patrick.net

Dogs are like your kids (or best friends) that you are destined to outlive. You can accept the fact that their lives are short and meant to make the most of. For me, the last dog I had was the best and I've ever gotten over him. Max was my buddy growing up, and it broke his heart every time I left for college. And he was always overjoyed when I returned. I was a college senior when he got cancer and wasted fast. I took him to the vet with my brother, and we watched and held him as he slipped out of this world. I don't think I can handle that again so I can't have a dog. Cowardice I'm sure, but we grow so attached to our puppy friends, it's heart wrenching when they leave us all too soon.

justme says

Who could have known, Strategist and Turtledove are real life friends!

It's my weakness for pretty women.

justme says

Who could have known, Strategist and Turtledove are real life friends!

I cannot resist a fellow animal lover. And... We're practically neighbors, too!

Strategist says

She was spaded at 3 months, and the vet told us new research shows female dogs should wait for the first female period in order to ensure all the hormones are properly received.

I've witnessed something like this. I had a dog twenty years ago who was a super sweet German mix. A few months after she was spayed, her whole personality changed. She started attacking other dogs. No kidding! She would see another dog and literally drag the person walking her toward the attack. She looked like a rabid wolf. Suddenly, she perceived ALL other dogs as threats. We put her in an intensive training boot camp. She got better, but she still was very agitated the minute any other dog dared to enter her line of sight. It wasn't until one vet suggested hormone replacement that her personality went back to her old sweet self.

It would make sense that premature hysterectomy would have an affect on a female's bones. That's true for human women, where risk of osteoporosis goes way up after hysterectomy. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that it accelerated your girl's hip problems.

Poor baby.

turtledove says

It would make sense that premature hysterectomy would have an affect on a female's bones. That's true for human women, where risk of osteoporosis goes way up after hysterectomy. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that it accelerated your girl's hip problems.

Poor baby.

You would think they would have known this 5 years ago. :(

turtledove says

@Patrick. I'm no longer being notified of likes. Has that feature been disabled, or is something up? For a moment I thought no one liked me anymore...

Another possible source of income for patrick. Selling LIKES to those who want/need validation.

What is the thinking behind DISLIKES being anonymous? Is it to protect our delicate sensibilities?

turtledove says

She was spaded at 3 months,

She was spayed twice?

komputodo says

What is the thinking behind DISLIKES being anonymous? Is it to protect our delicate sensibilities?

cuts down a bit on the hostility while still allowing you to express your opinion.

likes are actually anonymous as well, except that the author gets an email of who liked their comment, unless they choose not to in their profile

no bold type here? hmm

komputodo says

What is the thinking behind DISLIKES being anonymous? Is it to protect our delicate sensibilities?

cuts down a bit on the hostility while still allowing you to express your opinion.

maybe it's not very consistent.

'God save us from people who mean well.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Like most things in life, it probably has the exact opposite result. It would be an interesting experiment and probably result in less DISLIKES.

komputodo says

What is the thinking behind DISLIKES being anonymous? Is it to protect our delicate sensibilities?

cuts down a bit on the hostility while still allowing you to express your opinion.

maybe it's not very consistent.

Likes may be marginally useful. Dislikes aren't. Both are used to indicate political preferences. Does the author play for my team or the other? And in our polarized society, that means people dislike posts that are completely innocuous like "remember to set your clocks ahead on hour tonight, daylight saving times begins tomorrow". Such a post will get dislikes by people with the opposite political positions, not on daylight savings time, but on abortions, economics, political parties, etc.

Since anger motivates people more than most other things, see Patrick.net Explained, dislikes get used for this much more often than likes get used to show comradery allowing likes to be at least marginally useful.

Perhaps the like/dislike system should be replace by marking posts as insightful, helpful, funny, etc. I think SlashDot used to do that. More importantly, the way the polls are queried needs to be more sophisticated to take into account human nature. Humans are inherently political creatures and always try to game a system to persuade others to accept their position. Knowing this, a good query system has to recognize that a 100 likes or other votes by one user for or against another should only count as a single opinion.

Also, it would be better if the query system also recognized that "birds of a feather flock together" so that if ten users disliked something that you liked, their opinions are contrary, not complimentary, to yours. In other words, if someone consistently has the opposite opinion that I hold, his dislikes should be interpreted as likes, i.e. indicating that I'll probably like a post he hates. This prevents gaming the system and even makes trolls useful as everyone will be attracted to posts they dislike. Trolls can even be identified as the individuals who dislike what most people like and like what most people dislike. Best of all, such a mechanism is self-correcting to any strategy the troll can come up with. The worst case scenario is that the troll just acts as noise leaving the poll results almost entirely unaffected, and even noise can be detected and eliminated.

komputodo says

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

True, but that path is also paved with even more bad intentions. The road to heaven is only paved with good intentions.

Good intentions are a necessary, but not sufficient, for social progress.

turtledove says: "For a moment I thought no one liked me anymore... "

Who said anyone liked you to begin with? You do know this is Patnet?
roflmao
....
The road to hell is paved with Republican & Democratic voters.

In the political section of the forum the Likes and Dislikes split on political opinions pretty often. In other parts of the forum it seems more based on quality of the post. At least that is my perception.

komputodo says

What is the thinking behind DISLIKES being anonymous? Is it to protect our delicate sensibilities?

cuts down a bit on the hostility while still allowing you to express your opinion.

maybe it's not very consistent.

Have you ever tried it or is that just speculation?

cuts down a bit on the hostility while still allowing you to express your opinion.

I totally agree. And I don't think you need to test this theory to find out if it would increase the hostility. There's enough bickering on this site without adding endless posts about who disliked whose posts. If you are going to make dislikes visible then you might want to make it optional. So, each person can decide if he/she wants his/her dislikes to be visible-by-name to the recipient.

Ironman says

Dan8267 says

marking posts as insightful, helpful, funny, etc.

Which category would we mark all your bestiality images and videos in?

Insightful as it shows how fucked up you are. In contrast, you have never posted anything insightful.

komputodo says

Also, it would be better if the query system also recognized that "birds of a feather flock together"

that could be done. i could point out users who are most similar to any other user on the basis of their likes and dislikes without giving away exactly who liked or disliked what.

would that be interesting? want to know who is like you and who is opposite?

turtledove says

cuts down a bit on the hostility while still allowing you to express your opinion.

I totally agree. And I don't think you need to test this theory to find out if it would increase the hostility. There's enough bickering on this site without adding endless posts about who disliked whose posts. If you are going to make dislikes visible then you might want to make it optional. So, each person can decide if he/she wants his/her dislikes to be visible-by-name to the recipient.

I DISLIKED your comment because its just another idiotic attempt to make this forum a safe space like Facebook where only nice, supportive things are said. I would rather that this forum be a true free speech area where you have to own up to your BS. I choose VISIBLE... BTW, isn't that the new pop culture meme "transparency"? Or is transparency only valid when it doesn't offend someone?

Ironman says

Dan8267 says

marking posts as insightful, helpful, funny, etc.

I DISLIKED your comment because typically, it focused only on "positive" comments i.e. insightful, helpful, funny, etc. when over half of them are idiotic, moronic, senseless, humorless.

komputodo says

I DISLIKED your comment because its just another idiotic attempt to make this forum a safe space like Facebook where only nice, supportive things are said. I would rather that this forum be a true free speech area where you have to own up to your BS. I choose VISIBLE... BTW, isn't that the new pop culture meme "transparency"? Or is transparency only valid when it doesn't offend someone?

Not at all. I merely suggested that you could opt to be visible as the person disliking a particular post if you choose to, as some might not be comfortable being attacked for disliking someone else's post. However.... I really have no dog in this race. I RARELY dislike people's posts. I feel very strongly that each person is entitled to his/her opinion. I would never dislike a post because the person's position differs from mine. I tend only to dislike a post if the argument isn't well supported... Irrespective of the argument itself. Or, perhaps, if the person's position is super offensive to me. But it's got to be bad for me to hit the "dislike" button. Not because I want everyone to be my friend... but because everyone is entitled to his/her opinion. Who am I to say someone's opinion is bad? "Likes," on the other hand, are a little different. I will like a post mostly because it says exactly what I was thinking... Or is particulary well written. As a journalism undergrad, I have a soft spot for good writing.

I'd like to dislike posts heavily liked, but unlike others I likely just don't have that many dislikes in me...