[havinghorns]

Looking at some beautiful quilts by Michael James to cheer me up

[hollowistheworld]

I really can and will blame the 9-5 for everything. "We're in a loneliness epidemic" well, we have to spend a third of our day interacting with people in a professional way that makes forming real friendships difficult and then we're peopled out by the time we're done. "People are eating more and more unhealthily" people have to spend more than a third of their day doing work related tasks and they don't want to spend their tiny amount of free time making food. "People aren't involved in their local communities" after spending more than a third of their day doing work related things people are tired and also all those community events take place during normal working hours. "People need to get more hobbies" after spending more than a third of their day working, people are TIRED and don't want to do anything that takes yet more energy. "Literacy is dying" to maintain your critical thinking skills you need to read/watch things that make you think and after spending more than a third of your day doing work related stuff you are TIRED and don't want to expend even more brainnpower. "People need to get outside more" People. Are. TIRED. Because they have to spend all of their time working or preparing for work or recovering from work or doing all the chores they couldn't stay on top of because of work. I can blame fucking anything on having to work, it is truly the root of all fucking evil.

[icecreamwithjackdaniels]

Carl Jutz (German, 1838–1916), "Ducks by the Stream" (details)

[die-rosastrasse]

Witchy woods 🐞🍄

My photography, Spring 2026

[geopsych]

Sunrise on the last day of the heatwave

[holopics]

mountain lion

[mammalianmammals]

Northern Hog Badger (Arctonyx albogularis), family Mustelidae, Kaziranga Tiger Reserve, Assam, India

Once considered to be a subspecies of the Greater Hog Badger, A. collaris, which has now been split into 3 species.

photograph by Soumyajit Nandy

[life-on-our-planet]

eepy mourning dove cupping its wings under its belly for cushion ©Ella

[andhumanslovedstories]

There's something about lazily studying Mandarin Chinese that's made language learning seem far more approachable. It would be cool to be fluent one day, but I've always been clear with myself that I don't have an actual goal with this besides maintaining a streak in my language app for a certain amount of days. I can quit whenever I want, which is remarkably good at making me not quit. Sometimes I study Chinese for hours because I'm having a good time, but mostly I'm lazily plucking at this language for sometimes literally a minute. After a year of doing this, even though Chinese is so difficult and different from English, it turns out I can still get from knowing absolutely nothing to knowing slightly more than nothing in a pretty short period. An incredible jump in knowledge with not that much work. In fact, the gap between English and Chinese is so vast that microscopic progress feels incredible. When I have to write out literally any pinyin by memory, and I get 75% of the letters and none of the tones correct, I feel like a genius. Today I almost spelled 音乐会/yīnyuèhuì correctly on my first try, and I wanted to call everyone over to see how I effortlessly nailed two-thirds of it.

It's much more encouraging than any of the "easier" languages I've studied. My primary emotion when studying Spanish was embarrassment that I was still so bad at Spanish. Meanwhile, now I'm like, "If I can suck at Chinese, I can suck at anything," which is very inspirational because doing something really, really badly means that you are in fact doing it. I saw an ad for Hebrew language learning course and had the realization that I could probably get really, really, really, really bad at Hebrew in what, a couple months? The thought made me very excited. I could get horrendous at any language in a couple months. I could get horrendous at anything. With a little time and not that much effort, I could nail two-thirds of shooting a basketball. The sky's the limit, but if you don't care about getting all the way up there, one inch off the ground can still be pretty impressive.

[ysengrm]

Reinecke Fuchs, 1902

[imp-deactivated20171219-deactiv]

when people say my name im like.   cant believe i exist

[kocalls]

[falseknees]

Lake-Side Gallery

[kavohh707]

The first steps in life are not easy, not for humans and not for rooks. This rook probably just left the nest that day and walking on uneven ground the first time is not easy. They also cannot really fly at this stage, they manage a few flaps, but gaining height and landing is really difficult, so they rather walk.

[bobbole]

Kimagure Buta

[pennaraptor]

emotional responses are deeply evolutionarily advantageous in any animals that are making complex decisions and behaviors (in many vertebrates, say) because they act as a reinforcer for a behavior. a bird taking a vigorous bath in a puddle is probably happy because if that behavior didnt elicit a positive feeling they wouldn't do it (it is dangerous to be on the ground and wet!). if an animal can feel fear, which i think is a less contested assertion to make, then it can certainly feel the opposite, that is, happy.

[pennaraptor]

Bernd Heinrich in his book Nesting Season

[camelidae]

Now for an end-of-bovember cowpolation (part one)