Does the pet store offer returns?

The feds blackmailed and jailed some of the most respected members of the community. That’s kinda when it fell apart.

• Step 1: Figure out why you’re not doing thing.
• Step 2: Take steps to address the reason why you’re not doing thing.

Seems simple, and in a way it is, but in other ways it can be very difficult.

On step 1, I recommend first researching the term “maladaptive daydreaming”. Seems relevant to what you’re describing.

Council Bluffs, IA. I once had family there and there’s a story in our family. One of them had a radio of some sort that works on trucker frequencies and he overheard a conversation between trucker CBs that went something like:

• “I’ve never been to Council Bluffs before. What’s it like?”
• “Well, if the earth needed an enema, Bluffs is where they’d put the tube.”

It used to be a railroad town, but the railroad pulled out and left economic carnage in its wake. Meanwhile, Omaha, just across the river, is comparatively very affluent with skilled jobs in tech, so Bluffs is kindof “the slums” (casualties of the worst end of capitalism.) and Omaha is all gentrified and hip, which rubs salt in the wound, and those who are still in Bluffs are the ones who lacked the wherewithal (luck, credit (social, financial, or otherwise), mental health, etc) to move to Omaha. Last time I was in Bluffs (and that was even before I knew the rail background story) it really felt like there was just a pall over the whole place. The strangers you saw at the grocery store or whatever just seemed “down and out” in an undefinable way. The local government seems some combination of corrupt and incompetent and the few folks I know of who still live in Bluffs there are racists and MAGA nuts and grifters and (I say this with love) deeply mentally ill. It’s a disturbingly strange and depressing place.

Imma make an ad service that runs Doom inside every “close ad” button.

Bah! Ok, yeah. That’s super annoying. Hopefully they move uncharacteristically fast for you.

You sure deleting your cookies wouldn’t fix it?

Very possible it wouldn’t, but it’d be the first thing I’d try.

Tardigrade’s underwhelming skill on the micro-cello is greatly outstripped by Tardigrade’s enthusiasm.

He’s bowing on the wrong side of the bridge.

• Get one made that says “kick me”.
• Give it as a gift.
• You know who.

They knew.

Because white folks already stole everything else from Native Americans.

For sure. But I’ve seen a lot more sins committed in the name of reusing code than in the name of minimizing dependencies.

“A little copying is better than a little dependency.”

I’d think if your dog is too hot, you’d be better off making it a chili dog.

In my efficient capitalism?

(/s)

I was on a trip as a kid (probably… I dunno, 9 or 10 years old?) with my family. The hotel had a pool and the family brought me to have a swim. (They didn’t swim, just sat around the pool while I swam.)

It was just us at first, but soon another kid about my age showed up with no parents/supervision. He sat down on the edge of the pool at the deep end and dangled his feet. He conversed a little with me and my family, but otherwise was just there hanging out. He mentioned in passing that he couldn’t swim.

But then suddenly he was in the pool, thrashing and struggling.

My parents honestly had no idea what to do. One ran to grab the life buoy. I don’t remember quite what the other did.

But my swim lessons training kicked in and I did the thing. Jumped out of the pool, ran around to the side of the pool right where the kid was struggling, laid down on the ground next to the pool, and stuck one arm into the pool for him to grab. Worked just as well as my old swim instructor indicated it would.

Once he had me to hold him up out of the water, he was fine, of course. The rest was just a matter of helping him out of the pool.

It was after that that he revealed he had an ostomy bag and wasn’t supposed to be swimming at all, deep end or otherwise. (It was a hospital town and I got the impression he was in town to get some kind of treatment.)

We made sure he got back to his room safely and all.

That’s pretty much the whole story. I don’t know that he’d have died had nobody been there. And my bumbling parents probably would have figured a way to help him even if I wasn’t there. But he had a better chance of walking away from that by virtue of my (admittedly very rudimentary) swim lesson training.

And it was really dramatic being part of it.

I love when I idly wonder something about a post, click into the comments, and the top comment is exactly, specifically the answer to my idle curiosity. Cheers.

LLMs aren’t capable of doing any better. The only reason you or anyone might think they are is because of aggressive marketinggrifting by the very few people in a position to profit by convincing the world LLMs are basically the main ship computer from Star Trek when in fact they’re more like ELIZA.

As a super Dune nerd, Erasmus.

From DC: Larfleeze and Volthoom tied. Oh! The Anti-Monitor too.

From Supernatural (the TV series), Crowley is amazing.

BSG: Dr. Gaius Baltar.