My mother. She made some bandanas for our dog, and gave them to us a week or so ago. We thought they were cool. Later, she said, “Sorry you didn’t like the bandanas.” I was like, “News to me, I thought they were great.” “Well, they weren’t what <my wife> was expecting.”

I didn’t even bother mentioning it to my wife until yesterday, who, of course, was fine with the bandanas, as I knew she would be. During that conversation, my wife and I talked about how we need to constantly walk on eggshells around her, because who knows what she’ll be upset about next. It’s exhausting.

I don’t know where my mother gets this stuff. The sad part is that this is actually one of the more sane incidents.

Forfty percent of people know that!

Statistician.

But the Simpsons lied to me. I have not been offered the opportunity to go to space.

I have two of them that will cuddle up with me no matter how warm I already am.

But I still get the better end of the deal. We also have a 60 lb dog, and he will usually cuddle with my wife, again, no matter how warm it already is.

Insurance money? He thinks that there’s insurance for businesses being run into the ground?

Maybe they actually hate the idea of LLMs and are trying to sour the public’s opinion on it to kill it.

I moved and took my cat to a new vet near my new house. That vet was not great with him, kind of rough, and we could hear dogs barking constantly, so he was already stressed before the vet even started.

I’ve never seen that cat so upset. But I got him home, he left the carrier, went a few steps, and flopped on his side, and I knew all was forgiven.

I never took him back to that vet - I ended up taking him to the previous vet instead. Much longer drive but they were already familiar with him and his issues, and were much better with him, so it was worth it.

When we adopted another cat, we started using a different vet local to us that we still use (the first cat passed away years ago).

They don’t care. The only way for a Trump aide to get fired is to mock them on SNL.

A good point. The BBQ place owns their own building, I believe, but in general that is a good point.

It’s not just fast food. They’re getting the attention because they’re supposed to be cheap, but the price of eating out in general has jumped over the last 4 years or so.

For example: We often eat at a local barbecue place, usually getting the same order each time. (During the pandemic, we would get take out.) I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but when I looked it up a while back, I think we were paying ~$15 more now for the essentially the same order. Adding $15 on to a ~$30 order is a huge increase, as a percentage.

In general, our dining out expenses have gone way up since the start of the pandemic, but we aren’t eating out more often or ordering more extravagant foods. The prices have just gone up. (When we go out for meals, we go to a mix of fast food and casual dining places, some with counter service.)

I prefer to cut the top off.

Yeah, I’ve used mine while cycling in freezing temperatures without an issue.

It might just be a joke. I use transitions in my cycling glasses, where I might be in shade or when it starts to get dark (but I’ll still have something protecting my eyes). I use regular sunglasses in the car, as transitions generally won’t work there.

I’ve had better luck at a real lumber yard, instead of the big box stores.

SpaceX also has Starlink. I don’t know how it’s doing financially, but I do know it’s quite popular in places where wired internet isn’t available, and for people who are mobile. I’ve even seen pictures of cruise ships using it for internet access.

You may be right. But there is a good aspect to social media - for example, I own a very rare vehicle, with less than ~1,400 made in the 90s (and who knows how many are left). Before social media, we were all isolated from each other, but now we exchange a lot of advice and tips for upkeep and repairs. It has been a lot of help.

A friend of mine uses reddit to keep up with small sub for people with a specific medical condition. Nowhere else was she able to find that kind of support or information.

That’s the great side of social media - connecting people who were otherwise isolated (mostly because of geography). I don’t know if these benefits outweigh the costs, though.

Yeah I think any account you create now has that as the default. Or at least did a few years ago.

So it’s really more of a “many new accounts are bots” rather than “you can distinguish bots by this account name format”.

Okay I’ve tried to be civil, but you’re obviously not doing the same. My point, since you seem unable to grasp it, is that it even if they had it would have been repealed and nothing would be different now. Is that so difficult to understand?

I’m blocking you. I’m looking for real conversation, not people intentionally missing the point so they can stay angry at whatever boogeyman.

There was also literally no cost to repealing it. They would have done so, right before they passed the huge tax cuts for the rich. There would have been no “try”; it would have been repealed about 2 minutes after everyone was sworn in.

Repealing a law is as easy as passing a law.

That law, had it been passed, would have been repealed the moment the R’s had the majority during Trump’s first two years. It would have been pointless, especially since abortion was then legal.

As you essentially noted, it requires a constitutional amendment to make it harder to overturn, and you know plenty of states would not sign off on that.