You have thin soles so you can tell where you are in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

Not a hockey fan, is that because it’s too cheap or too expensive?

You can put them in between 2 bowls with their (the bowls) rims against each other to create an oblate spheroid-ish thing, then shake it real hard for a few minutes. It should remove the shell pretty eaily, if loudly.

Edit: Sorry, turns out, that’s garlic cloves. Shrimp peeling is really only easier raw. You can rip the legs off and just give a squeeze and it’ll pop out of the shell. In my experience, once they’re cooked the shell will break up much easier. As someone else said, a stock is your best bet if you really want to avoid peeling. I mean, technically you can eat the shell if you make sure to grind them up completely when you puree them. I’ve never tried anything with the shell still included, so I can’t speak for the taste, but you could try a bisque if you’re dead set on not peeling.

I think a lot of people here are pretty spot on with the “cats are just weird, IDK.” But more than that, there are a couple things that I think it might be. A lot of cat quirks are just instincts for outdoor activities that don’t translate indoors but they still have the pull to do it. IT sounds like she’s “digging,” which is a thing wild cats would do for a couple reasons.

Sometimes they will dig a hole to poop in, then cover it up, but since she’s not then immediately taking a shit in your salad bowl, that’s probably not it.

It could be a hunting action. Cats dig for bugs often.

But the most likely, I think, is for fun. Cats are pretty intelligent creatures who’s minds require stimulation, which means they just find a thing to fidget with sometimes and get stuck on it, like a small child making toys out of random junk. If she doesn’t have enough scratching posts, she could be getting that scratching itch out. Or could do with some more toys. Or, again what I find most likely, she did it once and found that bowl to just be a lot of fun. Maybe it’s the texture or she likes the way her paws slip on it differently than other surfaces. Cats are curious, so it being a different surface may have drawn her attention and now it’s a fun toy for her.

TLDR: cats are just weird, IDK. 🤷

Also, only really works if they are “attempting to gain a higher moral authority” (as OP says). As if that’s the only reason people would argue a point. I think it says something about OP that they take that as a given for arguments. I can immediately imagine scenarios that one can argue against a thing that they themselves participate in.

“Hey, smoking is bad, kid. Don’t do it.”

“But you smoke! And I look so cool with a cigarette!”

“Yeah, it’s a habit that’s very difficult to break and it makes your life worse in every way. I know from experience.”

“No you.”

But I agree with your main point,

But pointing out the hypocrisy is technically “off topic” if you’re arguing whether X is actually bad.

It’s considered a fallacy exactly for this reason. When you’re debating a thing, you’re way off the map if you think that’s your winning move if you’re arguing in good faith. An argument should be about showing your point is correct, not that you’re better than the other person. But Mr. Wang up there may only view arguments as a competition to be won morally.

How does that work, physiologically? We’re talking dopamine in the brain. If what that user said was true and “overstimulation like that drains your dopamine reserves (or something),” then another person being there wouldn’t make a difference.

I mean, it’s because they have a misunderstanding on how brain chemistry works, obviously. Like, it can store it, but it doesn’t get used up from doing things that feel good. That’s what makes dopamine. And while loneliness is a problem in the general population, it’s more likely that longer lasting gratification from sex isn’t from the physical act or even just the physical act with another person, but the joy gained from the relationship as a whole. Pretending that there’s chemically something different happening in the brain just because there is physically another person there is ridiculous. I’ve had plenty of unfulfilling sex with people I didn’t like that didn’t make me happy/content afterwards like masturbating would have.

So… your source to back up your point is an excerpt from a fictional book written by someone who’s expertise is in writing fiction?

Personally, I try not to take the word of someone who is not an expert, or at least versed in that particular area. Just because Pratchett was very a progressive writer doesn’t mean his opinions on gun control should be taken for anything more than his own personal position.

And if we’re just going to cite his fiction as his opinion, we have to assume he was also pro-police violence. I don’t know how much Discworld you’ve red, but even as Vimes progressed as a character and got better in a lot of ways, he always ended up resolving the issue by skirting the actual law and bending the rules to fit his purpose. Often he would espouse how much easier his job and the city would be if he wasn’t restricted by the law. Not everyone else, they still need to follow the law, but Sam Vimes knows better. There were even times when Pratchett would start to push back on that idea like he was going to have Vimes actually understand that police aren’t special and should be as answerable to the law as anyone… then the conflict would always be resolved by Vimes going outside the law and taking it into his own hands. He never learned that lesson. Quite the opposite actually.

So for those unfamiliar, Pratchett was so conservative, he was writing about rogue cops taking the law into their own hands before you kids ever heard those words put together.

While it doesn’t work as well with or as your joke, the ATF is actually now the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. So we need to add the E as well and we can spell FACET, which is less fun. Or use M for Marijuana and spell FMEAT.

So building on this I did some light perusing on the internet and got a little hyperfixated, but found some tiny things.

This was the closest Solingen I could find, but the caps on the end don’t match and I doubt the little rivets would be completely hidden by the patina, so that’s probably not it.

Then on Etsy I found this posting That has one that looks identical but with no further information on it and listed as “Richards” (Richards, Sheffeild). And This one that just doesn’t have the smaller blade but is listed as Solingen.

I went to try and double check that patent number and I’m not finding what they did, but I also don’t know what I’m doing. The German patent office has 2 companies with that patent number, one for Naproxen and one for the moving blades on hair trimmers.

But then I found This guy with the exact same patent number on it but marked as Hammer brand. It’s very similar but has 3 blades instead of 2.

This leads me to believe that the patent is not for the whole knife but the blade specifically that was made by Solingen and sold to other knife manufacturers who affixed them to their own pocket-knife-pieces. With all this in mind, I’m starting to think it’s likely from Richards, so I refined my search again and found this guy as the best bet: knife. But instead of the patent number on the tang they have their own stamp. So my best guess, after a tiny bit of research, is that Richards probably made it, but it’s not their top of the line stuff with their branding but something akin to a “store brand” where they used their typical parts but used the blades from Solingen. I’m still assuming it’s Richards because they were the only brand I could find that made knives with all the parts (Same end caps, 2 blades, pearl handle with no rivets showing, shape) together. Other brands seemed to have some, but not all parts combined. But with the tang stamp being off, I can only assume it wasn’t an “official” Richards brand but put together by them and sold by another party as a cheaper alternative.

If you’re still curious, that All About Pocket Knives site seems to have active forums with knowledgeable people who could probably (almost definitely) find or know more than me. I don’t know anything about any of this and was just a bit bored this morning while drinking my coffee, so I definitely suggest asking them for legit advice.

It was a thing, in a localized area of an infinitely small point, that also was everywhere that existed… I think. I’m not a big bang-ologist, I’m more of a small bang-ologist so my understanding may be flawed.

has aged like fine wine

This has nothing to do with your actual points, I just wanted to share a neat fact about wines and this common phrase. The quality of wine has little to do with it’s improvement with age. In fact, most wines - fine ones included - are intended to be consumed within a year (Usually less) of bottling or being sold. Wines typically have to be designed to age over long periods with a number of different small ingredients that can affect it. Most wines will start turning real vinegary after a year and be basically all vinegar by year 3-ish. Though wines with metal screw-caps will last longer, though not receive any of the benefits of the aging process should they be “age-able” as small levels of oxygen that leaks in through corks are essential to the aging process.

More to our actual point, I remember hearing a theory once when Alyx came out that Valve releases new large games like that when they have new technology they want to show off. Half-life showed off the physics engine. Portal used the physics but showed off the portals. Alyx showed off the VR tech. And they only do it when they know they can do it well. Since their goals aren’t direct game sales but to just make a really good game that uses a specific tech, they succeed but have no intention to milk the franchise.

Actually, after writing that I looked and found an interview with Gabe after Alyx was released where he outright stated that the series was meant to be used this way and not to sell games.

Newell said “Half-Life games are supposed to solve interesting problems,” and explained that Valve doesn’t want to just “crank Half-Life titles out because it helps us make the quarterly numbers.”

don’t even know enough to care in the first place.

but ultimately it’s the user who decides to use the service, and how to use it.

So you admit they don’t have access to the knowledge needed to make better choices for their digital security. Then immediately blame them. I think your bias from the point of view of a one that is already more informed on this sort of thing. If they don’t know they need to know more, how can they be expected to do any research? There’s only so much time in a day so you can’t expect people to learn “enough” about literally everything.

Corporate has clarified that they use the ingredient Not Bugs^TM

“It’s definitely Not Bugs^TM!”*

It’s actually pretty normal and you probably do it without realizing it. Occasionally the lungs just need to absorb a little extra oxygen to catch up. You ever watch a dog sleep and every now and then they just take a big inhale? Same thing.

Found this neat source:

“A sigh is a long, deep breath that is often viewed as an expression of stress, sadness, exhaustion or relief. However, the most frequent sighs are unnoticed and occur spontaneously every several minutes, about a dozen times per hour.”

. . .

“The lung is composed of hundreds of millions of alveoli, the gas exchange units at terminal ends of the respiratory tract, each of which is about 200 micrometers in diameter. During normal breathing, alveoli spontaneously collapse, a pathological condition known as atelectasis. A sigh is hypothesized to reverse any alveolar collapse, because it is a large breath that re-expands all alveoli, filling them all with air.”

… all those other words that don’t follow the rule.

Oh boy. I made the jump from SLA to (kinda) publication order. Going from his most intricate series to his first published book was almost jarring. I still liked Elantris though.

Personally, I read through close to publication order, but grouped series together. Well, I guess it’s really just Mistborn and maybe Emperor’s Soul with Elantris, but those last ones aren’t actually in the same set, just the same planet.

It’s because the author is friends with one of the lead guys over at Epic in charge of the game. They cycle through so many characters that they just start asking their friends for ideas I guess.

Oh man, every time someone asks a question along these lines I always think of the movie Hank and Mike. I found it in a discount bin at a grocery store probably a decade ago so I took a little time to actually look into it more this time. I knew it was Canadian and unlikely a big hit, but apparently it was just so poorly received. It made less than $17,000 of the $2M it cost, and it’s real tough to find anyone even reviewing it. I even struggled to find the music from it. (The one song is badass). And it’s got a couple B-tier actors that I remember doing a great job, and I think Joe Mantegna really went for it in his role as the god Pan. Chris Klein kills it in this song.

The crude humor kinda puts people off I think but the satirical aspects cut a little deeper than the movie needed to. And probably when I discovered it I was depressed and had a drinking problem and the overall mood of it really felt at home to me at the time so I was able to just live in those aspects of the film and really absorb the more subtle message. It’s definitely absurd in many points but there’s a lot of heart in it.

And to add to what this user said, planning is also key. Its actually what led my to realizing that my (really bad) ADHD was exacerbating my depressions and anxiety symptoms because I didn’t have the native skills to deal with them. Not thinking about ADHD I just learned to plan literally everything as a coping mechanism for the anxiety. Weekends I’d plan the general things for the week, then every morning I’d write out a detailed version of that day’s tasks, each broken down by parts. If it’s a call I have to make, I write out a little script with key things I need to say/ask and maybe write out the whole sentence so I don’t have to think about it mid convo, I’m just reading. Planning for as many things as I could like that really reduced the stress-load I’d deal in most scenarios.

I cracked a molar years ago and I was too broke and underemployed to get it dealt with. As time went on it slowly rotted away in the back of my mouth. I was already depressed and dealing with it just wasn’t a priority. It just became a part of my life and I would chew on the other side without thinking and eventually the pain just went away because I was stubborn and I think my brain just stopped recognizing those signals. It was bad.

Last year I went to get it extracted and as I was talking to the dental hygienist about it she said something that I really liked and I was actually really surprised at the compassion from a dentist’s office.

I’ve always tried to be open about my mental problems because the world needs to lose the stigma we’ve placed on it. I’m not ashamed by any of it, but I definitely understand why many are. So when I told her that I’d spent several years dealing with depression and taking care of my teeth just wasn’t a priority at that time, she said “Hey, it’s alright. Sometimes we have to let some things go to survive whatever we’re dealing with. But you’re able to take care of it now and we’re gonna help with that.”

You did what you had to do to deal with your anxiety and you should be proud of that. It’s not easy, but try not to view the tooth as a reminder anymore than a messy kitchen is a reminder that you were too busy to do the dishes yesterday. It’s just a result of a thing that millions of people go through every day. You’re taking care of it just like you’d wash those dishes, and then you’re going to move on with the rest of your day. I still have that empty spot in the back of my mouth and honestly, I forget about it even as my tongue pokes at that empty spot sometimes. This is the first time I’ve even thought about it in months and months, and it’s been about a year since it was removed. As for after, depending on where it is, you might not really notice soon after. Generally there’s like this plug of congealed and scabbed blood in the spot that you have to be careful with the first week or so, but I didn’t experience any pain.

My own anxiety had my blood pressure sky high when they first went in and they couldn’t do anything yet so they gave me a while to calm down and one of the hygienists was there and explained to me what to expect afterwards. She assured me it wouldn’t even be noticeable and she was right. But you should be able to ask them as well to get a professional idea for your expectations to assuage your worry. But also, just from experience, I can say that it’ll be fine, you’ll stop noticing and stop thinking about it once there isn’t something in your mouth that you always have to be aware of.