Ehhh you might be underestimating their desire and capacity to do widespread illogical evil.

So much of the right’s “ideology” is based on insecurity and blind hatred, that genetic data could believably be weaponized for almost whatever they want. You’re definitely right that they think they get to decide who is a good American and who’s not, but why limit the consequences to deportation/disappearing when eugenics offers them much more permanent solutions?

Looking at the right’s generational project of clawing back civil and human rights, which has largely been successful, I can definitely see some right wing geneticist with a chip on their shoulder doing massive amounts of damage. There are no shortage of very intelligent people who do incredibly stupid and damaging things with their intelligence. Just look at American tech companies…

Same, I really try to raise mine up at least once a day, but it doesn’t always happen. Your alarm idea is a good one, think I’ll try that.

I actually shop for groceries way better when I’m hungry. If I’ve recently eaten, I have trouble imagining myself enjoying anything I’m going to buy, even if I eat it often. I’ve actually compared my hauls after shopping hungry vs shopping full: shopping on a full stomach my bags are noticeably emptier with less variety, and more unhealthy stuff. When shopping hungry I buy way more fruits, vegetables, some slightly adventurous ingredients, and in general much more interesting items that I’m more likely to enjoy in a few days.

But to each their own, I think I’m the outlier here.

That’s an awesome cat name.

That does help explain the strangeness of the whole thing, thanks for sharing. Sounds like things were pretty tough for you, so I’m sorry for that.

It sounds like he is a bit oversexualized (not sure if that’s the right term), but it doesn’t seem like it’s anything too out of the ordinary for someone figuring themselves out. Many of us probably pushed things a bit too far when we were little, I certainly didn’t understand how uncomfortable it made people for me to run around the house naked when I was young. But we all test boundaries like that when we’re growing up, and usually the adults around us help us find the right boundaries, not stretch them.

So yeah, with that new context, giving a fleshlight to her 18 year old son is very odd, and does raise some red flags. Sounds like you made the right call cutting things off.

I’d be super curious to hear the context if you’re willing/able to share, but it all depends on the relationship between the mother and son. It strikes me as a bit weird and abnormal, and certainly embarrassing, but if you normally talk about sex in an open and healthy way with her, then this might not be as weird as it seems. Parents know their kids play with themselves, and it’s usually healthier to be open about it than to stigmatize it, but actively buying this kind of thing for her son is a bit much in my opinion…

Really good question, I’m not sure. The main difference between velour and velvet are their weave and pile, right? I would guess they’re both good for cat scratching since they’re so similar, but I don’t know for sure.

The power of velvet is probably one of the best kept secrets for cat owners. I’m always surprised how few people know about it.

I got a nice new leather couch a few years back, and my cat loooves to claw at leather, so I got a velvet cover and it’s genuinely like magic. He can scratch it all he wants and not do any damage. I think he actually realized it after a few days of trying to tear it up, because he gave up and now just likes to cuddle on it. I check on the leather every so often to make sure he hasn’t pierced the cover, but every time I check I’m amazed that the velvet cover and the leather underneath still look brand new after about three years of daily use.

Tldr velvet is basically claw-proof.

I think it would be valuable to take a step back and look at how you’re thinking about women in general. This isn’t an attack FYI, I’m trying to be constructive because I totally understand your anxiety.

Firstly, lose the word “female.” Forget it. It won’t help you anywhere except biology class, and it’s a big red flag. In your brief question, your framing makes it sound like women are some mystical object that you can “get” with exactly the right words or the right amount of money. But they’re just people, and many of them are probably having similar issues talking to men. If you start to actively think about women as fully formed, independent, thinking, feeling human beings who have many of the same problems as you, and many that are quite different, then you’ll have a much easier time approaching them.

All of that is to say, empathy is critical. If you approach an interaction from a place of empathy—where you’re trying to understand the other person by listening to them and expressing interest—then it’ll slowly start to become natural. I realize that’s all easier said than done, but just thinking about women as complete people who aren’t there for you, but for themselves as individuals, would be a massive first step. Good luck.

My mother died recently, and she was the breadwinner and was in charge of everything financial, because my surviving father is a toxic narcissist with zero financial literacy who refuses help from anyone. So I just have to say kudos to you for thinking about this difficult stuff. Your family will appreciate it more than you can imagine.

Other commenters have already given you solid advice, and I don’t have anything to add there, but more people need to have these difficult conversations and make real practical preparations, as soon as possible. Speaking from experience, not having clear guidance about where things are and what should be done with them, makes an already emotional situation even harder to deal with. Everybody dies, but in death you can make your family’s grieving process slightly easier by thinking ahead like this.

I’m sorry for whatever you’re going through, but props for thinking about other people while you go through it.

Such a pretty cat.

Mine makes a very specific sound when he’s hunting bugs in particular. Anyone else’s cat do this? The closest thing it sounds like is a squirrel chippering/barking, but it’s totally different from his meow. He never does it any other time, even when he’s hunting his mouse toy, it’s freaking adorable.

Yeah paywalls suck, but that’s probably why their journalism remains consistently high quality. I listen to their podcast every so often, and it’s clear that they work their asses off. They just took their first week off since founding the company, because they were worried if they stopped constantly releasing new articles they would quickly go under, so they waited a long time until they were sure they had enough subscribers and had built enough trust to survive a week’s vacation without pissing everybody off.

I certainly don’t have that kind of work ethic, and I still expect my paycheck.

Yeah I still rely on fansubs for all my jdramas that don’t get official releases outside Japan (which is still most of them). The quality is instantly obvious compared to machine-generated crap.

Cultural context and an understanding of tone and narrative coherence is critical for subtitles if you want to do justice to the quality of the writing in the original language.

Sounds.

I use Alexandrite on my desktop and Voyager on my phone. Perfect experience for me.

I feel you. It’s very expensive to be poor.

I initially thought OP meant to google too, but that didn’t track for me. Ultimately bullshitting makes sense in this context (thanks urban dictionary), since they compare someone who gibbities to someone who searches.

Either way it’s ridiculous slang to me, but I’m clearly the wrong generation for it, so I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one confused.

I feel so damn old having to look up “gibbity.” Ugh.

I totally agree though, LLMs are consistently wrong when I ask a work-related question. I work in a field that isn’t particularly niche and use software that millions of people use every day, and LLMs will straight up invent entire menus rather than telling me it doesn’t know how to do something. Huge waste of time, especially when asking a coworker gets an accurate answer right away.

These immigration raids and terror tactics are terrible on their own, but it’s especially absurd when Native Americans get caught up in it, and it just fully exposes how disingenuous and transparently racist the whole effort is. So I’m sorry that your peoples have to suffer even more because of this racist mindset.

From a January article:

”If you can’t say, ‘we’ve been here for time immemorial,’ then you’re an immigrant. You’re not from here, so who are you to classify our Indigenous people? These lands have been a melting pot for many ethnicities,” Hatathlie [a Native Arizona state Senator] said.

I heard another more recent example of a car full of Native Americans being pulled over, aggressively questioned, and asked for their papers, but I can’t seem to find it. It’s utterly shameful how we treat people.

Yeah, exactly. It seemed important to them to stress that Ahsoka’s training was different from a normal padawan’s, thanks to Anakin.