owner that refused euthanasia and wanted their pet to die a natural death. The dog had cancer. I’m honestly broken up enough just thinking about what I witnessed that I can’t even bring myself to type it out. So I’ll stop there other than to say I’ve seen people dying of cancer in their final hours – there is a world of difference in those things, at least in modern times. The pet was clearly distressed, in pain, and suffering. The people are being made comfortable with drugs and medical care.

Okay, but you can’t post a story like that and not pay the ass tax. It’s literally tax evasion, a serious internet crime.

I dunno what’s the dumbest thing. I guess it was using the same username and/or email address on enough sites that I was eventually tracked down and doxxed by someone on a site called Fark of all places.

Perfect doesn’t exist.

Anybody playing Doom: Dark Ages and if so, what are your impressions? It is/was on sale and I just saw that it’s Steam Deck verified.

Mostly I’ve gotten back into Vampire Survivors. In a prior recent sale, all the DLC was in a relatively cheap bundle, so I went for it. I also gave in on “my principles” and started consulting online sources to figure out the hows and wheres for a number of the unlocks that eluded me in the past. I really dislike having to do this, but there’s just not enough info / guidance in-game and I got tired of aimlessly hoping to stumble upon things.

I’m hoping I can find the motivation to play some other titles in my backlog, but as of yet, nothing has stuck.

Type 2 runs rampant on both sides of my family. I’ve had symptoms since I was a kid, and have been tested almost every year as an adult. However, my test results have always been in the healthy range, so I guess I’m not diabetic, at least not yet.

It’s strange to read through the comments and see all the symptoms and recognize them in myself.

Granted, I think the only diagnostic tool most care providers in the USA look at is the A1C number. I’ve asked many questions over the years: could my symptoms be caused by something else, is it possible that A1C numbers might not be a reliable indicator for some people, and things like that. Basically get told not to worry about it.

Either way, I still get tested each year.

My nose is more sensitive than average to certain types of foul smells mostly in the poop and rotting organic material categories but also things like mouse / rodent urine, skunks, and cigarette smoke. Oh joy.

Mostly it makes me feel like I’m going crazy because I smell these things when nobody else seems to notice leading me to wonder if I’m just hallucinating the smell. But sometimes I put it to good use by being the early warning system of skunks in the area and sometimes I’m the first to notice when the milk is starting to go bad.

Per tradition: A turkey sandwich using Thanksgiving day leftovers. Very simple, leftover turkey, mayo, white bread.

Heartburn / acid indigestion. Racing thoughts. Back pain. Severe thunderstorms. Just to name a few things.

Well, that was my answer before I read the other comments and see that most other people have interpreted the question differently than myself.

On a trip to San Francisco, the quintessential “gay mecca” of the USA I was on a bus making my way over towards Haight area (then planning to go visit Castro street aka the actual gayest part of San Francisco) there were a group of men on the bus going on a bigoted rant specifically about homosexual men ruining the country and going to hell and all that fun stuff on the LGBTQ+ agenda.

Like, I’d expect to hear that kind of stuff in the middle of Oklahoma’s rural hellscape (sans the bus part). But in San Francisco of all places?

Lemmy.zip has/had a mismatch between frontend and backend validation on usernames. When the frontend allows something that the backend rejects, you get some random “InvalidName” pop-up on form submission.

I tried several different variations of my preferred user name, but I couldn’t figure out what was violating backend validation, so finally I settled on InvalidName. Which triggered a server error (500 error or timeout or something, I don’t recall).

But finally, one glorious moment in time, the lemmy.zip server accepted InvalidName2 without choking, and the rest is history.

Groceries. It’s a long, boring story why I needed to shop for groceries yesterday morning, but that’s what I did. At Walmart.

The place was a bit busier than on a typical weekday night, but nothing like I was thinking it would be. I was surprised, but pleasantly so. I guess a shitty economy, weeks of black friday sales, upcoming cyber monday, lack of decent discounts, and the shift to online shopping have reduced the crowding in stores on that one specific day.

Last night I looked around a bit online just out of curiosity. The sales and discounts were pitiful.

The only stuff that caught my attention were gaming related items, but nothing was compelling enough to actually purchase. The games are still on sale for a few more games, so plenty of time to change my mind. And for the controller, I figure I’ll wait and see what the pricing is on the new Steam controller. There was a part of me that considered buying the PS5 controller now while it’s on sale and returning it if/when the Steam controller comes out if I like that better. But then the color I wanted most was more expensive than the rest, so I said fuck it.

The more you learn the more you realize how little you know.

At the moment, I can’t even think of anything I miss that would still be there in my home town. The place has changed so much that the only thing it shares with the town I grew up in is its name. So, in a contemporary sense, I’d have to say I don’t miss much anymore.

If I could go back in time, I’d love to take another walk through the woods I used to play in when I was a kid. They’re gone now, cut down for a factory that’s no longer in business.

Also, I think it would be neat to go do my grocery shopping and run into my aunt and cousins or an old friend I haven’t seen in awhile. It was a small town, so it was almost guaranteed if you were shopping in town, you’d run into people you know and like.