Don Edwards

Actually, if you don't want cat hair on things, get a Sphinx cat. Or a snake, lizard, or fish. Or just don't have a pet.

Genetically, Ashley looks like an Asian/European mix. Such appearances can be deceiving, though. Culturally she is definitely not Asian. Just look at her name, for starters. "Ashley" as a given name is extremely English - and relatively recent English at that, not getting going until after 1860. So her Asian genetics (if any) have apparently been passed through a few layers of culturally-Americanized ancestors. In my headcanon her last name is "Lysande", which is Swedish. (Not "Lysander" which apparently is somewhat-Anglicized Italian.)

Is it something you could easily take half a dose of? Maybe that would give enough relief to be useful, without making you randomly lie on the floor.

This. "Seagull" is a quite adequate name for the birds, for most people and purposes. Yes, there are more precise names for various species and varieties, but none more accurate. And why do some pedants get in a fuss over "seagull" but not over "jackrabbit" or "cottontail rabbit"? (Each of which actually covers multiple species of hare - not rabbits at all. While the "Belgian Hare" is a breed of domestic rabbit.) At least "seagulls" are in fact gulls.

To the tune of a certain late-1960s cop show... Pedant. Pedant. Pedant, pedant, pedant. Pedant, pedaaaaaaaaant. Pedadadaant.

Several years ago we had a lightning strike so close to use that we heard the hiss of the leader forming the path of the strike. Wouldn't mind if that doesn't happen again.

Vegetable is both a culinary term and a botanical term. Same for berry. And fruit. In each case, the meanings overlap, but are not identical, between the two contexts. (There's also the horticultural context. The meanings there tend to resemble those in the culinary context, but are not necessarily identical.) A jalapeño is a berry and a fruit, but don't put any in the fruit salad. A blackberry and a pineapple are both fruits but *not* berries. They are drupes. Each of the little balls that a blackberry is made of, and each scale of the pineapple (with what's behind it), is a berry. Go ahead and put some in the fruit salad (after appropriate preparation, particularly for the pineapple). An apple and a pumpkin are fruits and berries. They go in the fruit salad, but not in the mixed-berry compote.

If your language genders nouns, be careful to use the correct gender. Spanish: Video el Papa = I saw the Pope. Video la Papa = I saw the potato. (Some years a go a T-shirt company in Central America made that mistake and sold some amusing novelty shirts.)

And /me earns a seal of approval for that one.

If you haven't talked to your doctor and your pharmacist about using loperamide in combo with all the other stuff you're on, please do so. Some of its drug interactions are, let's say, unfriendly. (It's also one of a few OTC drugs that I normally use half - or less - of the recommended dose, and still get quite acceptable effectiveness.)

And why haven't they invented a thermostat with two settings, one for heat and one for AC? (For that matter, why can't I find a portable space heater that, with a single setting, reliably WILL turn on the heat when the temperature in the room is in the low 60s and also reliably WON'T turn on the heat when it's in the upper 70s?)

Is this another one? Or a rehash of old news? Because it sounds really similar to something from a year or three ago... but then, a new instance probably would sound rather similar.

I think we'll have multiple definitions of "alive" depending on context. Just as we do for "fruit." Tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, gourds, olives, cucumbers are all fruits - according to botanists - but aren't normally included in fruit salads. So an AI in a mechanical body could be considered "alive" for a lot of purposes, but not in the context of being a patient at your local hospital's emergency room. (Possibly as part of the staff...)

Medical care is never free. Cannot be free. Who pays for it, though, varies - with varying results. The sort of system that has produced great results in MANY fields is to have the costs, the benefits, and a large chunk of decision-making authority all land on the same person. Naturally, hardly any government in the world permits that sort of system to be the norm in regard to medical care. The resulting horror stories vary, in part based on the form and extent of government meddling, but every country has them. At least in the US we don't get "this condition will kill you in six months unless we do some surgery... oh, we can schedule that surgery for eight months from now." Which sort of thing, I've heard, is not that unusual in Britain. Instead we get insurance companies denying coverage for treatment that would alter a condition from debilitating to a nuisance. (And a few years ago I was on a medicine that my insurance covered, with a $15 copay for a month's supply... and was also available without prescription, for $6 for a month's supply.)

Rudyard Kipling and Leslie Fish offer a possible explanation...