A million-to-one chance happens 9 times out of 10.

The Handmaid’s Tale (TV Show), hands down.

The first season was emotional but I’ve gotten through it multiple times as I’ve tried re-watching to get through season 2. I got a little farther the last time I tried, but man, it’s so visceral and constantly beating down the protagonist and everyone around her. That’s the point and it’s great, it’s just so depression-inducing when there’s just no uplifting points. IT does not let up in beating you down with the horribleness. I just can’t keep going when it goes on for so long.

Yes! I completely forgot this one, thank you!

In fact, OP, I’m going to suggest a Youtube channel, but with some stipulations. Jackson Galaxy. He’s an interesting guy who had (has?) a show on animal planet, but he has a really good grasp on Cat behavior. He get’s a little weird with some of his homeopathic products that he has for sale that I’m a little skeptical of. But his cat behavior stuff all seems pretty spot on and his advice for cat care (As long as it’s not about a product he sells on his site) is really good. It’s worth a look I think.

So I know this is a thread about toys, but it looks like you got a lot of good advice, and since you’re new to cats, one thing that most people either don’t realize or ignore is the number of litterboxes. 1 is not enough, even for a single cat. General rule of thumb for litterboxes is Number of cats + 1. You want them to view the entire place as their territory and a big part of that is scent markers. And the biggest of them is the litterbox. Many cats will, as soon as you change the litter, use it. That’s because they want it to smell like their territory (To their sensitive noses). Spreading that around for them makes for a happy cat and reduces the chances of “accidents” or just marking territory later on in times of stress.

I’ll also say you should probably have a scratching post on every room that they hang out in regularly. They’re not going to go to another room to find it if they want a good stretch or scratch. I suggest angled or flat ones at first because they will often use them to really stretch out their spine so they need to get a lot of distance between stretched out back and front feet. That’s a lot easier (and cheaper) in flat or angled ones. If they end up preferring upright ones they got to be real tall to give them what they want. And those are expensive.

One more tip. Even if you decide to feed them dry food, use designated feeding times. Read the package and figure out how much they should eat a day and split that in 2-3 parts and measure that out giving them meal times. It’s better for their physical health and it’s more in line with their body’s natural rhythm.

In general though, it’s best to establish routines for behaviors you want to promote (Cats love routine) early on and keep it up. If you try to introduce new routines later it’s a lot harder to establish. The change of moving into a new home is the perfect time to create a new routine since everything is kinda chaos for them anyway and it helps them establish order in their lives.

While it is suggesting it was common at the time, it doesn’t outright state they’re talking about that time. At earlier points in history it certainly was acceptable, but we probably don’t have pictures of it to go in textbooks. This reeks of them having a general point to make and having a picture that almost fits that point. I’ve made more tenuous connections for college papers before.

Also, while it’s not as drastic, I was doing some looking into family history recently and I found some ancestors who got married around that time. The marriage certificate listed the wife as 17 and the husband as 21… but the math didn’t add up when I found their birth certificates and on the marriage certificate she was aged up from 15 and he was aged down from 22. It was in a small farming community and at that point in time and place schooling was largely abandoned during harvest and as soon as kids were old enough to help out on the farm full time they would just stop with school. And for women, helping out on the farm meant taking care of the house and raising kids generally. Time at school was a waste for them so they just got right to the adult stuff immediately.

I remember reading an article years ago about a village that put out an absurd amount of Olympic long distance runners. The article noted that the village was on a high plateau and far from other places. The extreme difference in height led to better lung capacity and the normalcy of having to travel by foot long distances just raised a bunch of people who conditioned their bodies from birth to be adept at long distance running. None of it resulted in any major changes in population physiology as it’s just training your body to deal with environmental conditions after birth and doesn’t cause the mutations in the genome that would mark evolutionary changes.

I mean, obviously there are some physical differences between races. They look different, some have more prevalence of certain diseases or conditions, but races are entirely a social construct. Scaled out, the differences in races aren’t more severe than the differences in variability in smaller groups within a race, or even a family. It’s like, yeah, uncle Steve’s side of the family all have kinda pointy ears because he passed that on to his kids but his brother didn’t pass that gene on but they’re still family. Zoom out and view all humans not as different races but one giant group and uncle Steve’s branch all just have darker skin or straighter hair, but they’re still clearly part of the human family.

To maybe build on this a little, as someone who grew up in a household with a parent with anger issues who would take their own frustrations out on the family, it definitely helps as something to avoid, but I’ve found that my inward reactions have gotten better as well once I realized that anger being my immediate reaction was due to growing up in an environment where that was normalized. Even if at the time it could be frightening and I knew even then that it was bad, the human brain is funny and children are impressionable.

I was in my 30s before I came to terms with the fact that my anger issues, however well controlled the outbursts were and no matter how much I avoided letting other people know it was happening, they were still there and I was still following in the steps of my father emotionally. And recognizing that it’s not how everyone feels and it’s not just “how my brain works,” but conditioning, and conditioning that can be broken. Similarly, I would remove myself and reflect, but I’d start to focus less on me and my reactions and force more empathy by thinking about the person or thing or situation and what led to me being upset. Eventually it got to the point where now my immediate reaction is to rationalize the situation before I emotionally respond. If I think through it and I feel I should actually still be upset, then I can confront it, but in calmer and more rational state, confident that I’m probably justified.

It still happens sometimes. Mostly it’s the normal irritability that everyone feels when they’re stressed or tired. And sometimes that old habit comes back and I react a little more hotly than I should for no reason. I have cats that, like your dogs, even if the anger is not directed anywhere near them, they get scared. Seeing that pulls me out real quick and I’ll calm down if only just to calm them, then give then scritches and pats to let them know it’s okay and they’re safe. So I’d probably say that even just having them around has given me a little accountability to help as well and made it easier to avoid. Say I’m having one of those days where I’m just clumsy and uncoordinated and keep dropping or breaking things. I get real close, but my reaction will immediately be to think about making sure they don’t get upset. I think it helps over-wright that anger conditioning with conditioning myself to focus on something else.

So the conclusion I’ve come to, literally just now while typing all this since I haven’t given it a ton of active thought before, is that the conditioning to that reaction has to be broken, and that’s usually easier by replacing it so you don’t even go to anger, but to something else every time. As every therapist I’ve ever been to says, you also can’t feel shame or upset with yourself for the anger. It’s a thing that you want to work on and the bet way to fix it is to dispassionately view it and work on it. Beating yourself up will only make it worse.

For me it’s definitely an RP choice. I don’t always choose one or the other, but in games that give character creation options I tend to go for a quick “non-canon” play test to get a feel for the game and setting and get an idea of how I want to play it. Then I start a new file and create a character to fit that. Sometimes I go for a lithe rogue or a buff fighter, and the gender usually depends on either how I’m feeling or possible story/world stuff that makes it fit better, or sometimes just something interesting. Like in early Cyberpunk there was a glitch where you could start with a male character, then switch some settings and you’d get the female options but it would keep the original genitalia, so I played through as a trans woman because it wasn’t something I’d done before and it was interesting and fit well into the setting. It didn’t change anything in the game and I kept my character clothed so you never saw her hanging dong. But then I hit the story with the trans woman NPC and my V found a friend who they could connect with a little better. It was a fun role-play opportunity and I felt like it helped my connect to the game and the world even better when my avatar wasn’t just a puppet I used to interact with the game. Even in games like the Witcher where you’re given a named character, my Geralt always developed his own personality. I once accidentally sold all my boots and didn’t realize for a few days that he was running around without shoes. When I noticed it immediately became part of his personality that he doesn’t wear shoes. He like feeling the grass when he fights and he’s more connected with nature. It kinda fit with the default personality but I leaned heavy into the more nature-focused choices where possible and it changed how I played.

Though I’m probably not an average case-study. I tend to eschew gender norms while identifying as a straight cis guy. I wear what I want, paint my nails or wear makeup if I’m feeling it. And I do lean heavy into the single player RPG games and avoid MOBAs or shooters. I think I’ve mostly just been playing DnD in all my video games, lol.

Speaking of DnD, my BG3 playthrough started with a female Drow monk because I haven’t played any of that in DnD before, but as I played I knew I wanted a rogue so I restarted and as I built it I started with a human male but ended up with a Gith male rogue because I liked the look a bit more for it and knowing what little I did about the Gith in the opening it would be fun RP. But in my head, he’s not from a creche but was lost as a small Gith and raised in some small village by human parents. So he doesn’t fit in with the Gith he meets but also faces the fear that most people in the world experience when they see him. It just adds so much more depth to the game when they have their own personality.

Ooh! I’ve actually got something for this! It takes some work and consistency, but it’s pretty fool-proof eventually.

You got to play with them right before bed.

And I don’t mean just a little waving the wand around and watch them jump at it a bit. Give them a workout. My two cats, one’s pretty chill and her energy level isn’t too high. The other guy though, he’s basically a dog. Always wants to play, and play a lot. This worked wonders for him.

Anyway, so you find a toy they really like, and figure out the kind of play that gets them engaged. Some like to hunt, some like to chase. But whatever it is, you got to get them moving, and keep it up until they’re panting like a dog. It’s perfectly healthy, cats just don’t often get that much of a workout so we don’t see it. So you do that, and they’ll rest for 5-10 minutes, then want to go again. Do that over and over until they don’t get back up begging for more after 10 minutes. They’ll be exhausted. Then do your nightly routine and go to bed.

This won’t work overnight as their routines will get them up and running soon. But you do that every night for a couple weeks and they’ll start to sync up to your schedule.

Couple other things that make it easier:

1. When they try to wake you up in the morning and get your attention, don’t get out of bed. Don’t give them attention. You’re trying to get their sleep schedule to match yours so you have to let them know that you’re not available until a certain time.

2. Having your own routine of going to sleep at the same time every night. Cats are really good at knowing about what time it is and they need consistency. I’m in bed by 9:30 every night, play-time starts at 8:30 every night. If you vary it up they’re never going to know when to sleep.

3)Feeding times. I know a lot of people just leave food out in a bowl, but that’s not healthy for most cats (And honestly, for the healthiest, at least wet food is best). You want to figure out how much they should be eating every day and measure out just that much divided by meals. Most are fine with twice a day, since cat’s would naturally eat at dusk and dawn, so just before you leave for work (assuming typical 9-5 schedule) and right before bed. I work from home so I do 3 meals a day, and that helps to wake them up mid day so they’ll need more sleep at night.

3b) This can vary a lot, but typically a wild cat’s routine would be to hunt, eat, groom, then sleep. So you organize play-time with eating, you play them tired (simulate hunting), feed them, They groom themselves while you get ready for bed, then you both sleep. My cats are weird though, they don’t play before eating. Not into it. But right after they eat they get excited to chase each other around a bit and play, so we do it then.

It did take my energetic boy longer than 2 weeks (closer to a month), but his energy levels even after a year old were through the roof and abnormal. I think it’s the breed. But now when it gets close to play time he waits next to the toy closet anticipating it. Then I play with them, then they chase each other around for about 10 minutes, but then they’re tired so we all go to bed and he sleeps next to me in bed every night instead of running around.

I mean, I’m not arguing anything other than your false equivalent. I’m sure, at some point, we’ll be able to mimic how the human brain actually works, not just imitate the results. But we’re not even close right now. Not in the same ball park. Not in the same tri-state area. We still don’t really understand how it does what it does completely. We know some of the processes, and understand that’s it’s chemicals interacting with the meat in some way, but it’s still mostly kinda just weird stuff our body does. We’re mostly just pointing at areas that light up with activity when we do a thing and saying “yep, that’s the general area that’s doing stuff.”

And that’s just understanding it, let alone figuring out how to imitate it with technology. And none of those parts of the brain work independently. They’re spread out and they overlap and exchange and change information constantly, all with chemicals. Getting a computer to mimic the outcome is still something we’re far from, but without the same processes, its not really gonna come out the same. We’ve got just… so long to go before we actually get close to simulating a human brain.

And just for fun, I do think this line of yours is funny:

The idea that the human brain is special is ludicrous and completely without evidence

Again, I wasn’t saying anything of any sort, and I’m still not really taking any stance beyond “that shits complicated and we’re not there yet.” But you’re supposing that a “synthetic implementation can achieve the same thing.” … without supporting evidence. This argument was clearly meant for someone else, but it’s not really fair to demand evidence from someone for their claim when you don’t support your own. Jumping to the conclusion that something is impossible is the same as assuming it’s definitely possible. You don’t know that. I don’t know that. No one really knows that until it’s done.

You’re equating creativity to the soul. They’re not the same thing. But we can definitely look at the brain and see what parts light up when perform creative tasks.

While right now you need to put children and teenagers through years of rigorous training and expose them to immense stress and pressure so most of them break

Uh… I don’t think that’s a necessary part of the process to making k-pop, or any kind of music. Industry people may think it’s critical to making themselves shit-loads of money, but it’s not important for the creation music or even selling the music.

Where’s your data that, “all else being equal, office-based work IS better”? I mean, I don’t have data that says otherwise, but I know the company I work for as well as higher-ups at other companies I’ve talked to noticed right out the gate that productivity went up when they went work from home. The same work needs to be done, and it gets done. If it doesn’t, fire them. I have trouble seeing how the location the worker is in matters, all things being equal.

I can’t imagine them using V again. Geralt was a character in his own right that had character traits that were handed over to you to play with. The world was built for Geralt to be in. V was built as a blank slate character to insert yourself into. There’s no reason to keep them. I’m pretty sure they only gave the character a name so everyone else in the game could have voice lines for everything and refer to the character by name. It was an attempt to make it a smoother experience, but really, V was a faceless avatar for the player no different to the Fallout games. But because they did the thing with the name it’s seamless and everyone sees V as a character, but they’re all seeing them as a different character based on how they played. It was pretty clever and I’m sure they’ll do it again.

In the Witcher 3 they had a thing where if you’d played the previous game on the same system and the game file was still there you could allow it to read that file and use decisions you made there to inform the new game. Now, I never got around to finishing Cyberpunk and don’t know what the different endings are, so I don’t know how much of a difference it would be, but if they’ve done that before they could do something similar here. Like, the world and story are the same, but any reference to the past includes the choice you made. And if you don’t have a save file, they just pick the one the developers like most probably.

I’ve had this Excel workbook open for an hour now and my boss is asking why I’m just staring at it. But thank you?

There are brands that make biodegradeable bags.

Tiny bit of lemon fixes that pretty well.

I mean, the thumbs help hold stuff, sure, but it’s our large pre-frontal cortex that really comes in clutch. That and our penchant for violence. There’s evidence to show that the Neanderthals were possibly more advanced than us before they “died out,” but also less violent and selfish. It’s those traits that led us to kill them or cut off their access to resources while we took them all.

We are still animals. Any biologist will tell you that, but that’s not a negative thing, it’s just a facts. It’s like saying we’re mammals. It really comes down to how you define “better.” and “successful.” Obviously, we are making those determinations from our point of view, so we tend to define them with the things only we do. But if we’re defining successful by technological advancement or the ability to do advanced math, or even versatility in abilities, we’re at least top 3. But those orangutans are pretty nifty with their use of twigs sometimes, so don’t count them out.

remained mindful of the naivety of all people, including themselves,… to prevent allowing hubris to allow poor decisions.

Not to spoil a 60 year old book, but didn’t they have a plan to genetically engineer a literal savior to mankind with hundreds of years of selective breeding? A little like the pot telling the kettle it’s too sure of itself.