The 'ingredients you can pronounce means it's healthy' line implies a world in which the kind of nutrition a person requires scales with their biology education and grasp of phonics. Which isn't true, of course, but sure would imply some interesting worldbuilding if it were
"Potassium cyanide. Arsenic trioxide. Polonium 210. Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin," I say, smugly and with full confidence, before downing the glass of wine my political rival insisted on pouring for me. Seconds later, she watches with a smirk as I collapse writhing to the ground, in the knowledge that I never could hit that "R" in "pinot noir" quite right
Lol, I think CJ the X said it better than I ever could. While I was looking up this video YT also suggested this (much longer) essay by Alexander Avila, which to be clear I have not watched, but all of Avila’s other essays on politics & cultural criticism I’ve watched have been frankly fantastic, so I trust him on this lmao.
Iirc there’s also been controversy around Lin Manuel Miranda himself and his relationship to Puerto Rico - from what I understand, he’s been involved in a number of charitable/philanthropic projects which sound nice on the surface but have been heavily criticized by current residents of Puerto Rico, for a variety of reasons ranging from ‘this is well-intentioned but ultimately kind of tasteless/patronizing & doesn’t actually serve the urgent needs of people here’ to ‘this is basically an extension of American colonialism.’ (Here’s one source, but if you google “Lin Manuel Miranda Puerto Rico controversy” there’s plenty more out there)
Lol, I think CJ the X said it better than I ever could. While I was looking up this video YT also suggested this (much longer) essay by Alexander Avila, which to be clear I have not watched, but all of Avila’s other essays on politics & cultural criticism I’ve watched have been frankly fantastic, so I trust him on this lmao.
Iirc there’s also been controversy around Lin Manuel Miranda himself and his relationship to Puerto Rico - from what I understand, he’s been involved in a number of charitable/philanthropic projects which sound nice on the surface but have been heavily criticized by current residents of Puerto Rico, for a variety of reasons ranging from ‘this is well-intentioned but ultimately kind of tasteless/patronizing & doesn’t actually serve the urgent needs of people here’ to ‘this is basically an extension of American colonialism.’ (Here’s one source, but if you google “Lin Manuel Miranda Puerto Rico controversy” there’s plenty more out there)
i've recently been introducing two friends to hannibal who, though aware of the existence of the show, have never seen it before and are going in more or less entirely blind, and let me tell you it's been fucking DELIGHTFUL. they're so engaged! they're trying to piece it all together! they're wondering about the nature of hannibal and will's relationship! i first saw this show when it was airing which was 10+ years ago and im so accustomed to just... knowing it. understanding it. being familiar with what comes next so nothing is a surprise (which is nice in its own way, hannibal is very much a comfort watch for me) but damn. damn. it's so fucking lovely to watch new people getting into this show that i love and adore in real time. we're three episodes in. they have no idea what happens in the rest of the show. THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENS IN THE REST OF THE SHOW. god im so fucking excited
love island should introduce a "scheming eunuch" islander who is like a smart and completely asexual islander exempt from being kicked off or being made to participate in any challenges and they're just there to provide advice and be a sort of sounding board for the other islanders when they need a disinterested party to talk things through with. but the scheming eunuch has secret goals unbeknownst to anyone e.g. a cash prize for talking a certain couple into breaking up etc.
how do we have the same exact icon from an incredibly niche and defunct webcomic from like 10 years ago omg
LMAO we both have good taste it seems 😂🤝🤝 altho im just saying, I remember taking this screenshot from the comic and cropping it down to size for my tumblr icon back in 2016 or something SOOOOO–
cat buttons 👀 maybe you've already posted about this but if not what techniques are you using to try and teach your cat? we have a couple buttons but we can't figure out how to get them started 😭
Omg! Yess, I have watched… many many youtube videos about this, lmao. (I’ll add em on here later if I can find the links!) Here are a few general tips and tricks that I’ve found extremely helpful:
1. Find out what motivates your cat - People will say that cats are harder to button-train than dogs because they’re not as smart etc, or that some cats can’t be button-trained at all, but I don’t believe that for a second. From my own experience, it’s simply that most cats aren’t as intrinsically motivated to please humans as dogs - so it's a little harder to teach them in the initial stages, because you have to give them a reason to put in the effort. Learning to press a button is an unnatural act for a cat, so if they already have a tried-and-true way of communicating a particular need - e.g. like dragging a wand toy up to your feet when they want to play - then why would they go through the extra effort of learning to press a button for the same effect?
So, if your kitty is generally super-chill and doesn’t want for much, they’ll probably be fairly hard to button-train. (Though imo, it’s never impossible - I watched a fascinating interview with a woman who’d fostered dozens of cats, many of them deaf and/or blind, and had managed to teach pretty much all of them to use a very basic set of buttons - i.e. Eat, Play, and Out [on the catio].) If your cat seems to have an unfulfilled need, however - or if they often seem to be want something and you don’t know what - then that makes them a perfect candidate.
In June’s case, he’s SUPER food motivated, so the first button I managed to train him to press was “Tricks.*” (I also do clicker training with him, and he loves both the food and the attention.) He effectively had no other way to communicate with me when he wanted clicker training, so once he caught on, you could literally see the cogs turning in his kitty mind as he realized the amount of agency this gave him.
* Generally, it IS considered ill-advised to teach them a food-related word first lmao, since then they can come to assume that “every button = instant food” and become frustrated - but, as this helpful vid from the Adventure Bengal Cat channel pointed out, a “Training” button at least means they’re still having to “work” for their food a bit :)
2. First order of business is literally training them how to physically press the button. Honestly... the hardest step, lmao. It took a couple weeks of multiple daily 5min practice sessions to teach June, and from what I understand that’s quicker than average. This video was pretty helpful; this is where having done clicker training already really comes in handy, because you can click the clicker the instant they successfully press the button and reward it with kibble. (Again, beware the “press button = instant food” association, but this was. literally the only way I could get June to do it 😅)
3. No free-feeding :’) - This bit pained me, because I grew up with cats that just ate freely from a bowl you refilled whenever it was empty, and it was soooo easy - but again, cats don’t really have as much intrinsic motivation to please as dogs lol, so if you’re going to train them at all, it DOES help if they’re a little hungry. When I clicker train June, I use bits of regular kibble rather than treats (otherwise he'd be getting wayy too many treats per day), but I wouldn’t be able to do that at all if he had a bowl of kibble sitting out.
4. It may take a billion years/they don’t actually have to press the buttons at first. Modelling (aka, you pressing the buttons) is a MAJOR part of button-training, and from what I’ve heard, some people end up modelling buttons for their cats for like 2-3 months before the cat actually starts pressing the buttons themself. (Though iirc June picked it up in a couple weeks. His full name is “Machiavelli Junior” for a reason.)
Even modelling alone can be super useful, though. The reason I first started trying to button-train June was because he would SCREAM for food all hours of the day (clearly thinking “I KEEP ASKING FOR MORE BUT STUPID HUMAN DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M ASKING FOR 😭😭💔 I WILL TRY PLAN B: PUSH ALL CHARLIE’S MUGS ONTO THE FLOOR.") The very first button I modelled for him was All Done*. I’d press it whenever he lost interest in playing and wandered off, whenever he finished a plate of wet food, etc. It did take... a few... weeks....... but eventually, he realized that “After I eat and the All done button is pressed, there is literally no more reason to expend energy on screaming for more, because it elicits no reaction whatsoever.” Now, all it takes is is one press of “All Done,” and he either asks for something different (e.g. play or pets) or give a pissed-off little sigh and wander off. 😂
* One could argue that I could just verbally say “All Done” and not use a button - and that’s true! But at least in June’s case, I think he just hears my voice as nonsense sounds like the teacher from Charlie Brown, so having a visual/physical cue to go along with it was hugely helpful.
5. Teach buttons two at a time. I didn’t start like this, because at first I thought it would be simplest to start with one and then got too excited and tried to introduce too many lmao, but lately I’ve been finding this super effective. “Now” and “Later” were a great pair, as were “Wet Food” and “Snack” (a.k.a., a little bit of dry food). The contrast allows them to see more clearly that different buttons mean different things, and engage in 'decision tree' type conversations to narrow down exactly what they want.
For example, here's how a recent conversation of ours went:
June: [Presses "WET FOOD. NOW."]
Me: Okay, buddy. [Gives him wet food]
June: [eats it] [Presses "WET FOOD" again.]
Me: No, wet food all done. [Presses "WET FOOD. ALL DONE."]
June: ..... ["SNACK. NOW."]
Me: No, you've had enough. You can have another snack before bed. ["SNACK. LATER. SNACK, BED, LATER."]
June: 😠 ........... ["PLAY. LASER. NOW. NOW. NOW."]
Me: LOL, OK, yeah, we can play laser. ["LASER NOW."]
You'd think it'd be hard to teach a cat abstract concepts like Now and Later LOL, and admittedly he does use "Now" most of all, but he does honestly seem to understand what they mean. He perks up and then flicks his ears back in visible disappointment whenever I press "SNACK LATER," lmao; he presses "Later" himself on occasion too, like the time I stopped petting him to answer a message on my phone and he pressed "CHARLIE PLAY LATER" - or the time my neighbour came over for a chat right at his usual dinnertime, and after 15 minutes of pacing back and forth near his foodbowl he mashed the "ALL DONE" button repeatedly until she left. 😂
Whoops, I wrote way too much lol - but it's a fascinating subject and honestly after seeing how positively it's affected June I'm a cat-button evangelical now. It may not sound it given how demanding he can be with the buttons sometimes LMAO, but he's been so much calmer and more relaxed, and he clearly adores being able to actually communicate his wants and needs. He no longer bats my stuff off counters - he asks to play. He no longer tries to steal my food(!!!!!) (.......well. as much), he asks for a snack. It truly is a gamechanger
Anyway, here are some more hopefully useful links - and best of luck!!!!!!!!
Sarah Davis Baker's cat-button training tutorials
Adventure Bengal Cat's tutorial on cat buttons (he also has a bunch of useful clicker-training videos)
WhatAboutBunny's channel - Bunny's a dog LOL, but the tips are still relevant
FluentPet's button tip videos - IDK why they don't have more of these. Like a lot of beginner button tutorial playlists unfortunately, they seem to have just... stopped after the first few
Fascinating vid on the literal-cutting edge research being done right now by the University of California on animal communication buttons
Mary Robinette Kowal's cat Elsie's instagram lmao - not overtly instructional but so so cool to see this kitty's 130-word vocabulary in action, and really useful for getting an idea of how cats think/construct ideas
Where I get my cat buttons - Yeah ok, it's Aliexpress and they're pretty low quality, but FluentPet is extortionate and for some reason (in the UK at least) there are practically no other alternatives on the market. And those there are are basically just repackaged/upsold Aliexpress buttons anyway.
How is it that you can a music library of like 1,200+ absolute bangers but as soon as you put it on shuffle in a group setting it's like. anime opening you added in 2010. homestuck parody song. musical artist who was cancelled last year for kidnapping and eating children in his basement. Hamilton
I can't believe some people are actually reblogging this like "Tch. Omg, so embarrassing OP, I can't believe you would ever admit to liking Hamilton 😏 " like ok, first of all congratulations for hatching as a fully formed adult in 2022 from the pure white egg of a virgin swan i guess. Raised in a cave on a diet consisting solely of nuts and berries and leftist twitter clapbacks. "ooooooh, I've never had a complicated relationship with a piece of art that was phenomenally well-received at the time but aged like milk as later reflection revealed the fundamental flaws in its premise that were in fact present from its inception but which I didn't notice because I was 17 and hadn't heard of neoliberalism yet" Should we throw a party? Should we invite Anthony Fantano? Anyway second of all. you draw the line at Lin Manuel Miranda but you're fine with basement guy?
a number of people seem to be interpreting this post as being about blocking people for silly petty reasons That is not my intention. This is a specifically pro-tofu post And it is serious to me. fuck you if you hate tofu
