Comrade_Mushroom

We miraculously managed to get a good deal that we could blow all our savings on to get this new HVAC unit installed about a year ago. In the last few days, it's suddenly started producing a sour smell, particularly in my room. Looking up the issue, all I see is people saying to call someone to get it cleaned because it's mold and/or bacteria build-up. I changed the filter, but the one that was there was barely dirty at all, so I don't think that was much of a fix.

I can't go into detail, but there's a lot going on right now and we can't afford much. We barely even have time to organize fixing something like this. But I don't want to take risks with our health.

Can I get some advice please? What would y'all do?

*also my god the youtube algorithm-fueled thumbnails that come up when searching for tutorials on what to do about this are truly horrendous, look at this shit, just straight up embarrassing

Comment section full of people saying things like "At least someone has the backbone to stand up to Trump!!"

This is what taking a stand looks like to you?

Are they gonna write an article in 2025 about the sharp hike in the cost of food staples in America with phrases like "deadly crackdown" or "panicked shoppers raided stores" or any of the other blatant dogwhistles used in this article, like talk about the glaring (yet mysteriously accepted) threat posed by America's nuclear weapons, just as they bring up Iran's nuclear deal?

can these people not fucking stop already?

the whole song but seriously everything from 2:15 on is just

Pssssssssss

Got outta bed to pee...

...this time

Haven't played this game yet. I will, but I'm trying to put space between the RPGs I play.

We have at least a couple mice (I'm like 75% sure they're mice and not rats) roaming around downstairs. Of the two we saw, one is just a tiny little bablet, the other one was noticeably larger but still a small one, idk if it's an adult or not because I'm not that familiar with mice, I just know they're obviously different ages and therefore we're likely dealing with a family.

They don't really bother me; I'm mostly afraid I will step on them or one will crawl into the cozy warmth of our bed while we're sleeping, and while I think they're the cutest things I've ever seen, I don't want absolutely anything skittering on my bare legs in bed - I'm WAY more scared of cockroaches and I have had one of those in my bed before and... I just know it's going to trigger the same response if I feel a mouse, however unlikely that is. All that to say, I'm not really bothered them, but my girlfriend is having a meltdown, she is petrified. So I need tips on how to get them out of here, safely.

My other concern is that we have 4 cats - 4 indoor cats who are more hungry for stimulation than for tasty mice bodies, and yesterday my girlfriend witnessed our cats playing with (tormenting) one of the poor little guys, and I don't want them to get tortured and eviscerated.

So far we have placed 4 humane traps in corners and up against walls where we have seen them, 2 baited with cat food (since we have seen one eating the cat food), one baited with bread, and one baited with peanut butter. The peanut butter one I placed last night, but none of them have gone for it yet. The other ones I placed just now. I also dusted the corners of the room with cinnamon after reading that that might ward them off, but the little guy I just saw was literally just hanging out in a big dusting of cinnamon, so I have to believe it's not really bothering them, or at least making them avoid her room (the basement).

What else can I do?

I'm not a child and I'm not on whatever the fuck Japan is so I'm not uncomfortably obsessed with children

I was listening to music on youtube and I got one of those low-view video recommendations for some Japanese jazz fusion band. I click it, because the genre is nice and because I like to discover new music, but right off the bat I start to get that uncanny feeling. Just a quick glance at the details in the thumbnail image and I can see the nonsensical asymmetry. The music sounds okay, but I can feel that it's just... not right. So I go to check the description, and it has a kind of micro-biography for this band, describing their motivations for creating music, the history of their coming together and their first album, the name of the music label that produced it, their inspiration, complete with each individual band member's name and role.

So I look up the band. Nothing. I look up the members. Nothing. I look up the music label. Nothing.

The band, the members, the music, the album, its cover, are all computer-generated. There is no disclaimer in the video, or its description. It's the opposite, in fact, it's all pretending to be real - to be human.

A deception, but also something worse. In this instance I was able to discern that something uncanny was going on, but I know that many people would not, and do not, the same way people are constantly falling for obvious lies in news, social media, etc.. So for those people, they're listening to a Japanese jazz fusion band from the early 90s. They like the music, the sounds are smooth and comforting but groovy, and there's a false promise that behind the beat there's a group of musicians from a time before the internet was even known to the vast majority of humanity, expertly working to express the combination of many years of practice, their various inspirations drawn from other humans and the world around them, and their cooperation with one another - their human relationships.

It's a mockery of art, and of human expression. The presentation isn't merely a lie; it's an insult. An assertion that that band, those people, their inspirations, their relationship, doesn't actually matter. And for every person that clicks the thumbnail, enjoys the music, and then moves on to the next thing without realizing it's an artifice, the assertion is unchallenged. The insult is justified.

But of course, this isn't limited to music, and it's not limited to art. Every single day, imitations replace more and more of what we see, undercutting with each manifestation the value of human interaction.

I could distinguish that this album and this band were counterfeit, but if all I had been presented with was the music - no thumbnail, no description, no fake names - I wouldn't really have been able to tell that it was pretending to be a product of human expression, I wouldn't have the comfort of being able to confirm any suspicions - I would only be left with that sense that something was wrong. And what fills me with this creeping sense of dread is that I know how much money and effort is being pumped into this technology to make it more and more convincing, and that every day more of it is generated and dumped into social media, videos, music, chats, image-hosts, even little forums like this, like garbage into the ocean. Meaning that as time passes, from now and onward, I will fall for that sickening lie more and more while becoming increasingly paranoid and distrustful of every conversation I have, every game I play, every video I watch, every piece of music I enjoy.

It's a wildfire, but no one's fighting it - and the people with the most power to do so are air-dropping accelerant into the flames.

This is the video that inspired this post.

I'm sure some will try to pick apart the things I've said here, but just so they know: I'm not posting this to elicit any debate, I'm only sharing a newly-attained level of awareness of something that truly disgusts and unsettles me, in the way that sci-fi horror does. Invention not to benefit humanity, but to replace a crucial component of what's important about being human with something artificial.

Footnote: my browser tried to tell me "accelerant" isn't a word, so I did a search to make sure I wasn't wrong about the spelling, and underneath the definition confirming I wasn't wrong, the first link is to some AI-based site called "accelerant ai".