Respectfully, I can easily see a shared workplace at least encouraging screwing over customers. To me its an even more intense instance of the shareholder problem. Shareholders are obsessed with the money they’re getting back with no real work but the risk inherent in the bet they made. The workers are working, for a livelihood, and of course will want to improve their quality of life. They’re even more motivated to do so. And some of the best ways to do that, in the “make monkey brain happy” obvious short-term are the same policies the shareholders are already pushing. Will there be some pushback? Definitely, but you only have to sell a bunch of people on short-term easy money. And the lottery isn’t popular because people are smart about this stuff.

Dirty litter boxes increase the chance of urinary tract infection and can speed up their death if the infection reaches their kidneys, literally one of the weakest parts of cats as they age. So no, not “ok whatever”. You took responsibility for the life of something. Time to own up to the gross part of that. (Like changing a baby’s diaper)

Also, paying close attention to your cat’s feces and urine can warn you about internal issues like kidney stones by the shape of the pee or the appearance of the stool. (Seriously, once a day for cleanout isn’t remotely enough, no wonder its so gross you don’t want to touch it)

I’d say scoop it out, or at least check, every time you see it and dump it out when it gets too stinky, scrub it, dry it, and put in new litter. Even a functional electric one, which according to my brother does work, will need some kind of cleaning at some point so the responsibility is never completely escapable. Seriously though, my brother swears by the electric box he got after his own cat was constantly at the vets from UTIs due to him being the only person ever cleaning her box.

As for the anxiety? This seems like an extreme reaction for a litterbox in comparison to all the other never-ending chores we have to do on the day to day. The litterbox is comparatively easy to work, commute, balancing our bank accounts, or taxes. Are you okay?

Assuming its not hunger or bathroom related, in my experience its because the cat’s bored. He enjoys the walks and has fun, and the walk probably fulfills a need to “patrol” his territory which he finds rewarding, but he can’t go on the walk often enough - or long enough - for his tastes. So he figures if he yells you’ll let him go patrol some more. I’d say redirect him . Play with him in the house for 10-15 minutes, then wrap it up with a kitty treat and he should go take a nap for a bit. You could also hide his food around the house come feeding time to encourage him to patrol his home instead of being focused on doing it outside.

I have no idea if any of that would work, every cat’s different. I can distract mine from wanting in rooms (he refused to wear a leash and so cannot go outside so he’s vocal at closed doors) just by playing with him or giving him attention usually. But its also temporary and he’ll do it again. Alternatively you could do the earplug-ignore thing when he cries at the door/harness but invest additional time to engage him when he’s quiet, that way you aren’t encouraging the behavior if you don’t want to be.

Nah, I loved changing out those disks. Core memory nostalgia material right there. Waste of time for sure, but one I remember fondly in hindsight.

I wonder how long it takes for some of those people to transfer to a more embittered relationship with Bethesda over it? Assuming any of them have that “I’m staring at a title screen realizing I haven’t actually had fun playing the game in weeks but the dopamine loop of the ‘loot, kill, craft’ system had me deluded into thinking I was enjoying myself. Like a social media doom-scroller or something” moment.

I mean, that’s arguably incredibly conservative. “The old ways” and all that.

On top of some of the commentary here, I’d like to add that I think there’s a real chance that WoTC’s put some money behind getting it heavily reviewed/boosted, and so more articles about it and wider attention. That is not to undercut its quality, just that I think its layers of support. (I’ll admit there’s more than a little bit of my distrust of WoTC in that. Like after all their other scandals they need a win to try and suck newbies into the game after so much messing up. And I don’t even mean in the last year or something, their release quality for 5e has been abysmal for a long time.)

Additionally Larian played the early access thing very well. Not only did they listen to their ongoing players, and even netted some “tried it didn’t like it” people back, it gave time for everyone who was perhaps too into the older isometric BG1&2 titles (like me) to realize the game didn’t seem quite like it was for them and not pick it up. So you get clear, mostly good(if outdated) information out there for people to use in researching if they wanted to buy it, helping to avoid a lot of the knee-jerk hate that stuff like Fallout 4 and 76 got from misplaced expectations that could dull the release.