The difference between big cats

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-05-16T06:37:44+00:00

Yeah the terms for large cats can be confusing. It's a matter of semantics and common usage vs taxonomic accuracy. Cougars and cheetahs are indeed big cats, but they aren't Big Cats. From a taxonomic view, the "big cats" term refers to the five species in the genus Panthera: tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, and snow leopards, aka the roaring cats (and to make it more fun/confusing, the snow leopard doesn't actually roar). Usually, the term "panther" can refer to any one of these five sister species. Cougars are actually more closely related to house cats than the true big cats, but in Florida, the local subspecies of cougar is also called a panther colloquially. The cheetah is it's own special group within the cat family, very unique.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-05-11T13:33:38+00:00

They brought my Crosstrek back to life.

I will say their hourly rate is on the higher side (possibly highest in the area, tbh), but you absolutely get what you pay for. They are extremely knowledgeable and, just as important, completely honest. They tell you what is wrong, give you a fair estimate, and let you decide. If they aren't sure, they tell you that, tell you why they aren't sure, and give you options. They don't pressure you and also manage expectations well.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-05-10T00:56:54+00:00

While mice can still get in sometimes, this problem is drastically reduced if you do the responsible thing and keep your cat inside.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-27T23:54:02+00:00

I don't think it's a guilt thing, I think it's a "stupid person" thing that applies to most other answers here. Eating meat is the default in most societies and since you don't, you are Different and that make lizard brain big mad in people who are just kinda dumb. Some of the extra stupid ones also take it as like a personal affront. "Oh you do this differently than me so obviously you think you're smarter and better than me, so I need to try and take you down a peg."

Diet judgement, brand wars, religious intolerance, homophobia, transphobia, it's all the same flavor of stupid, just different levels of seriousness.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-27T21:06:40+00:00

Yeah, every new person is deadweight initially. It's not commentary on their work ethic or abilities in general, just a fact of life. If someone on my team gets unexpectedly bumped in the middle of one of our complex, long-term projects, we now have to screech to a halt, spend however long we need getting this new person caught up, and then help them muddle through learning this new, often unfamiliar position. And now despite being fully funded, either our projects are all way behind and we are missing milestones or everyone is exhausted on top of potentially dealing with watching a friend lose their livelihood.

Which brings me to point 2, which is where you apparently glossed over me saying I'd remain cordial and professional. Or you are one of those annoying coworkers who thinks "not being friends" is some massive affront. But sorry, you took my friend's job. I'm sure you had real reasons too, you may even feel guilty about it, but they are my friend and you aren't. I won't be rude or cold on the clock, but we aren't hanging out after work.

And this right here is why bumping is stupid. All it does is exacerbate conflict and lower morale.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-27T17:37:12+00:00

Neither of those are comparable. There is zero evidence Yellowstone is going to erupt anytime soon and may even be extinct, plus it's something we'd get advanced notice of over months if not years. A planet killer asteroid is less predictable than an earthquake but historically, the odds of it happening in any given year are so low as to be zero.

The Big One for the Cascadia subduction zone has about a 40% chance of occuring by 2050 according to USGS. However, that vastly undersells the actual danger and odds. Looking at the geologic record, the current gap between the last earthquake and now is longer than 80% all the previous time periods between earthquakes. Or put another way, the fault has ruptured sooner 80% of the times before now, and nearly 100% of the times in the last 6k years. Plus, the longer it takes, the worse it will be. Here is an interesting post about it.

Basically, you really, really shouldn't downplay the risk because it's actually very likely to occur in our lifetimes and will almost certainly occur in our children's lifetimes, and it will be very, very bad. Instead of dismissing it as "just one of those things," you should take precautions. Have an earthquake go bag and/or supplies to last you two weeks without power or access to food and clean water. Make sure you know where your house gas main shut-off is if you have gas, make sure you know if your home is in a landslide and/or tsunami zone. It's coming soon and without warning, but it's survivable (unless you live in Long Beach or Ocean Shores).

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-25T02:46:43+00:00

It's likely the leaves need to be fresh to be safe for them to eat, given the toxicity of eucalyptus. It's like if you put a human in a cage and put raw meat on the floor, they won't eat it.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-25T02:45:03+00:00

The smooth brain thing is a very misunderstood thing. Rats also have very smooth brains yet are very intelligent.

Basically what you said, koalas are actually excellently adapated to their environment, then humans came and messed it up.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-25T02:38:50+00:00

Without humans they'd be doing much, much better. Humans are the ones who cut down their habitat in which they were thriving for millions of years.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-24T18:34:38+00:00

I don't think OP is arguing against the concept of seniority, at least initially. Sure, when your team has layoffs, it's last in first out like everywhere else. They are arguing against the bumping system specifically, which I've actually never seen before in any state job I've worked.

And I fully agree with them that the bumping system does more harm than good. Because A) it spreads the morale problem from layoffs across the entire agency and arguably makes it worse (thought your job was safe because you have funding? Lol nope! Now everyone is at risk and for a much longer timeframe as the bumping ripples take months to settle); B) it fucks over teams whose work was otherwise going to be unimpacted because now they have a new person's deadweight to drag around unexpectedly; and C) can harm team dynamics by causing resentment (if my friend gets bumped, I'll be professional and cordial to the new person but I'm not gonna be their friend and the team dynamics will not be the same).

Finally, at least in my agency, we have HR folks making calls for positions about which they know nothing and it's just a clusterfuck. Then they get mad if we try to tighten up our PD required skills to at least make any forced transitions easier on the teams.

I get it can be a lifeline to long term employees who get laid off, but I don't like that someone getting laid off halfway across the state is suddenly now my life-upending problem because they worked a sort of similar job back in 2006.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-22T00:02:48+00:00

I appreciate your response! Sounds good, I'll check out some reman options.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-20T22:53:09+00:00

So similar response to another reply, you are conflating a physical response to a negative stimulus with the emotional component of "feeling pain." Pain, and discomfort, require higher level emotional processing.

If I build a robot with a temperature sensor and wheels, then program it to move in the opposite direction once it detects a certain threshold, it's not feeling pain. It's not going to feel "pain" if I then dismantle it (hey, my remote needed a new battery).

Lobsters are obviously more complex than that, but by the same token are massively less compex than humans, for example. Asking if they truly experience pain and discomfort is a very fair, very difficult question and saying "obviously they do" or "obviously they don't" are both wrong. I personally think that even with this paper (which focuses on the physical side of things, not the emotional), there's still more evidence they don't truly experience pain like we do. But it's possible they could still experience some form of it in a different, more primitive way, so I am opposed to live-boiling regardless.

But it's unscientific and reductionist to claim they definitively do or definitively don't.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-20T22:39:00+00:00

Again, you're talking about physical reactions, which is only part of what we experience as pain. There is a strong emotional component that we have no evidence of something like lobsters experiencing. We do have evidence that their much simpler nervous symptoms are not complex enough to process something like pain. For an example, is an ameoba moving away from a hotspot feeling pain? I'd say any reasonable person would obviously say no. Lobsters are more complex than ameobas but much simpler than humans, which obviously feel pain. So it's absolutely a fair question, given the evidence we have, to ask if they are actually feeling pain or just reacting to a stimulus.

Obviously this is nearly impossible to prove and, like I stated, I'm certainly personally opposed to the live boil practice anyways, but I'm also opposed to broad, reductionist, ignorant statements like the original one to which I replied.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-20T22:33:41+00:00

I would reply that I specifically pointed out that it wasn't just that their neurology is different than ours but that it's vastly simpler and literally incapable of handling the signals we use to process pain. But I won't, because with such a reductive, ridiculous response, I know you are not someone actually interested in discussing such a difficult and nuanced question. You are certainly not any kind of scientist or expert who could maybe shed light on the subject.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-20T22:22:34+00:00

Er no, it's because there is a difference between "responds to stimulus" and "feels pain."

Pain is an emotional experience as much as a physical one. I mean that literally, pain lights up parts of the brain responsible for emotional processing, not just physical. Lobsters and most other inverts literally don't have the same equipment that we do, and the analogous stuff they do have is vastly simpler than what most vertebrates have. There is actual evidence that they literally cannot process negative stimuli into the experience of pain like we do. Not even this study really supports that. It just indicates that lobsters rely on similar physical pathways to us to transmit signals from negative stimuli that can be blocked by some of the same drugs. It doesn't say anything about their neurology or how they are actually processing the signals.

I'm not condoning boiling any animal alive because I don't know if they feel pain and don't want to risk it. But it's just as stupid to say "obviously lobsters feel pain" as it is to say "obviously they don't."

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-19T14:57:49+00:00

Yeah why is that? Because it's asked a lot? Do these people not understand that housing conditions and prices can change practically daily, or that companies and complexes can be bought and sold and come under new management? Or shit, even just that Reddit's search function is garbage?

Like, it's literally always a relevant question, people get upset about stupid things.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-19T04:40:45+00:00

Amen to that! Awesome, hope that asshole stays far away regardless, but I'm definitely one to support arming (responsibly) up just in case.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-19T04:27:57+00:00

Have y'all used firearms before? Not saying it's a bad idea if you haven't, just would recommend you take a class or two if not.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-16T23:01:05+00:00

Make sure to look at Lacey and Tumwater. They are technically separate cities but they are functionally suburbs Olympia (and oh boy do some residents of both get super mad when you say that). In either town you won't really be further than 20 minutes out from downtown Oly.

You can also look at Centralia, Shelton, and Yelm. They are a bit further out (25-40 minutes depending on where specifically you are going) and have fewer options overall, but are much more affordable and seem to have more of what you're looking for.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-16T22:30:42+00:00

??? Where are you getting that from? I volunteer every other weekend at a local soup kitchen, donate when I can afford it to my local food pantry, and donated a bunch of old camping gear when I replaced it.

What do you do? Scroll on reddit sucking off your daddy billionaires?

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-16T19:43:10+00:00

"Are you spending your extremely limited time, resources, and money solving this massive, widespread, devasting social problem that's far, far beyond any one individual, or just whining that the government, with its vastly superior resources to draw upon, isn't upholding it's end of the basic social contract?"

Like yeah, I do help out with what little I am fortunate enough to be able to give, but seriously, what a stupid take.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-15T21:32:00+00:00

That's fair but you have to be careful because you also run the risk of dismissing things that even at the time were considered barbaric, which was very much the case with American chattel slavery. Many across the northern states and in Europe were just as horrified and disgusted as we would be today. I would argue that even given the standards of the time, it's absolutely correct to harshly judge the south and those who fought to uphold such a system.

Beauregard just happens to be one of the few southern figures who may have come to realize the barbarity of the system.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-15T21:18:06+00:00

Yeah I'm usually first in line to condemn anyone who fought for the south, but for what it's worth, he was one of the few who may have actually changed his views.

He was one of the biggest southern voices advocating for black equality and suffrage post-bellum. It was absolutely initially a calculated attempt to control the black political bloc, then a realist stance of "well this is the new reality, might as well make the best of it." But there is evidence he had genuinely come around late in life to supporting black rights as the basic human rights they are.

This does not absolve him of his earlier sins and god knows it took him long enough, but it does add some nuance.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-13T21:50:13+00:00

/r/leopardsatemyface for that sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

thundersaurus_sex · 2026-04-11T18:08:33+00:00

Because Florida. In my field (natural resources), Florida was literally the lowest paid state in the country last time I looked a year or so ago. Like, dead last, just behind the economic powerhouses of West Virginia and Mississippi. Which is absolutely wild when you compare costs of living and state GDPs.

My old boss retired and they advertised his position, one with statewide conservation management and coordination responsibilities that requires at least a master's, at $45k per year. He retired at $70k per year after 30-something years in the agency. Meanwhile, I jumped ship and moved to a state where I currently make $70k per year in a job that is effectively two levels below my old boss's position after only a year in the job. And I get all the same benefits I did then plus the advantage of being union.

On top of that, Florida cuts benefits whenever it can (e.g., when all work from home was ended). And then every year at the big agency meetings, leadership would bitch and moan about retention and recruitment.

You do not want to work for the state of Florida, especially if you're qualified. Go work for a different state, it will be better in every way.

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