I totally agree with your criticism about the headline, but declaring octopuses have consciousness isn't a stretch at all in my opinion.

I highly recommend reading my blog post on animal cognition, culture, and personhood.

I have ads turned off and do not benefit in any way from my blog. I feel confident that my write-up should persuade open-minded individuals to give other animals the benefit of the doubt regarding possessing consciousness.

I have doubts about insect consciousness is any sort of relatable sense to humans, but many other animals absolutely possess consciousness similar to humans.

Nice Cage and John Travolta in Face Off.

My German Shepherd knows the names of about 10 different toys. I can tell him "go get the cactus/pineapple/red bone/donut/basketball/blue ball (his favorite)/etc." and he'll even drop what's in his mouth to get the right toy.

I can ask him: "Where is [person]/[toy]?" and he'll run all over the house, upstairs and downstairs, to find them. He loves hide and seek.

People underestimate the intelligence of dogs and animals in general.

Edit: Here's a writeup on animal intelligence, cognition, and culture. (I have ads turned off and do not benefit in any way from my blog.)

Edit 2: My current dog hasn't mastered the open-ended question yet, but my previous GSD understood the question "What do you want?" I train them by asking it, and then presenting them with options I name (e.g., to play, go out, a walk, treat, water, etc.).

Sometimes I'd ask, and my dog would lead me to an empty water bowl. Sometimes he would go grab a toy. Other times he was bored and indecisive, and would test things like going up to his treats. Sometimes I would say "No.. you don't need them..." And he'd do a little amused wag before leading me to something else. I really miss him..

But it would blow people's minds to see that he was capable of comprehending that question and understood so many options. Dogs are smart as hell and we literally coevolved with them and domesticated them from wolves. They understand human body language far better than any other species, including great apes. Dogs are incredible.

The terpenes used in vape carts to dilute and reintroduce flavor and aroma (which is lost in some extraction methods) also produces harmful byproducts when vaped. [1]

Should straight up avoid any flavored vape juices.

Some of the food-safe diluent agents used in vape products may be harmful when aerosolized and inhaled, as they were never actually studied under those conditions.

[Cannabis] extracts are not diluted in propylene glycol or glycerol like nicotine due to their hydrophobic properties. Instead, various forms of oils including vegetable oils, terpenes, and tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E acetate) have been reported as diluents. In most reported cases of EVALI, additional flavoring additives are also added to products.

Although many of these diluent agents and flavorings have been “generally recognized as safe” for oral ingestion by the FDA, recent research shows that when heated to form an aerosol and inhaled, conditions including bronchitis, bronchiolitis, acute hypoxic respiratory distress, lipoid-associated pneumonia, and pneumonitis may result. [2]

There's poor regulation when it comes to a lot of the products out there, especially those sold in gas stations and smoke shops (but also can be an issue in dispensaries).

Another problem with vape pens and e-cigs is the cheap atomizers/coils used, especially in disposables. There have been confirmed cases of these coils/atomizers leeching heavy metals into the vapor produced.[3]

This is such a new and under-studied area I personally find it's not worth risking it vaping concentrates. I'll stick with my dry herb vaping with my Volcano and Mighty+, which are actually certified medical devices. [4]

Yeah, I came here looking for crushed uncooked Ramen noodle lazy, dammit!..

What an awesome set of examples. Thanks for sharing.

I was just thinking I want a list of russia's senior officers with the dead scratched out for visual representation. Their losses are insane..

I was just thinking about the Iraqi Most Wanted playing cards given to US troops, and that if there was one for russia, I feel like half the deck would be dead officers by now.

I was about a story and a half high in a magnolia tree when I was about 10, and I had walked out on one branch, holding a smaller branch for balance.

I didn't realize the one I was standing on was dead, and it snapped at the trunk.. The small branch I was holding wasn't enough to hold my weight, and it snapped too.

The branch I was standing on bounced off the springy ground that was many years worth of shedded leaves, and it hit me in the lower back just before I was about to land on the ground.

It caused a minor fracture in a vertebrate, and caused me a lot of pain at the time, but I didn't complain because I didn't want to be "a little girl" (I had two unforgiving older brothers). When I was in 8th grade, I had my first back ache and had x-rays which found the childhood fracture which mishealed due to not being treated.

It still causes me a lot of trouble whenever I'm bent over for long or if I have a back ache.

Both of my hands have some scar tissue which gives me some trouble about 1/11 of the times I do a pinching/clamp kind of grip. Those injuries were from sticking my hands in a dog's mouth to pry his mouth off of my dog's throat last year. At first, all my might wasn't enough, and he chomped the fuck out of my hands.

Then my adrenaline kicked in and I pried his mouth open like it was nothing. I then kind of suplexed and wrestled the dog so mine could be taken to safety. I don't regret it one bit, but it was definitely a stupid thing to do.. but I can still play the piano just fine!

I also came dangerously close to losing an eye from a tooth or nail. It happened so fast I'm not sure what did it. Here are some pictures.

Given that the painting is protected by glass, I don't really mind this protest. But I do hate when people destroy historical pieces in protest or like some stupid tourists have done in places like Italy.

I just want cruelty-free lab-grown meat... That would also eliminate the environmental impact of CAFOS/factory farms.

Steam and Netflix are the sole reasons I stopped pirating as a teenager/young adult.

I canceled Netflix long ago at this point and have been on the brink of going back to pirating films/TV. Too many streaming services.. it's just like TV packages before Netflix disrupted the model.

This really irks me, because it applies to subs related to weed or other non-sexual content, including some games. I've also been hit with the same prompt to open the official app for subreddits that are "under review" or new.

I only go to reddit from search engine queries to get answers for a topic.

I just posted on reddit for the first time since the API disaster to get support for the watchmaker app (that is the dev's official source for support).

I noticed a weird glitch happening to me (mobile site on Firefox) in which if I edit a comment, it loses all formatting. Like, every space between 'paragraphs' dissappears, and so did the block quotes. It just put ">" in with the jumbled up mess...