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_> It is this gap that Oliver Soden proceeds to plug in his delightful ‘biography’ of Jeoffry. Soden decides that Jeoffry is rust-coloured. He starts him off in a Covent Garden brothel, where he spends his kitten days chasing used condoms across the floor, avoiding piss pots and wondering at the meaty smells emanating from the bed under which he crouches while his mistress, Nancy Burroughs, doggedly transacts her business._
TIL I learned 18th century condoms were a common thing [1]:
_> The condom market grew rapidly, however. 18th-century condoms were available in a variety of qualities and sizes, made from either linen treated with chemicals, or "skin" (bladder or intestine softened by treatment with sulphur and lye). They were sold at pubs, barbershops, chemist shops, open-air markets, and at the theater throughout Europe and Russia. The first recorded inspection of condom quality is found in the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova (which cover his life until 1774): to test for holes, he would often blow them up before use._
Or not? Interesting contradiction here. They basically used the same thing they used for sausage casing so why was it so expensive?
_> Up to the 19th century, condoms were generally used only by the middle and upper classes. Perhaps more importantly, condoms were unaffordable for many: for a typical prostitute, a single condom might cost several months' pay._
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_condoms#18th_centur...
Sausages may have also been unaffordable for a typical prostitute, even with a free condom with every link.
It sounds like condoms were made from younger animals (lambs), and treated with lye to make them thinner. Maybe that made for a low yield? Offtopic, how about a condom with a mercury derivative coating?
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/wp-content/uploads...
Siobhan Carroll's "For He Can Creep" <
https://www.tor.com/2019/07/10/for-he-can-creep-siobhan-carr...
adapts the same story and was nominated for the 2019 Hugos in Best Novelette, but didn't win. It's a fantasy where Jeoffrey has to drive away Satan himself in order to save his poet.
Our first Maine Coon was called Jeoffry, a big old lovable six-dinner-Sid of a cat who had several homes down the street, but always came back to us at the end of the day. He would definitely arise and do his morning orisons.
His spiritual successors arrived last weekend (nearly two years after our other Maine Bentham, The Cat Of Marginal Utility died at 18), a pair of calico Maine kittens, sisters who are currently asleep beside me.
They are going to be big...
Cats elicit an irrational response from me. My cat hates me when she's not hungry, and loves me when she is hungry, but I love her in either case for her honesty. She's one of the most honest beings I have in my life. It's irrational, I know, but I love my cat. She's honest about her intentions, and I appreciate that. I can count on her love when it 7pm and it 's time to fill her bowl with cat food. That's more love than I can expect from any human on any given day, and it's completely predictable.
My cat will be the sweetest most delightful creature imaginable for hours then, for no reason whatsoever, turn round and attack me then run around our house like a demented hell creature for 15 minutes before repeating the whole process.
I absolutely adore him!
Correlate that his hunger, and you'll understand him. There's inalienable truth to cats. They don't know how to lie.
Naw, that's just typical cat behavior when they get excited. I had a cat for 17 years that was always free fed. He was entirely unmotivated by food. Didn't even like cat treats. He still did this up until the last couple years where he slowed down.
I could imagine that this has to do with the cat being able to get out.
I had many cats for decades, and only the "stay at home cats" showed that behavior.
Nope, my guy would go outside every day, typically for a couple hours at least.
No - its not related to food. Can happen at _any_ time.
My cat gets wet food only once a day, and she looks forward to it like you wouldn't believe. Cats are creatures of habit in general. If a cat is used to a certain routine, it takes quite a bit of effort to shake that. Relocate their food, and they'll have to go seriously hungry and uncomfortable before they get used to eating from a "new" bowl again. This actually led me to rethink some of my own behavior. Humans are more of "creatures of habit" than they realize. Whatever conforms to their habits comes to them much more easily than things that don't. But humans are too self-absorbed to see it.
Our cat is so good at telling time (I'd say he can judge when it is 17:00 with 15 minute accuracy) that I did wonder for a bit if he could read the rather large clock we have in our kitchen ;-)
It's just time-of-day I think. They don't get DST or anything like that.
when they gotta poop prob, or morning and dusk?
that sounds like an invitation for a serious play to discharge some accumulated energy. My cat wouldn't attack me, yet he would noticeably periodically need a "rough" play time. I'd stick my hand into 2-3 hoses of the thick training pants (the result being kind of a stretched out - the cat naturally liked to work all his legs simultaneously - boxer glove) and that would be an "enemy" that the cat would fight with using all his claws and teeth.
For my cat it's the other way around.
When she's hungry the only thing she wants is me to get up and feed her. No affection, just screaming.
When I was away for some time, she always wants to cuddle when I'm back.
I'm here to complain about the utterly annoying 'redeem your shit' hovering diff that obscures the main page.
If you are in anyway responsible for doing this to other people, please, take a bit of time and go fuck yourself.
"_Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful._"
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Initially I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of annoying popups, flashy design and cookie policy whack-a-molery. I managed to read a couple of sentences before the page dimmed and a "subscribe to our free newsletter" box slowly faded in...
I kinda miss the 90s/early-2000s, when I'd only have to insta-close browser windows with shock images, malicious popdowns and "You Are An Idiot!" looping WAVs.
I keep this "Kill sticky" bookmarklet in Favorites for hotkey activation
https://github.com/t-mart/kill-sticky
and hit it immediately when a page shows a modal, or to delete a fixed header that is making paging with the space bar suck. Worked perfect on this page.
There's always extensions for killing those modals like AlwaysKillSticky: