I’m not forced to drive a car either - but if I try to ride my bike someplace, I’m likely to get run over by someone else’s car, so…

I live in Arizona. It’s a combination of factors. For one, we have a higher than usual homeless population compared to other places, mainly due to the climate. Yeah you can die from heat exposure, but it’s a lot easier to mitigate than freezing to death.

Then there’s our roads- wide streets without much traffic means people drive a lot faster, crosswalks are few and far between, shitty public transportation so anyone who has to walk has to walk a long way and/or cross unsafely, basically with very few exceptions the only people walking are people who have no other choice, so drivers don’t look for pedestrians before crossing their paths.

To top that all off (or possibly just a further result of the demographics of pedestrians) there are not a whole lot of legal repercussions when a pedestrian is killed- if they were not in a crosswalk, or crossed against the light (which is sometimes necessary because the button that gives you a walk signal is broken) it’s pretty much accepted to be the pedestrian’s fault.

Remember when the self-driving Uber killed a pedestrian here years ago? First thing the news did was say she was a cyclist, because everyone hates us. She was walking her bicycle by the way. Then they said she was jaywalking. Thing is, I know the place where she got hit- it wasn’t marked as a crosswalk, but it was in line with paved walking paths on either side of the street, which legally makes it a de-facto crosswalk, so a pedestrian would have right of way. The city soon after put up signs on those paths saying not to cross there, and then years later tore out the paved paths and replaced with vegetation. Problem solved. Of course once they said she was homeless, the story pretty much disappeared. I think only one news outlet (at the time) actually looked into the police report and found that the person sitting in the car, whose job was to be ready to take over in case the self-driving software fucked up, had been watching YouTube videos on her phone. I don’t think she was ever held responsible, I haven’t looked into it in a long time so I could be wrong - but I doubt it.

I use Arch too!

For example, the potato I ran my web server on in the late 90s… That’s a 386sx under there.

For example, the potato I ran my web server on in the late 90s… That’s a 386sx under there.

No I get it, I was over 300lbs last year, I’m now under that and slowly making progress, it just gets on my nerves when people have the attitude of “it’s easy, just make the choice to eat less” like it’s a one time thing, it’s not, it’s constant. It’s like telling alcoholics “it’s easy, just don’t drink”. I might even argue it’s easier to quit drugs, because you can live without. I quit smoking years ago, it was a rough but it gets easier the longer you don’t do it. I can’t just stop eating cold turkey.

I do when I can, but often it’s not an option, like not going home or anywhere I have access to a refrigerator, or I’m on my motorcycle and no way to carry it…

I’m a fatass now, but up until my 30s I was skinny, underweight even. I eat less (and better) now than I did then, so obviously there’s more to it.

I know I’m still hungry, but maybe I shouldn’t have a 2nd cheeseburger tonight

As a fat person, I never face that decision (well ok, not never, once or twice a year around the holidays maybe). Most of the time it’s more like “should I throw away half of this meal I paid for or finish eating it?” That’s a bit harder to do, especially when you were raised to clean your plate or you’d be physically punished. Conditioning is a bitch.

This reminds me of a cheesy Dutch movie from the 80s called The Lift in which an elevator becomes self aware and starts murdering people…

To be fair, I haven’t gotten a windows virus in at least 25 years either…

That’s because New England’s rural is like everywhere else’s (in the US at least) suburban…

Why are you talking like that?

Long long ago in a callcenter not too far away, I made a guy choke on his drink. As required, I asked if there was anything else he needed before I ended the call, to which he replied “the winning lottery numbers?” I said “if I had those, I wouldn’t be talking to you.”

Well, one has porn, the other does not.

Eh, my cats would be gnawing on my carcass before I was cold…

Long ago, I adopted a cat from a deaf girl. Weirdest thing, going to her house to pick one out, she had several, and none of them meowed. It was months before the one I picked out started meowing.

Remember when typewriters were a thing? How did anyone survive?

Sounds a lot like phoenix, except for the corn and snow… And it’s not usually muggy here, just that oven blast as you step out of your air conditioned space…

Well that explains why my job just expects me to know it without any warning… I’m almost 50, I have no problem learning new things if you tell me I need to, but when I was in school, computers were still luxuries…