I was just talking about this recently on here I think. I actually had a chance to dispel this myth a bit with a family member who came to stay with me recently.

They are convinced that their news feeds and ads constantly come up with topics that would be too coincidental to explain any other way than their smart devices are constantly recording their verbal conversations. Conveniently enough, it happened several times during their visit!

As examples, the family member and I talked about how we like okra and they mentioned it had been a long time since they had good okra. Afterwards, stories and recipes for okra started showing up in their news feed. We also chatted for a bit about a specific actor that used to be in a bunch of movies, but that we don’t really see them in much of anything anymore. Then they started getting ads for that actor’s movies. This happened with a couple more things as well.

In the end, it was all completely explainable.

After the okra conversation, I looked up okra recipes because I intended to make some as part of meal for us since we both enjoy it and hadn’t had it for awhile. Since we’re both on the same wifi (and thus have the same IP address externally), those news items were almost certainly triggered by my recipe search.

For the famous actor, my family member had been watching some of his old movies on one of our streaming services that they don’t have at home, so they were trying to catch up on things they’d like to see while they were visiting. It’s not hard to imagine if you watch a couple Tom Hanks movies on Hulu (no that’s not the actual actor or service), then you might start seeing ads for related movies that he may also have starred in, again, given that your smart devices are on the same wifi and have the same IP as mine.

I distinctly remember my last time in a Circuit City. I don’t recall the date, but I’m going to say it was circa 2006. I had purchased a Nintendo Wii at one of CC’s competitors but the competitor did not have any suitable Game Cube controllers. So I went over to Circuit City to see what they had since they were essentially in the same shopping complex. In a surprising turn of events, they actually did have Game Cube controllers in stock, they had the style/brand I was hoping for, and the price was actually reasonable.

They had dozens of employees out in the various sections of the store, at least one per department. There were a plethora of customers. However, they had literally 1 cash register open. The line was backed up into the aisles. I am pretty sure I waited 45 minutes just to check out with this one single item, and that’s only because the customer service manager came over after about 40 minutes and offered to check out anybody with only 1 or 2 items.

Might be a complete surprise to the former corporate overlords, but for some odd reason I decided never to go back after that.

He’s a bitch. He’s a lover. He’s a child. He’s a zombie. He’s a sinner. He’s a saint.

How self-centered of you to assume that only psychos could relax there.

The answer is “it depends”. There are so many hoops and loopholes and gotchas built into the system that 2 identical people with the exact same background and ailment(s) could go see the exact same medical staff and yet still end up having to pay 2 completely different amounts for their care. But it’s more complicated than that, because there are a myriad factors that come into play (insurance versus none, location/state of residence, etc) so there’s no one concise and accurate answer to these types of questions.

Most non-wealthy people who don’t have insurance, but who don’t qualify for government/public medical care, simply go without care. Or they use the emergency room loophole to get some kind of treatment. The loophole, with lots of nuance and caveats, is that the emergency room has to at least give you enough treatment to temporarily stabilize your condition, regardless of your ability to pay.

For check-ups and counseling - In a lot of places that sort of stuff requires you to pay up front. You can sometimes haggle or work out a payment plan. If you’re poor enough to qualify for government aid, it may be free. Otherwise, you’re expected to have insurance and pay the co-pay. If that doesn’t apply, these places usually have a “cash” price that’s slightly more affordable, but still usually require payment ahead of time.

For meds, you basically always pay up front. There’s really no concept of pharmacies providing medications in a manner where you can pay later. No money means no meds. It’s also ridiculous to even ask how much a person would expect to pay for meds, it could be as little as a few USD to thousands, really depends on the meds, quantity needed, location, etc.

Xrays - This is where debt might actually come into play. You usually pay for these after the fact. If you go to the doctor, you might have to pay the standard fee (or copay) up front, but all the other services/tests/etc are charged after the fact. So you’ll end up getting a bill after you’ve gotten the xray and consultation. To be honest, I don’t know the average out of pocket cost for an x-ray if you don’t have insurance, but it would differ from location to location and region to region. If you don’t pay that bill, you’ll get harassed and most likely you’ll have to change doctors because the office you owe money to won’t see you again until your debt is paid or you’ve worked out a payment plan.

For people with insurance, there’s pretty much always a maximum yearly out of pocket amount, after which things are basically all paid for by insurance. Again there are nuances and caveats. And the maximum out of pocket varies by insurance policy, number of people insured, etc, but $8,000 - $20,000 are not uncommon amounts. To be honest, I don’t even know what mine is, I’ve never actually reached it. Not everything is covered by the maximum out of pocket, though.

$27,000 medical debt could possibly be from someone who was uninsured or it may be several years of medical debt.

To give you an idea of how crazy the system is: I had a hairline fracture several years ago and what was deemed as “good” insurance. By the time everything was done, it ended up costing me around $3,000 out of pocket. That’s for co-pays, x-rays, medication, etc over the course of months.

On the other hand: A family member of mine had a heart attack, required emergency surgery, had no insurance, and had no money to pay for anything. In the end cost them less than a few hundred USD out of pocket. Hospital wiped the debt clean. Government programs and drug company programs paid for meds. Eventually disability stuff kicked in and took care of everything else.

If he’s late 30s to early 40s then he did not age well. I know several full blown alcoholics in their 50s who look younger than the guy in this photo.

1. Sperm is not an animal.

2. Sperm will drown in lotion, tissue paper, toilets, mouths, assholes, various fruit, couches apparently, condoms, and probably an order of magnitude or few more places than just this small list I’ve constructed.

3. Sperm don’t have a mouth and thus cannot bite.

My keyboard certainly doesn’t have throe in its dictionary. But it also doesn’t have throw. Or through. Or really any words because it doesn’t have a dictionary.

I can’t answer affirmatively. However, today there are numerous posts on Reddit about the fact that they are considering charging money to access certain subreddits. As you would expect, most of the top comments in those threads are not happy and there are numerous comments along the lines of “I wish there were Reddit alternatives” or asking if there are any.

I did not see any responses mentioning Lemmy or the Fediverse, and I looked for it. Now, to be clear, I did not read every comment and every reply in every one of those threads, so it’s possible Lemmy was mentioned and I simply didn’t see it. But it certainly wasn’t prominent in any of those threads at the time I checked.

Usually just flip on some Murder She Wrote when I need to get my Dick in the mood. Been married 43 years come November.

It doesn’t seem to be a super common, general thing where I live. However, there are some more prone to it than others, like places that have a bar and/or otherwise serve alcohol. Typically though it’s only the nights they do live music and that’s most often weekends and around specific holidays.

Mostly I just avoid pretty much any establishment if they’ve got live entertainment for the night and I’m there to eat as well as talk with others. I avoid any that are particularly egregious in terms of loud music. I have been with a group where we asked if the volume could be turned down on the speakers one night at a live event where we were one of only a few tables in the entire place and it was clear that nobody was particularly interested in damaging their hearing. The manager slowly slinked over to the performers about 5 - 10 minutes after the request, and they stopped playing shortly after.

Never have I ever intentionally shoplifted anything from a store.

Thou shalt thank or otherwise acknowledge thine responders whomst volunteer their time to provide helpful comments and posts.

Looking like that, all the ladies are going to want to play with Homer’s d’oh maker.

You believe correct. One point for Herr Vo Gel.

Yes. They stole everything of value in my home, which sadly was not much, and they killed the family pets while doing it. No clue who did it, cops tend not to care much when this sort of thing happens to poor people, and they never tracked down who the culprits were. Definitely did affect me and yes I care.

Depends on the type of “time travel”. Backwards time travel doesn’t seem plausible, so I guess we’re talking only about 1 way physical transport time travel. That kind of time travel is achieved either by traveling at speeds approaching the speed of light or via intense gravity, unless you consider something like being cryogenically frozen and then reanimated at some point in the future to be “time travel”.

As far as least amount of impact? I guess in terms of impact, its best to travel to the nearest point in the future that you possibly can, so that hopefully very little has changed and you’re still more or less the same person living the same life (with just a short gap from leaving the present and arriving in the future). Otherwise, you could take a huge risk and try to travel to the distant future to a time when all traces of your current life have disappeared and peoples’ memory of you has long been forgotten.

It’s a sex joke grandma, you wouldn’t get it.

I bricked my wireless mouse the other day. Accidentally pulled the USB dongle receiver out of my computer when I thought I was pulling out my micro thumbdrive, they’re about the same size and same color.

Long story short, the mouse stopped working. Completely bricked until I realized my mistake and plugged the receiver back in.

Not sure if it’s already covered in another comment or if you are already aware, however … Depending on where in the world you live, there may be a semi-local official UPS drop off location at a store or business near you. I live outside of a very small rural town, yet there are UPS drop off options here. They even print, text, or email a receipt to confirm they’ve received it.

Still not as convenient as an at-home pick-up, but it’s something to consider if you didn’t already know.