Kale

I love MPFC, but some of the sketches are “meh”. For every “Battle of Pearl Harbor”, there’s a “Confuse-a-cat”.

Fawlty Towers is great. Mildly racist against the Spanish and Irish.

It takes 4 episodes to really build into the complexity. Then season 2 turns it on its head.

Red Dwarf is pretty good. Fawlty Towers is great. Someone recommended “Yes Minister” and the first season is awesome. The Hallmark of great comedy writing is if it holds up, and Yes Minister still is hilarious 40 years later.

Dark is a German Netflix show. It unfolds into something akin to “Lost” over the first four episodes. The ending doesn’t suck, and they set up the end to where it’s almost impossible to get it right. It’s not an amazing ending, but it’s impressive that they managed to make it not terrible, since it builds up to a near-impossible ending.

Squid Game is pretty great but gory. Letterkenny and Trailer Park Boys are quirky comedies with some rough language throughout.

Out of curiosity, have you watched the Simpsons recently? I think, after season 31 or 32, it started getting better again. There are some really great episodes from two seasons ago.

The latest season of Futurama had two good episodes, but the rest were kind of weak. About the same level as season 9-10(Hulu season numbering). Those seasons were “meh” mostly but with three really amazing episodes (Free Will Hunting, Game of Tones, Meanwhile).

I watched Futurama trying to stay sane in grad school, as it was released on DVD. It’s straight-up comforting to watch now. Watching it when I’m stressed connects me emotionally to almost 20 years ago. I was stressed then but I made it out ok.

And even more violence could have been prevented if Hamas had cooperated and openly communicated with Israel before they attacked and took hostages. /s

His childhood primed him for comedy.

If you want to blame the Americas for anything, blame syphilis. That wasn’t in Europe until the late 1400/early 1500.

You mention bedbug PTSD. That’s not hyperbole. I think it’s about 10% of bedbug infestations cause diagnosable conditions that meet clinical definitions of trauma or anxiety.

The more adjectives in a countries’ official name, the less likely those names are to be accurate.

Republic of… ok

The People’s Democratic Republic of… yeah ok buddy

I have one. You can create a pre-text that includes GPS coordinates and send it with a couple of clicks, you can type out a text message but it takes a while, or there’s a switch on the side that’s SOS. Flip it anywhere in the world, and Garmin/Iridium is going to contact emergency services wherever the signal is coming from.

I do a lot of camping in bear country. I’ve been to Bannf. Bear spray is more effective than a firearm at stopping a brown bear attack. Bears have super sensitive noses and eyes, bear spray is immediate pain.

Bears are extremely muscular from the front, so even if you could manage to shoot one several times from the front, you’d have to use non-expanding bullets like hard cast lead or full metal jacket, which aren’t as lethal as expanding bullets like flat nose or hollow points are (for people). Expanding bullets would be stopped by muscle in bears. Non-expanding bullets are slower at killing things (I believe it’s illegal to hunt with FMJ around me). Bears can run so quickly that a lethal shot killing a bear in two seconds might not be enough time to stop the bear before it could hurt you. And if a lethal shot took a minute to kill a bear, it’s not effective at stopping an attack.

9mm has stopped brown bear attacks plenty of times, but it’s risky. Both US Parks Service and Parks Canada say bear spray is more effective at stopping a bear than a firearm. I think Parks Canada still uses 0.303 rifles to rangers, but that might be for polar bear. Canada is really strict on pepper spray and mace, but you can purchase bear spray, even if you’re not a citizen. I don’t think a non-citizen would be able to hike with a holstered 10mm or .40SW pistol anyways.

Bannf was really crowded when I went there. It’s beautiful but the “must see” scenic spots are all filled with Instagrammers. Bears are probably less afraid of people, and I saw plenty of idiots 10 meters from a brown bear with an SLR camera without any precautions at all.

Pro tip: Jasper is very similar terrain, is also a Canadian Park, and is much less crowded. When I was there a couple of years ago, there was zero cell signal an hour before we arrived at the park. You’ll need paper maps or offline GPS. If you want wilderness with fewer people, try Jasper Park.

Relationships take effort and luck. You have to work on yourself to be prepared, put a lot out of effort into social things to meet people and develop relationships, and then most don’t work out and you’re sad for a bit.

The luck part is a huge part of the equation. Two people are perfect on paper but the “spark” doesn’t happen. Maybe they could have a great relationship but the starting conditions weren’t right to form a relationship. Having a close relative die, or having a mental health issue really early in a relationship can force a wedge that can’t be overcome yet. A normal wedge that all relationships deal with regularly once they’re established, but can’t deal with in the first few weeks.

The only advice that worked for me (I was raised with very few other kids my age) when I started dating in college was that the skills to make a romantic relationship were just people skills. That I should intentionally strike up conversations with anyone I don’t know. Most people have something to occupy their time. I try to find that out in the first conversation I have with someone. You can see when someone’s expression changes when the ice breaks and they shift into excitedly talking about a new personal best in a 10k run, or getting a major part in King Lear, or published their first full comic book or novella.

I had to hone my ability to talk about my hobbies. At the time I was finding gargantuan prime numbers. I had to work on how to describe it to people to make it slightly approachable.

I also figured out that a huge part of wanting to be in a relationship was family pressure. I had to be at a place where I wanted it, and not because aunts and uncles poked fun at any young single people in the family.

I don’t think a lot of thinking was part of that equation.

“why would we want to marry our cousins?”

“because they’re so attractive?”

Fundamentalism in Christianity means you interpret Scripture with two rules that are a lot like Occam’s Razor. The first is that text is interpreted literally unless it has obvious indications that it is not literal. The second is that the Tanakh (which Christians call the Old Testament) is followed unless the New Testament specifically comments on it.

Fundamentalist Christians don’t believe in evolution because there’s nothing in Genesis that hints at allegory, and it’s not mentioned in the new testament. Eating pork and shellfish is allowed because that is specifically addressed as being Ok. Something like the Talmud in Judaism or Papal Bull / Canon in Catholicism, where Scripture can be interpreted in a more complex light, is not used at all. That’s a hallmark of fundamentalism in Christianity.

There’s a joke told around me that explains this. Why do you always invite two Baptists fishing? Because if you invite one Baptist, they’ll drink all your beer.

A lot of that is selective breeding. Humans add a ton of extra stuff to breed, but groups of breeds are not as arbitrary. Pointers have been bred for bird hunting, shepherds for livestock, retrievers for waterfowl, terriers for small game hunting. Bulldogs were bred for 150+ years to attack bulls, bears, and other dogs (until animal welfare laws banned dog fighting). Further division of breeds (like rat terrier vs feist) is arbitrary and doesn’t represent anything meaningful genetically.

My opinion is that bulldog / terrier mixes (like the pit) represent a greater risk to humans than the average dog. I don’t think it’s anything unique to the pit, which has a lot of media hysteria. The data look so bad for pits because they are so popular. If Staffordshires were more popular in America, they’d show up in the stars more.

The name “pit bull terrier” did originate from bull terriers used in professional dog fighting. Dogs would fight in a pit. Until animal cruelty laws became a thing.

Just being upfront: I wouldn’t own a pit due to the number of instances of friends having a pit that is the “nicest dog ever” and it randomly attacked them one day. I also extend this to Persian cats, btw. But we can’t ban particular breeds. Punish bad owners, continue selectively breeding dogs to reduce aggression.

Extreme example: Adults who were abused as children are more likely to be child abusers themselves. Should we ban people who were beaten by their parents from being teachers? They are statistically more likely to abuse children.

Barking is a performative aggression. It’s meant to intimidate. Predatory attacks frequently don’t have warning barks. It’s quiet staring then a lunge.

The behavior you described sounds dangerous, but it’s a known thing (that doesn’t make it less dangerous, but does give opportunity to blame the owner that they should have known they had an aggressive dog). Terrible owners don’t correct this behavior and have dogs that are dangerous to people. But there are many dogs that show zero aggression before attacking. There’s a bunch of biased sources but I think there is some truth to it, nearly half of dogs that kill have not shown aggression towards humans before.

Side note: Rottweilers are the #2 killer dog breed in America. They average about 10% of all fatal attacks. Pits are the #1 killer dog breed. The past couple of years they’ve been 65%+ of fatal attacks.

It’s becoming more common to see police departments ban Malligators. Less predictable than GSD.

Any dog can be aggressive, yes. Most pits have great personalities, sure. But I’ve known a few pits that weren’t aggressive towards people. Until they were.

The owner problem is a real factor (owners who are likely to raise aggressive dogs are more likely to get pits), but there’s an extra layer to pits. They are raised to be muscular with very strong jaws. If a Yorkie turns on it’s owner, someone’s getting bloody ankles. A pit (and chow, and Rottweiler) can really hurt people.

On top of this, there’s two types of aggression in dogs: performative aggression with barking and short charges, and prey drive which is quiet staring and sudden lunges towards the throat of another dog or animal. I was under the impression for a long time that dangerous dogs had terrible tempers and were “grouchy”. No, dangerous dogs are social creatures like most dogs and many show affection to other pets and humans, until something triggers their prey instinct. The website I cite below has a statement that pits are less likely to act aggressive before an attack.

There were a string of dog deaths in my city last year. All pits. Two were family pets that both attacked their toddler playing in the family’s yard. The mom ran to help and the dogs attacked her and their infant. Both children died and the mom was hospitalized. And a friend of mine had to mace a dog doing his job last year for the first time, it was a pit. Anecdotal, I know, but it’s changed my mind on pits.

This group says 69% of dogs involved in fatal attacks in 2019 were pits: https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2019.php

One 2019 fatality was from 8 different breeds. This means that if you flip that statistic around to “percentage of fatal attacks involving pits”, that number is even higher.

Pits are estimated to be 6.5% of American dogs.

A decade ago I had a little extra money and chose to buy a 144 hz gaming monitor and video card. I don’t have great eyesight nor do I play games that require twitch reflexes, but at that time 144 hz frame rate (and configuring the game to be >100 fps) was very noticable. I’d much rather play 1080 at >100 fps rather than 4k at 60 fps or below.

This may be different between people. I don’t believe I have great eyesight, depth perception, color perception, etc, but I am really sensitive to motion. I built my second computer (AMD Athlon 64 bit I think?) and spend a significant sum on a CRT that had higher refresh rates. I can’t use a CRT at 60Hz. I perceive the flicker and I get a headache after about 20 minutes. I couldn’t use Linux on that computer (I was stuck at 60 hz on that kernel/video driver) until I saved up even more to buy an LCD monitor. I can’t perceive a 60 hz flicker on an LCD, and 60Hz is fine for work.

But for gaming, high refresh rate is noticable, even for someone that normally doesn’t notice visual stuff, like me.