QualifiedKitten

Oh wow! That’s awesome! I wonder if I’ll see another upgrade soon too? I have a similar setup going too. Seed box for active torrents and other recently acquired files, and then anything I want to keep long term eventually gets moved to my local server.

I had tried a VPN + kill switch before getting a seed box, but it failed on me a few times. Plus, I was in school at the time, spending very little time at home, and my ISP increased their rates AGAIN, so I just cancelled my home internet. Trying to torrent through my laptop on public WiFi was a pain, but with a seed box it was way easier, and just needed to download the files to my laptop if I wanted to watch at home, which was also never a problem on public WiFi.

Also using whatbox.ca for a long time now. I remember quite a few years ago I received an email notification about them making changes to my plan, and I panicked for a moment until I finished reading and realized they were increasing my storage by 5x and my traffic limit by 2x, but my monthly price would remain the same.

I believe the logic is that dry food is better for their dental health, because the firm texture is better at scraping away plaque, although there’s definitely disagreement on that, and there are other ways to address dental health.
The argument for wet food is that it does a much better job at keeping them hydrated, which is important for a number of bodily functions, including urinary health. Studies say that while cats fed primarily dry food likely drink more water, their total fluid intake is still lower and they’re often still chronically dehydrated (which is also not good for dental health). Moistening kibble can help, but it’s still not as effective as wet food for ensuring your cats are well hydrated.

My oldest strongly prefers kibble, but after his urine test at his 1 year check up indicated early signs of urinary troubles, the vet said to either switch him to 100% wet or to a prescription kibble. It took some trial and error, but he’s on 100% wet now, and only gets crunchies as treats. His urine tests have been great, and the vet also said his teeth look good.

To add to your coments about calorie content of foods, in the realm of wet foods, pates tend to have the most calories per ounce, while “extra gravy” foods often have the fewest calories per ounce, since the “gravy” is mostly water.
I’m sure there’s some exceptions to this, but I’ve spent a lot of time creating a spreadsheet comparing foods on a variety of aspects in an effort to find the most affordable foods that work for both of my cats’ needs & preferences. If in doubt, the cans should list both kcal/ can and kcal by weight.

How many cats do you have? Are they overweight? Can you provide more details about your specific situation?

If you have cats vomiting due to eating too much too fast, maybe try slow feeders? There’s also microchip feeders available so that your slower eaters can come back on their own schedule, and it’s more difficult (but not impossible) for other cats to steal their food. And finally, there’s automatic feeders that will dispense food on a schedule. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything that combines even two of these into a single product.

In my case, I have 2 resident cats, and frequently foster. My Tabby is a slender grazer, and although he prefers kibble, the vet said he needs to either eat wet food or prescription kibble (urinary). My Void LOVES food and will devour almost anything, and would gladly be a total potato if he could.
I use a microchip feeder for Tabby, and feed him twice per day, leaving the food out for about 2 hours at a time, which seems to be enough time for him to eat enough to maintain his weight. Void currently eats from a basic/standard bowl. He also eats twice per day, and usually finishes his food in less than 5 minutes, but has only vomited when there was an urgent medical condition, so I haven’t actually tried a slow feeder for him yet.

Only the AI generated ones.

Probably not a very practical answer, but I moved to a city known for being full of tech bros, then went to a bunch of general interest meetups organized mostly by tech bros, where I made friends with tech bros, and one of them randomly offered me an invite.

TL;DR: Great to have if you’re looking for less popular content, high quality files, and/or are concerned about copyright notices, but the rules that keep the niche content alive make them less appealing for super popular content.
I randomly made friends IRL about a year ago and got an invite to BTN & PTP. I don’t watch/download a lot of movies, so my account at PTP has lapsed, but I’ve kept my account with BTN.
From my recent searches, BTN tends to have higher quality files and more seeders than public trackers, but since a) I have a seed box, which provides a line of defense against copyright notices, and is only strengthened my my *aars (gets me in & out of the swarm before the studios find it), b) I usually can’t tell the difference in quality from the devices I’m using (and my friends/family most definitely don’t notice/care), c) seed ratio or time doesn’t impact access to public trackers, and d) I prefer to keep public torrents alive, I usually lean towards public trackers, and only use the private trackers for things that are harder to find and/or things I want in high quality.
I still try to seed to a minimum ratio of 3.0 on popular files (public or private), and ∞ for more niche files, but sometimes demand is so low, and I need to move files off of my seed box. While a ratio below 1.0 makes me feel “stuck” no matter where I got the file from, private tracker rules definitely amplify that feeling.

TIL that I’m a man.

Looks like Sonarr grabbed it for me from a private tracker about 5 hours ago. I’m sure it will hit public trackers later today, if it hasn’t already.

I think many people may view those sort of costs differently than the monthly subscription costs of Netflix, etc. Hardware is generally seen as a “one time” cost, and the added electricity costs are difficult to tease out from all the other variable electricity costs.
My personal argument is that I pay a monthly subscription ($15/mo) for a seed box, which is roughly the same cost as subscribing to a single streaming service.
Back before the password sharing crackdown, I had access to my parents’ Netflix account, and every once in a while, I’d try it out, but I’d always quickly get annoyed and would finish watching whatever I was watching via my Plex server.

I don’t have any experience with Usenet or any current DDL sources. I generally check public trackers first, then private trackers, and mostly use private trackers when I can’t find something on public trackers.
My selfish reasoning is that with public trackers, I don’t have to worry about my seed ratio, etc. I generally seed to a 3.0 ratio, and I do have some older/more niche stuff set to infinity, but when I need to clear some space in my seed box, it’s nice to be able to delete stuff without worrying I’ll be penalized.
From a less selfish perspective, if it exists in decent quality on public trackers, I’d rather contribute to keeping it alive there, where more people can access it.

Depends on how thick/firm they are. My bed currently has 2 thin/soft pillows that sit between my head and the wall, plus one extra firm pillow between my head and the mattress.

If you live somewhere where the 2 day shipping actually gets to you in 2 days, you live close enough to a brick and mortar store where you can get whatever you need even faster.

I’m always looking for ways to avoid Amazon, and if I had a car, this might be true, but because I live in the downtown core where parking is extremely expensive and transit covers most of my needs, I don’t have a car, although a significant portion of the retail stores near me have shut down in the past few years. So, if I want to buy things from a brick and mortar store that’s not a grocery store or random boutique, I have to spend 45+ minutes each way on a bus to the stores in the suburbs. And since I’m on public transit, picking up bulky items, heavy items, or a large quantity of items is not very practical. A large selection of Amazon’s items are available to me via same day or next day shipping (and they show up on time ~97% of the time), so they actually do get to me faster than figuring out how to get the same items from a brick and mortar store. I have most definitely wasted 2 days running around to various stores only to return empty handed, and eventually order it from Amazon anyway.

I’d be hesitant to buy anything of the sort off Amazon due to the higher possiblity of fake products. I checked target.com, and I think this is the blue gel, but there’s a handful of reviewers noting burns also.
https://www.target.com/p/old-spice-wild-collection-bearglove-deodorant-3oz/-/A-14898298#lnk=sametab

I’m a millennial, and I will abandon my basket 99% of the time when there’s not a staffed cashier lane available, especially if I’m trying to buy more than 2 items.

I actually tried to use the self-checkout at the airport recently when I was buying a single bottle of water, and the cashier jumped in almost immediately to assist anyway. I forget exactly what happened, but it was definitely overly complicated compared to the staffed checkout that I used at the same shop the previous time I flew through that airport.

Yup. Use an instance that makes that data visible, such as kbin. It takes a few clicks, but it’s there for anyone to see.

I let my cats sniff almost everything, and they usually walk away. For example, today I let them sniff some both raw chicken that I was preparing for my own dinner, and both gave it a few good sniffs before walking away. Most recently, I discovered that my youngest enjoys peanut butter! I believe it was the same cat who has also tried to eat my dried mango on multiple occasions. It was either my oldest or a friend’s cat who repeatedly took me up on the offer of banana chips.

I’ve never actually tested that out. If it’s content I want long term, I simply download it to my local storage before deleting from Whatbox.

What I’ve found works best for me when using public trackers for new content is to set up a max seeding ratio and whatever relevant *arrs. Doing it that way means that I’ve usually been able to download the content and stop seeding before the swarm is discovered/monitored by those sending the notices.

I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ve been using Whatbox for many years without any issues. I’m based in the US and have it set up to autocharge the same card that I use for everything else. I do not use a VPN or anything else to access Whatbox.

I have received plenty of DMCA notices from Whatbox over the years, and they just require you to delete the offending content within 24 hours or your account will be locked until you do.

In fact, I vaguely recall them increasing my storage allowance a few years ago without raising my rate, so that was pretty cool.