Please tell me there was a mass resignation after that email was sent.

Honest question, how do you keep a cat indoors at night? We used to call them, but sometimes they wouldn’t show up. That meant you might see them the next day, or never again. One little poofy grey cat we had disappeared for a week before turning up soaking wet and meowing frantically. Cats are quick and can make pretty good distance from your house, so when you’re calling them in for the night, they could be literally anywhere. They also like to hunt at sunset, so might just ignore you on purpose.
That’s my experience anyways. I think some of the other comments here are right, that a limited outdoor space that they could enjoy but not escape from would be ideal. I don’t have a yard so my cats are indoor only. I did try to leash-train the smarter one but she was not having it.
edit: we would clang their food dishes and shake the food bags. Calling them in for the night was also feeding time. My experience was that despite this they wouldn’t show up sometimes.

This was my family when I was a kid. We never had a cat for more than 2-5 years because there were coyotes and pumas out there. Except for one cat who lived to old age. I think we had a dozen cats during my childhood. I remember thinking they were happier with their freedom, even though it meant their lives were short.
I know better now. I still think cats are happier when they can go outside, but it’s not worth the risk to their lives and also the lives of the local smaller wildlife.

I had already clicked out of this thread when I spied your comment and came back in! Your experience is a lifetime dream of mine. Poo-tee-weet?

Hollywood is that machine. I say let it die while it still has a scrap of dignity, and let smaller and more diverse filmmakers enter the arena.

You’re right. The ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) cycle can take up to 7 years, but that’s the entire cycle (El Niño, La Niña, and neutral). El Niño conditions may only last months. La Niña typically lasts longer.
This year, they expect El Niño conditions to continue at least til the end of the year.
Also, this past La Niña was unusually long, about three years long. I’m not sure what that signifies but it seems like it might be important.

From climate.gov:

edit: formatting

I had totally forgotten about this one. Thank you for your service.

So can’t reddit just change the wording of the ToS?

Good point. I think xkcd is american and they use the short ton which is apparently 2000 lbs, or 907 kg

It’s scary because I’m terrified of dying in some crazy weather or riots, I’m terrified of being forced out of my home and have to beg some other country to take me in, I’m terrified because even if I’m lucky enough to stay put, and assuming I live in a pocket where the economy and infrastructure stay stable, there are still Nazis growing in numbers everywhere who are definitely going to react violently to unprecedented numbers of immigrants flowing in from every direction.

a stable, temperate climate that allows us to grow enough food

Yup, and don’t forget that at this point our agriculture is also completely reliant on continuous pesticide and fertilizer use. As soon as those resources start to become a bigger problem than the one they solve (spoiler: they already are (Fertilizer, Pesticides), we’re going to start seeing more than toilet paper falling off of supermarket shelves.

I think about that a lot - how advertising would look like in my “perfect world”. I’m just your average consumer, so what do I know. But in my fantasies I start with something like this:

-advertising should be consensual, meaning that advertising in public spaces would be banned. Maybe you’d still have to look at ads that are relevant to something you chose to do anyway - like vodka ads in a bar, or clothing ads in a mall.
-if you want to know if a product exists, you have to look it up, and go to their website, and there you will find all relevant information.
-Logos blurred out in media
-The quality of the product or service should speak for itself and most brand awareness would be spread by word of mouth (I have no idea how this would work in a world where online reviews exist and can be manipulated)
-All ads have to be marked clearly as an ad

I don’t know. I just know the current state of advertising adds to our misery and discontent. I see friends getting plastic surgery, loved ones drowning in things they bought online, colleagues going into debt for piles of clothes they never wear once, and I just think: this discontent with life, and need to consume, was manufactured and fostered and encouraged. There has to be a better way.

Advertising and marketing are massive industries, and they keep a close eye on their numbers to know what is effective or not. The effectiveness is definitely not a collective hallucination nor a coincidence. Advertising works, and the resource they are reaping is our insecurities and dissatisfaction with life.

I also try and avoid ads/be aware of them, but unfortunately knowing about psychological manipulation techniques doesn’t necessarily make one immune to them. From the placement of the ads, what time of day you see them, to the colours and design chosen, the imagery and lighting, etc etc etc - those are all very carefully chosen in order to manipulate you psychologically. And that’s not even getting into ads that pretend to be other forms of media, or targeted ads.

How to apply psychology in marketing from Forbes This helpful guide shamelessly describes a few techniques to use in advertising, which to me sound like pure emotional and psychological manipulation. Here’s a post about my favourite of those techniques: conditioning. We’re not much different from Pavlov’s dog.

It’s more subtle than that. Marketing costs some companies millions of dollars per year. They wouldn’t be spending that money if marketing weren’t effective.

They have entire teams of full time employees whose job it is to try and psychologically manipulate you out of your money. Which honestly wouldn’t be so bad if it was just telling you about their product/service, but they know that the most effective way to sell you shit is to make you feel bad about yourself and your life, so you have to spend money to feel better.

And even that wouldn’t be so bad, except that the sheer amount of advertising that we get dumped on us daily at every turn effects us psychologically in ways that we don’t understand.

Anyways, I could go on and on - I really hate advertising - but I’ll try and find some resources written by professionals who can explain this better.

I usually spend an hour adjusting the terrain before even starting a city. I don’t like flat land! I’ll make a mountain for rich assholes to live on, and make some kind of park on top that I’ll spend awhile detailing, so my citizens can sit in a nice park and see a great view all around the city. I also like making a big nature reserve with lots of hiking trails and interesting things to see.

I always try and make my city as bike- and public transit-friendly as possible, I make footpaths and bike lane bridges across bodies of water that the cars have to drive around :). I like building universities too.

Oh and sometimes I’ll make an entire city block private with only one house, surrounded by trees, with their own fountain and tennis court or something. I wait until a nice house pops up and then make it historical and let them enjoy their little paradise for awhile. And then I launch an asteroid on them. It makes me feel better about being poor in real life.

I hate the people who love me, and they hate me.