Generally speaking, the terms man and woman are reserved specifically for humans. I couldn’t tell you why, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

For pets, the use of boy/girl probably does have a lot to do with how people tend to infantilize their companion animals.

Additionally, the boy / girl terminology is often generalized to cover all animals, particularly when adults are interacting with children and by extension when children are interacting with each other. It’s not uncommon to have a child ask something like “is that a boy rabbit or a girl rabbit?” but it is a little unusual to hear an adult ask another adult that same question, unless it’s sort of tongue-in-cheek or maybe in the presence of kids.

A neighbor told me that her daughter had been out playing in the yard one evening and apparently mistook a couple of young skunks as being kitties. They were quite docile and followed her up to the house. Fortunately, nobody got sprayed, not even the dog. Skunks are surprisingly docile when they don’t feel threatened in my experience, so I guess that’s why the kid thought they were cats?

If you go the qbittorrent route, my piece of advice is to always check the settings after any updates.

It was maybe around 8 or 9 years ago, but after one of the updates, all my settings got wiped and set back to defaults I assume.

I didn’t notice until I ended up getting a nastygram from my ISP.

It’s never happened since, but needless to say I always double check now.

So, first thing that comes to mind is that I put the effort into typing out a list but turns out there’s a character limit on the size of posts so one things leads to another and next thing you know I lose all my tabs.

Honestly, it’s some of my family I’m most disappointed in.

In prior years they started vegetable gardens because they supposedly couldn’t afford to buy fresh produce from the store due to “Bidenflation”, but suddenly this year, they didn’t bother even though prices on produce and so many other essentials are higher than ever.

I had written a long comment, honestly way too long, and then realized that one anecdote perfectly demonstrates how ridiculous it is. These are folks that spent years blaming Biden for post-covid, worldwide inflation and every single time some random thing got expensive like when eggs spiked last year. Then, late January 2025 rolls around and suddenly not a peep since. Any attempt to discuss the topic, or draw attention to the fact that this time around the spike in food prices and general inflation are largely and directly a result of Trump and his administration, the story changes to “the president doesn’t control grocery prices.”

And I know they’re feeling it, that the reality of the situation is affecting them. But I guess I had held out hope that they were better than this.

Based on what I’ve seen, that seems to be how it’s always gone within an individual business (and also not exclusive to tech). Maybe right now we’re calling it an era within tech because it’s happening simultaneously to some big players, and that’s the difference?

For a lot of businesses, things start out small, stressful, and maybe a bit grindy while folks are trying to get things off the ground. If that works out, then there’s usually a huge push to grow. Business moves into the “great places to work” phase, basically dream job, though depending on the business and industry this can sometimes also be the “we don’t pay the best but we’ve got an onsite arcade and mini-bar” phase. It’s usually an economic boom time, best numbers ever type situation. And then the tiniest little bump, and that all comes crashing down. Cut backs, more stringent rules, everything has to be measured, lay-offs or mass exodus, place becomes a low morale corporate hellscape and suddenly every thing is “we’re a family”.

Been around the block more than once, I’ve seen the process and know the signs.

I don’t want to offend anybody with the badly wordings so please do not read this. And I will strike through so it’s completely unreadable in case you get any ideas.

I’d buy that for a dollar.

This is one that’s not on my radar. I guess I’ll need to check it out sometime.

When I went off to college, I basically sold as much of my stuff as I could because even in the ancient times it was expensive as hell for a kid from a poor family. So, that was the end of my gaming days for the better part of a decade, and I honestly didn’t really keep up. My last gaming system was the original Playstation until around 2007 when I decided to spend money I didn’t have to buy a Wii.

The other thing to consider, and maybe this is already addressed, is that there’s a stunningly large proportion of the population that is not only okay with this, they want it. And it’s not a situation where those people who approve or simply don’t care are segregated out by regions, they’re literally living next doors and up stairs. They’re cousins and sisters and fathers and bosses and coworkers and so on. This is not some super easy “why doesn’t the larger of the two simply eat the other?” kind of situation, and no matter how hard anybody wants to try and reduce it down to that, sorry, that’s just now how things work.

Based on my very limited experience, the people who voted for Trump largely see this as a good thing and the longer term ramifications of it haven’t affected most of them yet. So, sarcasm like this would go right over their heads at best, and at worst, would just sound like you’re a bitter liberal which makes them happy to hear.

I lost my job pretty directly due to the Trump administration. I live in a rural area, so avoiding MAGA conservatives is pretty much impossible. I can tell you my experience with them has been very negative when I mention I lost my job and why. Literally the very first response I get is some iteration of how it’s my fault or I should have known or I deserved it or my job wasn’t real work. As they say at McDonald’s they’re lovin’ it. They never have any sympathetic words or display any empathy over it.

They’re loving that AI is taking away jobs. They look down on low wage workers like fast food employees, so they’re happy those jobs are getting wiped out. They despise any art related or creative industries, so they’re happy those jobs are getting wiped out. But more than anything, they loathe well-paid office jobs (especially remote workers) like those in tech and research, so they’re especially happy those jobs are getting wiped out.

Out of curiosity, what general part of the world do you live in?

Where I live in the southern part of the USA, there are frogs everywhere. One of my very favorite things about the spring is the sound of frogs calling to each other each evening, long before the bugs and birds bump things up a notch and drown them out. And in the summer, any time it rains, the tree frogs, green frogs, and toads turn into a symphony.

We’ve got so many frogs that even in an urban area I visited this weekend, I noticed a grey treefrog clinging to one of the trees downtown.

It’s not a political thing. As best I can determine, it’s a status symbol thing.

We can argue back and forth about the aesthetics of it, but at the end of the day it’s expensive to look like that, so they’re signaling that they have boat-ox loads of expendable income (or at least they want to give that illusion).

Signaling one’s wealth is something that transcends political party by a country mile as the saying goes in my part of the world.

Very nice. What species of flora and fauna are in there?

I’ve been winding down in the hobby, and as of a couple of months ago, I’m down to my last tank. I think when its occupant expires (an elderly clown pleco that’s at least 15 years old), I’m going to give it a break for awhile, but hope to be back some day.

I’ve seen him perform! Stage name is Miranda Warning. Oh that’s right, never mind, still not a drag queen.

For me personally, I’m not sure I’d bother unless it was a medical necessity. And I definitely don’t want to be one of those much older guys who has the musculature of a 26-year old bodybuilder. I find it unattractive and off-putting, so if it is under my control, I wouldn’t want to look like that or have to live the type of lifestyle required to arrive there and maintain it. On the other hand, I don’t want to be the type of guy who would benefit from it but not get treatment because of shame, lots of that going on, too.

Biggest thing for me, having known a number of cis men getting treatment, is that it really needs to be medically supervised. I know it’s anecdotal, but it seems like side effects are very common, and there are a lot of very serious potential health problems that can occur.

On average, I find the less precise my predictions, the more accurate they become and the more precise my predictions, the less accurate they become.

So rather than predict that I’m 54.3% accurate, I’ll just say it’s probably roughly half the time at a minimum.

I’ve kind of been on both sides of this.

For me, returning to and then leaving my home town triggers feelings of melancholy but also relief. I didn’t grow up in a stable, solidly middle-class (or higher) lifestyle, so I’m sure that’s a factor.

While I had a good childhood and loving parents, things got complicated the older I became. And even when I happen upon a reminder of the good times or a fond memory, way too often it’s tainted by how fucked up things were at the time.

On the other hand, “the kids” … it’s wonderful when they’re home for summer. When they’re at my house, at least I know they are safe, happy, and that all their needs are being met, in as much as possible. It’s sad to see them go, when I know it’s going to be months before they’re back.

But also, it’s a sigh of relief when my life can go back to being on my terms sans drama and chaos. It’s almost total bliss when I can go out to the kitchen in my undies for a cup of coffee fully confident that the milk jug won’t be sitting in the fridge completely empty (or with a minuscule amount of milk remaining so as to be practically useless but also technically not empty).

What’s the average price for an insurance for a middle class person living in a big city?

In the USA, shit’s so convoluted that it’s highly debatable whether average price is relevant. But, also, good luck finding someone willing to track that info down, assuming it even exists.

The costs depend on what state you live in, whether you’re getting insurance through your employer or the open market, whether you’re getting family or individual coverage, and a myriad other factors.

For insurance through your employer – The employer usually gets a group discount on a set of plans that range from shitty coverage to slightly less shitty, a range of costs based on how much the employer is willing to pay for each plan as a “benefit” to employees, and whatever other add-ons the employee selects (ex: dental, vision).

I don’t have average data, but I’ve paid as little as $50 a month for employer sponsored insurance, but it was the shittiest shit tier of insurance that was basically worthless (and that was over a decade ago). For my last few employers, the employee paid part of the plans seemed to be in the $200 to $400 range, again depending on the plan and the options selected.

For open market – This is even more complicated and complex. But basically everybody can get it through some version of what’s known as Obamacare or ACA. Costs and plans available vary from state to state. Technically, individuals are on the hook for the entire cost of the plans. In my area, when I last checked, there were a few options as low as $350 USD (but they were utterly terrible) to $2,500+ USD for ultra-premium plans. The caveat here is that the cost of these plans is partly based on income. So, in my state, basically everybody making below $60,000 USD (or so) gets a discounted rate (or rebate on taxes at the end of the year), such that people in the lowest income bracket can get health insurance for free or close to it.

Does families get an all-in-one or it’s different for any single person?

Cost-wise, there’s a different price for individual insurance versus family coverage. Usually the family coverage is priced so that it’s a bit cheaper per person than getting separate individual plans, but even then there are exceptions. Family plans tend to have a shared max out of pocket and deductible (which are basically the annual limits on what you pay) that’s higher than the individual plan.

Creating enemies of neighbors goes a lot of different ways, obviously, but the one I’m personally experiencing lately is that people of that political persuasion are super judgey and non-supportive of people who have lost their jobs recently. Doubly so for those who have lost their jobs because of Trump and republican policies.

Literally the last 3 known conservatives that I’ve mentioned my unemployment to have said all manner of things like …

“USAID was rotten to the core, it needed to be killed” even though that was entirely irrelevant to my job.

“My taxes were paying your paycheck and I can’t afford it anymore” from somebody whose income is close enough to poverty level that I can guarantee you they pay next to nothing in federal income taxes.

“Schools are putting litter boxes in the bathrooms for kids to use, the stuff they’re teaching kids these days is not acceptable” from someone whose kids graduated from public school 3 decades ago and has no clue what my job duties actually entailed (hint: It wasn’t related to litter boxes).