Scientific fraud is the most baffling thing ever to me like do they think they're just going to make a huge breakthrough and no one will notice that it's fake by trying to replicate their results

Yeah actually I just discovered how to turn plastic into gold. Oh you want to know how I did it

Starts running away cutely

Coming out as a soukoku shipper 😔 I love them

That thing about how cats think humans are big kittens is a myth, y’know.

It’s basically born of false assumptions; folks were trying to explain how a naturally solitary animal could form such complex social bonds with humans, and the explanation they settled on is “it’s a displaced parent/child bond”.

The trouble is, cats aren’t naturally solitary. We just assumed they were based on observations of European wildcats - but housecats aren’t descended from European wildcats. They’re descended from African wildcats, which are known to hunt in bonded pairs and family groupings, and that social tendency is even stronger in their domesticated relatives. The natural social unit of the housecat is a colony: a loose affiliation of cats centred around a shared territory held by alliance of dominant females, who raise all of the colony’s kittens communally.

It’s often remarked that dogs understand that humans are different, while cats just think humans are big, clumsy cats, and that’s totally true - but they regard us as adult colonymates, not as kittens, and all of their social behaviour toward us makes a lot more sense through that lens.

The like to cuddle because communal grooming is how cats bond with colonymates - it establishes a shared scent-identity for the colony and helps clean spots that they can’t easily reach on their own.

They bring us dead animals because cats transport surplus kills back to the colony’s shared territory for consumption by pregnant, nursing, or sick colonymates who can’t easily hunt on their own. Indeed, that’s why they kill so much more than they individually need - it’s not for fun, but to generate enough surplus kills to sustain the colony’s non-hunting members.

They’re okay with us messing with their kittens because communal parenting is the norm in a colony setting, and us being colonymates in their minds automatically makes us co-parents.

It’s even why many cats are so much more tolerant toward very small children, as long as those children are related to one of their regular humans: they can tell the difference between human adults and human “kittens”, and your kittens are their kittens.

Basically, you’re going to have a much easier time getting a handle on why your cat does why your cat does if you remember that the natural mode of social organisation for cats is not as isolated solitary hunters, but as a big communal catpile - and for that purpose, you count as a cat.

That makes so much sense! Thanks for writing this. I was always wondering how the big clumsy kitten idea fits in with the fact that cats know we feed them.

@fadingstrobelight somehow this is even more adorable

this is my favorite song from this movie.

@breelandwalker

MUSIC TO HEX BY

Heres the thing you gotta understand about statistics. 

“Increases your chances by 80%” does not mean “there is now an 80% chance”. 

If your chances were previously 10%, your chances are now 18%, not 90%. 

if your chances were roughly 1%, they’re now just slightly less than 2%. 

thats how that works. 

Wow I don’t understand math at all

‘if you have a baby after 35, the chance of deformities goes up by 100%’ is a line I hear alot.

It goes up from .5% to 1%

I think my brain just stopped working

100% is just another way of saying twice more likely. So 100% more basically means multiply the number you do have by 2.

Imagine how many woman are scared to have kids because of that statistic

This is why I took stats instead of calc. Because I don’t build engineer bridges in my everyday life but I sure do read studies that affect how I might live my life if I misinterpret them.

I’m terrible at numbers and math but I knew this and I really take it for granted. The average person definitely assumes, quite understandably, that “600% INCREASE!!!” must always mean a whole lot even if it literally only means that one of something is now six of something. Politicians probably take a shitload of advantage of this confusion.

just remember that increased BY and increased TO are very different things.

Oh god I didn’t even think about that whole other layer of confusion. Yeah if you’ve got 100 people and one of them is sick, that’s 1% of them who are sick, so if it “increased BY 100%” then that means now two people are sick. If it’s “increased TO 100%” then all 100 people are sick.

Reblogging again for that last addition.

Let the boys sleep

(Patre0n's illustration for March)

Who wants to see my cat totally brave and not at all scared at the vet

Excellent. Here she is, being super brave:

Fascinating!

I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence

Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.

Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.

u r absolutely right I have SO many complaints about Windows omg.

For anyone who'd like to follow along, I'm gonna share how to get around those things with group policies bc they're more user friendly and descriptive than registry editor imo :3 I'll also show how to get around needing a Microsoft account to get setup.

For the Device Setup

"OOBE" stands for Out Of Box Experience which is what that setup workflow is. But it also happens to be a folder with a little program in it that'll let you skip connecting to the internet; this makes it so you don't have to sign up with a Microsoft account and can just use a normal local one instead. And it already comes preinstalled! Here's how you get to it:

Now when you're brought back to the setup workflow, the page where you connect to the internet will have a new button on it that lets you say you don't have internet. Clicking that and proceeding through the rest of the setup lets you get around the Microsoft account thing.

Group Policies

You don't have to know much about them, these are just a bunch of specific settings for what your computer can or can't do that lets you decide how it works in different ways.

I'm gonna show you how to turn off the recommendations and internet stuff basically. For now bring up search and type gpedit, pick this

It'll open up to Local Group Policy Editor and we can get started :3c

Start Recommendations

In the side menu, go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar. Click on Settings to sort them with all the "Turn off" ones bumped to the top.

Here's what you should set:

Windows Spotlight

Back in the side menu, go down to Windows Components > Cloud Content

Cortana

In the side menu, this one's back at the top under Computer Configuration. You're gonna want to go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search

News and Interests

In the side menu go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > News and interests.

Microsoft Account Login Nudges

When you don't use a Microsoft account they'll nudge you repeatedly to sign in so you can "get the most out of your experience" *gag*. The group policy for turning that off has a note that suggests it might not work with Windows 11 though (implicitly), so you can close the group policy editor window now and for this last one let's just open up the regular settings.

Go to System > Notifications > Additional settings, then uncheck all the boxes. And there ya go! (✿◠‿◠)ﾉ u are done.

Group policies are kind of a rabbit hole so while there is a lot more you could change or read into, for your own sanity's sake I would advise against it and say call it a day lol

This is all extremely good information, thank you very much for the addition!

I endorse this as an IT technician. I do this to every new Win11 device I set up.

As a bonus, run Chris Titus Tech's debloat tool on it.

It allows you to add tools, remove/disable shitty parts of windows, and easily change some settings. My default is running the preset for a desktop/laptop and applying security update settings, but there are so many options to customize. I used it on my personal laptop.

"Use Linux instead" is never actionable advice for most people so thank you for this

USA Cultural Regions Map

This is super cool

For non-Americans: this is actually accurate and reflects how Americans understand ourselves and regional identities. These aren’t official labels, but they’re not totally made up either.

you know how pokemon have types they’re weaker and stronger than? american regions work like that

i actually dont mind tumblr posts reposted to pinterest. the 13 y/o "pinterest in the only social media my parents let me have" girlies deserve a little treat

OH MY GOD

now all of pinterest knows i have large ballz

the before and after got to me

❀⋆.･

I never uploaded my updated Jimmy Neutron designs! I think it’d be funny if a modern JN reboot had at 2000s aesthetic both animation-wise and also for the look of Retroville and its citizens fashion

My friend Eric did an animation using these designs! It came out SO GOOD