I'm sorry to hear that you and your cat had to go through all that. I highly recommend spay and neutering for all cats and probably dogs as well. While I know it's not cheap, it's a one time cost and if you truly cannot afford it, a lot of large cities have various resources available specific to spay and neuter them for lower cost and sometimes even free. There are also sometimes specific "spay and neuter day" where you can get this done for free or much cheaper. Just do some searching for resources in your city or county.

And by "you" I mean everyone that has a pet that needs to be spay and neutered.

Ahh okay, that makes sense. Before I bought my most recent laptop, I only had access to Windows 11 via VM.

I rarely use it or the laptop booted to Windows. I did a lot of research to ensure I could install Linux on it and everything would be peachy. It is. My Xbuntu setup idles at something like 1.2gb ram used, where as the Windows/dell stuff combined was sucking down 8gb!!! of ram. The poor laptop only has 16gb, which was bought in the eyes of a non-Windows user and light gaming every blue moon. I was flabbergasted at the Windows idling footprint.

I've also used VMs for some game servers and it's definitely nice to have a "base setup" where the entire environment is exactly how you want it and you just need to install whatever software you need and nothing extra. It's easy to see how you can quickly use up a lot of ram.

If AI works out the way the techbros are preaching it, we are all doomed anyway. The rich and powerful will have their AI drones just handle it, what it may be. They won't be needing the rest of us or at least not many.

This is how I see it. A solidly middle class income for a given area should be able to buy at least a modest house or at the very least a condo. In San Diego county, you are hard pressed for find a 1bedroom condo for $350k. 2bedroom around $450k. Those are properties about 25 miles from the beach, where it's 90F all summer.

The average income is around 75k here. So if you had two adults making that, you could maybe afford the bottom one, if you had no other debt anyway.

To me, that hardly feels middle class.

I'll concede I don't know about Napoleonic Law as I'm most certainly an America and as you suggest, follow English/American Common Law.

I'm sure they will pick one of these but I still think it's a bunch of BS. It's a month to month plan. Don't like the new price? Then don't remain a subscriber. It's pretty simple. No protection from anything needed. Especially considering it's optional entertainment that exist in a realm with many competitors.

Still, you are correct that if a business wants to offer service in a particular country, they should learn the laws and follow them.

I expect Netflix will do the math, pay the fine, adjust where necessary and carry on. As you mention, if they want access to the EU market, they have to pander to however many freaken countries different laws exist, which is also baffling. Shouldn't there be an overarching EU law to follow for the single market? But alas, if EU was so great for private markets, you would have your own streaming services and wouldn't even waste time with Netflix. Some entrepreneur in Italy should take up the call, but maybe they realize it's not worth the effort.

He might have a thyroid issue. I had a coworker that almost died from an over-active thyroid. Of course, the majority of people don't have any real medical issues and I agree with your overall post.

American obesity is a cultural problem, not a genetic problem.

This. I spent a huge amount of time on a bicycle, swimming and just playing outside. Sure, I had video games also but we still spent a lot of time outside. I realize not everyone has access to a pool. Growing up on the poor side, lots of apartment living, and many apartments have pools.

We would play street hockey, make up games to play with a ball and just generally weren't inside quite as much. By choice as well. Then again, I would call myself a free-range child in today's parlance.

Now a days, they might consider my upbringing child abuse. What, you don't know where your kid is every second of the day? And why aren't they put into structured sports and under constant adult supervision? Don't you know they need extra homework and mood stabilizing drugs?

A big part of why I don't want children for myself is the hyper competitiveness of the world and the shaming of parents for not helecoptering the crap out of their children. It's crazy to me. We live in a toxic society and it only seems to be getting worse. Californian's practically to the point where they think the kids are the state's and the parents just the money bags to feed and house them. Yes, that's hyperbole, but it's not that far off from reality either. Don't even get me started about the fucking Internet and it's negative affects on all aspects of life.

It starts with the children. The over 40s are already a lost cause for the most part. They will dig in to their lifestyle choices. Obviously, smoking had a huge advertising industry pushing it and advertising clearly works on most people. Smoking was presented as "cool" in movies and on tv.

That's all gone now, for the most part. Turns out, very few young people now smoke.

If we really pushed hard on healthy eating while also taxing the really bad foods (including processed fast food slop) you would eventually see it work. You can't just tell people, you need to beat it into them or make it so expensive they stop doing it.

Without having children myself, I don't know what the schools are doing in this regard. Do they still have as much recess time? That could be factor for the younger children; not enough play time outdoors in a safe area. Where I live, parks aren't really all that safe due to the homeless problems. I'm sure most homeless wouldn't harm a child at all, but the perception of that category of homeless doesn't lend itself to safety.

Sigh. That's a boat load of excuses. You are basically saying that most Americans are fucking lemmings that can't think for themselves and therefore should be given a pass for poor decision making.

They do have the free choice when it comes to lifestyle. You don't have to drink (many young people don't, much less then prior generations) or do drugs. You don't have to eat a bunch of processed food. People make the active choice to buy soda, chips, ice cream, and frozen dinners (all packed with salts, sugars and fats).

Most people in the lower 48 have ample time to go outside and do stuff. I have all the stupid tech toys everyone else has, but I don't spend all my time sitting around doing nothing while consuming high caloric foods. It's a personal choice. Society doesn't make you fat.

P.S. Obviously, some people have underlying medical issues and I'm not dismissing that fact. Most people don't have this as an excuse. Certainly not 75% of the country.

To be fair, a lot of smokers really just had an oral fixation and it was "something to do". If you take away the cigarettes, they still need that oral fixation and unfortunately, some will stuff food in their mouths instead. I've seen people quit smoking and will put on weight after the fact.

Also, some people just have more addictive personalities then others do. Gambling and drugs hit them harder then those of us with less addictive personalities. The trick is to know yourself and your personal triggers. I'm fortunate in that way that I can't stand gambling, don't care for drinking much and find that by not having marijuana in the house, means I almost never smoke it anymore. I do the same with soda and other garbage food I shouldn't be eating. Keep it out of the house and it's chances of being consumed drop drastically.

It of course helps that I work hard for my money and a lot of those vices cost a small fortune to always be doing. I could see trust fund babies struggling hard with this stuff since they don't really have to work, so you gotta fill that time up some how.

I have a cat that's 18 with poor lower teeth dental issues. She was continuing to lose weight and being the runt of the litter, it was hard to notice. Ironically, it wasn't until another cat of mine that's only 11 had to get both canine teeth pulled. He required an all wet food, patte diet for about 6 weeks. Of course, you can't open a can of cat food for one cat...So I was giving the 11yo most of a can, while splitting the rest with an overweight and underweight cat.

After that six weeks, the twice a day feeding of wet food became the new norm and I shifted to giving my oldest half the can and forcing the heavy younger cats down to 25% each. Unlimited dry food as well, but the oldest eats very little of it, if at all.

18yo put on some weight and is overall healthier now. It's hard to know everything about our pets since they don't really tell us and we aren't all experts on the nature of our pets (how could we be?).

Imagine if a sugar tax was equal to that of the tobacco tax. Also, include corn syrup and other "sugars" under that same umbrella. People would shift to cheaper alternatives while complaining but they would do it.

Let's just face it though, many people are absolutely terrible at delayed gratification or self control and will reach for the quick and easy solution to just about anything, regardless of the poor long term ramifications of those choices. Being that we can now order just about any food from our couch and get it delivered certainly isn't helping.

It's even worse with "body positive movements" which is basically letting people off the hook for their overall poor dietary and exercise choices. Yes, I realize some people like Sommervillian exist, but the majority of us aren't built that way. A lot of it is the food we are provided and the fast, always on the move culture we have. You can still cook from scratch and avoid the processed garbage, but so many people don't.

Hmm. That gives me an idea. Pythons are a major invasive species causing all sorts of problems for the Everglades. If we can encourage even more people to hunt them down and turn them over to for medical reasons, it could be a win win for everyone. Well except the python anyway.

This is America though. The land of zero responsibilities for anyone. Why watch your diet and exercise when you can just take a pill paid for by insurance to moderate your appetite?

Still, this is an interesting find and I'm sure big pharm will be all over it, trying to charge a fortune for it, even if it probably cost next to nothing to produce.

I should of started a medicine company I suppose. I entirely blame my parents for teaching me ethics. What were they even thinking!? I could have been president, but noooo, I was taught ethics instead. Silly me.