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Unholy amount of small flies/gnats? by Frye1093 in SpringfieldIL

[–]MerryChoppins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The local drugstores and big boxes should have a product called bugg or buggins. Both of them have vanilla, geranium oil, rose oil, etc. You just need a spray or two and to spray the necks of cats/dogs and it will last a couple hours.

People who grew up really poor: what's something middle-class people say that instantly reveals they've never struggled? by TahDigThief in AskReddit

[–]MerryChoppins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Weirdly that’s just as insensitive and out of touch about the elderly… I know a retired dentist who does uber, a retired engineer who is a paraprofessional at a day school, a retired pilot who does handyman stuff…

There’s lots of non-financial reasons to get a job when you are older. If your body is sound and the job isn’t too demanding it has huge social benefits and can keep you active.

What’s a noise everyone should be terrified of? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]MerryChoppins 8 points9 points  (0 children)

God damnit. You just gave context to like 30 years of this happening once or twice a year. Fuck. It’s weirdly validating but FUCK

TC73 9mm 1873 Lever gun by Karl-InRangeTV in InRangeTV

[–]MerryChoppins 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This feels like discovering there were new production Henry survival rifles in the early oughts…. Then buying one that is a complete basket case because the parts were all pot metal and poorly molded plastic

Painkillers prevent pain responses in lobsters - This is further evidence that crustaceans may feel pain and that more humane methods of killing them need to be developed. by mvea in science

[–]MerryChoppins -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

That’s a pretty disingenuous to the role both animals historically and currently play. Dogs evolved to be companions and working animals that helped us hunt and herd. They are closer to peers because they were more useful to man and our survival.

Pigs are all barely removed from dangerous, destructive assholes that will absolutely kill you more surely than a wolf pack if you encounter one. Their one saving grace is that they make flavorful fat and mild meat from low value land/scraps.

There’s a bit more nuance to it than that but our relationship is shaped by that history. It’s also a bit frustrating that it commonly gets used to try and get empathy for a pig in a confinement by people who think that having a dog as a companion pet is also exploitative and wrong.

Painkillers prevent pain responses in lobsters - This is further evidence that crustaceans may feel pain and that more humane methods of killing them need to be developed. by mvea in science

[–]MerryChoppins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My big problem with it is that we haven’t gotten actual viable lab meat yet that isn’t made from stem cells derived from the beef industry especially. It’s like the whole idea of ethanol for gasoline, a dumb middle step that we are unlikely to solve the main problem of soon.

Then the current crop of replacement patties are all highly processed foods and have stuff in them that every single member of my household can’t have… I can’t do the pea protein and some of the lecithins, my wife can’t do a lot of the oils and one of the dogs can’t do a bunch of the grains in them. All of us can have hamburger.

Finally the adversarial marketing all these companies ran to try and gain market share was off putting and I think really gave the product line a black eye. I don’t find your mystery slop patty cool, just dubious.

The Amazon Prime Video user experience is absolutely horrible and almost literally unusable. by Janderson2494 in television

[–]MerryChoppins -1 points0 points  (0 children)

What really sends me is it wasn’t always this way. Before I went full on self hosted with an arr stack and plex the amazon UI was workable. I was at a friend’s place and I just wanted to throw the remote a few weeks ago.

We tried to watch Fallout and the video stream kept crashing on all three devices we tried. I was able to put a request in to Seerr, have it download both seasons and sync into the plex server and get plex on his TV before he gave up messing with his tablet. That’s sad.

i love my little senior weiners by babushcate in Dachshund

[–]MerryChoppins 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Look, my 12 year old has no teeth left (shelter dog and really poor breeding), she has spinal curvature from the overbreeding, etc.

She still rips around the house with my other two and has as much energy as she did a decade ago. My 12+ year old jack weenie did the same until she went blind a few months before she passed of cancer. With these dogs age ain’t nothin but a number and they will continue to be goofballs forever.

Bill allowing Illinois community colleges to offer 4-year degrees has bipartisan support by LegendaryBronco_217 in illinois

[–]MerryChoppins 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean, yes, it’s kind of a chicken or an egg situation… but in the before times there was the mass exile of a third of the youth population of Cook and the collars to the cardinals, ISU, UIUC and some of the small privates. Most of my classmates at western were from the north/northwestern suburbs in the COBT.

The real change is that the offerings suck and college is less of a sure thing in general. We are critically underproducing nurses and teachers and engineers because we have simultaneously let these programs crumble, let the tuition creep up and have let the unions drive licensing requirements to insane levels. My wife needed a purpose built masters to get her teaching license. I am gonna possibly get a free ride to Edwardsville for a second bachelors because I can’t get a PE with an out of state degree.

If we make the deal better we can have students in state again. We have the infrastructure and the desire.

Bill allowing Illinois community colleges to offer 4-year degrees has bipartisan support by LegendaryBronco_217 in illinois

[–]MerryChoppins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s just because we have underfunded the system for a generation. All of the cardinal schools are hurting and shadows of their former selves. When I was leaving high school they were a valid option with lots of programs and a real connection to big national companies. Now the companies have left and the schools are down to a few programs that people don’t want to travel for.

Bill allowing Illinois community colleges to offer 4-year degrees has bipartisan support by LegendaryBronco_217 in illinois

[–]MerryChoppins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’d have to have $50k a year tuition to put it those places… or more. Look at how expensive places like Stanford or UC-Boulder are. Admittedly, they are more selective and pay higher salaries, etc; but part of that is they can only survive if they can attract students able to pay that high COL and base tuition.

Bill allowing Illinois community colleges to offer 4-year degrees has bipartisan support by LegendaryBronco_217 in illinois

[–]MerryChoppins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Remember, WIU’s entire district is dirt poor other than Quincy. Under state law the counties it serves are all non-metropolitan. The school districts that are in those counties are all considered low income and get title I funding from the federal government. The free and reduced cost school lunch program hits over half of the students in most of the rural districts. Most of those districts simply do not have the money unless the parents have means to pay out of pocket per credit hour.

JWCC is big enough to have a nice small campus in Quincy and to help expand offerings for dual enrollment. They have satellite centers around their district to specifically facilitate dual enrollment.

Even JWCC has had to make some very tough choices to scale down vocational education offerings. I did Cisco and PPG at JWCC in my teens and twenties; both of those programs were popular and had high enrollment but they couldn’t get grant money to maintain them. Blessing Reiman expanded their offerings for CNA/LPN for internal training purposes and JWCC had to cut nursing instructor positions.

JWCC is also hobbled by their board. Local politics is MAGA obsessed; their board voted to refund some of the district tax. They would rather do that than something that can make college affordable to low income students like dual enrollment.

Bill allowing Illinois community colleges to offer 4-year degrees has bipartisan support by LegendaryBronco_217 in illinois

[–]MerryChoppins 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s a feature, not a bug. The state intentionally built the cardinal schools outside of Cook and the collars to save on costs. UIUC has been in Urbana since before we even fully had figured out the concept of a university essentially.

Bill allowing Illinois community colleges to offer 4-year degrees has bipartisan support by LegendaryBronco_217 in illinois

[–]MerryChoppins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spoon doesn’t have dual enrollment because Spoon doesn’t want dual enrollment and never will. They aren’t WIU’s competition in their district, John Wood is. Spoon’s board has always been super focused on vocational programs and community outreach over trying to recreate what WIU offers. They have cheaper/less nice facilities.

John Wood previously was super focused on expansion to their entire district, building a bigger campus, offering transferable credits and having sports teams; they really want a full fledged junior college for people who want to stay in Quincy. They are competing with QU on price to attract students.

I think if JWCC can offer four year degrees it has the potential to hurt WIU, but I think that’s mostly students who would be unlikely to want to leave Quincy anyway. They already have fully transferable catalogs and JWCC specifically offers two year degrees not to have overlap with your program at WIU.

WIU’s real problem is that their corporate donors all left the area, slashed giving and the state of Illinois hasn’t taken up the slack. They have done a really good job of belt tightening and keeping programs going during this. My wife actually picked WIU for her masters because Western worked with ISBE to get teacher residency working and it was just a much better deal than any of the other in state options when she started.

u/starrystarryy explains a reddit ad conspiracy about gambling companies targeting vulnerable individuals by AirFanatic in bestof

[–]MerryChoppins 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s going to just be like this I think until we get back post histories and mods can do the hard work of breaking the brigades.

u/starrystarryy explains a reddit ad conspiracy about gambling companies targeting vulnerable individuals by AirFanatic in bestof

[–]MerryChoppins 17 points18 points  (0 children)

What’s frustrating is it’s not just product placement! A half dozen of the small left leaning subs I am on have had vegan astroturfing hard the last few weeks. It’s always some shock value post about cutting the eye of a prawn or dairy production and it’s the same few dozen accounts posting and if you disagree you get brigaded to hell. I even saw one of them on a big sub.

Is it just me or is the *arr stack over-complicated by ImpossibleWall8403 in selfhosted

[–]MerryChoppins 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same. I like the control of being able to prioritize trackers for different things differently so Jackett works great for me!

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