Exactly what I was thinking. If I saw this I would look for hinges before stepping up.

Even worse, he is headed up. Why is he looking down?

You can cut cheese with a wire. Imagine having a thin piece of metal through a hole in your ear with weight on it. Your lobe is the cheese the ear ring is the cutter.

Ah, that makes sense

How does a driver choose how close someone follows them?

When someone would ask, “Who wants to be 100 years old?” My grandpa would respond, “Ask someone who is 99.” I think that applies here. When will you feel like you can give up - well, why not now? What will be different when you’re 40 or 50? Why wouldn’t you want to be dating? Why wouldn’t you want your body to work?

These are real, current legs. The front 2 of the insect norm of 6

I absolutely agree that there should be a official name. My problem with birds is that there are 2 official names. The American Ornithological Society approves both of them (kind of). One is Latin/Greek/whatever in Genus species format - that is the one for science literature and taxonomy. The other is in English and silly in my opinion because that’s where people will use it to say nonsense like there is no such thing as a seagull.

There are weirdly rigid common names around birds. There is a whole thing about renaming them right now. They are essentially regulated terms that low level pedants respect. They are the same types of people who would correct you for calling Frankenstein’s monster ‘Frankenstein’.

The plant community is better. You could call a “sunflower” a “tall flower” and nobody would care. You might get a “oh, I’ve never heard that one” but never “there’s no such thing as a ‘tall flower.’” They just fall back to the scientific names when clarity is important.

IMO common names should just be useful. I will call any gull a seagull when talking to non-bird people because that is a term that is commonly understood and how effective communication works.

I think the point is that there isn’t a good enough reason to put internet in a car that negates the risk of it.

It is like adding lead to food. It’s a cheap sweetener with no calories. You can argue that cheap sweeteners aren’t important to you, but I don’t think you can argue that it isn’t a good reason. It just isn’t a good enough reason to negate the risk.

I just lost my dog after her needing people around pretty constantly. My partner and I can mostly arrange working from home, so the situation is not the same. What is the same is how you approach how your dog feels and how to tell when it’s ‘the time’.

You’re probably the most important part of his life. The shelter might let him find a home that can care for him better or it might not (because people are hesitant to adopt older dogs with health issues). What they can’t give is the stability he gets from staying with you. It really sucks that we can’t ask them what they want. I know that my pup would never have chosen a longer life if it meant giving us up.

When is it time? There are resources online about how to judge quality of life. For us it was as simple as picking her favorite things to do and watching to see if she still wanted to do them.

I have second guessed myself a lot - should we have done more vet care, should we have spent more time with her, etc. You’re in a hard situation. The decicions don’t get easier and sometimes are no win. My advice is to make your decisions for him as best you can knowing that your best is not ever going to be the perfect ideal AND it will be good enough.

Something sweet to pair with the salty. Apple chips, dried fruit, caramel corn, or something like that

Look up “pink tax” and “gender pay gap”.

Yes, and you have to dig deep in some places to get below the frost with your foundation. In those places a basement makes sense because you’re digging that far either way. Texas frosts don’t get very deep, so you’re able to have a shallower foundation making a basement just an extra cost.

Nice work on the write up! It is hard sorting things out when they’re half true. For me, drinking water is especially important to get the fact straight on because of how bad it can go if the system fails. It would be silly to disregard anyone saying water wasn’t up to a safe standard, but separating things I would care about out from the fluoride and chlorine background noise is tricky. Thanks for the deeper dive!

Just generally, you can get a report of your municipal water testing. The biggest safety variable that I would be worried about testing at home for is lead in the pipes between me and the treatment plant. That includes my house/building and the municipal pipes.

Now taste, that’s a to each their own situation. Sulfury water is my limit for sure. No thanks!

I think hey are talking about the chloramine that Minneapolis uses to disinfect. It is more stable and isn’t just chlorine, so it would be in a “combined” result. The levels are page three of this report https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/media/content-assets/www2-documents/residents/2022-Consumer-Confidence-Report-FINAL.pdf It looks like 2023 isn’t posted yet, but I doubt it changes much year to year.

Are you talking about using chloramine in disinfection? I think conflating pool water and drinking water standards is a bit of a mistake. Things get added to pools from people’s bodies after chlorination that cause weird combined results. Drinking water is disinfected (chlorinated) as a final step. I would object to my municipality using chloramine, but not because I wouldn’t drink it.

The computer is constantly both bricked and not bricked. No way to know until you push the power button

Me talking at dinner: “Will you pass me the peas?” Cut to 5 people confused about whether I mean just one of them or if I want the whole table to all hand me the peas.

I get why they/them can be confusing because of the plural thing, but we are used to a quirky language. With a little practice, the tone and context clear up nearly all confusion. The rest is as easy or hard as what we have to do with an ambiguous “you.”

PS Sorry to the “yous/yous guys” people. I am not trying to turn a blind eye to you obviously superior usage. It just really ruins my point.