Untitled

If you are allowed to vote in any election, go vote!

[boybeetles]

Someone in Glasgow please go see this for me pls. I will be there in spirit 🙏

[tinyglowingsharks]

Brief report from the flute accompaniment:

It went well! At least 100 people attended, families dogs a solid portion of Glasgow's trans community. There was a really lovely atmosphere, nice weather and a very cheerful celebratory vibe.

After short speeches from the ballhaver and the large dyke (my wife), the ballhaver was given a chupa chup and blindfolded (execution style). The balls were then duly kicked; it made a surprisingly loud dull thumping sound. She fell to the ground to loud cheers and there was a moment of silence while Taps played on the flute. The large dyke wore solovair urban hikers.

[polar-bear-butch]

Account from the Large Dyke.

Arrived early to find the crowd already gathering, so the kick got off to a prompt start. Following some introductions from everybody and some cheery folk music from our flautist (my wife!) we got on with the kick.

I think we got good contact, the top of my boot making a good solid noise on impact. Very good atmosphere all round, people stayed to chat for a while. Were it not January it would have been an excellent opportunity for a picnic.

10/10 queer event, would happily kick anybody in the balls in the name of community.

[noisepuppy]

Account from the ball haver

7am: the pressure is getting to me; I wake up and drink half a bottle of diet iron bru from my bedside table; roll out of bed, and psych myself up in the mirror - "you can do this my little pogchamp" I say to myself over and over until I decend into a stupor.

8am: I play an hour of Okami on steam to replenish my chi levels

9am: I look at my balls for a while

10am: I spend 20 or so minutes trying to decide what to wear before realising it's the subartic in midwinter and I'm going to have to dress for -2C° regardless of what I choose and opt of my trusty black Schott thermal padded winter flight jacket and a pair of loose, warm Uniqlo trousers to give my testicles room to breathe.

11am: crashing out, texting my friends to arange a substitute kickee, an understudy, anybody so I can just become one with the crowd and not go through with it

12am: the homies have arrived, I'm drinking redbush tea in a small cafe by the park; god is in his heaven and all is right with the world

12.15: "you must be here to watch me get kicked in the balls?"

12.40: a circle emerges, from within the circle a palpable energy focuses like a lens down unto me and I feel like I'm gonna pee my pants a little

12.50: cheers begin, several complete families with dogs arrive - more friends appear and assort themselves into a gathering of 'real heads' ready to watch my groin be dessicated by the firm lace of a women for woman woman with a foot loosed through the gates of war as Augustus saw fit the dispatch and return of his troops from far corners through the blessings of Janus.

12.55: I think I left the stove on

1pm: Short introductions are made, grace is shown, beautiful flute music accompanies the gathering

1.03pm: what is left of my dignity disappears up my inguinal canal; I fall to the ground and languish a moment. I can feel it more in my lower chest than I can in my groin but the humour and adrenaline lift me and I'm laughing on my feet again soon. I kneel for the last post.

[cilantroodon]

[ID from @wormpton: A post to the Reddit community "r / lgbt" from the user "u / Obi-Scone". The post is titled: "Meanwhile in Glasgow..." Below the title is a poster that reads:

"Come watch me get kicked in the balls one last time before bottom surgery"

"Kick performed by large dyke"

"Full force, big boot!!!"

"Execution style"

"Flute accompaniment"

"4/1/2026 - Meet by Queens Park Gate @ 1pm"

"This poster is not a bit: I am actually being kicked hard in the cocke and balls LMAO. Maximum disrespect. A nice Sunday out for the polycule."

On the poster is a photo from Shutterstock of a bag containing two balls being suspended from a string which is being snipped by a pair of scissors. There are also two pairs of lace-up leather boots on the poster. End ID]

[errorschacha]

The entire point of, OK, my phone really wants to call it Anastasia so I guess we’re doing that? The entire point of Anastasia (as administered by a board-certified Anastasiologist) during sugary. Sugary? Haven’t I suffered enough? The entire point of Anastasia during augury. Jesus Christ. Hold up. You know what, augury is preferable to sugary. Augury is obviously performed by an auger (makes sense if you give it a think) whereas sugary is performed by…? A sugardaddy? NO THANK YOU. Anyway. The entire point of Anastasia is so that you don’t know what music your sturgeon. Fuck right off. Was playing. While you were under. You’re not supposed to wake up from Anastasia and immediately realize you managed to get earwormed by Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” during your sugary.

[methedras]

[justreblogginfics]

This has been my life since ‘96 😅

[bob-artist]

Bittern at the grocery store

[sparkly-heretic]

A very elegant crime.

(edit: my partner just pointed out that maybe the bittern is going to pay, and that's a good point)

[bob-artist]

Don't worry, his disguise was flawless and he got away with his snack :)

[sadclowncentral]

i`m going to loose my mind i just burnt my toast and i am so tired that for some reason i completely forgot where i was. and with the instinct ingrained from years of living on a sailing boat as a child i just went to feed the fish.

only that i am not on a sailing boat. there are no fish to feed. i just fucking threw bread out of the window of a third story apartment in the middle of the city very much on land. what the fuck

[rosalesbeausderholle]

One thing that worries me about the use of AI is whether or not it can worsen people's dementia and alzheimer's in the future. When my grandmother was first diagnosed, we got her math activity books. Now, my grandmother never had a formal education, but we did our best to keep her sharp, get her to do math and writing activity books, sudokus, playing board games that required some level of strategizing with her. Her family is prone to alzheimer's and dementia (both her siblings had it and deteriorated very very very quickly, which yeah, scares the shit out of me being her granddaughter) but she was the one whose mind lasted the longest, she only passed away two years ago, at 88, ten whole years after her initial diagnosis and sure, she had forgotten things, recipes and where she put her glasses and appointments, but she never forgot any of us, ten whole years in, she still remembered us. Now, this may have been luck, but doctors always said the constant mental work + companionship + medicine helped her a lot. So I'm thinking, these people who are now relying on AI for everything, from email-writing to thinking what's for dinner to casual conversations, I've even seen people rely on it to calculate what time they should leave their house if they need to be at a place at a specific time and their commute lasts X number of minutes. As if that's not... the simplest math operation possible? You shouldn't even need a calculator for that!!! Idk I don't know how long it'll take us to see the effects of this + exposure to brain-rotting short form content that is completely meaningless + people addicted to right-wing conspiracy style media. Idk I'm very worried. Please, read, read complicated books! Take up a book on philosophy and try to decipher it and make your own opinions on it, please buy a maths activity book and relearn how to do math, please get a hobby that involves lots of thinking and concentrating. PLEASE!!!

[notalotgoingonatthisinstant]

As a neurologist, I’ll give you the pretty name for it: cognitive reserve.

The way I explain it to my patients is that our neurons don’t regenerate. They make connections with each other and that’s it. If you don’t use your brain, they make fewer connections and, if one of them dies, you’re gonna miss it, because that was the only one that knew how to do X. Now, if each one of them has many, many connections, you won’t notice the difference when one of them dies. The others pick up the slack.

As of 2024, 45% of dementia risk factors are modifiable. Relevant to this conversation, 5% for less education and 5% for social isolation.

We absolutely are going to see the reflection of this, but it’s gonna take decades and it’ll be too late. So, for the love of your brain, pretend that it’s a muscle and make it work. People complain about “when am I ever gonna use this maths formula in my life?” You’re not. You’re teaching your brain to think logically. Those sinapses will be there for when you need to figure out your week’s schedule. English classes taught me how to interpret data and how to convey it in this text so it’s clear and you understand what I’m saying, not because I needed to justify why the curtain is blue.

Make your brain know how to do different things. Logic games, puzzles, taking care of a garden even if small, planning a church’s event or birthday, learn a new instrument, learn a few words in another language, look at a calendar every day, do some manual labor if possible. Do not, I repeat, do not let your brain get rid of sinapses by letting AI do everything. Your brain uses 20% of your body’s energy — do you really think it’s going to maintain connexions that aren’t in use?

Most cases of Alzheimer’s are sporadic, meaning no family history. Family history of a first-degree relative with Alzheimer’s starting before they were 80yo increases your risk in 2-3x on average.

TLDR: Yes. From the knowledge we have today, AI will increase the number and severity of dementia cases.

[elisecairo]

[katherynefromphilly]

As someone who was alive when Bob Ross (and William Alexander before him — that’s where the approach is from) was on PBS, I can 100% testify that you can paint along with him.

You may need to learn how to set up your paints and such… but this is what people did, live, while the show aired. That’s what the show was for. I had family members create lovely works of art they enjoyed, which I still have on my walls, because William Alexander and Bob Ross both said:

SCREW METICULOUS CLASSICAL ART PRACTICES — JUST GRAB A PALETTE KNIFE AND BIG OLD BRUSH AND PAINT!

They freed a whole generation of people who were taught to paint detail and realism and exact representation of reality — people who largely gave up this kind of thing because it got tedious.

I watched the joy of family members as they rediscovered art as a messy fun spontaneous half hour activity.

Give it a try.

[anscathmarcach]

All this discourse over who does "painting with light"

Hiroshi Nagai's paintings need sunglasses to look at.

They look like how it feels to walk across a parking lot on a 98° summer day without a speck of shade in sight.

They look like heaven but also like you'd burn your bare feet on the ground.

Even when you can see shade you know it's not enough and the minute you step out you'll be burnt to a crisp like a vampire.

And it's BEAUTIFUL

[dbarenzu626]

I'll throw in the wonderful Eizin Suzuki into this ring too, a man whose work just breathes light without actually using dynamic lighting in the usual way. It's no surprise both Nagai and Suzuki are both considered prolific in art pertaining to the city pop genre because they're able to paint these kinds of scenes with a delicate touch.

This feels like I could trip on that radio and fall right into that water, feeling the crystal waves as I drop in.

And this, a nice stroll down a resort strip, where my sunscreened skin could literally feel cooked if I leaned too close to the tiling.

And then a nice stretch of summer street, wherein you could see your face in the flushed red of that car provided it didn't blind you from its sunny reflections.

I don't think I even need to say anything more, Suzuki's a massive influence in how he even places colours so warmly in such unorthodox manner. It's a naturally sunkissed talent~ 🌊

[sternfleck]

Thoughts and prayers to my European mutuals suffering under their omega heat

[todaysbird]

fun fact about me: When I was 6 years old I sent so much hate mail to the president (the second Bush) that the mail carrier had to tell my mom I needed to stop before we got FBI’d

[todaysbird]

I was COMPLETELY unaware of the US political scene or why the adults in my life hated Bush, but I knew I hated him because he let people shoot wolves from helicopters and that’s mean and shitty

[todaysbird]

I also had a poor grasp on how stamps worked, so given that I wasn’t allowed to continually throw money away by putting stamps on my presidential hate mail, a lot of the times I just drew squares with little pictures inside on the corner.

[fantasticait]

Love, love, love reading more proof that everyone should encourage the children in their lives to write to elected officials--it teaches them about citizenship and can also be very funny.

When I taught second grade, one of the options for students who had finished their work was to write a letter to the president. I would send all of the letters in a big envelope at the end of every month.

Watching my students get more and more frustrated with him (and concerned about his wellbeing) was not the result I'd hoped for when I came up with the idea, but it was kind of hilarious.

See, Obama had a standard packet with information and activities about his dog he'd send in response to letters from very young citizens...and of course his office sent one back to our class every single time we sent mail.

So eventually all of the letters looked something like this:

Dear President Obama, I am writing about the environment. I am sad that the Great Barrier Reef is hurt. Also the Amazon Rainforest. Can you help? PLEASE DON'T WRITE BACK TO TELL ME ABOUT YOUR DOG AGAIN. WE ALREADY KNOW ALL ABOUT BO. WE COMPLETED THE MAZE AND COLORED HIM IN. It is good that you love your pet a lot. But try to remember the environment. It is also important.

[ishipallthings]

[peatbogpirate]

Pippin-centric doodles from Book 2 of Fellowship during my recent reread

(comms open!)

[peatbogpirate]

this one's from last year but I just started my rotk reread and this scene makes me giggle every time

[grox]

no one wants to fuck you because you’re mean and strange

So?

[grox]

Wait hold up this is awesome. So not because I'm ugly?

[probablyasocialecologist]

“Musk talks about Mars as a lifeboat for humanity, which is among the very stupidest things that someone could say,” says Adam Becker, an astrophysicist and author of the book More Everything Forever, which outlines the messianic, sci-fi fantasies of the tech oligarchs. “There are so many reasons why it’s such a bad idea, and this is not about, ‘Oh, we’ll never have the technology to live on Mars.’ That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that Earth is always going to be a better option no matter what happens to Earth. Like, we could get hit with an asteroid the size of the one that killed off the dinosaurs, and Earth would still be more habitable. We could explode every single nuclear weapon, and Earth would still be more habitable. We could have the worst-case scenario for climate change, and Earth would still be more habitable. Any cursory examination of any of the facts about Mars makes it very clear.”

What You’ve Suspected Is True: Billionaires Are Not Like Us

[wire-smith]

I really like sci-fi stories where people have to go off and terraform a planet, or figure out how to rebuild civilization after some disaster, or ideally both. "The last ark-ship leaving Earth right before it becomes uninhabitable" sort of deal. But lately I've been coming around to this same idea, that it will always be more practical to try to save Earth than to try to start over elsewhere.

I was reading one story where the apocalypse was impossibly-rising oceans. Like, water is appearing from *waves hand* the Earth's crust or something, and literally all dry surface land on Earth is going to become underwater in X years. Part of the story was about a giant research project to invent FTL to send a few hundred humans to a nearby star which might have a habitable planet. You know what they were hoping to find? A planet with liquid water. Their plan was to descend from their starship and restart civilization using just the tools they brought with them, on a world with no life and no breathable air and the wrong gravity and the wrong temperate and the wrong sunlight and the wrong day-night cycle, just because it had liquid water. You know where else has liquid water? The flooded Earth you just abandoned. Instead of researching starship technology, you could have spent that time loading up all the same civilization-restarter tools into boats.

And this is really true of any futuristic apocalypse scenario. If you can terraform Mars to have a thick oxygen atmosphere, why not just do that to Earth? Even if you smash an ice comet into Earth and destroy basically everything, Earth will still be more habitable than Mars! It'll still have roughly the right atmospheric pressure, and magnetic field, and heat balance, and it'll still have whatever life the comet didn't kill... Same with a starshade to cool Venus. Same with excavating asteroids into city-stations. Same with abandoning Sol System entirely and heading to another star. If an ark-ship arrived in a new star system and found Earth-but-choked-by-climate-change, the crew would be ecstatic. They would never have thought to get that lucky. So why bother with the trip? Just stay and fix the damn Earth.

[boatcats]

This is so funny from the maritime perspective, too. You know - actual life boats. Because one of the main tennants in any abandon ship scenario is that it is paramount to stay on the ship for as long as you possibly can. Your likelihood of surviving does go down when you get into the lifeboat. And there are times when it IS safer in the lifeboat (or life raft) than on the ship. But that decision of When you hit that tipping point can change everything. And even when you do abandon ship it's a good idea to stay as close to the ship as safe and practicable (because the ship is a Big radar target and has a last known position that someone, well, KNOWS) (unless you CAN'T and there ARE times you can't)

So like. Ah yes. Mars. A lifeboat. Let's all just get in the lifeboat because we had an engine failure or small galley fire. Surely that's a great idea.

[hsavinien]

For a sci-fi book that's very aware of this, check out Ruthanna Emrys's "A Half-Built Garden". The corporations did wreck the earth, and many people got together to try to put it back together. When the aliens show up to rescue the poor benighted humans from their self-inflicted fate, those humans say, no, this is ours and we're working on it. (Also it's queer, so that's nice.)

[anarchopuppy]

sometimes being a fan of something means not wanting them to make any more of it

[cugzarui]

as a chemist i would like to say BWAHAHAHAHAHA

[alexseanchai]

image description at explainXKCD:

explain xkcd is a wiki dedicated to explaining the webcomic xkcd. Go figure.

[flareonfloof]

its a bit easier for astronomers

[nerdynonnativenarnian]

NO! Where’s the non-metals and metaloids?!

[flareonfloof]

are they hydrogen or helium

[nerdynonnativenarnian]

oxygen, carbon, sulfur, xenon, iodine, neon, etc etc.

[flareonfloof]

ooo okay i see the confusion. you're listing off a bunch of metals there

[nerdynonnativenarnian]

…. You’re breaking my chemistry nerd brain. Hhhuuuhhhh???

[flareonfloof]

im an astrophysicist

[nerdynonnativenarnian]

but but, science is science?!

[flareonfloof]

and different fields of science have different conventions and definitions for their unique contexts

[katzeregi]

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

making the radical claim "11 year old children should be taught how to make extremely simple food" has resulted in people making arguments like "I wasnt allowed to plug in electronics until I was 16 and I think this is super normal actually" and "children dont know what ratios are so its unfair to expect them to be able to comprehend the idea of adding equal amounts rice and water to a rice cooker" and I gotta say originally I thought maybe I was being too judgy but now I feel very secure in my opinion because what the fuck

[hannah-snow]

Children might not know what ratios are in the sense of 1:1 notation, but they are more than capable of understanding 'you have to use the same amount of water and rice otherwise it goes wrong'.

[hannah-snow]

In addition to this, cooking is an excellent way to teach children scaling and ratio in Real Life.

[ohifonlyx33]

"Children don't understand-" AND THAT'S WHY IT IS YOUR JOB TO TEACH THEM????? LIKE HELLO??? THEY CAN LEARN??????