Curious Canid

That is a concern, but they seem to have taken precautions to prevent that from being exploited, at least in the short term. We’ll have to see how it works out. I haven’t given up on them yet.

Startpage is a good choice. I am currently experimenting with searXNG. It seems a little messier to use, but I’m getting more relevant results and less junk.

Memento. From one perspective it’s a happy ending, but …

I wish I could just get Prime shipping and drop the video service. I may still drop the whole thing.

You may well be right. I do not have enough familiarity with the situation in India.

I think the principles still apply, but how to carry them out might well be very different.

Thank you for your comment.

First, get them out of the situation. If they don’t have somewhere to go that the abuser doesn’t know about, see if you have a local women’s shelter. Leaving the area entirely, at least temporarily, may be a good option.

Second, help them take action about the abuse. Contact the police or find a lawyer to help with the process. There are lawyers who will work cases like this without charging. There may also be local government agencies that are specifically tasked with investigating abuse.

Third, get them to seek help in recovering. There are likely to be local organizations that provide counseling and other resources. This is not going to be a short or easy process, but working at it will make a world of difference over the rest of their life.

I’ve been through this with more than one friend. Every bit of it is tough. Having your support will make a big difference. Abusers try to make their victims feel powerless and alone. Having a friend who will help works against that, as well as providing comfort.

I wish you both all the best!

I live in an urban area where the cost are slightly above average, but not by much.

Depending on whose statistics you accept, somewhere between 55% and 62% of the country are living paycheck to paycheck with little or no savings. That is a literal majority of Americans. It really is that bad and it’s getting steadily worse. I was quite comfortable 20 years ago and reasonably so ten years ago. The dividing line passed me about five years back.

Consider me as a data point. My salary is in the low six figures. I have a reasonable mortgage and car loan. I also live paycheck to paycheck and have trouble paying my bills every month. I am currently in default on several thousand dollars of medical debt, that I am trying to pay off gradually, but I’m not always keeping ahead of my new medical debt.

Part of my income goes to helping out some relatives and friends who are in much worse shape, but even without that, I would have trouble breaking even.

I am just barely short of being in the top 10% of US incomes. The income inequality in this country has left the vast majority of the population struggling. Many can no longer afford enough food or housing.

PlayOn produces higher resolution files than AnyStream on the services I use most frequently.

AnyStream has worked well for me. Sadly, I often get better quality results with PlayOn.

It varies widely from one community to another, but Lemmy is certainly much smaller than reddit. I think that some communities have hit the tipping point where there are enough people to keep things going. The smaller communities are still working at that, but they still provide useful information and good company. Lemmy is growing so I expect the situation to improve over time.

Personally I haven’t run into the kind of hostility that some people are reporting. It’s sad that it’s out there, but be aware that it is not the universal Lemmy experience. I suspect it depends heavily on what communities you frequent and what instance you are on. Eventually I expect the toxic areas to implode, or just drift away into isolation, as they are replaced by similar communities with better members and better moderation.

Thanks for the positive response! I love reading about other people’s pets too.

It’s nice to see someone arguing the nurture side of things. Breed does have a significant influence, but how a dog is treated makes far more difference to their eventual personality.

I have always talked to my dogs the way I would talk to a human. I don’t use babytalk or even adjust my vocabulary. Not only does it seem to give them a startlingly good understanding of human language, it also makes them more inquisitive and more interactive. If you treat them like people they behave more like people.

I have had dogs that were smarter than others, but the average has been far higher than people generally assume.

Your sounds like a kindred spirit. Not all dogs understand televisions, but those who do seem to treat them much the same way we do. Most dogs are interested in other animals, so it makes sense that they would like nature shows. It sounds like yours also has a taste for fantasy, which is awesome.

Me too. I’ve had some smart dogs, but he was in a different category.

When I found him he was carefully studying a busy intersection (6 lanes crossing 4 lanes with separate left turn lanes). Before I could get to where he was, he crossed two sides of the intersection safely, waiting for traffic to stop at the light. I pulled into a parking lot near him, opened my door, and said hello. He came over sniffed my hand, got a little petting, then jumped in when I patted the seat next to me. We were inseparable after that.

He was less than a year old when I found him, skinny and bedraggled in the rain. Over the next year he more than doubled in size, becoming quite a magnificent beast. It’s been two decades since he passed away, but I still miss him.

Potatoes, wrapped in aluminum foil. Maybe some other veggies too.

I literally found him on the street, so I don’t know anything about his parents. And this was before canine DNA tests were a thing.

He had fur like a plush golden retriever, but if you ignored that, he mostly looked like a wolf. Our vet’s best guess was a shepherd mix with some husky and a lot of other bits and pieces.

That was the problem he had when he first tried the remove. After some experimentation, he discovered that his center toenail hit individual buttons without activating any other.

I would never have believed it if I hadn’t watched him doing it.

We had a dog who was brilliant in almost every area. For example, he liked to watch television. Late at night he would go downstairs and turn on the TV. We only discovered it by accident, because he would also turn if off if he heard us coming. One night I walked in on him with his nose on the off button and the picture (on our old-style TV) still fading.

Once he knew that we knew, he stopped trying to hide it. He would turn it on and off when he wanted. Then he figured out, I assume from watching us, how to use the remote. Finally, he learned how to change channels using the remote. His favorite show turned out to be “The Pet Department” on Animal Planet. I kid you not.

Beautifully said.

I found similar value in taking various anthropology courses in college. Learning about other cultures provides a perspective for thinking about your own. There is some good and some bad in all of them, but mostly there’s just “different”. You can have a meaningful dialog with a person you disagree with, but you can’t with someone you just don’t understand.