My model female cousin (usually most of those details wouldn’t matter, but they sort of do in this anecdote) once broke down on the side of the road in broad daylight. Apparently someone, a man, pulled over and offered to help her, but then immediately started attempting to abduct her.

I was a kid when all of this happened, so all I know is what I overheard my mom saying on the phone when relaying the story to someone else; but apparently the cousin in question decided “I’m either going to die here or get away, I’m not going to let him take me.” From my memory of this secondhand story, she screamed, shouted and struggled, but was entirely ignored by everyone traveling the busy highway where she’d broken down. Eventually an off-duty cop (this was in the late nineties, I think) stopped at the side of the road and rescued her. I don’t know what happened after (except that said cousin is still around).

I’m proud of her for defending herself. So was my mom, which is why I overheard that story.

According to the training at various jobs I’ve held, if gunshots are likely to be a threat, you should lay down wherever is available and put your knees under your chest to kink up your body.

The reasoning given was that bullets tend to travel in a straight line, so if you minimize the straight lines in your body, you’re in less danger. This never really made sense to me, but it’s what I was officially told.

If you were in something like a cast iron tub, that might protect you, but I doubt any modern tub would make much of a difference.

I’m glad you survived your experience!

This is one of the ways I identify spam calls. My cell phone number is from a long way away from where I live now. As far as I know I have no remaining associations with any businesses in the area - certainly none that wouldn’t have cause to leave a voicemail - and I know the numbers of my friends and family in the area.

Therefore, if I get a call from an unknown number in that area code and they don’t leave a voicemail, they were nearly certainly spam callers. Often even if they do leave a voicemail.

A little while ago I got a call from a number in that area code and they did leave a voicemail, but I haven’t been able to figure out what the point was. For the purposes of this anecdote, let’s pretend my name is John Smith. The voicemail consisted of the following:
“[Long silence] John? [Another long pause] John … [One more long pause] Smmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiiiitthhhhh … [Final long pause, then disconnect]”

They haven’t called back, so I have no idea what they wanted. For the two times saying my first name, I figured they were just a recruiter who thought I had picked up, rather than my voicemail; but the way they stretched out my last name (and said nothing further) was honestly creepy as hell.

Agreed about the concept being cool.

habie147 did this in Fallout VR.

Basically this happened in an episode of Adventure Time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

There I sat, broken hearted Tried to shit but only farted

I’ve fought this battle many times.

There are plural Psylockes?

I’ve had Fedora encourage me to reboot, but I don’t think I’ve ever had it do so without consent (excluding when my laptop battery died).

Do you know of Sabertooth’s tradition on Wolverine’s birthday?

I got offered a job at NASA. It was very tempting, primarily because I would have gotten to see space maneuvers.

However, they had no WFH openings and the department that was offering me a position was only using technologies with which I was already familiar. Unfortunately I had to decline.

In the show, he was a good doctor and was able to troubleshoot a kidney by hand (eye, actually, IIRC).

You’re right, though … In real life a good doctor couldn’t and wouldn’t.

But there has to be a twist!

You’ve clearly never watched The Good Doctor.

I believed you for the first sentence, then you betrayed me.

That’s a good one. Solid, unlike the character you’re quoting.

I guess it’s cool that Windows finally has an official package manager.

Noted, thanks!

An abyssal panda using pandoc. Who could have seen it coming.

Markdown is very useful, but I don’t think I’ve ever written enough to earn template files.

My brother is one of the two smartest people I know and knows a lot of things I didn’t know I didn’t know. He’s earned a lot of respect from me.