Med(ical genetics)blr Hub

The home of @Genomics-blr, full cool science reblogs, and curated content from my other blogs.

[mariacallous]

[greatpoetryfun-deactivated20260]

Friendly reminder as we head into tax season (for US Americans), that the major tax preparation companies are fully prepared to lie and mislead you into paying for their tax preparation software when you might qualify for free software through the IRS.

Don’t fall for their bullshit. Visit IRS Free File and see what services are available to you. The requirements vary depending on your household status and income, but if you make less than $79,000/year (which is nearly everyone I know), you probably qualify for something.

[rat2rrj]

HR block also did this shit to me, fuck em

[unatkozorobotok]

[kazoo-goddess]

[calvin-arium]

It’s here !! The guide for two-legged people who don’t know how to draw wheelchairs !!! 7 pages of infodump ! Disclaimer : I don’t know everything, I have one (1) experience of wheelchair user who used both bad and good chairs, and I share what I learned.

Image description :

1) Calvin in his wheelchair saying “yo” under a huge title “how to draw manual wheelchairs properly by Calvin Arium, a wheelchair user comic artist”.

2) A character says “my character self propels in a chair that was outdated in 1970 lol” Calvin says “so it looks like you two legged people don’t know the difference between an hospital chair and a chair made to be independant” an arrow point the crapppy chair, saying “we never want to see this again”

a bubble says “the hospital chair is extremely unpractical, tough considering it’s cheaper than a good custom chair a lot of us have only this”

3) a character hurt himself trying to reach the wheels of the hospital chair. Several arrows point why the chair is unpractical : “high backrest restrain shoulders movement” “huge armrest restrains wheel access” “separated footrest : amovible, cheap, bulky” “x structure, foldable but heavy” “huge front casters for stability” “heavy wheels”

4) Several arrows point an active wheelchair (the KSL by Küshall) : “usually no armrest” “a low backrest allow more movement” “light, design, ferning expersive” “special cushion to avoind injuries” “knee angle is usually 90°” “one single piece of frame, sometimes entirely welded” “weight : from 4 to 10kg” “often rigid” “center of the wheel is the center of gravity” “higher quality wheels : less spikes”

5) A hand grab different parts of the wheel, pushing harder in the second half. Bubbles says “some have gloves, some don’t. The hand must grab the biggest area possible. Less movement = more energy. This is a common but not only way to push.Calvin is on his back wheels, rolling on grass and dirt bubble says “popping a wheelie is when a wheelchair user rolls on their back wheels to roll on every complicated surface.

6) several drawings illustrate the folding frame, the ergonomic but rigid and expensive backrest, the separated footrest (only for folding frame), the handles, the folding handles, athe amovibles handles, or no handles, the cool fancy loopwheels, the pretty custom colors 

7) More Features ! The fancy rigid-foldable frame, the anti tippers (sometimes used by beginners), the motorization (wheels, smart drive) when propelling yourself is difficult Calvin says “and now vroom vroom motherfuckers”

[thevagabondbard]

MORE PHOTS IN MUH REBLOG

Psst. Don't tell the jolkein rolkein rolkein estate, but this is amazing. DO consider buying a print from the extraordinary artist responsible:

https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/leiaham/

Original Twitter thread with the artist's thoughts and commentary:

[thevagabondbard]

[academicssay]

[cpericardium]

at the euthanasia party everyone gets a sip of the forbidden lean

[notbecauseofvictories]

good morning exclusively to the atlantic’s science editor, or whoever it is that titles their animal biology articles

[notbecauseofvictories]

fellas, they’ve done it again

[academicssay]

[bogleech]

Here is Moe’s bit by request, I don’t think I can share much more of this episode than I have already (which is almost half song) but it’s funny there were people on twitter complaining that it “beats a dead horse” or “preaches to the choir,” because I really don’t think a mainstream TV show has ever done an episode that’s just a complete chronological lecture on the rise and deterioration of America’s middle class. I also think those reviewers only believe it’s all common knowledge because of the social media circles they’re immersed in, most Gen Xers and older still just plain don’t even know how high student loans have gotten.

[bogleech]

this is like just a fourth of a whole musical medley addressing that you can’t live like the simpsons anymore. harsh :(

[chiribomb-deactivated20220820]

@minerfromtarn

[triskeleaficionado]

UC or ER?

[flyonthewallmedstudent]

Omg. I love this. We all need this.

[academicssay]

[glumshoe]

I’m at a party where the My Immortal fanfic is being explained via PowerPoint by a high school teacher.

[ernmark]

When I was working as a student teacher, I did this thing where I would reward my students for behaving and getting all their work done early by reading chapters of My Immortal to them.

I did voices and everything, pronounced every spelling error, and carefully fudged all the swear words and sex scenes. But the kids. freakin. loved it. Like, to the point where they’d start helping each other get their work done so we could finish in time to read a chapter. 

And after every single chapter, we’d go around and talk about why it was so hilariously awful. What made the writing bad? What would it take to make something better? 

And then very noticeably, they stopped doing those things in their own writing. 

It was really cool seeing them paying attention and thinking critically and not even notice because they were too busy laughing themselves sick about the story.

[grison-in-space]

GENIUS

[guerrillatech]

[annoyingalchemist]

Ok so can someone explain to me how cryptocurrency pollutes? Like what crazy calculations are they running that they need enough brainpower to significantly effect things? Like I’m assuming what’s causing the pollution is increased electricity consumption but… how does sending lil pretend money tokens back and forth or whatever cause so much pollution?

Also, what the fuck is “mining”? How d'you mine… like bitcoin is not a naturally occurring resource, and I assume that you can’t just make it, cause that would make it instantly worthless… help?

[commiemartyrshighschool]

So you get “coins” as a reward for performing the cryptographic calculations necessary to update the public ledger which is the blockchain. This is, by design, an increasingly complex and resource intensive process to slow down the collection of (intentionally finite) coins.

So every transaction with bitcoins requires the ledger to be updated with the current ownership of every already existing bitcoin, which also requires encrypting and decrypting a bunch of information and sharing it across the public ledger. So every transaction made with bitcoins increases the energy requirements of updating the ledger making it harder and harder to complete the latest version and get the coin which is a reward for doing that work.

There’s a lot I don’t fully understand myself but the long and short of it is that the actual value of any crypto currency is pretty much just what people agree on, except instead of a fiat currency where a government says it’s worth something and a mint that makes physical currency, there’s a bunch of nerds who agree that solving certain math problems is worth rewarding.

[brokenmachine3553]

Feeling like adding on for a bit of context, I know it’s kind of hard to understand how mining for really any kind of crypto is hard to imagine, but seeing what a bitcoin mining facility looks like for the first time really helped me realize just how energy intensive it is.

See all these warehouses? They’re quite literally filled to the brim with specialized computers that do nothing but mine, each one filled with thousands of these computers, just row after row of this:

So all the power consumption winds up adding up like crazy.

[white-throated-packrat]

Yep, that’s why cryptocurrency and NFTs are considered major contributors to pollution – because the energy needs of all those computers doing the calculation are equivalent to a medium sized country. Currently, crypto consumes more energy than Argentina.

[ralfmaximus]

Guess what’s inside a lot of mining rigs? Gowan, guess.

Graphics cards! 

Lots and lots of these puppies side by side, spinning their little fans as fast as they can go because as it turns out: GPUs are perfect for doing the calculations required for mining cryptocurrency.

Which means amateur miners buy a lot of these things.

So many, in fact, that there is now (May 2021) a world-wide shortage of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards and building a new gaming rig is damn near impossible because of the shortage. 

OR you can pay a ridiculously inflated price by GPU scalpers on eBay.

Seriously. Places that sell GPUs impose quantity limits because if they don’t… some crypto asshole will buy out their entire stock in one go.

But the “good” news is that the professional miners (like the Bitmain site up there, in the photos) use dedicated ASIC mining rigs which don’t use consumer GPUs. But (bad news) they DO use the same sort of chips that NVIDIA & AMD rely on to make their products, which just starves the supply pipeline at a different point.

Bottom line: not only does cryptocurrency mining consume terawatts of electricity, it also consumes megatons of computer hardware. Which is expensive to produce (in resource terms, like rare metals, petroleum, water, electricity, paper) and will, someday, require even MORE resources to recycle. Or else it ends up in a landfill.

Note that current dedicated mining rigs are so highly specialized they are useless for anything other than mining. They cannot be easily repurposed to  (say) sequence DNA or fold proteins for miracle cures.

What a waste.

[smute]

was anyone gonna tell me that some nerds peepee poopoo “currency” is the reason why graphics cards are sold out everywhere or was i supposed to find that out from comments under a screenshot from twitter user whoreganic cop puncher explaining how bitcoin is just an artificially complicated math problem

[hotvampireadjacent]

Also I’ve read be very wary about buying used graphic cards cause there’s a chance it’s one that’s mostly heavily used from one of these bastards. These thing are very heavily used so a used one sold by one of these guys would be on its last leg of life from being on 24/7

Make sure there’s a return policy just be very careful if you’re buying used.

[commiemartyrshighschool]

To be more fair than Crypto miners deserve, they’re only one of the factors driving the current chip shortage.

The other issues are both related to the pandemic. The first one is that manufacturing of a many things, especially cars, slowed down quite a bit until recently when the factories reopened. But so many reopened at the same time and went full blast that the demand far outstripped the supply, a supply already reduced by the shutdown of those factories.

The other bottleneck is literal mining. Computer chips rely on silicon and various metals, especially gold and copper to conduct electricity to do their work. In normal times this means that crypto’s environmental impact is even higher than just the energy requirements. But in the meantime the mines and refineries that provide the raw materials were also shut down in many cases due to the pandemic, squeezing the supply further.

Mining shutdowns have also caused a huge shortage of ammunition in the US (brass bullet casings need copper). Which means for anybody wanting to buy consumer electronics of a reasonable complexity you’re competing against both ends of the libertarian spectrum, the crypto techies and the gun nuts.

[blackwoolncrown]

Really glad someone brought this home to actual mining, and I want to show you what the mines look like:

These are silica mines, necessary for making ALL things requiring silicon, among other things.

These are rare-earth mineral mines.

Both are required for the manufacture of computer technologies. Both requre excavating huge amounts of earth, decimating all life in that area and more often than not, ruining land that is supposed to be stewarded by indigenous people.

They’re very, very bad for the environment.

This is where the ‘online’ world comes from. It’s not another place. Every transaction, every pixel comes from the ground.

So yeah, crypto mining is definitely deceptive. That ‘value’ isn’t coming from nowhere. It’s ripped from the earth.

[anarchistmemedistro]

[thatlittleegyptologist]

Folding Ideas did a really good video on how Bitcoin and NFTs are a) literally a scam and b) basically run by the same people who caused the 2008 financial crash. It’s a long one (I watched it on 1.5x speed) but worth it.

On top of, y'know, killing the planet, they’re also racist (I’m reposting a link from this post so everything is in one place):

Bored Ape Yacht Club is Racist and started by Neo Nazis

Discover why this is dehumanizing art created by bad actors.

[kimmycup]

When I first learned about bitcoin I assumed the calculations involved in mining are just stuff necessary for something, idk what, but for something useful, and bitcoin was just created as a way to pay people to generate the calculation power.

But turns out I was young and naive and it’s literally all just powering itself creating fake money and real problems.

[appraisedtiktoks]

[thebisexualbooknerd]

They have the RANGE

[maroononthemoon]

[academicssay]

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

Rosemary? You mean spicy pine needles?

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

Are you insinuating that regular pine needles aren’t spicy???

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

Regular pine needles are regular

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

Not by rosemary standards

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

…Have you eaten pine needles?

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

We’ve been friends for like four years, do you seriously have to ask if I’ve eaten pine needles or not

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

I mean I’m pretty sure you have but I don’t want to assume

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

Of course I’ve eaten pine needles. Various kinds. Singleleaf pinyon is weirdly the best

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

Are they…

spicy?

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

You know, I’d love to tell you but I’m pretty unclear about what marks the difference between “spice” and “strong-tasting plant that isn’t considered a spice”

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

I’ll have to eat some pine needles myself then to find out

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

Ok but it only counts if they’re PINE needles and not just any old needle-like leaf off a tree

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

I’m going to eat every needle-like leaf I see

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

Please Don’t Do That

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

Needle-Like Leaf Roulette

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

…I’ll accept this plan as long as you promise not to eat any yew leaves.

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

I can try very hard not to

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

Pine needles are distinguished by the presence of a sheath-like structure at the base of the leaf, almost always holding bundles of two or more leaves. Yews don’t have the sheath thing

[aeruh-deactivated20250615]

It’s time for me to go out into the woods and stare at needle leaves

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

Finally you can gain real insight into my average daily life

[silverjirachi]

this conversation reads like two shakespeare characters who come out in the middle of the play to talk about something completely unrelated for comic relief and then are never heard from again

[mortimermcmirestinks]

god fucking dammit gimme a minute

[mortimermcmirestinks]

Enter AERUH and MALUS SYL-VESTRIS, a pair of JESTERS.

AERUH I tell thee, rosemary is like a pine but with a spicy taste.

MALUS                         Art thou to claim that needles base of pine have not a spice?

AERUH A needle base of pine is merely base.

MALUS ‘Tis not when held, comparing, to anthos.

AERUH My dearest Malus, needles thou'st eaten?

MALUS How many moons have we as friends seen rise? How many suns have we as friends seen set? Thou sixteen seasons in my heart I’ve held, and hope that I in thine hast been the same. With brotherhood as rich and old as this, thou needst not ask me such frivolities.

AERUH I know thou likely has, to tell the truth, but I would not assume.

MALUS                       Well, yes, I have. A multitude of types I’ve eaten too. I’ll tell thee now: the best (though it is strange) is single-leaf pinyon.

AERUH                     And it has spice?

MALUS I truly wish that I could tell thee this, but now, i'faith, I cannot fully tell, the difference in classifying thus: to say “has spice” or merely “herbal strength”.

AERUH To tell this tale most clearly it would seem that eating needles from a pine’s required.

MALUS Aye, it would seem that that’s the task at hand, but caution tells that this is what’s to do: eat only needles of the honest pine, and none of lying leaf with pinelike shape.

AERUH I’ll eat them all.

MALUS                   I prithee, stay thyself.

AERUH Roulette with leaves.

MALUS                     At least restrain from yew.

AERUH I’ll do my best.

MALUS                That is all can we do. The scholars tell that needles true of pine can be distinguished from the lying yew by sheathlike clothing all along the base; the yew has no such guard.

AERUH                          With this new truth I now will venture out into the wood and seek the pines and pinelike fakes alike to stare them down and learn their secret truths.

MALUS With this thou canst at long and weary last Discover for thyself my life’s own path.

Exeunt.

Enter MACDUFF.

MACDUFF. Yo dudes that king there’s dead. Like dead as FUCK.