What Makes This Fragile World Go Round @demolitionfox9 - Tumblr Blog

There’s a dog at work today who is a real life deviantart oc. He’s a border collie with long blonde 90s surfer dude bangs and it’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen since I started this job.

Nature is a wonder.

sciaphobe

I was being 100% serious.

#silliest dog ever

1five1two

Gianni Colombo. 1937-1993.

tuskito

omg it's the Enterprise D's holodeck

fungiderg

I need you.

#god I love this #terraria #art #started playing again for the new update

tineiya

genderoutlaws

Never read Baldwin before?

Nonfiction

The Price of The Ticket (borrow from IA)

The Fire Next Time (pdf download)

Notes of A Native Son (pdf download)

Nothing Personal (read on IA - not great quality sorry)

The Last Interview (pdf download) (only 10 pages!)

Fiction

Giovanni's Room (pdf download)

If Beale Street Could Talk (pdf download)

BONUS

Little Man Little Man (read or pdf download on scribd) (Baldwin's only children's book)

Go Tell It On The Mountain (pdf download)

Another Country (pdf and epub download)

Sonny's Blues (pdf download)

Going to Meet the Man (pdf download)

great-and-small

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

handforthstudy

Unfortunately, I don’t have citations, but I have heard about the same phenomenon through Nat Geo Live presentations in the Amazon and Serengeti. Most individuals who are poachers or use slash-and-burn farming are doing this out of survival, not ignorance or greed. They have families to feed and children who will starve if they don’t find food or money. As OP said, fixing the human suffering fixes the conservation issue and is a win-win, while preaching conservation to starving people does nothing.

But on top of that, you know who the most ardent conservationists are once security has been achieved? The people who had once been forced to poach or slash-and-burn to survive. You know who’s great at tracking down gorilla poachers? Ex-poachers. Who’s good at understanding and advocating for people forced to do these things to survive? Ex-poachers. Who can convince others to take a chance on finding a better way to survive? Same answer.

It is win-win-win. As ecologists, conservationists, and environmentalists we must get out of our ivory towers of knowledge, stop carrying them into the field, and remember humans are part of the ecosystem too. And that sustainable change will never happen if human needs aren’t addressed.

buttons-beads-lace

I also love this story about the arapaima in Brazil. They increased the population of this endangered giant fish literally a hundred times over- from 3,000 to 300,000- by ending the total ban on arapaima fishing and instead creating legal fishing organizations. The fishing organization members get trained on how do population counts and determine how many fish they can take while still leaving enough for the population to grow.

The former illegal fishers are now sought-after experts, because they know how to spot the arapaima and tell juveniles apart from adults. They get to keep practicing the fishing skills that were passed down to them. The actual process of fishing is easier because they can work together and don't have to sneak around. The profits are higher because they can sell the fish openly to restaurants and to the public. The fishing organization members make sure that other people in their communities don't fish illegally. And the numbers of arapaima keep going up and up, so there's plenty to go around even as more people join the fishing organizations.

If you click all the way through to the report from the conservation org that started the fishing organizations project, there are quotes from fishing organization members:

"We built a second house and I'm putting my oldest two kids through college on the money we get from fishing."

"Nowadays you have young people walking around with pockets full of cash saying "I got 6,000 from fishing this year!" It used to be you wouldn't even get 50 reais of pocket money."

"At the first harvest after we started the fishing organization, I saw full-grown arapaima for the first time, really big ones like they're supposed to be. Before, I had only heard about how big they could get. That's when I knew that our work was paying off and we could keep moving forward."

draco2662

Whiteboard boyo

motasem-family

My name is Motasem from Gaza 🇵🇸🍉,

a father to a small child who asks nothing from this world except the most basic needs for his family—milk for my baby and safety.🥺

Today, I am unemployed, living a harsh reality after our homes were destroyed and we were stripped of the simplest necessities of life.

My child urgently needs baby milk and diapers, and I am unable to provide them amid extreme prices, siege, and destruction.

Gaza can no longer endure this suffering, and its children are paying the heaviest price.

Any support, no matter how small, can make a real difference in the life of an innocent child.

From a heart weighed down with pain, I reach out my hand to you… hoping that compassion can still find its way to us.

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #722 )✅️

Donate For PayPal Here , Donate For Chuffed

My name is Motasem, and today I write these words with a burden in my heart that no one could bear. The war has taken everything from me. I

voiceofaboud

She is dying. My little niece’s lips are torn open from the freezing cold in Gaza. Ignoring this could cost her life.

voiceofaboud

Her lips are cracked and bleeding, not just dry. She is too small to explain her pain, but she feels it every moment.

voiceofaboud

This may look small, but it is unbearable for her. Please donate urgently to treat her and buy milk before it’s too late.

Chuffed – PayPal – Verified

aboodgaza0

please share

dreamland-productions

🌌💫 quick redraw of a panel from one of the old Starfox comics. reference photo is down below for comparison.

#amazing #wow #star fox #fox mccloud #starfox art

wizardarchetypes

ok r y'all happy i went to my gmail and typed in 'is:unread older_than:100d' and mass deleted everything in that category and it deleted (literally) 65,000 emails.

wizardarchetypes

is:unread older_than:30d

now everyone leave me alone

wizardarchetypes

I got you!

DISCLAIMER: I figured out how to do this reading ancient forums, so if something goes terribly wrong, heed that warning.

Type the command into the regular email searchbar. I actually had so many emails, Gmail wasn't willing to mass-delete so many, so i actually started at 1800 days and moved down a couple hundred each time LOL. Anyway in this example I did '10' days because I'm almost out of emails.

Click the select box, which will only select the emails displayed on the first page of your search.

So click 'select all conversations that match this search.'

It'll tell you 'All conversations are selected.'

Hit that garbage can.

It'll ask if you're sure. Click 'ok.'

Assuming there's a lot of emails, they won't all delete at once, and you'll get this prompt:

Don't close the tab or go back to your inbox, or this won't happen. Open a new tab and do something else for a few minutes. After a couple (or 10) minutes, the emails will all move to your trash, and the page will be clear:

wizardarchetypes

And don't forget to empty your trash!

joldfish

Alts (if you’re a freak)

#so good #echo fanart

alexyz-kun

Old doodle of 3 Pokemon OCs that I've had ever since I was in middle school haha

#they are adorable I love them #furry art #pokemon

rabosa-al-forn

"Is it ready?"

"I don't think..."

"Did I hear it's ready??"

"... let me check..."

Mustelids are not the most patient creatures on earth.

I feel like using traditional media again lately. I guess I needed a change.

#so cute and homely #art #fur art

paxamericana

you’re hearing it more and more

kyrare

Spotify Premium ad: “Imagine playing music without interruptions! Infinite skipping! Replay the song you want! And even do it offline? No ads! Whatever songs you want! For a small monthly payme-” Me: *nods, turns off Spotify and turns on my MP3 player and does all the things they offer, but for free and with songs they don’t even have*

jimtheviking

For those of you who might not know how to do any of this:

To convert CD audio into mp3s, you just follow the steps here

To play mp3 files, you download an mp3 player like Winamp here and away you go

On mobile? There are plenty of free mp3 players for your phone available, too, so check them out

You don’t need to be tethered to an online streaming service for your music. Be free.

eroticcannibal

You can also rip audio files from youtube and find files all over the internet. It is far easier to come across great and lesser known music if you dont limit yourself to spotify.

n7punk

Here’s a tutorial on how to get the music and playlists you like with unlimited listening/downloads. This is a free way to do it that I believe is a balance between cost, time, and pros & cons:

If you have the CDs, it will be easier to rip them. Most music managers include this feature and you will have all the track information loaded into the file. There are also pirate websites where you can download entire albums with their metadata attached, but there could be risks associated (I would worry more about viruses than lawsuits these days, though). Deciding a method for acquiring music is a balance of the required time, the alternative costs, and other pros/cons like supporting the artist or taking the risk of pirating sites.

1. Find the song on Youtube. YT has pretty much every song at this point, usually in comparable quality to what you would get on a streaming service.

This is great if you already listen to music on Youtube, but there might be a better method for going direct from Spotify, though this will work either way. The main downside to this method is that official music (and even lyric) videos sometimes have non-music portions so you might have to listen to the whole thing to be sure. SponsorBlock will highlight non-music sections for most artists, so if you have it installed you can tell at a glance if this is the case.

2. Download the audio from YT. There are many ways to download YT videos completely for free. It’s probably against the YT terms of service, but you’re not going to get sued.

I like y2mate for downloading YT videos (or their audio in mp3s) because it’s a simple, ad-free website. You just paste in the URL for the video you want to download. Sometimes it’s laggy and you have to come back later, but usually after a few moments the video loads, you select your download quality (the highest), and then save it. For easy file management, download everything in folders for the Artist, and then sub folders for the Album, and name the MP3 file the “song name”.mp3.

3. Upload to your music player/manager of choice. The file will currently be lacking metadata (Artist, Album, track number, etc) and will be added to the library as a song with its title set as the file name minus its .mp3 extension. Various music players/managers have different ways to add metadata (usually accessed by right-clicking the song) with varying ease.

iTunes is free and and logical if you have an iPhone, but limited in its capabilities. I do all my management/listening in MusicBee (free for Windows) because of its playlist and management features, as well as having a very customizable interface. You can set it to scan the folders you download music to so it will automatically load things into your library, or do so manually. Once loaded into MusicBee, you can batch edit an entire album’s metadata at once easily with Auto-Tagging. Auto-Tag can fetch the details from the internet and fill in artist, tracks, album artwork, etc and save that information to the mp3 file. You can edit this manually if needed too. Drag and drop the edited songs to any other player you may want to add them to so it can find the files.

4. Now you can use the player of your choice to listen endlessly, form playlists, etc. Some free music managers also have music discovery/recommendation features for expanding your collection.

MusicBee allows you to create playlists with folders, subfolders, and dynamic features. You can export these playlists for cross-platform play on other computers with MusicBee installed. I think the playlist features on MusicBee are better than what is on streaming services. You can create an auto-playlist of your recently-added music so you can easily find the ones that are new and might need need editing, adding to other playlists, etc. I have custom tags for music by LGBT artists, sapphic love songs, and more. I also drag-and-drop these playlists directly into iTunes so I have them on my phone too (you can do this to make a new playlist or just edit/add songs to a current one).

There are many music managers/players, including cross-platform ones with streaming, though they usually have fees for that feature. Because you aren’t streaming the music and rather storing it, you’ll need space on each device you want to play the music on, but memory is cheap these days.

You can buy a 2TB external harddrive for less than Spotify or Youtube Premium costs for six months, so having to store the songs isn’t much of a downside. Plus, the song will never “leave the service”, you can listen to it offline, etc.

I do encourage people to pay for art, especially from small, independent artists. You have to pay for art if you want to keep it alive, but there is debate over if streaming services are really “paying the artist”. Alternatives include buying and ripping CDs, purchasing merch or tour tickets (where artists make a lot of their money), etc to support them with something other than streaming views.

night-dark-woods

ID. a tweet from Don Hughes @/getfiscal dated Feb 18 21. it reads, “Started imagining paying for Spotify for the next thirty or so years and got a bit dizzy, cancelled a bunch of subscriptions, installed Linux on my computer and then pulled out my old CDs to rip. Going caveman.” End ID.

uberguber89

ryttu3k

Seconding MusicBee! Also, you can use a library subscription to access Freegal, which allows (depending on your library system) up to five free downloads a week. Completely free, actually legal, yours to keep, no DRM or any crap like that.

For indie producers, always check if they have something like Bandcamp! Bandcamp lets you download as well, and has significantly higher royalties going to the actual artists (Spotify pays them… very little).

fluffmugger

Jsyk, winamp rips cds natively. You can set whatever bitrate you like. Been doing *that* since last century.

audacityinblack

It’s that time again:

A curated list of awesome warez and piracy links. Contribute to Igglybuff/awesome-piracy development by creating an account on GitHub.

wikdsushi-v2

Don’t forget that you can borrow CD’s from your local library! Borrow, rip, repeat ad infinitum!

jughead-is-canonically-aroace

for playing mp3s on android - musicolet, very customizable, bajillions of options, and you can edit the metadata in-app including album art and lyric files

on firefox - there’s a youtube video downloader add-on that lets you do it from page, though only as video - but most video players have an export-as-audio option

benevolentwanderer

If you have installation privileges, I would strongly suggest Mediahuman’s audio downloader which, in addition to scraping youtube audio can also capture from a variety of other sites, is highly configurable, does not rely on a website provider choosing not to become malware, AND downloads/converts the audio in around the amount of time it would take that video to load?