Observations

I needed something for thoughts that are too long for Twitter or Facebook, but don't make up a full blog post. Fortunately, that's what Tumblr is for.

[this-is-trans-joy]

You can’t call yourself a leftist if you hate children tbh, like you can choose not to have them or be around them, but outright hating the most marginalised group of people in the world who have absolutely no power or control over the most basic parts of their lives and bodies is a dangerous mentality to have and you need to grow the fuck up and get out of your edgy phase and start treating everyone around you like human beings, even the ones that piss you off.

[this-is-trans-joy]

Like the older I get, the more empathy I have for children. Imagine living on this planet for less than a decade and having to figure out every single thing from scratch, only for the people around you to treat you like a living doll and constantly invalidate your feelings because you haven’t learned how to express them beyond screaming at the top of your lungs, like you’d be having meltdowns in the grocery store as well. The least you can do is offer them some grace, everything is so fucking confusing and scary and overwhelming and they’re not able to communicate that properly and no one around them is explaining shit, and they are constantly at the mercy of whether or not the terrifyingly giant adults around them CHOOSE to be kind like genuinely put yourself in the situation of a child and tell me you wouldn’t also be freaking the fuck out.

The way society treats children is borderline inhumane, and you have the audacity to call them hellspawn crotch-goblins for screaming a little bit too loud or daring to be in the same vicinity as you.

[this-is-trans-joy]

I do also believe that hating children is a sign of underlying ableism, because most of the justifications of hating children comes down to “they’re annoying” or “they don’t know how to act” or “they’re gross” and if you are unable to treat people who lack social skills, who make loud or repetitive noises, who are incontinent etc. with basic respect and dignity, then what’s the difference between hating children and hating disabled adults that share the traits you find so irritating?

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

oh! the space needle is a cute mascot base for seattle’s MLB team! i wonder how they managed to communicate that in a big foam costume?

oh

oh

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[mackerelllll]

from @/vero_muerte on tiktok!!

found this video at <2000 likes and i NEED more people to see this because. yeah.

[positivelyqueer]

Transcript:

“Maybe I like looking trans "oh your voice is too deep" Maybe I like having a deep voice. Maybe I'm not your femme fantasy. Maybe I'm my own fantasy. I love looking trans. I fucking hope that when I walk down the street, they say, "look at that transsexual!" And just maybe someone will see me and think, "hey, I can live that way, too."”

[aqwult]

[argumate]

I don't see what the-- oh gosh

[certified-door-posts]

certified door post

[weonsinnombre]

[shieldfoss]

oH RIGHT This was before LotR pioneered cgi for massed crowd behavior

There was so much cool cgi in those movies I just assumed all the clones were too but back then I guess they still couldn’t really be

[chilewithcarnage]

this is so sexy

[luckyladylily]

I wonder what happened to all the agent smith masks

[roomtemperaturesuperconductor]

I can actually answer this! So the latex/rubber they used, while standard for Hollywood at the time, reacted REALLY BADLY to being doused in pouring water nonstop for an entire day of shooting. They ended up corroding, which caused them to stink really badly and glob together at the seams. The original plan was to hand out masks to various crew members on the final day of shooting as souvenirs, but the sopping wet, melting, rotting rubber got so gross that by the end of that shooting day they’d already thrown most of them out. Somewhere in a landfill are hundreds of disgusting, bloated, slimey Hugo weaving heads fused together into a nightmarish rotting amalgam :)

[roach-works]

it’s what he would have wanted

[astronomy-to-zoology]

Hornet Moth (Sesia apiformis)

Also known as the Hornet Clearwing, the hornet moth is no hornet but a species of sesiid moth that is native to the British Isles, Germany, Holland, and Austria (it has also been introduced to North America). This species is quite similar to the Lunar Hornet Moth (S.bembeciformis) but is distinguished by its yellow head and shoulders and black collar. Like the lunar hornet moth S.apiformis will overwinter as a larvae once or twice and adults will fly from June to July and sometimes August. Adults are often seen on poplar trees as these are their larval food plant.

Phylogeny 

Animalia-Arthropoda-Insecta-Lepidoptera-Sesiidae-Sesia-S.apiformis

Images: Ab H.Baas and Gyorgy Csoka

[kawuli]

random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Keeping a list of Google alternatives just in case…

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine

[headspace-hotel]

Ideas for New Forms of Multimedia Storytelling

geocacheing

chain emails forwarded to you by an aunt you don’t talk to

writing on the walls of public bathrooms

complex system of Minecraft servers with interactive puzzles

hundreds of voice mails each sent to 100 subscribed members of the fandom each, who then have to piece everything together online

choose your own adventure but better

random people get released on stage during a stage play and can affect the plot however they choose

story is embedded in book of word find puzzles

people dressed as wizards kidnap you and you have to be the protagonist

news site that publishes weird stories and there are always weird comments in the comment sections

a group of people creates a story and memorizes it, and then they each have to teach the story to two other people, who must continue passing it on

links to questionable Wikipedia article edits

Instagram account whose photos start getting weirder and weirder until the person who runs the account disappears and the followers have to solve the mystery

recorded on random vhs tapes all over the globe

a podcast that is downloaded to 10,000 MP3 players that self-destruct if they are with the same person more than two weeks, forcing everyone to keep passing them on to new people

a composition book that is transported around the globe via hot air balloon

books left on McDonalds’ floors that say DO NOT READ

a gigantic park full of sidewalks with a story written on the sidewalk that can be read as you walk, and that has different endings depending on where you go

microchips placed inside feral cats

several hundred seemingly identical uploads of the devil went down to Georgia on YouTube, which each have different mistakes in the lyrics, and which can be pieced together to create a story

like jehovah’s witnesses but they walk around asking people if they want to hear a chapter of what is actually a very extended musical with dance numbers. yes, they will do this on your porch, and no, there is no way to get the chapters in order

book where you cut out a chapter every time you read it and write your own

vlog that gets increasingly more concerning

game where the only action is to pick up and read book and also to make coffee and pet your cat

movie put on dvds and scattered around random antique shops

found footage horror film that is just footage that you found

recipes passed down from generation to generation

an ever-expanding franchise that switches to a different type of media every time it creates a sequel. the first installment is a book, the second is a video game, the third is a Netflix series, the fourth is a broadway musical, the fifth is a podcast, the sixth is an alternative rock album, and the seventh is available only through oral tradition

story that is explained to the small children of the people who want to read it, and the children must in turn explain it to them. people without children can borrow someone else’s child.

tattooed on the hairy backs of old men at the beach

[headspace-hotel]

I’ve decided that this post is not a joke

[jareckiworld]

Francine Van Hove (1942-2025) — The Sphinxes and the Dictionary [oil on canvas, 1985]

[teaboot]

I will forever maintain that genuine fortune-telling and psychic medium junk is a load of bull, but as a person who owns tarot decks and regularly uses them as a tool for self-reflection I also have to admit that it does kind of work for that and it's very very funny when it does

Once I laid out some cards before I left the house and couldn't figure out an interpretation of the symbolism that made sense outside of "stop focusing and pay attention", which was of course absurd, so I was puzzling over that all the way to my bus stop and was so distracted the whole time that I walked face-first into a massive fucking spiderweb

[teaboot]

It always hits so good

[log6]

big problem on here is a lot of people seem to think just being transgender makes you a sensible political theorist

[juneberryjammin]

being transgender doesn't even make you a sensible gender theorist

[bimmyjimmy]

he want some..

[cincodenada]

My little man, literally as I read this post

[notjusthespongenextdoor]

For a city to be walkable. It must also be sittable.

[notjusthespongenextdoor]

#every time I read this phrase the same thing happens#I read it as shittable and go wait that can't be right#oh right they were talking about public benches that makes more sense#but public bathrooms available without fees should also be a thing tho#cities should definitely be shittable#it happens EVERY SINGLE TIME

it must also be shittable

[andmaybegayer]

Not going to get involved in Kircheis Masturbatory Urbanism Yelling but I do wonder what the "we should make the city good for cars AND transit" type think that means. Are they worried you just wouldn't have any roads? We've always had roads man they predate cars. Talking like anti-car types want to literally get rid of all road infrastructure entirely. But I guess the pro-car types do often genuinely want to get rid of every bike lane and sidewalk, and regularly take political action to do just that so that would track.

[andmaybegayer]

I was listening to someone talk about the trips planners and designers do to Amsterdam for bike stuff and I do think there needs to be some kind of Program for people who live in rural areas and the suburbs where you get to be somewhere with good transit for a while so you can see how it works out. Live in a 1-bedroom in Lyon for a week. Like when you get teens to go muck pens for a couple days. Ideally something in a kind of less major city so you don't think it's just a capital city thing, like, Nuremberg or Qingdao.

I say this because I had this! When I was 12 my family did a trip to the USA and among other places we went to DC, Boston, and NYC, and the experience of the NY metro was genuinely lifechanging. We were there like three or four days and by the time we left I could have found my way back to the hotel we were at on my own from anywhere with a metro line, a thing I probably couldn't have done from more than a kilometer or two from my own house on account of the fact that the main way I entered and exited the house was in the back of a car. The most memorable part of that trip by far because sure, Disneyland is cool, but to get there you spend half an hour in a PT Cruiser from your motel.

My parents come to visit me in Prague and when they get home my mother tells me she feels genuinely upset watching people struggle to get around Johannesburg, when she knows a city could be built like this. I know how much the minibus system in Johannesburg and Cape Town costs and a minibus ticket is comparable to a Prague metro pass for a much poorer population getting much worse service.

If your idea of "good transit" is anything you can find on the African continent except maybe Cairo, or anything in North America that isn't New York City, you don't even know you're in the cave. It's like if you were trying to have a discussion with someone about how best to bake a souffle and you realize they are trying to do it by a campfire. No it is not in fact "a town with pretty good transit" if the last bus stops running at 20:00.

[necronatural]

Compiled some basic information I know about drawing fat characters for beginners since I've been seeing more talk about absence of really basic traits in a lot of art lately.

Morpho Fat and Skin Folds on Archive.org (for free!)

[tuttle-did-it]

draw more fabulous fat people.

[icarus-suraki]