As a cis female I never considered going for a traditionally male name. I do however have a gender neutral name I go by in certain circles. I also used to have a gender neutral account for online gaming.

Where I’m located the main culprits are bird flu, virulent newcastle disease, fowlpox and decreasing water quality due to things like algae and botulism.

I volunteer in wildlife rescue. I can tell you ducks have had a rough 2 years.

And at the same time I’m sure they asked less of some of the clowns this administration DID give a security clearance.

My volunteering group won’t switch away from WhatsApp :( doesn’t help that half of our volunteers are over the age of 55. It’s the only reason I still have the damn app installed.

For people in the same or a similar boat: reduction is better than nothing. I got all my other contacts to switch over to signal. It’s only that one volunteer group left.

While I do volunteer in the field of wildlife rescue I’m also pretty sure this is an AI generated image.

However from what I can make out I do have some possible explanations:

A knife: Useful for things like cutting netting or fishing line or anything else an animal may get tangled up in.

A syringe: we don’t really use those ourselves as we aren’t vets, but some of our animals require antibiotics fast (within 2 hours of injury). Also euthanasia is usually done using a syringe.

Trash: the rest looks like the kind of trash one may find stuck to an animal, lodged in its throat, etc. Or it could just be litter that one would pick up to keep the wildlife area clean.

Same as the logo on the plastic packaging. Pretty sure this image is AI generated. My only question is: why???

I had an Apple laptop at the time, didn’t dual boot but did have to use some workarounds using Wine. I guess that’s kind of acknowledging Windows, but at least you’re not actually running it I guess? Basically it’s close to the way I use my Linux machine nowadays.

Chances are however that things have somewhat changed in the last 12 years and chances are it varies between (sub)degrees and universities. However I can guarantee you: you won’t be alone in not wanting to use windows. Being very OS picky is a tried and true tradition in the field. Find your kind of people and I’m sure you can troubleshoot any issues you encounter together.

Soooo… screw the network of a bunch of companies I guess, lol. I have to use my work’s VPN while working from home, but the way they set it up I also have to use it while working at the office. This is far from a unique setup over here. If this happens to be the same in Wisconsin I have some bad news for them.

Nah, why get rid of it if you can get exclusions for just AI, like they are doing for other stuff like copyright.

Plants vs zombies. Go for the original, the remaster is dumb.

Reminds me a bit of an upside down panty hose.

Some people might find this shocking…. But a lot of knitting is already 3D. It’s not a very novel concept.

I am perfectly happy to discuss opposing viewpoints and potentially even be persuaded. Unless the opposing viewpoint can only be achieved with a complete lack of empathy and by not seeing other groups of people as people. Nothing either of us would say or do would change the other person’s opinion then. I can’t argue someone into believing that other people deserve basic human rights and dignity. They won’t convince me otherwise either.

I think my best guess is the “mere exposure effect”. The guy and his ego strikes me as something that’s probably fairly common in the military (as far as I can tell from the outside). Being exposed to a lot of men like him probably makes him feel comfortably familiar.

I’ve noticed the same. I also find that I am way less susceptible to certain group dynamics than the average person seems to be. I don’t care about fitting in with the in-crowd or doing the thing everyone else is doing and the bystander effect seems to be nearly absent for me too.

I strongly suspect that those things are very related to neurodivergence in my case. My brain just brains differently.

This aligns well with the “let’s stop killing earth day” that I had planned. I’m on board!

I get that you don’t want misinformation happening on certain topics. The scary part comes when you’re going to decide to police it. Can you still share info on the health journey of you or your loved one? Can you still ask people to buy your products that are meant to save more money in the long run than they cost? Can you tell people you had a bad experience with a certain bank? Not a fan of the approach, but I do understand the basic concept of why they’d want to do something.

Can confirm the viable gaming. Some need fairly annoying workarounds that require some regular fiddling to adjust (looking at you EA/Origin with your silly launcher), but in the end it’s definitely playable.

Yep, same. I love my non-existent children too much to bring them into a world which I only really see getting worse in their hypothetical lifetime. Also helps me have a bit more resources to support the little ones of friends and family to hopefully help their lives suck less despite what they were born into.