One Nice Bug Per Day

Andulka
styofa doing anything

if i look back, i am lost
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
NASA

@theartofmadeline
hello vonnie
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸

Kiana Khansmith
Xuebing Du

★

Kaledo Art

Discoholic 🪩
h
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
dirt enthusiast
No title available

Origami Around
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
seen from Philippines
seen from United States

seen from T1

seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom

seen from United Kingdom

seen from United Kingdom
seen from India
seen from T1

seen from United States
seen from Romania

seen from United Kingdom
seen from Brazil
seen from T1

seen from United Kingdom
seen from Malaysia
seen from Chile
seen from Singapore

seen from United States
seen from United States
@dyionisiac
easy to miss that one of the reasons maternal mortality is diminished so extremely by modern medicine is that modern medicine makes it so much more possible to identify the pregnancies that will die and take you with them, or are otherwise unacceptably high risk. and then discontinue those ones safely, before it's too late.
thought about this because it's so frustrating when people argue that 'dying in childbirth' is a historical sort of event that doesn't happen nowadays (false) and therefore is irrelevant to the legal status of abortion, since it's not a real danger.
except it super is, and i think a lot of people haven't noticed that this argument in addition to simply being incorrect is basically the same as when people say we don't need vaccines for deadly diseases because no one gets those now anyway.
like yeah one reason for that is we vaccinate everybody ffs.
Pallas's Cat aka Manul (Otocolobus manul), mother and kittens, family Felidae, Tibet
photograph by Shanyuan Li
what is your LEAST favorite stitch?
I don't like counted work at fucking all. So: the cross stitch.
reading this as someone who does cross stitch but is scared of the other kinds of embroidery is like overhearing an incredibly tall and buff person say they have beef with Mr. Tom, the kitten that chills at the bookstore
FUCK Mr. Tom and his stupid little fluffy tail ok. And his little charted designs.
Okay, but this neglects the true villain of embroidery stitches: the French knot
Don't you dare malign my girl again
Ok the french knot is very useful but it is a BITCH to do it consistently
We talk about how this website’s hate mail game is insane, but this might just be a new level
"skill issue" made entirely from French knots is a next level roast. no coming back from that one. damn
A young melanistic leopard in Kali Tiger Reserve, India. Photographed by Mithun Hunugund.
I feel like a lot of people engaging in torture are not treating their victims as if they could have blood borne pathogens 🤔
Is what my wife said apropo of nothing as we were silently drifting off to sleep
Uh oh
Is what she said when I immediately reached for my phone and opened Tumblr instead of responding
@everything-you-feel-is-real I know by tumblr tradition that I'm to say "impossible, my posts never blow up like that," or "please don't do this to me."
But I feel in my bones that you are right. If this is to be my wife's moment of glory, I am willing to suffer notification overload, that the world may know she is funny. #MyFunnyWife
I have found the best ally
Straight and cis people will say that they are allies, but you will NEVER measure up to my dentist.
Me: "Hey, is it ok if I can change my name on my info from [DEADNAME] to Sai?"
Random woman that I wasn't even talking to in the chair next to me: "Honey, if that's the name you had at birth, [DEADNAME] is your only name."
My dentist, very slowly turning her rolley chair towards the woman: "Shush."
Random woman: "Excuse me?"
Destist: *closes privacy curtain while staring bullets at the lady*
Me: *pissing myself laughing*
My dentist while changing my name in my info (reminder that English is not her first language, she immigrated from Russia): "There, Sai, you have pretty boy teeth. Smile and make all girls swoon."
Me not having the heart to tell her I'm not transmasc but I'm Agender, and still pissing myself laughing: "Thank you [DENTIST NAME]."
Rb to have pretty chosen gender teeth. Smile and make all girls swoon.
transcendental hygienist
Please stop trigger tagging with #epilepsy tw/cw/warning/etc.
I need every single person to understand how horrible tumblr’s tagging system is
I go into the tag for epilepsy and its all flashing lights. We can’t use our own tag because people without epilepsy fill it up with improper warnings.
Use ‘flashing’ in place of ‘epilepsy’ in your tags. You aren’t warning people of epileptics, you’re warning us of flashing lights. Please please tag properly. Epileptics say this endlessly and constantly and it’s ignored. You are risking lives by doing this.
Here’s proof of what I mean:
THIS POST IS 100% OKAY TO REBLOG, I ENCOURAGE PEOPLE WITHOUT EPILEPSY TO ESPECIALLY DO SO!
And if you’re in the notes or tags telling us to “just get a new tag”
Fuck You
i hate that nonbinary people can't be, like, nonbinary.
whatever we do, we can't win. we can't be seen as actually nonbinary. people binarize us and often mock us or get aggressive or dismiss and ignore our nonbinaryhood or something else.
if we don't medically transition, we are "just cis trenders."
if we do medically transition, we are "just [binary trans] eggs."
we are "technically transmasc or transfem anyways" if we don't use these terms.
we are lumped together with binary trans men and trans women if we do use these terms. our nonbinaryhood is ignored or seen as some kind of "gender-lite."
we are aggressively pressured to disclose if we're AFAB or AMAB, TMA or TME, transmasc or transfem, "boy nonbinary" or "girl nonbinary." and if we refuse to answer, people get double mad at us and pick something for us anyways.
if we show the slightest hint of something that could be interpreted as binary gendered, we are immediately binarised.
if we put a lot of effort into looking the most ambiguous or androgynous or neutral, people still try to find something. and they become aggressive. people often EXPLODE [PT: explode] when they can't gender someone by glance.
our ways of expression are constantly mocked and ignored (like neopronouns, nonbinary-centering labels for gender and orientation, basically all things that are associated with nonbinary people).
but if we choose more typical ways of expression (for example, use "he/him" or "she/her" pronouns), people use it to ignore and dismiss our nonbinaryhood.
we just can't win, and it's upsetting.
Hey! I love your books and I think you're brilliant and I wanted to say (to my shame, no shade) that the first few times I saw the post about the newest book, I thought it was a tumblr ad? Like, I'm not sure what about the pic said tumblr ad, but I skipped it a few times. I thought I would mention it in case this is something that other people are experiencing, and you might offer up another post about it as well as the current one, so more people click and read. Also, feel free to ignore this, it might come across rude and that is absolutely not my intention. Wishing you the best of luck and looking forward to the kickstarter... starting!
Thanks for the feedback, good to know! :) It might be because I got advice from a professional marketing design friend, so it's quite funny that "i will try hard to make this as professional and good-looking as possible" is perhaps having the OPPOSITE of the intended effect for some folks on this particular platform 😂 Sincerely i will take this under advisement and perhaps make the next one look Slightly Worse bahahaha
WELP i have three more weeks to scream "WAIT HOLD ON I'M A REAL AUTHOR WITH A REAL BOOK AND IT'S REAL COOL AND I WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT, DO YOU LIKE ANCIENT HISTORY AND QUEER SHIT AND BOOKS WITH FOOTNOTES????" until All Of Tumblr pays attention for the five seconds it will take to make my pitch
TUMBLR!!! HEY!!! Hi, it's me, Very Professional And Serious Fantasy Author Alexandra Rowland. I've decided to make the terribly inadvisable move of doing a Kickstarter for my next book, partially because I love all that fancy shit like gold foil and sprayed edges and merch, and partially because the publishing industry only wants books that "aren't necessarily making readers think" (direct quote I was told). So, you know. A Spite Kickstarter. Kickstarting my spite project. They can't keep a bad bitch down.
Anyway here is the book cover:
It is set in the same world as all my other books, and it's Queer Fantasy Academia -- so it's a fantasy book but it's written like an in-world nonfiction book, with footnotes and Explanatory Essays on the Fantasy Ancient Romans and how amazingly fucked up they were, and about how many different ways toxic masculinity can ruin a man's life. It's inspired by the real-life Roman emperor Hadrian and his lover Antinous.
Basically it is a nerd book for nerds and if you think that sounds cool as shit (because excuse me IT IS), then you can go read the full summary on Kickstarter. I had THEEEEE most fun researching and writing this book. Hollywood has been lying to you about how fucked up the Romans are. Please come into my little hovel so I can tell you the truth that Hollywood executives have hiding from you, on account of it's too gay.
......how was that, is that better. is this effective. you fuckers have to signal boost the hell out of this one so everybody who thought the other post was an ad and scrolled past without reading gets to see this explanation that This One's My Bad for approaching tumblr with a vibe of anything but "i'm wearing sweatpants and eating pizza with my other hand while i tell you this".
That was my fault. I put on a clean shirt and brushed my hair and y'all did not even recognize me. I have learned my lesson and I am sorry to everyone who had to be inflicted with something that looked too much like a Real Ad, I am distraught at my own horrific wrongs. Please be interested in my book and join me in my incandescent rage and spite about the state of the publishing industry. On Kickstarter. thank u
Oh I LOVE the book cover! Way more than the image on your previous post 🫣
Can't wait to get THISSSSS
LISTENING! AND! LEARNING!!!!
guys listen..... i really need your help on this one. Today I had to make an Instagram reel. This was done under EXTREME duress and I was shaking and crying the whole time and it was so so so so sososososo scary. I don't like it over there. I don't speak their language. But everyone's like "instagram is so good at selling books!! tumblr is not good at selling books, tumblr doesn't care about books" and i'm like "that's a lieeee that's a LIEEEEEE, tumblr does care about books, they care so much about books!!! stop trying to force me to be on Instagram!!!"
guys!!!! I FILMED A SHORT-FORM VIDEO YESTERDAY and immediately discarded it because Absolutely Fuck That Shit, I Simply Don't Wanna.
guys i am standing at my window staring at the rain, wracked with the nightmare horror scenario of getting on TIKTOK to promote my book, you gotta fucking save me from this hideous fate
I’ll be honest, I like this so much I’m gonna support your kickstarter
Because I want my fellow tumblrinas to succeed and be happy and wealthy doing our weird ass tumblrina shit
love and light
you and your family will be blessed for nine generations. may you always get the good parking spot. may the mcflurry machine always be working when you go to mcdonalds. may the other side of the pillow always be perfectly cold. go forth under the light of righteousness. thank u for ur support
#listen i have vague aspirations (barely a whisp of ambition) of writing a novel and watching your marketing agonies...#educational. mildly alarming. the vague aspiration is guttering like a candle in a breeze#i don't know if i'd have the strength o7 (via @kaasknot) Ok jokes aside for a second, being sincere. Yes. It sucks. It sucks and it sucks and it never seems to get any easier. I've been a Serious Professional Author for nearly ten years now and it is still hard and tedious and the marketing/self-promo part is not much fun fun (maybe for some people it is fun but not so much for me), and it's a lot of work, and I feel a lot of the time like I'm spinning my wheels and shouting into the void and getting only a soft echo of a response back. Which... is crushingly disheartening, yes. It's even worse at the beginning, when no one knows who you are and you're not getting any echo back at all when you first start to sing into the dark.
But even though it doesn't get easier, it does get a little BETTER. It's only in the last year or two that I feel like I've become a Known Entity. Like, just look how this post started, with someone telling me they love my books. Look how many people in the notes are reblogging because they like my books. You do a good job, you put your heart into it every time, you keep trust-falling into the arms of the audience, and eventually they start to trust you back, and then when you sing into the dark, it does sing back a little--maybe not a shout to shake the dust off the rafters, but a little hum. And that is SO PRECIOUS. That is a precious thing, that is a sacred thing, and that's the thing that's going to save you. You just keep showing up and doing the job, and then people start to know that you'll show up and do the job. And when you sing to them, they slowly start to sing back.
Marketing does not get easier, but at a certain point of pushing the boulder up the hill, a few extra hands appear to help Sisyphus. You cannot take that for granted. You have to cherish that, even when it's small, even when it's just a whisper of a song in the dark.
Besides listening for when the singing starts to echo back to you, the other trick is to figure out what your strengths are and then lean into them. Maybe it does not cause you physical pain to make short form videos. My strengths are that i love talking to people on the internet, I'm VERY VERY VERY good at community-building (see: my discord server) and I'm fucking funny. Figure out your toolset and then figure out how to use your toolset so you don't drive yourself crazy trying to get yourself to do something the way "everyone else" does it.
Having a writing career is hard, but it's not *complicated* -- what I mean by that is that it is a game where you really only have one move, and no matter what happens and what moves other people make, you take your same one move. The move is, "Write another book." You clamp your jaws on it and you find a way to make that move and you don't let the bastards grind you down, you don't let them stop you. They cannot stop you. They cannot keep a bad bitch down.
Do NOT let my marketing agonies alarm you or blow out your candle. Your agonies will be different from mine, guaranteed, and you will figure out how to laugh about them and endure them with a heavy sigh, because when you sing into the dark and the dark sings back, it's all fucking worth it. It is worth it.
People used to say "You should only write for yourself, don't write for the audience!" and to some extent I agree, but I also disagree. It's true that you can't write to try to please the whole audience -- Aesop has fable about trying to please everyone, and it holds up as true. I got a hater about the book earlier today! Yes, already! Kickstarter isn't even launched yet and I got some hate mail! But i'm not trying to please that person, because that person was a TERF!
But at the same time... I don't know, man. I used to tell people that I'm writing for one specific person, and I don't know who they are or where they live -- fuck, I don't even know if they've been BORN yet. I don't know if we'll be alive at the same time. But I know how books work. I know that there is only one kind of real magic and serendipity in the world, and that's the fact that every goddamn person who reads books at all has experienced the miracle of coming across exactly the book they needed at exactly the moment in their life when they really, really, really needed a book like that to be there for them. You throw messages in bottles into the sea, and someone trips over the one they need -- that's the person I'm writing for. One day, someone is going to really, really, really need me, and I want to be there for them when that happens, even if I'm decades or centuries dead by that point.
But maybe I won't be. Maybe someone will come up to me one day at a booksigning and say, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know, your book saved my life." And I'll be able to take their hands and squeeze so hard and say, "It was for you, I wrote it for you, I didn't know who you would be or if I'd ever meet you, but I thought of you the whole time. It's yours. Every word of it was for you. I'm so glad that I could be there for you."
And so the marketing doesn't really matter in the end. How could it matter, compared to that miracle? The miracle that happens to EVERYONE, somehow, over and over, every day, and there's no explanation for it. The marketing doesn't matter. Fuck the marketing.
Go write your book, @kaasknot. Nobody can do it the way you can.
STOP MAKING ME CRY WITH A BOOK MARKETING THREAD
the great thing about the wuxia genre is you can start a sect called the Evil Blood Cult in a place called Demon Mountain that’s a volcano full of poison and you all wear crazy gothic black and red hanfu and practice Sinister Backstabber Style kung fu and like. that’s not a deterrent to prospective disciples. do all that and a fuckton of bright eyed youngsters will still show up at your door and say hello i would like to join the demon mountain evil blood cult where do i sign up?
Lockheed Martin was at my college's job fair
Same exact playbook, down to the "but it was based on a lie."
It's kind of amazing how much this is the identical strategy. Focusing on the distress and harm of parents over the trans or autistic person themselves. Pathologizing the condition treating it as an epidemic, including calling it a social contagion causing a worrying "explosion" of diagnosis because it is "trendy."
Ignoring the experts on the subject while also appealing to "common sense" and dismissing all research that contradicts them while also appealing to "basic science."
Plus it's all the same quacks and bad actors behind previous medical and social moral panics saying the same things in the same ways and no one seems to acknowledge that.
I should lock the fuck in *half an hour passes* I should lock the fuck in *half an hour passes* I should lock the fuck in *half an hour passes* I should-
[source]
🚨BREAKING: OpenAI published a paper proving that ChatGPT will always make things up.
Not sometimes. Not until the next update. Always. They proved it with math.
Even with perfect training data and unlimited computing power, AI models will still confidently tell you things that are completely false. This isn't a bug they're working on. It's baked into how these systems work at a fundamental level.
And their own numbers are brutal. OpenAI's o1 reasoning model hallucinates 16% of the time. Their newer o3 model? 33%. Their newest o4-mini? 48%. Nearly half of what their most recent model tells you could be fabricated. The "smarter" models are actually getting worse at telling the truth.
Here's why it can't be fixed. Language models work by predicting the next word based on probability. When they hit something uncertain, they don't pause. They don't flag it. They guess. And they guess with complete confidence, because that's exactly what they were trained to do.
The researchers looked at the 10 biggest AI benchmarks used to measure how good these models are. 9 out of 10 give the same score for saying "I don't know" as for giving a completely wrong answer: zero points. The entire testing system literally punishes honesty and rewards guessing.
So the AI learned the optimal strategy: always guess. Never admit uncertainty. Sound confident even when you're making it up.
OpenAI's proposed fix? Have ChatGPT say "I don't know" when it's unsure. Their own math shows this would mean roughly 30% of your questions get no answer. Imagine asking ChatGPT something three times out of ten and getting "I'm not confident enough to respond." Users would leave overnight. So the fix exists, but it would kill the product.
This isn't just OpenAI's problem. DeepMind and Tsinghua University independently reached the same conclusion. Three of the world's top AI labs, working separately, all agree: this is permanent.
Every time ChatGPT gives you an answer, ask yourself: is this real, or is it just a confident guess?
When a person with ADHD complains of severe anxiety, I recommend that the clinician not immediately accept the patient’s label for her emotional experience. A clinician should say, “Tell me more about your baseless, apprehensive fear,” which is the definition of anxiety. More times than not, a person with ADHD hyperarousal will give a quizzical look and respond, “I never said I was afraid.” If the patient can drop the label long enough to describe what the feeling is like, a clinician will likely hear, “I am always tense; I can’t relax enough to sit and watch a movie or TV program. I always feel like I have to go do something.” The patients are describing the inner experience of hyperactivity when it is not being expressed physically.
At the same time, people with ADHD also have fears that are based on real events in their lives. People with ADHD nervous systems are consistently inconsistent. The person is never sure that her abilities and intellect will show up when they are needed. Not being able to measure up at the job or at school, or in social circles is humiliating. It is understandable that people with ADHD live with persistent fear. These fears are real, so they do not indicate an anxiety disorder.
holy SHIT
The weaver's lament:
Why are there so many bits of string
Where are all my fucking bits of string
Repeat.
Verse two:
Why are there so many tiny hooks Where are all my fucking tiny hooks
Repeat.
Verse three:
I'm so sick of threading all these heddles
I miss threading all the tiny heddles
Verse four:
Why do I always have to fucking hemstitch
I wish I had just done the fucking hemstitch
May I add?
I don't need to change the tie up, I'll adjust the treadling
Why didn't I change the fucking tie up?
Why are there so many virtually identical sticks
None of these sticks is the specific stick I need :(
Verse 7:
SHIT shit SHIT I've less yarn than I thought
SHIT shit SHIT I've more yarn than I thought
Tehran, Iran, last days of 2025
A young woman shouts with her fists clenched, “Don’t be afraid. We are all together.”
The crowd moves behind her, repeating her words.