She actually survived several years after that incident, but she was never quite the healthy cat she was before we moved. Unfortunately she ended up in the animal hospital again at the height of the pandemic, and it was so bad that they were letting us into the building to see her. She was there over a week, and she just wasn’t getting better - and even if she had recovered, it wasn’t a cure; it was just recovery. In other words, there was no guarantee she wouldn’t be back there again in a few months with exactly the same problems.

I heard they were playing “Fortunate Son” during the parade. If that’s true, it HAS to be intentional irony by the DJ. There’s no way anyone could be THAT clueless… right?

The song is about how the singer was drafted to serve in Vietnam; he didn’t have the connections to get out of it. “I ain’t no millionaire’s son.”

One of our cats had a serious medical issue, we think a blood disease caused by a tick bite (we had just moved to a new house, and we think it was already in the house - she was an indoor only cat). One night as she was recovering, she started attacking her own tail. This is something that can happen to cats who go through a trauma like this. We tried to distract her from it, but it didn’t work.

The next morning, we discover blood all over the house. She got her tail bleeding and then proceeded to walk around the house. Our bedroom, my office, the hallway, the stairwell, and every room on the first floor.

I worked on cleanup while my wife took her to the animal hospital.

They tried to bandage it, but it never worked, it would start bleeding again when the bandage was removed. We had to have her tail docked.

Poor kitty. She passed away in 2020 (she never really got well after that initial incident, unfortunately). I still miss her!

For a while, that parent.com article comes across as the pajamas spontaneously igniting, but it sounds like what actually happened was that the burned kids got ahold of matches, a lighter, a candle, or another flame.

I’ve never heard this before. Clothing that doesn’t burn well seems like a good idea, in general.

If Dear Leader kicks the bucket due to health issues, which is very likely…

This is what we said after 2020, and here we are.

I know the reaper will show up for him someday. I was hoping he’d keel over at the parade today, but so far I’ve heard nothing along those lines.

But Billy Joel seems to be right: Only the good die young.

My in-laws’ dog tripped me a few years ago - I had her and our dog in their backyard, trying to get them to play and work off some energy. I started to run, because that always gets my dog going, and their dog ran in front of me. She’s a large dog, maybe 50 lbs.

I somehow kept myself upright, but I rammed my elbow into my own ribs in the process. It hurt for weeks!

This is so absurd, but I love it.

Of course I’m standing in our garage watching a thunderstorm that just flooded our basement, with more storm on the way, so maybe it’s just stress.

This is an incredible series. 3 or 4 games in overtime…

I don’t go to social media because I want to hear what AI says. I’m here for the conversation with other humans.

Maybe the Klingons felt they needed a devil after hearing about the concept from humans.

Hurd, I assume.

Two of our cats and the dog would be easy to save. But the third cat is really skittish and would hide under the bed instead of being rescued. :(

They settled with the family of that woman that disobeyed a direct lawfully given order from a cop, to the tune of millions of dollars.

So, yes, they absolutely will pay them. In fact, this is a “legal” way for the government to fund them.

DON’T DATE ROBOTS!

Airlines should stop flying to or over these states, to comply with the law.

Yep. I’m retired now, but before retirement a month or so ago, I was working on a project that relied on several hundred people back in 2020. “Why can’t AI do it?”

The people I worked with are continuing the research and putting it up against the human coders, but…there was definitely an element of “AI can do that, we won’t need people” next time. I sincerely hope management listens to reason. Our decisions would lead to potentially firing people, so I think we were able to push back on the “AI can make all of these decisions”…for now.

The AI people were all in, they were ready to build an interface that told the human what the AI would recommend for each item. Errrm, no, that’s not how an independent test works. We had to reel them back in.

Anyone remember Ross Perot? He created the Tea Party, which eventually took over the Republican party.

I know airports look the same everywhere, but damn that looks like BWI.

This isn’t really what you asked, but I feel the need to share my experience using an alternate layout.

I used to use the Dvorak layout - for several years, in fact, and I was pretty good with it. I switched back to Qwerty, because Dvorak just caused too many issues, especially at work, and any speed gains were lost in dealing with switching the layout for tech support and things like that. Sometimes they’d remote in and type, and it would translate their keypresses incorrectly.

Now I doubt they’d even let me switch the keyboard layout (a function they don’t expect people to need, so they lock it out to reduce the chance of someone accidentally triggering it).

Qwerty does the job, I guess.