Years ago, I had an open pizza box sitting on a table. The cat decided to walk over and get some pizza, but he stepped confidently from a chair onto the unsupported lid of the pizza box and fell through to the floor.

In and of itself, it’s not particularly humorous, but when I add in the way he looked around to see if anyone noticed and tried to pretend that was what he wanted to do, it gives me a chuckle.

That was long ago, and we don’t have cats now. We have guinea pigs. I taught the guinea pigs to spin in a circle once to get a treat. Now if I’m taking too long giving them their treat, they just start spinning non-stop.

They also chew the bars of their pens. I think they think it gets us to feed them faster (it doesn’t). One of them will get so involved in chewing the bars that I she forgets why she’s doing it and doesn’t come to eat when the food is available. We have to gently poke her in the nose until she stops chewing and realizes that there’s food.

I’m gonna respond to a couple points.

I have never once met an overly religious person who wasn’t also a massive hypocrite

I have. Not many. I can think of one. There may be others. However, that’s enough for me to know it does happen.

From their perspective, they know they’re doing wrong. Their god knows they’re doing wrong. Their church knows they’re doing wrong too! So wouldn’t that imply this all goes towards their sins list?

Absolutely! The bible warns against following false prophets. That’s what these church leaders are.

But then I get told that sinners can just repent for all their sins, and be accepted into heaven.

Yeah, but depending on the church, you have to actually repent. As I understand it, Catholics can confess their sins to a priest and be absolved. However, most other Christian religions consider it a matter between you and God, so you can’t just pretend to repent. It’s has to be real. You don’t get to trick God.

One way it was described to me is like this: to be forgiven for your sins, you have to welcome Jesus into your heart. However, if you have welcomed Jesus into your heart, you wouldn’t sin. So, a sinner who has truly repented and embraced Jesus is forgiven and won’t sin again.

I think the vast majority of people who are going to church don’t believe it any more than you do. They’re in it for the social interaction or for the standing it gives them in their community, and it’s all just bullshit. However, I have met real true believers.

You’re right. Capitalism is when you use your power and resources to get the government to allow you to steal people’s private property without force.

His sense of shame was hiding behind a misplaced apostrophe.

there are 2 men that seem to be completely stoic (I don’t know what word would describe them better): they ignore drama and jabs, even if directed at them

It may be that they are just oblivious.

Years ago my wife and I noticed a difference between the men who worked for her and the women who worked for her.

She had to take a woman aside and tell her that her shoes weren’t appropriate for the office. The woman heard, “she thinks I’m a slut.”

The men would hear, “she thinks my shoes aren’t appropriate for the office.”

Science indicates that women generally have more brain space devoted to communication than men. That is typically accepted to indicate that women communicate better than men, but it really just means more of their brain is involved.

Like a person with macular degeneration seeing hallucinations because their brain is trying to fill in the missing information, some women will hallucinate information that isn’t in the communication.

They will also think they are communicating in ways that aren’t conveyed with words. Many men will miss subtle, “read-between-the-lines” subtext because they just don’t have the neural real-estate to deal with it.

Women are also more likely to care about what other people think, simply because they are more likely to be at risk if they piss off the wrong person. Men can usually be a bit more chill because less of the population can threaten them. So it’s entirely possible that those two men don’t care because they know no one is going to kick their ass, so there’s nothing to get upset about.

Men will care a lot about actual aggressiveness. When you’ve had to be stitched back together after being jumped, passive-aggressiveness doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal.

Literacy isn’t Trump’s.

I think how “burning bridges” is generally used refers to not leaving yourself a way out. However in this case we’re talking about not leaving others a way in.

add more features or monetization or whatever

That “whatever” is doing a lot of work.

Security patches and bug fixes are arguably the most important reason to update.

He likes his roadkill rare and his brain worms starving.

I’ve read fucking history books, thank you very much, and I’m not the idiot you think I am.

The US has always been a fascist country at it’s core. You can’t get Americans upset about fascism. Not enough care to make a difference.

Child rape may be a crack in their armor. The true fascists I know are pissed about that.

Hammer at what works.

It’s not pointless. The point is to get people to forget that the president is a pedophile.

And it seems that the books worked lol

Well, I’d defer to her judgement, but it seemed to.

I guess my question for those older than me is: before computers, how did you learn to do something?

Books, radio, and TV. Also, learning from others.

Before the Internet (because computers didn’t really replace any other information mechanisms before the Internet), if you wanted to learn something you might start by talking to someone more knowledgeable than yourself.

If there wasn’t someone who knew more than you, or you needed to learn more than the people around you knew, then you’d go to the library or the bookstore. Where other teenage guys would fumble around in sex unable to find the clitoris, I’m enough of a nerd that I went to the library and found a book that gave me the info I needed.

There were also TV shows that would actually impart knowledge. Before the rise of cable channels in the U.S., Public Broadcasting would have shows that shared knowledge. News and history, of course. Science too. Back then, broadcasters took their responsibility to educate the public much more seriously.

I probably learned more about math and grammar from School House Rock during Saturday morning cartoons in the 70’s than I was learning from school (Interjections [hey!] show excitement [yow!] or emotion [ouch!]. They are generally set aside from a sentence by an exclamation point or by a comma if the feeling’s not as strong… Conjunction Junction… Number Nine… Three Is a Magic Number…)

On TV you had shows like Nova which would report on science topics. There were, of course, cooking shows where the host would make recipes, not to win a contest, but to show the audience how to cook them.

I learned an enormous amount of what I know about home repairs from obsessively watching shows like This Old House and Home Time, and I picked up a lot about woodworking from a show called The Woodwright’s Shop. I also watched [Nahm!] The New Yankee workshop.

I watched a lot of the original version of This Old House where they would spend a season renovating and rehabilitating one house. It’s probably a big reason why my wife and I bought an old Victorian house.

I wonder where he keeps his collection of Epstein souvenirs.

I asked my retired, optometrist wife.

She didn’t have time to respond fully because she’s dealing with a plumbing hardware supplier to get a defective toilet tank replaced*, but she sent this:

Those are for adults with presbyopia and near vision. The PD is standard for average adults. If we assume people will get the right distance prescription via over-the-counter means, then who is responsible if they buy the wrong thing and get into a car accident because they couldn’t see at a distance?

I had to look it up, but “presbyopia and near vision” means you used to be able to see up close, but now you’re old and you can’t focus up close anymore. As opposed to: you’re young, but your eyes are the wrong shape.

PD would be pupillary distance, ie the gap between your two pupils. One of the things they measure when they’re ordering lenses for your glasses. As has been explained to me previously, if the PD is wrong, it’s adding prism to the lenses, and headaches to your experience.

* She didn’t retire to become a plumber. We’re getting a powder room renovated, and the tank for the new toilet arrived damaged.

Fla-Vor-Ice tubes.

I suspect that what you want to check out is the tangle newsletter.

They report on one major story each day, share several viewpoints from each side, and then the personal take of Isaac Saul, the creator of the newsletter.

https://www.readtangle.com/

My wife made me stop at two viewings. I’ll tell her we have to push through.

I too was traumatized by watching SatansMaggotyCumFart’s parent’s sex tape.

I have no idea why I bought it, and even less idea why SatansMaggotyCumFart would release it.

I’d argue it’s too young, purely from a neurological development point of view.

Your prefrontal cortex doesn’t fully develop until your mid to late 20’s. That’s what gives you the ability to evaluate future consequences of your actions.