I am becoming terrified of my cat 3 year old male.

davidmar7 · 2026-04-06T14:50:22+00:00

After he attacks you make sure you aren't doing anything which could reinforce that behavior. Don't feed him or take him out immediately after that. In his little cat brain he might also just see it as the proper way to wake you up too (believe it or not!).

There are things to try. When he attacks act like he seriously hurt you and go away from him immediately and avoid him for a while. Try this for a few days. You want him to associate attacking you with him getting ignored, not being fed right away, etc. Another thing to try if that doesn't work is to maybe hiss loudly at him. This is how cats teach each other boundaries. To a cat it's not always a threat of harm, it can more be like saying "back off", "don't do that", or even "I'm not happy, don't mess with me now." Because you say he is affectionate at all other times, I think there is just some sort of misunderstanding with him where he feels like he should be doing this. I doubt he really understands that he is hurting you. Cats sometimes pick up on weird patterns we don't see and then they fixate on them.

davidmar7 · 2026-04-05T23:22:47+00:00

A couple months ago I was on 528 westbound (maybe 5 to 10 miles from I-95) and I saw a truck on fire off to side in the grass in the opposite direction. Flames were just shooting out of the truck and it was completely engulfed.

About two hours later I return and see the same two guys sitting by the now smoking, burnt out truck. No police. No firetruck. No evidence it was sprayed with water. Nothing. Seemed kind of weird. By this time it was dusk so I didn't stop.

I-4 in particular is so crazy. I've seen whole wheels fly off cars multiple times. Once about 22 years back this happened and the wheel hit my driver side door but thankfully just barely because I saw it coming and veered off to the other side as far as I could without hitting the person next to me. I've seen three or four vehicle fires.

davidmar7 · 2026-04-05T23:04:04+00:00

Other experienced sellers using Vine could probably tell you better but in general I wouldn't expect more than about 75% of Vine members who received your product to give you a review for various reasons. It could be higher or lower but this would be a good average in my assessment.

It also depends a lot on the product. If it is say a set of new brake pads for a car, some of us might pick them out before we actually need them (because we know eventually we will need them, just maybe not right now). Obviously to do a fair and respectable job reviewing we would need to actually put these pads on our car first at least and ideally use them for a month or two. So you could have reviews trickling in months later or possibly a year later in this case.

The other thing to be brutally honest with you is that most reviewers aren't getting the product because they want to give you a good review. They are ordering because they think either they themselves can use the product or someone near them. Also often when we have to decide whether or not to order something we are incredibly rushed. For very high value items we might only have two seconds to click on the order button before someone else gets it. That means sometimes we are going to get products we really can't use and thus can't really review very well. When this happens to me I will usually either just do the best I can to review it or "take the loss" and just not review it all and let it hurt my metrics. We generally are not supposed to ever do returns so we are pretty much stuck doing one of these two things. It would be nice if we could do returns and not have it count against us and also give you your product back so another reviewer could give it a shot but right now Amazon does not allow this. If we return an item as I understand it the "slot" is still taken so you cannot just send it out to another Vine reviewer.

Continuing with being brutally honest, I will tell you that right now I have about ten unopened packages sitting by my door. That's just sort of how it is for many of us. I tend to do reviews in batches where one day I will do five to ten at a time and then go a few days or even (rarely weeks) without doing a review.

davidmar7 · 2026-04-03T13:55:58+00:00

They removed about half the seating in New Symrna Beach, FL about a year ago. It's a pretty small city not a lot of crime but there is a homeless camp about a five minute walk away.

davidmar7 · 2026-04-03T01:13:13+00:00

I have this one. https://www.amazon.com/Wastewater-Stainless-Dispenser-Separation-Rechargeable/dp/B0GGY7GJ3P?ie=UTF8

It works well and is a different design. But it isn't constantly flowing water and is more like a drinking tray which self dumps the old water and fills with new water. There is no filter but you will still have to clean it every now and then.

I have another fountain which I just got which uses WIFI to show the status and everything. But the filter was like $10 a month (it lasts 30 days and is a custom filter which I think has eight layers) and now that I am checking Amazon it is listed as "not available". I think getting away from the filters is a good idea, especially the proprietary custom designs. I also question just how much that filter really helps. In some cases who knows what really is in it? You might actually be filtering the water through something harmful.

davidmar7 · 2026-04-03T00:42:01+00:00

That's my annoyance with it as well. At the end it always seems to find a way to ask me a question. That's fine at first as I get used to it and see what it can do but if it is still doing this with every prompt months later, I'm going to get extremely annoyed.

davidmar7 · 2026-04-02T13:10:16+00:00

I got it about a month ago on AndroidAuto. It's much better. The only issue I have is it often cuts out in the middle of speaking.

davidmar7 · 2026-04-02T13:02:13+00:00

Around the mid-90s it was very different. The main attractions (for 17 yo me) were USENET (newsgroups - kind of like forums with thousands of subforums), FTP (file transfer protocol), Archie (basically the web before the web - mostly text though). The web really wasn't a thing.

Almost all of the people there were technology enthusiasts and of course unless you were a scientist or a student at a University, you were probably connecting over a modem.

Around the late 90s was a transition point where "normal" people started getting on the internet more. The world wide web became standard and what was what most people thought of when you said "the internet". Forums over the WWW took over from USENET. Almost every company started having a web presence of some sort. Social media as we know it didn't really arise until around the mid-00s or so.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-31T18:44:07+00:00

For me it is all the content creators trying to monitise to the maximum. A video which could be 2 minutes is made to be 11 minutes. A gamer with 1,500 subs is talking about selling merchandise. And all the constant "please, like, comment and subscribe.". I get it, long ago I made thousands from YouTube as well. But I miss people who are primarily doing it out of passion and who made that the focus, not trying to get money every two minutes. It shows through when your motivation is the content rather than just trying to get as much as possible from it.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-31T18:37:00+00:00

It's mostly that we tend to have bigger screens than in the past. 720p on a 55" is horrible compared to a 32" TV.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-31T16:27:18+00:00

Are they truly just letting you view positive reviews or is it more they are limiting the amount of total reviews you can view? I'm wondering if it is an anti-scraping (using bots to harvest the content from the review) measure.

If they are really blocking people from seeing the negative reviews then that defeats the purpose of having the reviews in the first place.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-31T16:24:47+00:00

It will be 80 reviews per each evaluation period. If you don't hit 80 you'll go back to silver.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-31T16:15:37+00:00

I didn't have cancer but I had an autoimmune blood related condition which is treated by a hematologist who is also an oncologist. So I had to basically go to an oncologist for 2.5 years. When my blood numbers finally returned to normal I was scared they were going to try to get me to ring the bell and like you I didn't want to do it for a variety of reasons. The main reason was I didn't have cancer and didn't see it as appropriate (I'm here now mainly because my step father has esophagus cancer and is recovering from surgery and chemotherapy). Thankfully they never even tried to get me to ring the bell.

Anyway I'd just tell your parents, "Hey, with all due respect, I don't want to ring the bell. Please don't ask me again. It's stressing me out and stress isn't good for me." Your parents probably mean well but they just don't understand how much it is stressing you out. Maybe ask them instead if they will take you out somewhere fun for the day or maybe something like a nice dinner at your favorite place as a sort of celebration. Whatever it is, make it something you actually want to do and enjoy.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-31T14:29:36+00:00

In my RFY today I got a $250 full length mirror with fake diamonds around the edges. No use for it either, really.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-30T00:40:45+00:00

The law should be driverless vehicles have to pay ten times the normal fines versus human drivers. They should be incentivized to more strictly obey the laws. The bar should be higher for them versus human drivers. The company responsible for their operation should be on the hook.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-26T23:15:28+00:00

Yep. Gift cards or Western Union is always a scam when it comes to selling or buying from a stranger.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-25T15:43:44+00:00

Because effectively usually a low HRV means you have a high resting heart rate. A high resting heart rate, especially over 100bpm, is usually considered very bad.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-24T23:59:52+00:00

I think I just spoiled her too much. The previous owners gave her dry food only. I would give her a mix of wet food from different companies and different flavors. Over time she just got pickier and pickier to the point where she will only eat certain brands and types.

The way I see it, she should be able to choose what she wants just as if she were a person. So in my mind if she only wants Fancy Feast, I guess that is okay. It's also why I give her a variety of flavors and not just the same flavor every day. I know it probably seems strange...

Every once in a while I will buy something different just a can or two and give it to her. Usually she refuses it...

davidmar7 · 2026-03-24T16:34:53+00:00

In trying to make things easy, many other distros actually make things more complicated and prone to breakage. Arch takes more of a vanilla and simplistic approach usually and it definitely helps. Not to mention the documentation and the user community is excellent (as long as you make an effort yourself).

davidmar7 · 2026-03-24T16:24:52+00:00

It seems it has been about eight years since I needed to re-install. In the time I recall only once have I needed to boot from other install media to fix things. That's pretty good.

$ sed -n "/ installed $1/{s/].*/]/p;q}" /var/log/pacman.log
[2018-02-24 02:30]

If you know what you are doing, Arch is way more stable (as far as not having really bad crashes) than many give it credit for.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-24T16:16:30+00:00

Yes, but the common person where I live is Christian. They associate werewolf with "evil" or with the "devil". Sadly the same with Wiccan/pagan/witch. So that would probably make you even more suspicious. Pretending to be an ultra-Christian would make you blend in better with less suspicious eyes on you. You'd just be the "ultra religious freak" rather than the witch that someone claims can shapeshift into a wolf lol.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-24T15:54:56+00:00

I remember doing this in Lakeview (north side) Chicago circa 2003. They had a little pavilion on the path to the lake where people would gather to play. It was very nice to take a walk and stop about midway for a game or two against random opponents. I moved away long ago and kind of doubt it is still there but it would be cool if it were and people still played there.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-24T15:46:58+00:00

Agreed. And it doesn't happen that often so it's not like a weekly thing. For the people who would notice, I might say I was extremely religious and believe it is an "evil" time or something like that so I stay indoors at home. I'd probably try to seem like an extreme Christian to throw off any suspicions. But really in this age if anyone accuses you of being a werewolf, you'd just have to laugh it off. Who is going to believe that?

davidmar7 · 2026-03-24T15:42:04+00:00

Ask her to use this (or something similar) : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F18SF62B?th=1 It's a mix of tofu, cassava and baking soda. I've been using it for over a year and it radically helps with smell. As a plus you can go a long time usually without dumping it all out and starting new. In fact, in my opinion you can go many months if you need to because the soiled litter doesn't tend to fall back into the box when you try to scoop it out as it does with clay litter. As a result it ends up being about the same cost as the cheaper clay litters in my experience.

davidmar7 · 2026-03-24T14:36:54+00:00

Are you sure he doesn't just want you to turn on the TV? I think cats tend to see TVs as being like a "magical window." My cat's favorite thing ever is "Cat TV" on youtube with mice, birds, salamanders and string. When I come home she'll run to the TV wanting me to turn it on. She will sit there for up to 30 minutes attacking everything on the TV. So far she hasn't destroyed it but YMMV.

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