DrownedRats

I live in a country where smoking has generally been on the decline for a while now but even still I see thousands of cigarette butts in just about any public place. They litter the sides of the road, bus shelters, alleyways, outside clubs, bars and pubs, public toilets, park benches and just about everywhere else. Its even extending to disposable vapes now as well.

For the most part, where I live doesn't have that much of other kinds of litter about and is generally clean. And most public bins and all smoking areas have ashtrays and dedicated cigarette bins so it wouldn't be hard to dispose of them properly like any other piece of rubbish and even then there's often cigarette butts within sight of the bins and ashtrays.

Why then do people have a completely different approach for cigarettes?

How do these companies come to that conclusion? I think most people start to smell after only 24 or 48 hours max so how do these companies get 72 hours out of their testing?

Im assuming they're fudging their numbers but at what point does it become false advertisement?

My cats a senior cat who's always seemed to take issue with other cats, particularly in his house.

However, I've found out recently that there's another neighbourhood cat that's been snooping around and stealing his leftover food that he hasn't finished.

I was sitting around on my off day with my cat on the other side of the room when this Siamese cat saunters and makes eye contact with him. I get up assuming this cat is about to antagonise my cat and the Siamese just bolts. I go after it to see that it leaves and once it scarpers out the window I go back downstairs to my cat who hasn't even moved lol.

All of a sudden I feel like maybe ive just chased off one of his mates and feel just a little bad over it lol but I'm really not sure what to think now.

My cat is quite elderly so some part of me thinks he's just intimidated and no longer bothered with defending his territory but then neither of then seemed that bothered by the interaction at the time.

My cat hasn't had any injuries from this cat but I still can't be sure they're not fighting.

Just kind of at a loss at this point lol. Any advice?

Cheers!

My cat BTW! Haven't got a PIC of the Siamese yet. First time I saw him today!

I'm looking to change my reading and buying habits away from Amazon and need an alternate source for my ebooks. Where can I buy ebooks that won't expire or have their licence revoked and will allow me to download a copy of that ebook I can store on my own system regardless of the websites status?

My PC is getting on a little, it's running on an i7-4790k, 16gb ddr4, and a GTX 970. right now, it's struggling some in most games even though I don't play any triple A titles. What would be a sensible upgrade that wouldn't get totally bottlenecked by the CPU?

In most games I'm playing the CPU is pinned at around 25% while my card is maxed at 100% 3d and vmem usage so I'm fairly sure it's just my card that's the main limiting factor.

With the discussion of whether assisted dying should be allowed in Scotland befing brought up again, I was wondering what other people thought of the topic.

Do you think people should be allowed to choose when to end their own life?

What laws need to be put into place to prevent abuses in the system?

How do we account for people changing their mind or mental decline causing people to no longer be able to consent to a procedure they previously requested?

I know absolutely nothing about going to the gym or working out and I need some help choosing some actual good quality sports wear.

The clothes I currently have don't seem suitable at all for exercise in that theyre not particularly flexible, breathable or lightweight.

I'm mainly looking to lose weight and improve cardio fitness as I haven't done proper exercise in a very long time.

My priorities are durability, longevity and breathability. I'm not bothered about fashion brands unless they can do all three of the above and I don't mind spending a little more money to get something thats good quality.

I'm in the UK but if you can point me towards the good stuff, even if it's not available in the UK, it'll help me pick similar stuff!

Thanks very much for any help in advance!

Cheers!

I want to be able to support the causes I believe in and actually be a part of the change I want to see but I was never taught how to find, join and work with these groups.

I see all the time about protests and community action and people actually going out and helping people who need help and support and I always hated the fact that I only know about it happening after the fact and I want to get involved!

Any help would be much appreciated!

Ive had a couple pairs of walking boots in the past and none of them have survived more than 6-8 3 day hikes and I'm sick of replacing them. What are some points to look for in good walking boots, where should I look to buy them from in the UK, how much should I look to be spending as a rough guide?

Cheers!

Hi! I previously had windows installed on an intel RST raid 0 disk and I'd like to switch it to Linux mint instead. However, from what I've found, rst isnt compatible with Linux mint as it's specifically a windows thing.

I'd like to install Linux mint directly onto the raid array and I don't mind erasing windows and starting from scratch, but I can't seem to find a comprehensive or comprehensible guide on how to do that.

Any help on where to start would be very much appreciated!

Cheers!

I need some help when it comes to clearing out, organising and sorting my stuff.

My house is basically full of stuff and things right now and I really don't think it's helping me out with my health (mental or physical)

I mostly suffer with getting hopelessly distracted, mess blindness, never wanting to get started, and getting overwhelmed with the scope of the task.

One of the reasons I want to get tidied up is because my main hobbies (electronics, drones, and DIY) mean that I've got tons of stuff I need to keep around, but it's also lots of small stuff with lots of different categories and storage requirements so it's really not easy to sort without needing tons of boxes or bins so I still haven't been able to find a good way to store it.

I also don't have much out-of-sight storage in my flat so it's kind of everywhere.

Any tips on storing and sorting would be massively appreciated especially from people who have been through this already and have/are working towards getting clean!

Thanks!

Thoughts on creating a Spellcaster that uses hit points for spell casting instead of spell slots.

I was just wondering about home-brewing a walock NPC who's patron saps hitpoints in exchange for spell casting. Essentially, as long as the character has hitpoints they can cast as many spells as they like but with each one it takes a toll.

Balance is obviously an issue here in preventing them from just being healed by the party and used as a spell battery in exchange for healing but Im thinking perhaps balancing that out by making con saves to prevent them from passing out from blood loss or something from wounds appearing on their body as till for the spells. Aswell as that, spells would have different hit point costs that scale with levels like a first level costing 5, 2nd 10 and so on.

Backstory and lore could be pretty interesting as to how they received their patronage, why they took such a harmful deal, they could be good or evil depending on their motives for doing so and other fun stuff!

Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas!