The lie that kills 20+, white, queer I have a love for the creepy, crawly, and squishy. They/Them/other gender neutral pronouns En español uso Él para mí Sometimes I run out of spoons and don’t tag, so there are untagged snakes, gore, spiders, body horror, general horror, and other creepy-crawlies running around this blog alongside potentially triggering material. I also swear. You have been warned. Avatar by the wonderful @sinkingwithshipss If you censor the word queer, block me. I’m slowly learning Spanish
I need you young people to know it was almost never this hot when I was a child. Millennials and Gen Xers are all nostalgic and excited about summer because it was about ten to twenty degrees cooler to experience it back then!
I cannot express to you how FAST it has gone. I grew up in a world that does not exist now.
We're starting on the path to reverse it, globally. You might not know how much solar has EXPLODED in the last decade or two. It's gone from a side thing, a weirdo novelty that was just Not Viable... to whole countries investing in infrastructure.
but we have to keep fighting big oil and fascism everywhere we can in order to keep on this road to a new better less scorching burning earth.
But any time you wonder wtf the weather is doing- THIS IS NOT NORMAL, NO. THIS IS NOT WHAT IT WAS EVEN TWENTY YEARS AGO.
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.
You can get and use windows 11 without logging in with a microsoft account, as of five days ago. I am a local user on my computer. Don't ask me how to do it, because my computer repair guy did it when he reinstalled windows, but there are tutorials out there. Refuse to connect to internet until you're set up and can use the computer freely.
I love when people try to gotcha me on my stance that all sports should be gender integrated with "even American football???" because I can instantly come back with "oh lmao, no, I don't think ANYONE should play American football at all, it's way too dangerous" like nice try but I know no amount of testosterone is going to protect you from the profound, life ruining health issues caused by getting repeated severe concussions over the course of several years. No one should play this sport.
Like do you really think muscle mass or gender/sex can protect you from CTE?? You think men are naturally more resistant to concussions?? Because idk how else you square this sport being too dangerous for cis women and people afab but perfectly safe for cis men and people amab. Having a testosterone dominant endocrine system isn't gonna do shit in the face of traumatic brain injury. Be serious. This sport should not exist.
Honestly it's pretty weird to me that people dismiss the harm football players go through as fine because they're men, especially when so many players are black men. Always remember the argument that women are weaker than men is also an argument that men are stronger than women and can withstand more injury and abuse which isn't true, and absolutely ties into eugenicist beliefs about black bodies while obscuring their suffering as not existing because they're men and football is only dangerous for women, so how could they be hurt?
Systems can exploit men too, especially non-white or otherwise marginalized men who also deserve to be defended and liberated from said system's devaluation of their humanity and mistreatment.
One of the funniest things about moon snails is that if they come across a succulent morsel that’s too big to eat right away, they’ll tuck it into a little pouch at the back of their foot and take it with them. And they look exactly like a cartoon character who ate a big wedge of cheese and is now suspiciously triangular.
“Moon snail, have you seen the tasty mussel I just dropped in the tank?”
Shoutout to all the trans girls out there who were forced to live as miserable boys during the 2000’s or 2010’s, missing out on all the weird sparkledog scene rawr xd era and who are now gloriously reclaiming this time in their adulthood. All power to you. Be blessed now and forever, colorful creatures. Go outshine god.
so christopher nolan drilled into an active historical site to rig a scene, dumped a bunch of plastic skeletons into the ocean with no plan to fish them out, and ruined an actual Viking ship on loan from sweden and refuses to pay for damages. all for that garbage movie.
Swedish nonprofit alleges cost to repair replica was $6,000 but Universal – which made $264m on film’s opening weekend – has not stumped up
Concerns about prop disposal as filming on new Nolan film comes to a close | www.italianinsider.it
looking for a news outlet to pick up the archeologist drama over this but you can google the practical effects used for the cyclops and find the pictures pretty easily
Our fossil is a rare new witness. It comes from roughly 80-million-year-old rock in São Paulo state, Brazil. We named it Tametara mirim, meaning “adorned” and “small” in the local Indigenous language.
(Photo: Agustin Martinelli)
The new fossil of Tametara mirim reframes how we understand snake evolution.
(Photo: Agustin Martinelli)
Life reconstruction of the burrowing stem snake Tametara mirim which lived alongside now-extinct stem-birds and sauropod dinosaurs.
(Illustration: Gabriel Ugueto)
The bones of Tametara show it had the skull of a burrower. CT scan volume-rendered with VGSTUDIO MAX.
(Image: Roy Ebel)
One theory about how snakes evolved suggests lizards went underground, lost their limbs and elongated their bodies.
(Illustration supplied - Roy Ebel)
80‑million‑year‑old snake fossil sheds light on why lizards lost their limbs and started slithering
Snakes are everywhere in our legends and mythology. Yet for most of us, our blood runs cold whenever we encounter these strangely undulating, scaly tubes of muscle slithering through the leaf litter.
The loss of an arm or leg poses a challenge. Yet snakes do perfectly well without all four of them. This makes them suspect. It also leaves us unable to fathom how this radical transition produced one of the most successful vertebrate body plans.
More than 4,000 species of snakes are alive today, on every continent except Antarctica, from thread-thin burrowers to massive pythons, on land and in the sea. We have studied them since antiquity, and still the oldest question about them has no answer: what turned snakes into snakes?
We have long suspected their peculiar, limbless body plan is explained by how the earliest snakes lived. In a new study, published today in Nature, my colleagues and I describe a small, exquisitely preserved fossil that brings us closer to an answer than ever before.
By Roy Ebel
Research Officer Herpetology, Museums Victoria Research Institute, Australia
The Conversation - July 23, 2026
Snakes lost their limbs millions of years ago to become undulating, scaly tubes of muscles. Scientists are finally figuring out why.
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Related article >>
Fig. 1: Holotype (MPM 420) of T. mirim.
a, Photograph of the whole specimen with the articulated skull and postcranium in dorsal view. Ant, anterior; Bl, block number; Ce.V., cervical vertebrae; Do.V., dorsal vertebrae; Post, posterior; Sk, skull. b,c, Photographs of the skull in lateral (b) and dorsal (c) view. CB, compound bone; F, frontal; Oto, otoccipital; P, parietal; PFr, postfrontal; Pro, prootic; Ptg, pterygoid; Q, quadrate; Soc, supraoccipital; St, supratemporal. d–g, 3D renderings of an anterior precloacal (‘cervical’) vertebra in lateral (d) and anterolateral (e) views, and mid-precloacal (‘dorsal’) vertebra in dorsal (f) and left lateral (g) views. h–j, 3D renderings of the skull in the right lateral view (h) and with exposed brain endocasts in the right lateral (i) and dorsal (j) views. Mes., mesencephalon; Rho., rhombencephalon; Tel., telencephalon. Scale bars, 100 mm (a), 5 mm (b,c,h–j) and 1 mm (d–g). Specimen photos were taken by A.S.H.
Exceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes
Understanding the ecological origin of snakes has remained a century-old challenge, hindered by an extremely sparse early fossil record and conflicting interpretations of fossil ecologies.
Here we describe an exceptionally preserved Cretaceous fossil snake, Tametara mirim gen. et sp. nov., from Brazil, representing one of the earliest-diverging stem snakes. High-resolution micro-CT scans reveal unprecedented details of cranial nerves, inner ear and brain anatomy, enabling the most integrated reconstruction of stem snake neuroanatomy to date. Quantitative and qualitative endocast analyses demonstrate that Tametara had a brain morphology distinct from both other stem and extant snakes, revealing substantial early neuroanatomical disparity — and probably sensory functions — in snake evolution. Independent evidence from telencephalon shape and bone microstructure converges on a fossorial lifestyle for Tametara and non-fossorial for another stem snake: Dinilysia.
These results indicate that major ecological transitions occurred early in snake evolution, and that known stem species do not represent the ancestral condition of crown snakes. Early snake evolution thus involved complex shifts in habitat use and sensory ecology, revealing greater ecological and neuroanatomical diversity than previously thought.
By Tiago R. Simões, Gabriela Sobral, Simone Macri, Roy Ebel, Thiago S. Fachini, Augustin G. Martinelli, William R. Nava, Giovanna M. X. Paixão, Luis M. Chiappe, Nicolas Di-Poï, & Annie S. Hsiou
Nature - 22 July 2026
A well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.
um actually there's nothing wrong with letting cats be outdoor pets. your cat is depressed locked inside forever. it's animal abuse. let it outside. more cats should be let outside more often. especially overnight.
For those with homes built to keep heat in, not let it out: aluminum foil your windows, shiny side out. Cover the window, tape up the sides, maybe tape cardboard behind it to help insulate from the heat outside and absorb heat that gets through the foil.
Love, a former Californian, whose had to keep houses cool without any electricity.
P.S. this is a method endorsed by FEMA and the Department of Energy, so if you need more than anecdotal evidence, there ya go.
Person who's never actually played Palworld: It's just teen level edgy for the sake of being edgy and relies too heavily on being Pokemon With Guns.
People actually playing Palworld: This is my pink sheep, it is very sweet, because it is cotton candy. This is my brown sheep. It smells sweet, but is actually bitter, because it's coffee. I have decided to turn them into Gods.
This is a Lil pink bunny. She brings me random gifts she thinks I will like! Sure, sometimes it's a rock while I am fighting for my life, but she tries.
This is my giant stone automaton piloted by its small soul friend. It nearly crashes the world anytime I send it out because it accidentally obliterates entire forests, but I love them dearly.
Person who's never actually played Palworld: It's just teen level edgy for the sake of being edgy and relies too heavily on being Pokemon With Guns.
People actually playing Palworld: This is my pink sheep, it is very sweet, because it is cotton candy. This is my brown sheep. It smells sweet, but is actually bitter, because it's coffee. I have decided to turn them into Gods.
This is a Lil pink bunny. She brings me random gifts she thinks I will like! Sure, sometimes it's a rock while I am fighting for my life, but she tries.
