Badabinski

In places where there is the consumption of animals that we consider pets, people don't just like, steal someone's cat or dog and eat the fucker. People love their pets and would get fucking mad if someone else killed it and ate it. I'm sure there might be rare exceptions where some shitty human goes and eats a pet, but there are crazy assholes everywhere (like the lady in Canton that everyone is claiming is Haitian). Places that eat animals farm those animals, whether it's cows, chickens, or dogs.

You absolutely did not say that they eat pets there, just that they eat dog. I am positive you're not insinuating anything bad, but I feel that it should be made abundantly clear for everyone else that nobody is eating pets anywhere.

God, this whole stupid thing pisses me off and has me making dumb comments. I should get off my damn phone.

I had two cats as a kid, and the day one of them hid somewhere to die from undiagnosed cancer was the day I learned that they'll just secretly go somewhere else :( She went under the basement stairs near the litterbox, and when I ripped the stairs out to get to her, I learned what a bunch of old cat pee and poop smelled like. I got much more serious about cleaning the litter box after that incident, and it's the reason why I'm waiting until I'm good and ready before getting another cat.

The advice I've always heard is that if you can do it yourself, it's always better. Animals can't tell you that they're sick, so every bit of info you can get on how they're doing is important. Having the machine automatically clean the litter box deprives you of that option.

With that being said, a clean litterbox is also really important. I plan on getting a couple of cats in the next 5 years after I've gotten my shit together (cats and incredibly messy houses don't mix), and I will probably get an automatic litter box because I don't want my depressive episodes to result in my cats being miserable. As this post shows, you should do your research. Find a litter box that has been endorsed by multiple unrelated reviewers if possible. Some of these boxes are dangerous, and many of them are kinda worthless.

The video in the OP was recommended to me a few days ago and was my introduction to this whole fiasco. This person has done a ton of reviews and has a couple of boxes he'd recommend.

EDIT: I literally linked to the video in the OP... I thought it was the video from one of the people who had a cat die.

Hopefully we'll be able to find a working one soon :( our emissions here are exclusively OBD2 based for anything 1996 or newer. I'll probably do what some other folks have recommended and try to "remanufacture" one myself.

EDIT: no idea why my client decided to post my comment twice.

For me, it's Arch for desktop usage. When I first started using Arch it would not have been Arch, but now it's Arch. The package manager has great ergonomics (not great discoverability, but great ergonomics), it's always up to date, I can get a system from USB to sway in ~20 minutes (probably be faster if I used the installer), it's fast because it doesn't enable many things by default, and it's honestly been the most reliable distro I've ever used. I used to use OpenSUSE ~10 years ago, and that broke more in one year than Arch has in ten.

I personally feel like Arch's unreliable nature has been overstated. Arch will give you the rope to hang yourself if you ask for it, but if you just read the emails (or use a helper that displays breaking changes when updating like paru) and merge your pacnews then you'll likely have a rock solid system.

Again, this is all just my opinion. It's easy for me to overlook or forget all of the pain and suffering I likely went through when learning how to Arch. I won't recommend it to you, but I'll happily say how much I've come to enjoy using it.

I need the truck to pass emissions, unfortunately :( Are there programmable ECUs that can pass emissions via OBDII tests? I was under the impression that there aren't, although I'd love to find out I was misinformed.

I've got a mechanic doing the sourcing and work for me, but I might buy one and replace the caps on it, then ask him to try it. Thanks to both of you for the suggestion!

So, like, I agree with you. We need to make people less miserable. We need to find ways to make people feel less marginalized through better representation, and a reduction in authoritarian measures. I also feel that ending the cycle of abuse that leads to damaged children growing into harmful adults should be prioritized and addressed with better social services (free healthcare including mental healthcare) and societal reforms. You and I fundamentally agree on this, and everything I'm about to say below is the result of me being in a bad mood because my FIL shared some fucking stupid racist GOP misinformation with me about the cats and the Haitian people. I'm being pedantic (and frankly irritating) about this, but I'm just not regulating myself very well today.

I guess I'd question how much more accessible 3D printing is making it. Like, there are definitely gun parts you can 3D print, but they tend not to be the important bits. You can somewhat successfully 3D print the important bits, but that requires a lot of knowledge and skill (printing with high strength/high temperature plastics like Nylon or polycarbonate isn't easy, even with the newest crop of printers), plus a good printer (which is either expensive, or was self-built which increases the knowledge and skill required). If someone wants to make a gun with a 3D printer, they'll have to get a printer (and either spend $1000+ or spend $500 + months making one), learn how to use it, learn how to print with better filaments, buy all the vitamins (i.e. parts that can't be printed) and then they'll end up with a kinda shitty gun. Alternatively, they can do what Yamagami did and buy some cheap metal pipe and a battery and some tape. They'll get a kinda shitty gun without all of the 3D printing hassle for much cheaper.

Hell, if someone wants to make a good gun then machine tools have never been cheaper. I have a metal lathe and milling machine sitting out in my shop right now. I do not (and will never) make guns, but I could. My dad does competitive target shooting (Palma rifle) and has asked me if I could machine stuff for him which is why I've thought of this (I told him no, btw). My lathe was built in the 1950s and was $500. My mill is more expensive (about $4000 brand new), but I'm sure you could make a gun with a used $1000 mill. Machining is harder to learn than 3D printing, but with machine tools you can make more capable guns (i.e. semiautomatic/automatic, accurate, precise, reliable). The drawings are out there, and I'm sure I could turn some 4140 and O1 steel scrap pieces I have into a little gun. I can even make my own springs with my lathe. I have a granite lapping plate so I can make parts that are incredibly flat and smooth. I have a MAPP gas torch that I've used to harden and temper tool steel. A small home machine shop can produce a gun that's as good as anything from, say, the 1940s.

Should we say that companies like Harbor Freight or Grizzly are making homemade guns more accessible because they're selling cheap lathes and mills? I don't feel that's fair. Our technology and automation is getting better in general, which is making guns more accessible. It's why Yamagami was able to kill a world leader with parts from the hardware store. We can't really do much to stop the hardware store problem. All we can do is what you said. We can remove the things that make people feel the need to own a gun.

I want to call out something, since I feel a connection is being drawn here that is not valid. His gun was not 3D printed.

Investigative sources said that the gun used in the incident consisted of two metal cylinders wrapped in vinyl tape, which could fire six projectiles when the trigger was pulled. When prefectural police examined the seized weapon, they found it was equipped with an electrical cord and battery and that it was designed to ignite the gunpowder with an electrical current.

Sourced from this site: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220725/p2a/00m/0na/021000c

I'm not taking issue with most of what you said, but FDM 3D printers aren't the issue here. Making a gun can be done at home with essentially no tools. I don't think we should get pulled in to blaming societal issues on a single piece of technology.

I'm in a hurry so I've left this comment short, I may come back and edit it with more thoughts later.

Seriously. The ECU in my partner's truck decided that it was done with magic smoke and Marie Kondo'd that shit out, leaving her stranded. Her truck is an old 2002 Dodge Dakota that we've been nursing along while the used car market cools down (we want to get her something small and fuel efficient, but cars cost too damn much). Back in 2000 or 2001, some bean counter at Dodge decided that the company really had to cheap the fuck out with their ECUs for the 2002 model year. Because of this, any 2002 Dodge truck has either had its ECU replaced or is a ticking fucking time bomb.

What's even better is that nobody makes these shit-ass ECUs anymore. The only replacements you can get are remanufactured units, and it's highly likely that you'll get at least one dud before you can find anything decent. We've been a tiiiiiiny bit less lucky than that, meaning we're on our 13th ECU. Our mechanic has gone through everything else to make sure there's not something external that's exploding the ECUs, and he hasn't found anything. Over the course of like 9 weeks, we've completely deleted the stock of these stupid things in Utah and all of the surrounding states. We're now ordering one from Florida that's been remanufactured by a different company which hopefully won't grenade itself.

Fuck American car companies, and apologies to anyone who's currently having a hard time sourcing an ECU for a 2002 Dodge Dakota. We screened all the bad ones out for you. The only good part about all of this for us is that our mechanic isn't charging us for anything more than one ECU replacement. The damn truck has been in the shop for 9 weeks, and we're only going to pay like $1000.

Sorry, I was having a shit day yesterday and made many grumpy comments on the Internet. I could have worded that better.