life and commas

I picked up a pen. I wrote my own deliverance.

[wholesome-animal-images]

[moonbeam2424]

The Dragon Prince Silvergrove

Lotus Pool

Ethari's Workshop

[bowlby4]

[queer-as-city-folk]

Old man, sitting in the pool steps reading his book

[queer-as-city-folk]

Artists sketch

[spacemancharisma]

UNRESTRAINED SUMMER FUN

[punkrorschach]

the legally blonde mentality isnt just for law students. u can bring that attitude with you into every field of work. be the whimsical force of positive change. wear that neon outfit. snaps for us all.

[punkrorschach]

this post was inspired by my boss telling me she couldnt "take me seriously" in a pair of dinosaur print overalls. sorry i have two degrees and a dope wardrobe. you dont need to take me seriously but You Will Take Me.

[black-quadrant]

OP's an inspiration. bring on the whimsy movement!

[heavyweightheart]

Research has shown that pleasure affects nutrient absorption. In a 1970s study of Swedish and Thai women, it was found that when the Thai women were eating their own (preferred) cuisine, they absorbed about 50% more iron from the meal than they did from eating the unfamiliar Swedish food. And the same was true in the reverse for the Swedish women. When both groups were split internally and one group given a paste made from the exact same meal and the other was given the meal itself, those eating the paste absorbed 70% less iron than those eating the food in its normal state.

Pleasure affects our metabolic pathways; it’s a facet of the complex gut-brain connection. If you’re eating foods you don’t like because you think it’s healthy, it’s not actually doing your body much good (it’s also unsustainable, we’re pleasure-seeking creatures). Eat food you enjoy, it’s a win-win.

[jenroses]

what

no seriously

what?

[robotlyra]

PLEASURE IS A NECESSARY PART OF HUMAN HEALTH, BOTH PSYCHOLOGICALLY AND PHYSICALLY

[is-the-post-reliable]

requested by anonymous

RATING: RELIABLE

The study referenced in the New York Times article I believe is this 1977 study. The information given is accurate, although some limitations should be noted: the study only measured iron absorption, in a specific demographic. Furthermore, whilst absorption may be linked to pleasure, it is limited by the actual nutritional content of the food.

[runcibility]

[small, tentative voice] I... think it's good actually? If people come back here from Twitter? And new people show up? Maybe it's awesome that more people want to be gremlins again? And... maybe more people will pay money to keep the hellsite going?

Maybe don't be dicks about it? Let people come in, and give them a little raccoon mask and teach them how to have grubby little raccoon paws.

Except for the brands. We will absolutely play hopscotch in their chest cavities.

[runcibility]

Awright. So, I don't pull the "I'm old and I've seen shit so shut up and listen" card very often, but...

[text from Twitter user evacide: "Some of you have never had your home on the internet crumble beneath you like chalk, and it shows."]

You will realize that there are people you only know in a online space, and you will realize it when that space goes dark. You won't know the size and shape of space it takes up in your head and heart until it vanishes. Those little interactions on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even occasional basis mean nothing until they're gone, and suddenly there's a weird fucking hollow space when an icon on the other end of a screen just isn't there anymore - and not just one, but multitudes are gone.

You won't understand how you're mourning just a silly website, until you realize the way your day or week flowed around it like water around a boulder in a stream. Is it better or worse? That's not the question - how different is it? And how does that difference feel?

The first time a BBS I dialed into went dark, I realized there were people I enjoyed talking with that I would never chat with again. It's like they fell off the earth. "Were they friends" is not the question - suddenly there was a thunderclap of silence because people who had been there were suddenly gone, and I knew I would never ever talk with them again.

It's just a stupid hellsite until you realize it's all people. And you're a human animal who is hardwired to notice the absence of other humans. Capitalism foundationally sucks, but it is the foundation. Good or bad, right or wrong, money goes in and hellsite comes out. If money stops, hellsite goes away. You're looking at one of the last big bastions of old-school weirdness out there. They're not offering participatory monetization like ad-free and blaze to get rich, they're doing it to keep the lights on.

Some of you have never suddenly lost a social network, and it really shows.

[icy41777]

Lifeguard Knight ◕◞◕

[beemovieerotica]

everyone (human research scientists) want me carnally (have been consistently selecting me for paid neuroscience studies because i'm the only trans person who has responded to their ads and there is a systemic lack of conclusive science on the bodies and brains of people who do not fall under particular dominant demographic) and i'm being paid big money for it

[beemovieerotica]

HELL YEAH MORE LAB RATS

These are all through 4-year universities: find the nearest one to you / easiest one to get to, and hop on Google with the following queries: " [ uni ] research study " / "[ uni ] research participate"

i'm going to use the University of Arizona, Tuscon as an example (just because I'm not already familiar with their site or studies)

Google is generally really good at finding these results and pointing you directly to where you need to go, and from the study listing page you can find pretty much everything you need to know about what kind of participants they're looking for.

3. That was easy. But something to be aware of is that for BIG research universities, they will have multiple departments that each have their own separate directories (or sometimes entirely different website domains!). And Google will not find all of them. A quick search of the university I go to only pulls up research for the school of medicine and clinical trials as the first page of results. If I wanted to find their psychedelics research, for example, it doesn't show up.

4. Google separate department home pages to do some digging: see if your university has Psychiatry, Psychology, Neuroscience, Neurology, Behavioral Science, Physiology, Physical Medicine, Dermatology, etc etc.

Even if you don't have problems in these specific areas, you may be able to participate as part of the control group.

5. Department pages usually have a tab for Ongoing Research or something along those lines, and you'll either get an easy to navigate list of everything going on in the department...or you may get a list like "Johnson Lab, Wu Lab" if there's a lot going on, and you'll have to go through each one by one and see what each lab group is doing.

*** It's important to check each department & lab page rather than just relying on whatever main directory Google pulls. These aren't updated consistently, and pages managed by the research groups themselves will likely be the most up-to-date.

6. First steps vary, but generally it's one of two things: filling out a survey with basic demographics and health history, or sending someone an e-mail. If you're nervous about sending an e-mail out of the blue to a busy researcher, let me tell you that it is one of the most exciting things that can happen in their day. A new participant!!! Someone wants to do science!!!

Literally all you have to write is: "Dear Dr. _____. Hope your day is going well! I saw the notice for research subjects for your study on _____, and I am very interested in participating. Please let me know what the next steps might be! I can be reached at [ phone number ] during [ days and hours ]. Thank you for your time." Yep. That's it.

7. Be kind, be patient, be flexible. Studies will typically compensate you for going through an in-person screening even if you don't qualify for the study itself. Researchers want to make it worth your time.

8. Do the study. Be yourself and sparkle on.

9. Commit to the follow-ups they ask for. Be a good lab rat. One of the studies I'm in has me fill out a 10 second survey twice a day for 6 months, and that gets me an extra $300. Literally minimal brainpower required, and they get extremely valuable data.

I know I mentioned in the original post that they're excited about me being an under-researched demographic, but honestly they're excited about having ANYONE. They do not get nearly enough willing participants who A) follow-through with everything and stay communicative, B) give honest and reliable results, and C) are able to make time to come in and do these things. C is the biggest research study killer, but if you're able to do it, then PLEASE help out.

Go sign up for research. Get paid. Do it. Do it.

[memecucker]

You can tell when someone’s frame of reference for “normal people” is more “people at the church sponsored ice cream social” and less “people on the bus”

[latining]

the people in the notes saying “people on the bus aren’t normal” are the people this post is talking about.

[gallusrostromegalus]

I took the bus for three years when I lived in Honolulu and haven't lived anywhere with even usable public transit since, but in those three years I had dozens of utterly bizarre experiences that were also Perfectly Normal. This is because the human condition is vast and also Very fucking Weird.

Kid one the bus next to me whose backpack starts moving and it turns out he's got three chickens and a painted turtle he caught in there? This is Perfectly Normal. Humans have been catching small game and transporting it home in whatever they had since we invented bags to put chickens and turtles in.

I traded him three king-size snickers bars I had on me for the turtle because I vaguely remembered that many freshwater turtles were toxic to eat (incorrectly, as it turns out, but this was when I still had a Nokia Brick that lived a blissful, internet-free existence), and didn't want him accidentally poisoning his family, but didn't want to just. Steal his hard-won turtle. This is Perfectly Normal. Humans have been cautious about poisons, looking out for strangers kids and bartering shit since before we were technically humans, probably.

Having acquired a turtle, I now needed to transport the turtle to the on-campus pond that effectively served as an Invasive Freshwater Turtle Containment Zone, but did not have a bag that could adequately contain him so I had to sit the rest of that bus ride, at the station and all through the next bus ride holding the turtle like the world's angriest hamburger. Multiple people were curious about and delighted with the turtle. This is Perfectly Normal. Humans love an animal, especially one that is capable of appearing grumpy, and hands are for holding things.

By the time I got back to Campus, the anthropology and child psychology building that the Invasive Turtle Containment Pond was in had closed, so I had to figure out how to climb the tree over the wall and get down off the roof while holding The World's Angriest And Sharpest Hamburger. I eventually ended up having to briefly shove the turtle into by bra to get up to the initial branch and off the roof without breaking an ankle. This is Perfectly Normal. Humans are, as a species, a bunch of barely-evolved arboreal frugivores and really good at Tree Physics, and I don't know a single titty-having bitch out there that hasn't used their bra as Emergency Pockets at least once, if not daily.

I released the turtle into the Turtle Containment Pond and then had to solve the problem of getting back OUT of the locked building, but Nokia Brick never loses a signal or drops a call (including that time I accidentally dropped it off a 13-story building in the middle of a call to my parents and the damn thing BOUNCED but kept the line open. I miss that phone every day.) and while campus security has been carefully trained to not let people IN to places without proper ID and a call to someone inside, they assume that if you got locked in somewhere, that you got in by legitimate means and not Lemur Shenanigans, so i just called them, apologized that I'd been working late with headphones on and didn't realize I'd been locked in. This is Perfectly Normal, people have been lying to cops since laws were invented, and will continue to do so because all cops are bastards.

Anyway, everyone should have access to good public transportation because freedom of movement is a human right and meeting a broad spectrum of humanity is good for your mental health and spiritual welfare.

[charlesoberonn]

Heartwarming story: Little girl doesn’t have to do anything to fund her dad’s surgery because his expenses are covered by his country’s universal healthcare.

[charlesoberonn]

Human determination: Man bikes 18 miles to work every morning because he wants to and not because he can’t afford a car and would be fired if he’s late.

[charlesoberonn]

Spirit of Brotherhood: Neighbors host housewarming party for elderly resident who doesn’t need help in paying rent because his pension is more than enough.

[hyperlexichypatia]

SO INSPIRING: Local middle school students bake dozens of cupcakes because their home economics class is doing a baking unit. Their school is fully funded with everything they need.

[blandandtasteless]

This feels like calibrating my normal detector

[frawgs]

apparently vic’s vapor rub goes exitinct ? i’ve been using the same vapor rub for years and apparenlty it went bad in the 2010s ..

[frawgs]

expired .

[morganicapples]

[valtsv]

AITA for realizing that my best friend is actually a ghost and not telling him because i'm worried that if he realizes he's dead he'll finally be able to accept it and fully pass on and i won't be able to hang out with him anymore?

[valtsv]

AITA if i've been dead for a while but haven't told my best friend yet because he doesn't seem to have realized i'm a ghost and if he does i'm worried that he'll finally be able to accept it and let me go and i can't bear the thought of losing him?

[mapswithoutwyoming]

AITA for killing that guy

[fiore-firelily]

we've all got that friend who's a little too ²

[bevsi]

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with relating to characters, “they’re literally me” etc but if that’s the only way you engage with stories you’re kinda missing the whole point of Characters being vehicles through which we can see perspectives outside of our own. and also you’re going to get upset when the Character acts in a way that is not Personally Relatable to You

[thethirdromana]

Putting the term "Catholic guilt" on a high shelf where fandom can't reach it until everyone learns how to identify characters who are very very clearly coded as Protestant.

[queer-crows-nightmare]

[gaylordthethird]

The 4pm bird gets the weird and fucked up spider