The Litter Box

lila

19:00

@JourneymanGeek hey sorry for being late for discussion, but the dark ones are deep fried in oil and the light ones are just dried; the dark ones look just like any other generic deep fried vegetable/fruit for me, on the photo in your message it resembles bacon or dried steak for me. But yes, I get what you mean, I know they could sometimes look like dog turds :D

Allison C

I just flagged the "answer" from the original poster stating that the fish did die; it's not an answer to how to help a fish in that condition so I don't really consider it an answer; it's an attempt to update the situation in an answer and should be edited into the question instead.

lila

@C.Koca Hey by the way, from the first sight since seeing your nickname, I had the feeling that you are good with cats and know a lot about cats. It later turned out to be true, but I quite did not know how I seemingly knew it "all along" But I realized some time after: in Czech language (Czech Republic borders Poland where I live, and our languages are really similar) word for "cat" is "kočka".

@C.Koca In this context, "C.Koca" in my head was meaning "C. <something to do with cats>", which then I progressively grew to fill in the blank gap with "C. of Cats" and "Caesar of Cats".

kočka

Noun: kočka f (masculine kocour)

cat (domestic animal)
Synonyms: míca, micka, číča
(colloquial) attractive woman
kočka f
cat

Sarov

> (colloquial) attractive woman

...Well then.

Okay how do I make it not treat the second line as part of the quote?!

lila

19:16

@AllisonC correct, thanks!

@Sarov oh okay :O

> line #1

line #2

^ like this

Sarov

I was hoping wouldn't need to use two posts. D:

lila

@Sarov me also :(

Sarov

Also, English has a handful of times it uses an animal as an adjective, but they're all kind of (generally/arguably - please don't start a flame war here) insulty. Cougar, bear, snake, weasel, shark...

Mast

That's a fishy argument.

Sarov

At the least, I can't think of one that could easily be construed as complimentary.

lila

19:22

maybe lion?

brave as lion?

Sarov

In that case the adjective is 'brave', though; it's a simile, not a metaphor.

lila

oooh okay okay now I see

Elmy

sly fox

Mast

Sometimes 'a cow' is used as 'a lot'. Or, more often, 'no cow' as 'not a lot'.

Elmy

some people may count "vixen" as a compliment

Sarov

19:24

...Really? I've only ever heard 'a cow' used for a person to mean 'they're fat'.

Mast

And then people invent sayings all the time.

9

Q: What does the phrase/idiom "no sacred cow remains untipped" mean?

From Everything You Know about English is Wrong: Now that you know, it's time to, well, bite the mother tongue. William Brohaugh, former editor of Writer's Digest, will be your tour guide on this delightful journey through the English language, pointing out all the misconceptions about our wonde...

lila

what about "duck tape"? (yes I know it is misspelled, but still widely used)

Mast

Party animals.

Sarov

Ugh cow tipping is evil.

Mast

Elmy

19:27

lol

lila

@Mast oooh okay so it is not misspelled, but actual brand name! cool, thanks!

Mast

@lila Both spellings on the same package:

More readable on smaller screens.

But yea, duck tape is a common misspelling and a brand name for a company that produces tape, among which duct tape.

Elmy

Did you know that catapulting dead cows over city walls was a medieval form of biological warfare? They preferable used cows that died of splenic feaver / anthrax to infect the population of the besieged city

lila

@Elmy Haha what, how did you found that out, what were you searching for? :D

Mast

Or rats, preferably plague infested.

Nai45

19:32

Hi everyone! Chat extremely active today... some new faces too, which is good! :D

Elmy

I saw it on Youtube some time ago, but I completely forgot the name of the video. I think it was about vaccines and anthrax and/or the history of modern medicine

lila

@Elmy vaccines oh okay I see I see it now

Elmy

Hmm, I think I remember seeing some videos about victorian life and health. They had a very rudimentary understanding of germinology, which caused some extreme problems. For example milk was treated with a base to remove the sour taste when it got old, but it didn't kill the bacteria, which lead to many problems for children

Nai45

@lila Working on it now, please hold off for as long as you can please but I understand if I don't finish in time. Thanks! :D

lila

@Nai45 Relax please, almost full 3 hours left! Thanks for taking the challenge!

Elmy

19:37

And since the milk wasn't pasteurised, it contained bovine hepatites, which could (over some years) dissolve some bones like vertabrae.

lila

@Elmy Oh okay, like did they understand that disease is spread by miscroscopic life forms? Or did they not consider whether they are animate or inanimate?

Allison C

@Elmy "sly fox" could go either way, "foxy" typically is a compliment though. :)

lila

@Elmy Oh, this is so disgusting and disturbing that I cannot resist expressing my sympathy to this via giving a star ;3

Elmy

@lila They understood that smelly things usually are detrimental for your health (like sour milk or smelly fish). But instead of killing the bacteria, they were often happy to simply remove the smell.

lila

@AllisonC I do not know whether it is international or not, but in Poland "Foxy" is a brand of luxurous toilet paper :D soft and nice

Elmy

19:42

There still is a common rule for cooking fish: wash it, clean it, acidify it (don't know if "pickle" id the right word here). The acid (most commonly citrus jiuce) removes the smell, but doesn't kill any bacteria that caused the smell.

lila

@AllisonC And it makes me believe you (serious), no company would voluntarily choose name with bad aura, even if it is toilet paper.

@Elmy ooh ok I see now, they got the right correlation that bad smell equals disease, but not that smell is not the source of badness but rather a side effect of it

Allison C

@lila True, some brands with "nice" names here are ones like "Angel soft" (could be softer) and "cottonelle" (actually pretty nice)

But none named anything like "Sandpaper," even if that could describe some of them :)

Elmy

@lila Correct. And once the general public learned about bacteria as the real cause of deseases, it started a craze to eliminate every and all bacteria everywhere (that still reverates today). It took several decades to spread the news that there are also beneficial bacteria and that we actually need them to stay healthy

Sarov

@AllisonC ...I could see an indie/joke brand naming itself that. Would make a good gag gift.

Allison C

@Sarov it was internal only, but when I worked for a particular grocery chain and we got communication about a new super-soft toilet paper we were going to start carrying, one of the comments in that was "Because have you used our current paper? Ouch!"

lila

19:56

@Elmy Okay now you fully convinced me for watching this (yes, I know you weren't actively trying to convince me to do anything :D); link to this video, pretty please with sugar on top?

@AllisonC I used to watch/read Donald Duck and similar as a child, and I remember a joke "Scrooge McDuck's advice" (Scrooge McDuck was the rich and extremely greedy uncle): "to save money, just use both sides of toilet paper" :o

Stephie

@Elmy the “acidify” is considered old-school or traditional at best. Thankfully.

lila

3

Q: How cruel is it to make your cat listen to other cats?

From time to time, to control how cats act, I use other cat sounds (I play these sound using my phone). Female cats are attracted to crying kittens, whether they are spayed or not, while male cats are controlled by fighting cats. In case of emergencies, such as to get a hiding cat for a vet visit...

cats behavior socializing sound ethics

^ ultimate super last time chance of +100 bounty points (2 hours left!)

Sarov

@lila ...Pretty sure you said 'penultimate' 3 times ago... :P

lila

@Elmy I remember I once asked my mom about what did she get on first communion; she said "a watch and a chocolate"; I asked "wow, and do you still have them? What happened?" (I was having my own first communion at that time, so I was a child) and she said that she ate the chocolate, and the watch broke down.

haha yes, but
this is super hyper mega last BONUS chance that was not in the plan; it is for the suspense. Like in action movies: the b*mb timer is ticking and showing 60 seconds left to rapid expansion in volume associated with an extremely vigorous outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures, but action goes on and 10 minutes later you see that there is 30 seconds left to rapid expansion in volume associated with an extremely vigorous outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures.

Sarov

20:12

Ugh I always hated that trope.

lila

me also, so cliche and predictable :/

and sorry for verbose description, but I am just dancing around words that could potentially put me on some watchlist

Sarov

So you never say 'explosion of flavour'?

lila

no never, I have always said "rapid expansion in volume associated with an extremely vigorous outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures of flavour"

Elmy

@lila I'll look for it tomorrow. Going to bed now. Have a nice evening (or whatever time it is for you)

lila

@Sarov by the way, some unknown cyberpolice intelligence unit probably has automatically updated your suspicion raking up a few points after this message; they got nothing on you, but the prosecutor is already sharpening the pencil! :D

@Elmy ok thanks, good night, yes evening for me, thanks :D

Nai45

20:21

@lila Who doesn't? That is usually how I describe things - as synonyms of the first sentence on the Wikipedia page on them?

lila

:D

Sarov

@lila You do realize that using the term "\/\/ /-\ T < |-| |_ | 5 T" has put you on one, right?

Nai45

20:53

@lila Done with my answer! And I still had one hour! Please judge all 4 answers fairly, and let the bounty awarding begin!

0

A: How cruel is it to make your cat listen to other cats?

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I could not find any scientific sources or studies on this, so my answer is purely speculative and not necessarily correct - merely an opinion. I also use these sounds to goad my cat sleep with me. I can see that he gets unsettled, as there are dangerous territorial c...

lila

@Sarov wow how do you know this? do you work for them? don't snitch on me, please don't please don't please don't

@Nai45 Nice, thanks, beautiful! Let me read all again and a little time to sink in!

Sarov

@Nai45 "Fairly", huh... flips coin

2

@lila You work for them. You just don't know it.

C.Koca

21:28

@lila I am so sorry to but the truth is always much more mundane than the fiction. C is my initial and Koca is my surname.

@Nai45 I know this is unethical to say this but still I will say that @Nai45 deserves the bounty. I won't change the accepted answer now, but it was very insightful and impartial.

@lila When I first joined SE, I started with scifi.SE just to get 200 karma to have an easier life in math.SE. So, I wasn't planning on being anonymous :) I later got hooked up by the concept but it was too late.

Nai45

@C.Koca Thanks! (and I see you pinged me twice, were you meaning to ping me both times or me once and lila)

C.Koca

Oh yes, I meant the the reply to lila and in line ping to you :)

lila

@Sarov No I don't, there is no mafia (ask me about the joke please if you do not get the reference)

@C.Koca I assumed so :D the "non-mundane" explanation was just my "head cannon"

@C.Koca How cruel is it to change the acc*pted answer now?

@C.Koca Oooh okay I see, why specifically sci-fi though?

@Nai45 by the way, I did not upv*te your answer because, today, I again already banned myself from voting; I will vote up after 2 AM UTC

C.Koca

@lila I would feel bad if my answer is unaccepted :)

Nai45

@C.Koca Oh reminds me of a time that there was an HNQ question by a new user and they had no idea what they were doing and changed the accepted answer around 6 times...

C.Koca

21:43

@lila I have some experience with scifi. I read all game of thrones, lord of the rings and harry potter books plus some less famous books. But those guys were real good. They could cite the comics a situation occured with pinpoint accuracy.

lila

@C.Koca what if it was limited to once or twice a month?

Nai45

@lila Thanks lila!

C.Koca

I never read comics in my life :)

Ahahahahaha :) I'd do it if the answer I accepted is proven wrong, which happens in SO or math.SE :)

But this question might have even be closed as "primarily opinion based" so, there is no way it could be proven wrong.

lila

I know that generally answer authors get unsettled after their answer is unacc*pted, as there are dangerous reputation bait-and-switch shifters they cannot see, but they usually relax within five to ten minutes :D

C.Koca

:D

lila

21:48

@Nai45 Maybe I am nitpicking, but "From a medical standpoint, you aren't actually harming your cat. If your cat relaxes after 5-10 minutes and doesn't seem to be stressed-out beyond some tension while the sound is playing, I can't see any serious long-term side effects other than being a bit more territorial or anxious with other cats." reminds me of possible counterargument of Chinese water torture.

C.Koca

@lila Why do you censor unaccepted?

2

lila

@C.Koca Because this is a dirty dirty word! :D meta.stackexchange.com/questions/238835/…

2

@C.Koca In short: if your comment contains "swear" words as: accept, upvote, downvote, +1, -1, thank, thanks, etc. and it is shorter than approx. 2 lines, then one "no longer needed" flag deletes it instantly without any moderator approval.

C.Koca

Ahahahha, never knew this!

lila

:D :D :D

C.Koca

@lila Water dripping constantly? I don't think this is the best analogy?

lila

21:52

An actual comment I once got (author anonymous): "@lila please fix your keyboard it's really hard to read with random ✱ appearing in the comment."

C.Koca

@lila Also, is there filter here that blocks f word or s word?

Whenever I say f-word it reminds me of this: youtube.com/watch?v=1XaV6vQHLYI

lila

@C.Koca Okay sorry for not being clear: yes, it is water constantly dripping: it has been shown that prolonged Chinese water torture could inflict long-lasting psychological trauma, and is capable of causing PTSD, even though dripping water droplets do not medically (or at least physically) harm the person.

C.Koca

@lila Well, it is designed to keep someone from properly resting. It is like being put in solitary confinement. But I play the video for twenty seconds at most, otherwise the cat bites my hand :)

lila

"@lila why are there lots of asterisks in your comment?"

C.Koca

@lila For some reason I thought you were German. I mean, living in Czechia border of Poland doesn't exclude being ethnically German but I always assumed you lived in Germany as well.

lila

22:00

@C.Koca Oooh bites your hand, that's interesting; it wasn't included in the question! :D

C.Koca

@lila It attacks the nearest organic tissue to the source of cat sounds :)

lila

@C.Koca Oh really, I could understand why: my nickname is an actual word in German, which means a color (which I forgot, but someone on SE reminded me a few months after I joined). Is that the reason?

Nai45

@lila No pressure but you have 25 minutes to award a bounty to whichever answer you think is best (if you are awarding it). Not that you should award mine, but I am just giving a reminder that you have 25 minutes left to award an answer

lila

@Nai45 23

C.Koca

@Nai45 smooth :)

@lila is lila lilac in English?

lila

22:03

@Nai45 I looked at the timer a few seconds before you sent this message :D and I am paranoically checking once 30 seconds :D

@C.Koca oh yes exactly, it is this color

Nai45

@lila 22 auctually now ;)

C.Koca

@lila Probably you mentioned about regulations in Germany about cats or dogs. I don't know. Also, statistically Germans know english better than English, so it was a fair assumption :)

lila

@Nai45 Oooh thanks so much for reminding me! Okay listen please:

3

Q: How cruel is it to make your cat listen to other cats?

From time to time, to control how cats act, I use other cat sounds (I play these sounds using my phone). Female cats are attracted to crying kittens, whether they are spayed or not, while male cats are controlled by fighting cats. In case of emergencies, such as getting a hiding cat out for a vet...

cats behavior socializing sound ethics

^ ultimate REAL super hyper LAST CHANCE of getting +100 points! HURRY UP 20 MINUTES LEFT!

@C.Koca Oh okay makes sense; and yes, in my case it is also true that I know english better than English!

Nai45

@sarov hear that you only have 20 minutes to release your imaginary answer desperately wanted by lila

lila

@Nai45 Hey Nai, do you like living on the edge? I mean, like, feeling the thrill? I sometimes randomly lose internet connection, did you know that? ^.^ :D -.^ :D

Nai45

22:12

@lila hahahahaha internal panic attack hehehe, wow that is, chuckles nervously, really funny

lila

Okay I got really sleepy and I am going to bed; see you tomorrow, good night! ;3

Nai45

Okay goodnight wait what hold on a sec the heck

@lila Quite the comedian, are you not?

C.Koca

I am very sleepy as well, I am just waiting for the bounty to resolve :)

Finally

I was refreshing the question :)

Now I can go to bed

lila

good night ;3

Nai45

@lila Thank you so much for the bounty points :) (it was quite a suspenseful thriller to get them, but still), I appreciate them! :D

lila

22:25

I have to say that I had moral dilemma not less complicated than the dilemma whether it is cruel to control cat via other cat sounds; my tipping point was the message of none other that the question author:

55 mins ago, by C.Koca

@Nai45 I know this is unethical to say this but still I will say that @Nai45 deserves the bounty. I won't change the accepted answer now, but it was very insightful and impartial.

@Nai45 oh you are welcome ^.^ but that was not the only tipping point. I got a realization today afternoon than I am actually not that sure whether Serena's answer would be utomatically chosen, because it was added before the bounty, not after.

C.Koca

Well, I would be awarding a similar bounty to Nai45 if you didn't :) It was kind of a self fulfilling prophecy

lila

And thus Serena arguably written her answer not expecting the bounty, or at least definitely not as much as Nai.

C.Koca

Hmm, I don't know if it is necessarily a bad thing

Nai45

@lila hmm, but I don't think it should matter why you wrote an answer, rather which is better...

@lila what do you mean?

lila

@C.Koca nice! by the way, did you know that, in some way, it was you and Allerleirauh who sowed the idea for me to do my own bounties?

@Nai45 sorry I was not clear

@C.Koca sorry I was not clear

C.Koca

22:32

@lila This will sound arrogant but I was aware of that :)

It was just a small bounty to show some appreciation and I was hoping that similar bounties would come by a range of users.

2

Nai45

@lila Oh yeah, and I have been meaning to tell you how great of a job you are doing at bountying, it takes someone really brave and kind to give away several thousand of points away without anything in return

C.Koca

But I would never guessed 400 point bounties and dissipating all the karma that you have

Personally, I really want to reach 5000 for the privileges. I am kind of curious as what site statistics are :)

But I guess being a moderator you have all privileges right away :) @lila

lila

@Nai45 what I meant was, technically, how the automatic bounty awarding system works. It is capable of awarding bounties automatically, but as far as I currently know, it only does so to answers posted after the bounty was started. It does not award answers that were already present before the bounty was started (correct me if I am wrong). And I know it should not matter, but this is literally how the automatic system works.

@C.Koca haha no, that does not sound arrogant, that sounds relieving :D

C.Koca

Anyway, I drunk enough water to prevent any headaches

Now I can go to bed :)

lila

@C.Koca Oh look: it was not my primary goal, but I imagined that I could attempt "pushing" at least one person, that I trust deserves it, above some threshold giving useful tools. Above 4000 there are tools for vote-to-delete posts, and actually it was going right all along with you, until you gave 200 reputation away to some blonde and ruined my plan ;_; I was so heartbroken :D

C.Koca

22:39

Good night everyone!

lila

good night!

C.Koca

@lila One final thing, I was planing to give the other 200 to you as well, just to increase traffic, until I realised you are just giving it all :)

Nai45

@C.Koca 'night

lila

@C.Koca Nothing too fancy: some rows of boring numbers,some images of boring plots of lines and dots, some checkboxes that show and hide differently colored lines, in general beautiful and highly refined tools and whoever designed them did a great and highly appreciated job that nobody actually needs.

@C.Koca Wow, does plain water work for you to prevent headaches? I am jealous :o

Nai45

@lila although I believe "pushing" is SE illegal, it would be interesting - but at the same time it would take away incentive. For example, I am trying to get to 1.5k soon in order to fulfill my tag clean up promises promised on my tag clean up meta post (I can't directly edit some stuff and I would rather do it myself than have suggestions be floating around). And to your last sentence, I guess I lack enough context to who the blonde is? Was it a while ago?

Anyway, realized I have to go for several hours (have an event that I will be late for but oh well, the bounty was too suspenseful), so bye everybody! :D (and thanks again for the bounty lila)

C.Koca

22:45

@lila I drunk a good deal of beer, I am just making sure to hydrate

@lila I think I had VTD in scifi SE, but I am not sure

I am only curious about statistics :)

lila

@C.Koca "I was going to show appreciation and give her some funds, but I soon realized that she is the loony type and is, in fact, throwing all the banknotes out of the window!"

@Nai45 I am the blonde :D

C.Koca

@lila Good analogy but I was actually trying to have a zero sum game, until I realised it was impossible :)

lila

@Nai45 okay have fun, see you soon!

@C.Koca oooh okay, now I understand

@C.Koca oooh okay okay, now I see; look at those two references please:

Apr 27 at 19:24, by Allison C

The best way to handle a hangover is to not get one by drinking a ton of water after drinking too much alcohol

Apr 27 at 19:37, by Sarov

@lila So you can still get a hangover, just a lesser one, if you stay fully hydrated? Huh.

good advice + socratic-level question, that are almost uncanny in this context of you talking about beer and headache; almost as if these two messages subtly announced your arrival following 1 month and 1 day later!

pets.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/25345

^ link gives you 100% progress for brown-colored circle-shaped medal, 0.4% progress for grey-colored circle-shaped medal, and 0.1% progress for urine-colored circle-shaped medal.

@Nai45 I think it depends on the context; "pushing" that is done to "game" the system to give someone unfair advantage is definitely illegal; however, let's say that you see a person who has 991 reputation and you just happened to upv*te their post and thus give them edit privileges: was it "pushing"? If another person before me that upvoted their post before didn't do so, my upvote would move them from 981 to 991 and not grant any privileges. What then?

@Nai45 I think in such a case, the "responsibility" diffuses between a large and uncoordinated group of people, who used the system as intended after all, so it is not illegal. Another example: Let's say that I am on smaller beta site, and use the bounty functionality as intended, and give a big bounty; on small beta site, if the person receiving has less-than-high reputation, the bounty is guaranteed to "push" them above some privilege threshold. ...

@Nai45 ... I am fully aware of this because I am aware how reputation system works; I could even have calculated in my head that certain threshold will be passed and what privileges will be earned: does the conscious awareness about this classify this as illegal "pushing", or not?

@Nai45 Let's also say that an user has about 3300 reputation. Then, user receives bounties that move them beyond 4000 and grant them certain tools. The person awarding bounties is the first to be seen as "pusher", but in fact did only in about 18% account for the current state of privileges for that user; the 82% was done before by unspecified group ...

@Nai45 ... of unspecified people (and the group might also include the "pusher" and their actions, but for sake of simplicity let's assume that not). Question: is there a pusher, who is the pusher, is the pusher abusing the system or not?

lila

23:39

My general question is: if I am awarding bounties to different people, and primarily aim to reward content in answers, then should I be also taking certain privilege thresholds in their respective contexts into account? It is quite easy for me to see a number and instantly know how many points need to be added to that number to cross the threshold of privilege X. Does the acknowledgement of the fact that my bounty, as a side effect, will push someone to give them tools, make me a pusher?

Does the intense contemplation of the numbers make me more culpable of "pushing" than a mere acknowledgement? If the accessible evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the act of bountying was not coordinated by an organized group of people, should I still contact the lawyer and prepare for potential charges of reputation laundering?

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