I got excited when I saw this post because I knew someone in the comments would have a solution!

• !2007scape@lemmy.world for OSRS
• !birds@lemmy.world for birds
• !illegallysmolbirbs@mander.xyz for small birds

I like to picture just a constant purring sound

See alcohol I could “get” but Pepsi? Who has a Pepsi addiction

I’m going to rant here because your comment re-ignited my rage.

My family and I have weekly dinners. I drive over there and pass through their neighborhood. They own a successful business so it’s a pretty nice neighborhood with a good median of trees down the main road passing through (still a 25 MPH speed limit). And every week for several years now, there is a discarded Pepsi can in the median. Not the same can, but a new can every week. Someone drives through there, likely multiple times a week and I’m just not there to see it, and throws a Pepsi can in roughly the same spot.

It enrages me. It’s so senseless and selfish that I cannot even fathom a reason. My best justification is that they’re a person who is “sticking it to the rich” by littering in a nice neighborhood, but that’s being extremely generous. I am convinced it’s purposeful because the consistency is staggering. A new can in the same 100 feet of road, every day.

And I know it’s not the same can because if it snows, the snow obscures the cans and the poor hero picking them up can’t see them, so when the snow melts there are several cans littered about.

It genuinely makes me so angry, because it’s so inexplicably terrible. I just hate things I can’t understand. It makes me more angry than Donald Trump because at least with Trump, on some level I get it. I may hate what he’s doing but I can logically see why he’s doing it and that understanding is almost calming, in a sense.

But this? Absolute nonsense. I just cannot see why someone would do this

I have concerns about the success of this platform. I am convinced what makes TikTok great isn’t necessarily the algorithm (its good, no doubt) but the volume of content. There are so many users producing content that the amount of content you find enjoyable is always more than you could scroll through in a day.

A platform like this will be boring pretty fast when you scroll through the 100 new videos uploaded that day in an single hour, and you skip many of them. It’s tough to generate enough content without enough users, and most of the content will likely just be aggregated from the other short-form sites. Of course that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s a more privacy-friendly way to browse that content, which is a plus.

Also, not particularly a fan of more brain-rotting short form content. It’s crazy how addictive it is and I’m wanting less, not more. But if I had to choose a “shorts” platform I’d sure like a federated, free one to be the one to succeed. But it’s got a long way to go

I used to be really into doing Google Maps and uploading reviews, images, and updating stuff. I got a real sense of community out of it for almost no effort.

But now I’m trying to cut back on Google so much, trying to use Organic Maps more often.

I was also always self-conscious about taking pictures of stuff in a restaurant and eventually couldn’t stomach it anymore.

I spend less than an hour a day, usually. I end up scrolling past a lot of the posts because they don’t interest me and are more long form content, but I like to catch up on the memes and cats

I actually disagree on this one. The show made such bizarre choices and had unrealistic scenarios, it took me out of the story. I actually read the book because I was watching the series and was so confused by some of the story beats that I was convinced the book would explain the reasoning behind them.

Ended up just being mad at the series for not following the book more closely. The changes to the Prophet are just wild - taking a pedophile and making him a protagonist is just a poor choice, from my perspective… Even if you write out the pedophilia why you gotta make him have an army of kids?

One thing that always stuck out to me about the book is the introduction of certain editions. The author writes about himself researching the history of the country the story takes place in and describes it as real, saying he took his son to a museum with Inigo’s sword and everything.

I was Googling furiously when I read it because I was so confused. I was astounded that the place (and people) was “real”. It took a bit of research to find that the author just does this bit and hasn’t let it go since he wrote the book

I’m still so charmed that he tricked me. It made reading the book that much sillier, for me

I appreciate you being aware of the impact at least, it’s all I can really ask. I hope you can find some way to limit the cat’s impact on the environment, like perhaps a bell on their collar

And I’m glad you put food out for the birds. I do the same and I find such joy in watching them, they’re truly beautiful :)

Okay, so your arguments are:

1. I haven’t heard it’s a problem, so it must not be
2. The breed is common and people aren’t going to stop getting them so I may as well get another

(1) Is, hopefully, very obviously subjective. Just because you haven’t seen a news article about it does not mean it’s a problem. And unfortunately, being a couple thousand years old does not come close to the massive amount of time it took the ecosystems to get this way. By Earth’s history standards, these cats have been there for a blink of an eye.

(2) Is never a good excuse to do anything. It’s group think and it’s a massive problem in society. I may as well justify owning slaves because “other people aren’t going to stop”. You surely see how nothing will change if everyone thinks that way.

I’m very glad to gear you neuter the cat at least. It’s at least helping combat the issue a bit.

I just want to make the world a better place, that’s all. I’m not trying to attack or shame you, I just want to save the birds (and cats) :(

If they’re meant to be outdoors then don’t feed and shelter them. That’s giving them an unfair competitive advantage against both their prey and other predators. Every rodent a house cat kills is a rodent that another predator doesn’t get. It leads to overpopulation and the eradication of their natural prey. In nature, if a predator’s prey is over-hunted without human intervention, then predators die off and the populations correct themselves (predators die off or move until the equilibrium is reached again). This cannot happen if you feed the animals when food becomes scarce and heal them (veterinarian) when they are injured. You are interceding in natural processes.

If it’s animal abuse then it’s very simple: don’t get the animal. No one is forcing you to get a cat (or Husky). If you can’t care for an animal responsibly then don’t get one at all. If you find one in the wild don’t interact with it, and let it be wild - don’t further damage the environment (more than we already have) so you can pet a cat once in a while.

I realize you aren’t going to change your mind, you seem pretty dug in. So I implore you to at least ensure the animal is spayed or neutered, and to consider not getting a new cat once the current one has passed on. Please, it’s just better for everyone involved.

Okay, if not for your own cat’s safety then do it for the good of the environment.

House cats are non-native species who are subsidized by humans feeding them. Thus they can kill purely for pleasure and often do. Every year, house cats kill billions of birds (and rodents) and it’s an ecological nightmare that is putting massive pressure on wildlife.

Please, just don’t do it. It’s unnecessary. You can create a stimulating environment inside and if you cannot then you shouldn’t get a cat.

• Domestic cats and their impacts on biodiversity: A blind spot in the application of nature conservation law
• The small home ranges and large local ecological impacts of pet cats

Regardless of how many people do it, you can do it. Then you can have the “clean” interface you want

What do you mean by clean? Firefox UI is highly customizable, you can even add spacing where you want it, or select a more compact view

I feel like you’re weirdly aggro about this discussion. I don’t want my message to come off as criticism or hate, I’m trying to express that I’m concerned about another person. If she really is happier because of her path, then that’s great and more kids should attempt this lifestyle. But I just don’t have enough evidence for that fact, and I would like to hear more. Most of the positive evidence is from a short article.

Right now I have more anecdotal evidence saying this is unhealthy in this comment section than I do the contrary, so I want to be proven wrong. I don’t want to be correct that someone had a bad experience.

Your other questions are answered in the article.

They really aren’t. Of course she’ll say she’s thankful, most people would when talking to a reporter. I don’t imagine many 17 year olds would immediately start bad-mouthing their parents right away, especially considering I’d expect the parents to be present in the interview process since she’s a minor by U.S. standards.

And of course the instructors are complimentary, you’d hear the same compliments about any student who asked questions and went to office hours. They aren’t particularly unique for her experience, frankly. I wouldn’t put too much weight on them being evidence of her happiness.

Perhaps down the road she’ll give an interview and talk about her experience more, once she’s more independent and had more time to process and reflect. Then perhaps my questions will be properly answered. I can only hope so, and I can only hope she reflects positively.

A kid who blew it all on Minecraft missed out on a lot as well if we’re going to be honest.

I never said anything to the contrary. Both can be true, they aren’t mutually exclusive. I would agree spending too much time glued to a screen is also not a healthy lifestyle for a child

We don’t know, and that’s precisely what my comment was talking about. I want to know more.

Although we can use an educated guess that if you’re getting a doctorate you probably don’t have a ton of free time, at least not nearly as much as a normal student her age has. Even if we assume she doesn’t need to study at all, a doctorate still takes up a lot of someone’s time, and doesn’t leave a ton of time for watching cartoons.

Excellent point on the peers, I was thinking about that as well.

Humans love to talk to other humans who have shared experiences. People get excited when they find someone who went to the same school as them, even if they were years apart. Those shared experiences help us bond and connect with others.

Who in the world can she bond with? Few people have experienced anything close to what she has. I worry that it will lead to somewhat of a lonely existence, at least until she’s old enough that she has some more experiences under her belt and can begin to relate to others more. Until then, the experience that 95% of Americans share is missing.

I’m hoping it’s something that will balance out as she gets older, but I don’t see it being a fun time for the first decade at least.

I’m really torn on news like this.

I’ll get it out of the way that I am jealous. I wish I had been able to do what she did. I also think that if more people cared about education on this level, we could really get a significantly smarter population and start to solve some of the problems in the world.

Having said that, I have concerns over what her life is like. I would need a lot more details to feel comfortable that this kind of lifestyle is healthy for someone. She missed out on most of her childhood at this point, a time most adults look back on fondly as a time when they had no responsibilities. I have so many follow-up questions that the article doesn’t address.

• Is she truly self-motivated or does she have someone like her parents urging her to do this?
• Given a choice, would she do it again?
• What was her workload like? Was she constantly studying or is she lucky enough to not need to?

Also, more for my curiosity than anyone else’s well-being:

• How do you even sign a 10 year old up for college?
• Do professors give leniency to an 11 year old in class or are they getting the same experience an 18 year old would get?