Origami Around
One Nice Bug Per Day
trying on a metaphor
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dirt enthusiast
Sade Olutola
taylor price
Kiana Khansmith
Jules of Nature
⁂
if i look back, i am lost
izzy's playlists!
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
ojovivo
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
cherry valley forever
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Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Stranger Things
Discoholic 🪩
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@cmdr-laptopcoffee
Please do not beg me for money.
Please do not beg me for money.
I live in America, have 2 teenagers to feed, and my home & vehicles are falling apart. I'm not asking for donations, but I don't have anything to spare right now either.
this is the Phoenix zoo, she's got plenty of outdoor space 👍
I'll also say she looks super healthy and happy in that video so she probably loves her cool concrete room #myconkrete
remember the like tiny sliver of time when there was a real push to just say "people who have a uterus" or "people with testicles" or whatever when that was what you meant, and then faux-progressives who were willing to cave to terfism to avoid saying icky anatomy words ruined it with "AFAB-bodied"
literally just say dick when you mean dick. feeling uncomfortable with body parts and getting all euphemistic about it is conservatism by default.
Through the magic of specifying, for instance, "if you have a cock and balls then you may sometimes struggle with accidentally squeezing them in painful ways when sitting down" you also account for someone who got rid of her cock and balls surgically. Because get this. She No Longer Has That Anatomy. She is now outside the group defined as "people with cocks and balls".
On the other hand, instead of trying to contrive some anatomical grouping when what you really want to say is "trans women and cis men" without owning up to how awkward it is that you're making that particular grouping of identities, through the magic of introspection, you can think about why you're so desperate to do that!
My mom is a nurse in urology and because so much of her job involves changing catheters, when telling work stories she’s started referring to people based on their urethras
Because urethras in a penis are longer and more easy to access she likes changing those catheters a lot more than vaginal ones that are less accessible, but also they get in trans people and people who have had accidents or cancers that caused them to need their penises partially or fully removed so the gender on their forms isn’t necessarily an indication of the urethra she’s gonna get
So we get stories like “Yeah so I had to end the day with a vaginal cath change and the guy was nice so I was trying not to let him see I was in a bad mood” or “I walked in to change this woman’s catheter and was so relieved when I realized I’d be working with a penile urethra” or “I went to change this guys cath only to find out he actually had an anterior testicular catheter because they had to reroute his urethra after he lost part of his penis when a guy on meth giving him a blowjob accidentally bit part of it off”
This has offered very little to the moral conversation happening here but I just think more people should know about the fascinating world of urology
I'm a cis woman who had a hysterectomy earlier this year. If you say, I don't know, "People with cervixes should get a pap smear every three years to screen for cervical cancer" that no longer includes me, and I am FINE with that.
OVER THE GARDEN WALL (2014) Chapter 7: The Ringing of the Bell
you’ll be fine. you made it out of impossible situations before and you will do it again
ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? YOU WILL DO IT AGAIN.
the more i talk w/ leftist friends the more i start to realize that they think culture is only defined by food or "traditional" (i.e. "ethnic") garb and nothing else
mentioned how white americans do in fact have a common culture and they genuinely thought i was joking. culture isnt something only granted to the Cool People of Color. just feels like among progressive groups there's this dichotomy created in which only the virtuous oppressed minorities have culture and anyone who is privileged some sort of void cultureless being
As someone with a background in anthropology, culture is everything and everywhere. It's so all-encompassing it's hard to even wrap your head around. Everything you do, say, think, eat, wear is wrapped up in culture. Even being deliberately counter-cultural, by consciously defying the expectations of your culture, is still an engagement with culture (often by adopting a sub-culture).
Sure, it's the “simple”, “surface-level” things that people tend to think of, like
In your culture, how many meals a day are you generally expected to eat, and when are you expected to eat them?
In your culture, which clothes are considered “formal”, and when would you wear such clothes?
But it's also so much more:
If you were dating someone, at what point in the relationship would you be expected to introduce them to your parents? That's culture!
How much respect is given to artists? Are people like poets or musicians revered as an integral part of society, or is the predominant attitude “get a real job”? That's culture!
How much value is given to education? What's considered more socially embarrassing - academic failure, or academic achievement? What's the intellectual landscape? Do people tend to respect experts, or denigrate them as “elitists”? That's culture!
Which things are generally considered to be “high culture” or “low culture”? Which kinds of media and art are considered “for the masses” versus “for the elites”? That's culture!
How are politicians treated? Do people tend to respect them as their “betters”, their “leaders”? Or are they assumed to be lying, conniving, corrupt, the worst of society? What kind of thing would end a politician's career? That's culture!
What's considered more egregious behaviour - bothering other people, or asking someone to stop bothering other people? That's culture!
If you were attending a job interview, how would you want to come across? How would you be expected to dress and behave? Would it be better to come across as very bold and confident, or humble and subservient? That's culture!
If you found yourself in a tricky situation - say, broken down at the side of the road - would you confidently expect strangers to come and help you? Or would it seem really weird for some random person to come and involve themselves in your situation? That's culture!
How are you expected to communicate? Is it seen as rude to be very blunt and straightforward, or is it considered rude to beat around the bush and make allusions and try to soften what you're saying rather than quickly getting to the point? That's culture!
I could go on (boy could I go on). This is so not meant to be all-inclusive; this is just a tiny sample of the things that make up “culture”.
To put it bluntly, a lot of the time the word “culture” seems to be used to mean, essentially, “the things that make people of colour different from white people”. Oh, this guy eats this different kind of food; that's culture. This lady wears these clothes to a wedding; that's culture. But we white people, we don't have “culture”; we just do what's normal. But it's all culture! Everything! All of it! And culture isn't just the result of where in the world you come from - class, occupation, rural/urban location, minority status, political affiliation, all these things and more can result in cultural differences even within a small area. Multiple cultures often co-exist, blend, overlap, and borrow from one another within the same place, which is especially noticeable in places with legacies of migration. People bring different cultures from around the world, and these interact with the dominant culture in all sorts of interesting ways. But a culture being dominant doesn't mean that it ceases to be a culture.
Claiming that certain groups of people (generally, whoever is the dominant majority group in a particular context) “don't have culture” is just as dumb as when people claim they “don't have an accent” simply because their accent is the most common one where they live. There is no “default”, every deviation from which is “a culture” or “an accent”. Everyone has an accent. Every community, everywhere, has culture(s). If you aren't aware of your culture, or don't think you have an accent, you're probably just so used to being considered “default” and “normal” that it doesn't occur to you that no such thing actually exists.
Folks, friends, y’all…. esk*mo is a slur. I understand a lot of people don’t know that, I don’t want to be a dick about it, but I’ve been seeing it in fics. Wanna write “esk*mo kisses”? Just say “nuzzled noses” or something.
I’m not here to call anybody out, it’s been in multiple fics, I’m not vague posting. This is just a psa. 👍🏻
If you could help me spread awareness about this by reblogging, I’d really appreciate it.
I’ve had this post on insta saved for sometime ❤️
[Text Description: “Hey! Reminder: Eskimo is a slur. It means ‘snow eaters’ in Cree and is a slur against Inuit . Also don’t use ‘Eskimo kisses’. It’s called Kunik. It is a greeting mostly used for family… Kunik was how I’d greet my mom and grandmother as a small child.” /TD]
Rebloging for the awareness and especially for the alternative words
And so people who are just learning this now know the proper usage: “Inuit” is plural. The singular is “Inuk”, as in “he is an Inuk”
I’ve reblogged this a lot in the past but one more time for the people who maybe don’t know yet
where is that renaissance painting with those two fellers and a giant fucking random skull on the floor that looks like it was accidentally stretched out in photoshop
THANK YOU
somebody please explain
Someone once told me it’s like that because it was designed to be hung in a stairwell so the skull pops out as you walk past.
…I guess it works but you have to be at a pretty sharp angle
There was a whole trend at one point where artists would include something in their paintings (usually a skull, for whatever reason) that’s super distorted in just the right way so that it looks normal if you hold the painting up to a convex/concave mirror. I have absolutely no idea why. But I think that’s what’s going on here.
In case anyone’s curious, here’s what it looks like when you walk past it irl:
It does have a 3D effect to it! It’s pretty neat, guess it would be even more impressive to people from the 14th century.
honestly, people just looking at the skull are missing the real deal here
You can read any implied text you see in this thing, even the book, that’s how detailed it is. Look at the painting on those letters!
jesus christ you’re just showing off now, Hans!
HANS OH MY GOD
anyway, the skull apparently had some meaning about the transcendence of death, you can only see it clearly when you can’t see the world clearly and vice versa, but man, I’m all about the detail in this guy’s shit
No, I think you’re missing the real deal here
as an art historian, i think this is the best post on tumblr
People horrifically fucking up facts about evolution and genetics too support their stupid beliefs or to seem smart and “rational” is probably one of my big pet peeves
Yeah. An enormous number of racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes I’ve met eventually whip out something about evolutionary biology and they never, ever, ever, ever have the slightest shadow of even a half-right idea what any of it means or ever cite a claim ever actually made by a scientific study.
Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:
Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.
“Alpha males” are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.
“Survival of the fittest” simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it “fits” its environment. It does not mean that stronger or smarter individuals are supposed to succeed. Those things can even be a detriment in nature by wasting too many resources.
“Race” is not a biological concept. Someone who looks different from you has the same human genes, just a different grab-bag of dominant traits.
Evolution is not a march towards higher complexity, more intelligence or even more adaptability. It’s just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isn’t “less evolved” than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.
People didn’t evolve “from apes.” It’s more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.
No human on Earth is “closer” to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.
Neanderthals were also a “sibling” species of ours. We didn’t evolve from them.
Some of us did, however, cross-breed with Neandethal man. It is exclusively non-African races, such as white people, who still carry hybrid human/Neanderthal genes. Whoops, sorry “white purity” skinheads, you’re actually mixed with a whole other species.
Some more stuff!
Humans are actually more genetically homogeneous than most people suspect. This is possibly due to a population bottleneck at some point in our evolutionary past. Two chimpanzees from different sides of a jungle are likely more genetically different to each other than any two human beings in the world.
Our big brains may help us use tools, but what was really principal in their development was the need for empathy, communication, and cooperation.
Humans. Are. Social. So social it drove an incredibly energetically costly increase in our brain size. Don’t believe anyone who says its our nature to fight “every man for themself.” We’re humans, not bears. We fight for each other.
And we always have. Fossil remains are found of ancient humans who bore signs of crucial mobility impairments that lived to notable ages. Some even have sticks or other mobility aids – community care and support is our way. We don’t cast off those with impairments, we stand by them.
Human sexual dimorphism is on a decreasing trend. Our ancestors had greater difference in canine size and overall size. Our dimorphism gap has gotten smaller.
Occam’s razor is the principal that whatever is the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one. Don’t believe someone who says the reason we evolved bipedalism is so that males could carry gifts to females to woo them. Yes, this is a real ‘theory’ on how bipedalism evolved.
Skin tone is an adaptation of UV levels vs vitamin D levels. Both come from the sun. UV is harmful, so where sun is plentiful populations develop a darker skin tone for more protection. The skin needs sun to create vitamin D, so where sun is scarce, the skin tone lightens to allow more sun in. This is literally all it is.
Final thing: No one’s mind is really equipped to fully understand how long a billion years is, or a million, or even tens of thousands of years. Evolution takes place over a loooong time. Its very, very, slow, slower than we can really comprehend. We can’t “stand in the way” of natural selection by caring for our ill. We don’t need to “help” evolution in any way. It inevitably happens, but not on any sort of timescale we could possibly affect, so don’t fall for anyone that tells you not to “stand in the way” of natural selection. That’s fascism, and its utterly pseudo-scientific.
Not to mention natural selection doesn’t have a “will” that you can stand in the way of. Its not an entity with wants, its a millions-year long process. And its impossible for our decisions to “stand in its way.” Our decisions to care for one another are what brought our species where it is, plain and simple.
You can teleport! How does it look?
Puff of smoke
Leaving someone's sight and suddenly you are gone
Fading out of existence
PowerPoint animation
Transforming into a flock of crows
Portal
A trapdoor that isn't there when someone checks
Exploding into confetti
Popping out of existence with no fanfare
Shooting yourself out of a cannon
The Secret Option (tell me)
i don't even want to teleport
So I just simultaneously did, and possibly didn't lose my job today :)
Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.
So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.
But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.
It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?
So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:
Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.
And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.
So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".
So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.
I don't know what else to say aside from I've been laughing all day and I'm gonna have a hell of a time explaining Schrodinger's Unemployment to the benefits office.
Update that is not an update because I'm basically certain this isn't what actually happened:
My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.
Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.
Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.
Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).
Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues
(also shout out to the person who proposed Carmen Sandiego)
ACTUAL (partial) UPDATE:
According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.
Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.
For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.
So now I'm officially out of a job. Because my workplace was literally stolen in the night.
Actually fuck it let's share some photos cause I wouldn't be inclined to believe this myself. It's not like anyone can stalk me at my job now and I'm not gonna have to see any coworkers that might find my tumblr.
Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life
Aaand a close-up:
The last remains of a once Very Much Solid And Immobile Workplace
HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE
via @kagaminilen
[cut to a kiosk on legs, sipping a boba, while wandering into the nearest forest on chicken legs]
Here you go @a-bit-too-dyscrasic
Me @ people who would be masking if they weren't afraid of being minorly embarrassed in public occasionally.
The people who insist AI is smarter than a human are doing their fucking damnedest to manifest that
This problem isn't AI. This problem originates with our terrible schooling system. It fails to prepare young people for existing in the real world, probably under the expectation that parents can do that themselves. The economy of this country has rendered parents basically incapable of spending hours and days teaching their kids how to exist, on top of those kids' ludicrous amounts of schoolwork.
Basically, the system has been designed to result in young adults with no ability to do much of anything besides basic manual labor, who rely on technology or other people's labor to cover the gaps in their own understanding.
The problem is indeed "AI," though other factors may be at play as well. Programs like chatGPT are actively designed to breed dependence, and are actively detrimental to the decision making and imagination parts of the brain.
The thing that people really need to understand is that the "product" that chatGPT and other "AI" chatbots create is "more interactions with chatGPT." Everything it does is engineered with that one end in mind. Think about how it's billed, and you'll see that's true, and why it's true. What do "pro" subscriptions give you? More inquiries, faster answers, etc. So its entire thing is "getting you to ask it more things, more often."
Will it say "I don't know?" No. You won't ask it things if it answers that. This is why hallucinations are built in, and cannot ever be eliminated.
These programs are machines meant to generate more inquiries, which means they will generate dependence in order to generate them.
The purpose of a machine is what it does.
I did not intend to defend AI LLM. It's total bullshit. I merely meant that a class of people who have been left functionally incapable by a broken system are more susceptible to a machine designed to make people more stupid.
Right, and what I'm telling you is that this matters way less than you would like to think. Like, it doesn't matter. At all. You are not "less susceptible" to AI because of your education.
It really does not matter how well-educated you are, because this kind of endless flattery and dependence-creation isn't the kind of thing that "being educated" protects against. The idea that "kids these days" are specially vulnerable to ChatGPT due to a failure of general education is insultingly wrong, skips over the fact that a lot of highly-educated people from my generation and older have been sucked in to dependence and even psychosis by LLMs, and frankly makes it more likely that people will look at this "kids these days" thing and say, "Ahh, but I'm [older/better educated/built different], I'm not like Those Kids, AI's tricks won't work on me, or at the very least, I will be less susceptible to them!"
And that's just wrong.
ChatGPT is Wormtongue, in a very real, not metaphorical or exaggerated sense. The only way to truly avoid the way in which it rots your fucking brain is not to use it at all.
There is no amount or type of education which will protect you from the automated evil vizier whispering flattery and lies into your ear. Telling yourself or others otherwise is simply incorrect.
Trying to reframe it as "Kids These Days are more susceptible because they're 'functionally broken' by our education system" doesn't change the basic thesis statement.
And it's wrong.
I don't know how to make this not sound mean but I'm not trying to be mean, so please know that going in.
Listening to a podcast about bodies and eating disorders and the body positivity movement of the last decade ish and hearing someone say (paraphrasing from memory here) "body positivity was all capitalism, there were no legislative changes, just new brands of jeans"
Legislative changes are super important but I cannot emphasize enough that jeans coming in bigger sizes and fat-friendly cuts is actually a really big deal! With meaningful impacts on people's lives (including mine)! Fat people do need clothes! And you may not realize this, but if you're over a certain size (that's not even that big a size) there's a very good chance you can go to a big box store and *not find anything that fits you*. There are towns in the US where if you're over a size 18 you need to drive an hour away or shop online to get things in your size. And they're expensive! "Just buy used" if they even have your size! Fat people want to look nice too. And we face enough judgement during job interviews (to give one example) without trying to do it in clothes that don't fit or are super uncomfortable.
Actually: If you're fat and you want to look cute/hot/masc/femme/etc I cannot recommend this website enough, you put in your measurements and it lists what brands have your size. You can filter for stuff like sensory friendly, nonbinary, masc, organic, etc. It's not AI just a database.
Phoria is a platform to help plus-size and gender-expansive people build a more sustainable and ethical wardrobe they love. We’re a benefit
Hey don't cry, okay? We just found Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, a species thought to be extinct for the past 60 years.
We confirm the ‘rediscovery’ of Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi), one of only five modern egg-laying mammals and
So Sir David Attenborough was already a well known naturalist(the docementary kind, not the nudist kind) in 1961 to have an animal named after him, then lived 60 years thinking the animal went extinct and now lives to see evidence of it not being extinct. That is both incredibly heartwarming and a very Elf-core thing of him to do. He truly is an archdruid
Bugs Bunny and Lola Bunny reinterpret this cartoon first published in German magazine Lustige Blätter in 1932:
