Just ran across this, and thought back to your post.

https://youtube.com/shorts/tEcQSnd-3DY

This is why dad's often don't bond properly until around 6 months (when the baby can properly play).

That's ok, not everyone gets that hit. A significant number of people (I want to say around 20%) don't have the nerve connecting their pheromone receptors to their brain. It sounds like you are in that group.

The bond will still form, it will just be later, and based on interactions, rather than hormonal. It'll be worth it eventually. Just focus on being a good dad, even if it's just by rote. It'll come.

Believe it or not, that's not an uncommon feeling. Evolutionary wise, there's no particular reason for the dad to bond with the baby. It's completely dependent on mum. What we get is often a spillover for the drive to get mum to bond.

I was lucky and had that bond kick in quite quickly, but it's ok if it doesn't. Likely it will kick in around 6 months, as the baby becomes more "interesting". Until then, be a good husband.

It's also worth noting that you are entering peak "emergency mode". Right now the baby is completely dependent on you. It hasn't settled down into a routine, and you are running low on sleep. They combine to utterly screw with your head.

The mentality that got me through that zone was this: mum looks after the baby, I look after mum. I made sure she had regular meals. That she had time for a shower. That she could have a coherent night sleep.

Something that might help is to sniff your baby's head. Babies put off powerful pheromones, designed to reinforce the bonds. Unfortunately, not everyone has active pheromone receptors. If you do though, that smell is like crack cocaine.

In short, you're doing well. Baby is safe and cared for, and you're doing your share of that work. Anything else is a bonus.

I used one previously. Unfortunately, it just trained me to lie very still when I woke up.

It's better used as a training aid. It's ok to turn your phone off, if you wake up to find yourself standing in the kitchen/corridor feeling confused. You're still out of bed.

A mixed group would be better. It shuts down a lot of propaganda spins. It needs to be hard to spin as anything other than patriots Vs fascists (particularly not black Vs white).

That's when you move on to the barcode scanner. Just stick it in the kitchen and you have to get up.

For those that struggle, the android app "alarm clock Xtreme" is excellent. You can set tasks you have to do before snoozing. Both maths questions and having to scan a barcode or tag are options.

Combined with the "sonic bomb" alarm clock, it's an extremely effective combination. (For both you and all your neighbours within a few 100m)

Quantum mechanical particles are very different things to classical ones.

A slightly better way of thinking about them is quantised fields. Particles and waves are simplifications of the underlying effect. There is no classical equivalent to work with to this, so we try and understand it as particle-wave duality etc.

In this case, a carrier particle is a (quantised) disturbance in the underlying field. If it has enough energy, it manifests as a physical particle. The higgs boson is an example of this. Below the required energy, you get virtual particles. These "borrow" energy, and so can never be seen directly, only inferred.

By example. Photons are the carrier particle of electromagnetism. Give the field energy and you get photons (light). Without that energy, the photons are virtual. Existing only between the 2 acting entities.

Different fields have different carrier particles. The photon is quite simple. It's effectiveness decays as 1/r^2 . The strong force carriers are more complex. They can emit more carrier particles, allowing the field to grow with distance rather than decay.

To add more complexity. The various fields look to be aspects of the same field. At sufficient energies, they behave identically. We have figured out how to combine the electric, magnetic and weak fields. We have a handle on the strong field. The higgs field seems to also match into this. Gravity is a pain to study. We assume it should match in, but haven't managed to work out how yet.

As for why the underlying field exists and follows the rules it does? We have no clue right now. The 'why' tends to follow the 'what', and we have yet to get a good handle on the 'what'.

I've been playing 5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel it's remarkably easy to understand, all considered. It's only partially mind bending.

As an Englishman, the IRA were fairly critical to the political results. They kept the UK government from running roughshod over the Irish political parties.

The IRA proved they were willing to cross critical lines (bombs aimed at large scale civilian damage on English soil etc). They also demonstrated restraint. They often provided warnings ahead of time. They focused on disruption not casualties. The underlying threat was clear however. If you (UK government) escalate too far, it's simple to switch from a bomb aimed at destroying a high street of shops, to one aimed at killing a high street of Christmas shoppers.

The end result was that Irish politics stayed in the public eye, and the government took the safer path of negotiating in good faith. No-one was particularly happy with the results, but no-one was excessively unhappy with them either. Often the best you can hope for.

In short, the credible threat is required to keep all parties honest. Most smart governments will see an escalating trail of protests as part of that. Unfortunately, the current US leadership doesn't seem that smart.

Be careful with the taking average mindset. It's a default human one, and it's being abused. A lot of media outlets (particularly American right wing) are mouthpieces for the same few groups or people.

Instead, try and look at their biases. Do they have a reason to mislead you. What akin do they have in a particular game. E.g. the BBC is still fairly unbiased on a lot of world news. They are far less unbiased on middle eastern politics now.

It's an annoyingly complex problem to solve, on the fly.

The issue is that it's become harder and harder to simply exist in a public space, without it costing money. It's doubly difficult for isolated men. You can't make new friends without being somewhere to meet people.

Even when you have some money, it can be hard. I help with a charity geared towards this. I've met multiple, otherwise decent, men that found themselves isolated. They could go a week or more without seeing another person in the flesh.

Interestingly, English does have a "reference" accent. "Queens English".

Back in the days of the British empire, the aristocracy had a serious problem. When they traveled, the local population were difficult to understand, they all had accents. To solve this, the hired help were taught not just English but a clear "accentless" English. This meant the rich could go anywhere in the empire and not have to decode the local's butchering of English.

While it's used a lot less now, it was only a few decades back that the BBC stopped requiring it for news broadcasts. It's the "classic" British accent you see on TV shows.

This works 98% of the time. When it doesn't, oh boy! You're in for an "interesting" conversation!

Use at your own risk!

Both my wife's and my stuffed teddies have now been retired. They now sit, cuddled together, overlooking the bedroom. On a shelf, in pride of place. Their tour of service done, but not forgotten.

It likely jams their brains. Accepting a sudden change of plans is a skill. They rarely have to practice it. When it happens they either want to understand it (and so ask a lot of questions). Or they want to make it go away, and so try and bully you into accepting.

You sometimes see a similar thing in dating. Women almost never have to deal with direct rejection. Most are smart enough to take it gracefully, but a few get wildly inappropriate and aggressive about it. Men are on the other side of it. More used to being rejected, and so better at rolling with the punches. You still get a few that react badly however.

As an aspie, we still flirt. We just (sometimes) flirt differently.

Data rot is a serious problem.

I suspect that our time period will end up as an information dark age to future historians.

I can't see it as anything but white and gold. However, other photos clearly show it is black and blue.

Interestingly, if I'm scrolling past, my brain will sometimes perceive it as black and blue for a fraction of a second. I can normally flip optical illusions at will. This one jams me in the wrong viewing mode.