I LOVE REBECCA

jonahs general special interest blog !! medical, entomology, mycology, biology, and botany ! basically majority life sciences will show up here . extensively tagged for ease of use - **ARACHNOPHOBIA WARNING**

[beholdingslut]

this from the guy who wrote the sting pain index, a scale he constructed after letting himself be stung by insects

[beholdingslut]

“why did i start this list” pleaseeeeeee this is so funny

[caracalliope]

his descriptions were extremely on-point, and frankly inspiring when writing a hurt/comfort scene

Instagram poets could never!

[lobautumny]

For those who want it, here is the entire list:

Anyways, dude's 1,000% a huge masochist. Nobody just describes pain like this unless they're enjoying it.

[onehundredandtwentyfour]

Schmidt sting pain index - Wikipedia

[cdplayer]

"sound of the summer is this song" WRONG. its cicadas

[cdplayer]

for the 40th to 200th million summer in a row

[qelflinq]

You are very funny id like to protect you

[yesterdaysprint]

Hartford Courant, Connecticut, March 9, 1906

[creature-adjacent]

Carnivorous plants doin this is so funny to me

They don't wanna eat their pollinators :(

[questionablepastries]

[punk-pins]

tumblr users, overall, have low financial literacy. and like, I get it. it’s not shocking that a majority user base of chronically broke-adjacent people are intimidated by and/or think it’s useless to learn about financial systems. I’m not surprised by this. but I do think it’s really really important to have an understanding of business and financial concepts, even when it’s dense and scary, because it’s fundamental to how the modern world works. this post is inspired by the notes on this post about the idea of bankification and is for an american audience.

when you deposit a paycheck in a traditional bank account, you go online and see the number in your balance. to you, it looks like there is a single account that quarantines your money away from everybody else’s. you may think that when you deposit money in the bank, the bank is just holding that money for you, but actually, by depositing money is a bank, you are lending the bank company your money.

a bank company’s core function is to make money by bundling together the deposits that many customers have lent it, and investing that money in the stock market. the bank’s investments earn interest, which is the bank’s profit. if you have a savings account, you’re essentially telling the bank “hey, I plan to have this money sitting here for a while without drawing on it.” a savings account is a more stable investment base than a checking account for the bank, which is why the company incentivizes you to have one. when you earn interest on a savings account, that is the bank giving you a tiny kickback of the money they are making through investing your (and others’ blended) deposits.

the traditional banking system is insured by the federal deposit insurance corporation (FDIC), which is a government agency. if you took all your money out of the bank and hid it under your mattress, if somebody broke into your house and stole it, you will lose all your money. but the government insures money in traditional banks, usually up to $250,000 per consumer account. this means that even if the bank company’s investments all fail and the bank company loses all your cash, the government will bail the bank out, and you will not lose your money.

by putting your money in a traditional bank, you ensure your money is protected, you get a small kickback of interest, and you get access to the convenience of the bank’s online platform to track your finances. you also get a debit card to easily make purchases by drawing directly from your accounts. for the bank company, they get billions of dollars of interest-free loans, in the form of their customer’s deposits, to invest in the stock market. at its core, ignoring fees and credit cards and mortgages, this is how the banking system works.

bankification is the idea that non-banking companies are trying to operate like banks. this includes tech companies like Apple offering credit cards, but an aspect of bankification that is less understood is companies incentivizing consumers to give them interest-free loans. while banks are regulated by the government in exactly when and how they can operate within this business model, other companies trying to profit through this model are not always beholden to these regulations because their activities are not technically considered banking. let’s look at an example: loyalty programs.

in 2025, starbucks has an estimated $2 billion in deferred revenue from their loyalty program. deferred revenue is like a gift card; the company receives money because the customer paid up-front for the gift card, but the company is beholden to discount a future purchase by the pre-paid amount. there are multiple advantages to receiving deferred revenue for a company.

when a customer loads money onto their starbucks loyalty account, they are essentially buying a digital gift card. remember how banks encourage consumers to put money into savings accounts because it is a long-term holding account, which makes it a more stable investment base? once you buy a gift card, you cannot convert it back into cash. the money cannot leave the company, making a very stable investment base. starbucks offers a lot of benefits and discounts for customers who load money onto their loyalty accounts because starbucks recognizes the value of a captive investment base of interest-free loans. when many customers prepay through the loyalty program, starbucks is using that pooled money the same way a bank does: investing it to make even more money.

as a side note, two other major advantages of this gift card model for companies is inflation and breakage. money loses value over time through inflation. when you buy a gift card, you pay the money upfront, and the company can invest that money sooner at its higher value. breakage is the idea that if a gift card is bought but never redeemed, then the company essentially got money for nothing.

now, does this bankification through loyalty programs directly hurt consumers? well, not really. consumers who participate in these sorts of loyalty programs get benefits like discounts. the problem is indirect harms: that this money is uninsured for the consumer, and the deferred revenue investment base is less regulated than traditional banks.

if starbucks’ investments failed and the company died, any money those customers had paid into the loyalty program but had not yet used on purchases would disappear. the money is not insured, so the customer wouldn’t get it back. the same is true for keeping your money in any non-FDIC insured company, including companies like PayPal and Cashapp*. (*some services from those platforms, usually the credit cards, are insured because they have a backing partner bank. but a sitting balance in a free account is usually not FDIC-insured. don’t leave your money sitting in these accounts.)

because companies investing their deferred revenue is regulated and taxed differently than traditional banks’ investments, not only if there less protection for the consumer, but there is less protection for the wider economy. If a bankified company with significant investments into other bankified company fails, this can cause a shockwave effect similar to the 2008-9 financial crisis wherein all the interconnected bankified companies are destabilized. banks are heavily regulated to avoid that happening again, but bankified companies are not beholden to that legislation.

just cause it’s worth a mention, the predatory opposite-twin of the loyalty-program type bankification is buy-now pay-later bankification. buy now pay later is a more approachable way of saying financing. a mortgage is a type of financing; the bank pays for your house up-front, and you need to repay them over a period of years with interest and potential fees. again, traditional banks are heavily regulated in what they can do with financing. bankified companies offer financing on their purchases because they aren’t beholden to the same strict regulation, and they can set the time period, fees, and interest on their financing to whatever they want. bankified financing is often much more directly predatory to the consumer.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Watching the Crypto folks speed-run a recapitulation of the necessity of banking legislation has been fascinating.

[hexjulia]

so hard not to become the most annoying person on earth if you're a little excitable and just learned a little about a topic literally no one around you has any interest in

[silverbridge-harbor]

A juvenile bug isn't called a larva until it reaches the surface. While it's still underground it's called a margma

[miamaimania]

Unearthed Beauty: A Glimpse into the Mineral Kingdom of 1968

[waspdaily]

Thank you for your wervice (wasp service)

I'm doing my part o7

[raccoonmilf]

When I was in grade school I used to send emails to biologists and zoologists asking them questions to get answers to include in school projects I was working on, and would cry when they did not respond because I thought I was stupid for thinking that some random kid would ever be deserving of a response from someone who does something as smart and cool and important as *checks notes* studies frog fungus.

Now, at 29, I’m lowkey having a panic attack because my academic email is filled with middle schoolers wanting me to answer their questions about pygmy raccoons and I keep putting off answering them because I’m so overwhelmed with all the other raccoon stuff I have to do.

Anyway, greatest apologies to any scientist I ever emailed as a child and also an adult.

[raccoonmilf]

I know your research is really important and I appreciate all you are doing but this is so fucking funny

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

i dont CARE that its your special interest bitch whats your SOURCE !!!!!!

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

"source: me ! hahaha🥰" NO !!!!!!! SOURCE: First Name Middle Initiall. Last Name, Name of Book, (City: Publisher, year) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[scp372]

giant isopod is like what if magical creatures were real but just out of your reach. what if there was an animal that was generally really small but we made ONE that was actually the exact size you have dreamed about for it to be a normal house pet. but you both evolved to be unable to survive in each other’s environment. even experts (aquariums) struggle to conduct an environment in which they can survive and thrive, so you may never see one even behind glass. they may as well be unicorns. just one of the many ways life taunts me

[wolvesintheflowers-deactivated2]

I laughed to hard at this fucking thing.

[nattousan]

[razehider]

male paper wasps are famously huge wimps but no individual i've ever encountered captures their essence quite as much as this one pathetically clinging to a plant like a crying baby while looking at me with his huge pleading green eyes after i interrupted his early evening nap

(August 6th, 2025)

[spidersdaily]

[kaylmao]

just molted for the first time ama

[evil-sludge]

U feelin' mushy? Easily susceptible to predation..?

[kaylmao]

ok no more questions