[time-left-to-kill]

et tu brute?

[uovoc]

axis? please advise

[artbyblastweave]

People always get so weird about my participation in the Flat Earth Advocacy Group. For the last time, we aren't cranks, we aren't conspiracy theorists, we're definitely not geocentrists, and our policy think tank is fully aware of what shape the planet currently is

[takingoffmyshoes]

they told me not to get lost in the weeds, but these are lush, beautiful, and ecologically necessary native plants so it's probably fine

[ryebreadgf]

favorite series of tweets

[wtf-scientific-papers]

Submitter comment: I'd like to submit this '[s]tudy of defensive behavior of a venomous snake as a new approach to understand snakebite' not for it's topic (worth studying!) but for it's insane methodology, which... well, I'll just let the researcher speak for himself:

[Q: Why did you decide to do this experiment?

A: Snake behavior has been generally neglected as a field of research, especially in Brazil. And most studies don’t examine what factors make them want to bite. If you study malaria, you can research the parasite that causes the disease—but if you don’t study the mosquito that carries it, you will never solve the problem. Up until now, the popular wisdom was that the jararaca would only attack if you touched it or stepped on it. But that was not what we found.

Q: Why did you need to be the victim?

A: The best way to do this research is to put snakes and a human together. In this case, the human was me. We put the snakes inside a ring on the floor of our lab until they got used to it, then I stepped in wearing special protective boots. I stepped close to the snake and also lightly on top of it. I didn’t put my whole weight on my foot, so I did not hurt the snakes. I tested 116 animals and stepped 30 times on every animal, totaling 40,480 steps.]

From the recent (aptly named) interview: Researcher steps on deadly vipers 40,000 times to better predict snakebites

[dragongirl-casca]

[theburialofstrawberries]

awesome awesome interview with Emily Wilson

[holy-leapin-splits-batman]

[saltwater-goldfishy]

ok I know everyone’s considered Ryland grace wearing an “I put the ace in space” t shirt but. have we considered the infinitely funnier option of putting this shirt on eva stratt

[raviolireptile]

I had to draw this

[butch-king-frankenstein]

I think those fancomics where Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is transgender are cute and fun but I also think it's a deep misunderstanding of Calvin's character to think he would transition into a heterosexual normie who goes to her high school reunion. That girl would have neopronouns and fang implants

[butch-king-frankenstein]

Adult Calvin is a tattoo artist named Panthera who is the bassist in a terrible metal band called Captain Napalm and Hobbes helps do faer E injections

[butch-king-frankenstein]

I know it's like 2 weeks too late to change it but I'm so mad I didn't realize that the band would obviously be called "Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS". I walk the road of shame

[parawyrm]

[kevytmaitohorsma]

Reblog this photo of a käpylehmä to have a käpylehmä in your blog

It's a trick! If you reblog you get TWO käpylehmäs in your blog!

[kevytmaitohorsma]

They're traditional Finnish toys, little cows made out of spruce cones, on their way to see the world from one tumblr blog to another

[liebelesbe]

I love emoji reactions so much. Don't know what to say but don't want to ignore whoever texted you? Boom. Lizard reaction 🦎

[himbotheninth]

dungeon crawler carl is fun because you go into it thinking it'll be an unserious, fun and gratuitously violent action book, and then you get to the very first boss, and then you think, now hold on. Hold on. And then all of a sudden you're seven books deep and insane and also holding on to the indomitable human spirit for dear life and also a crab has to jack off. like holy shit dude. i've got relentless hope and found family in one hand and the world's weirdest foot fetish in the other

[partywithponies]

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

[urlocalpyshcopan]

as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name

[brainsforbabyjesus]

for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!

[infamousbrad]

I think I know how this works.

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.

[kagedtiger]

Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm

[ifoundmybeatingheartagain]

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

this has rewired some neural pathways for me

[razielim]

It's interesting to see this post a second time bc the first time my response was only, "Checks out. Ugh." But the second time, looking back at my responses to things throughout life, I obviously experience the same goddamn thing. All the time! We all do, to some degree.

I'm not talking about gay and black people or interracial couples in media and society, etc etc, but like... idk, mundane stuff like fandom antis, right? It's a small population, but it's so incredibly grating on fandom enjoyment, that it feels like some fandoms are completely overrun. "Everyone in that fandom is a hater."

Or, oh, far less mundane example — homophobic comments!

I see ONE person in a reddit thread be homophobic (or a few if it's a large comment section, whatever the equivalent of 5% would be), and I'm thinking "Oh, they HATE us hate us over there." Bc I'm also, emotionally, still upset over the homophobic comment I read last week when my browser loads this next one. (ADHD probably doesn't help lol. Last week can easily feel like yesterday or even five minutes ago.)

The fact that I didn't even remember/notice being upset in all the intervening time between then and now is irrelevant. The fact that I read 20+ threads between then and now without a single peep of homophobia is also irrelevant.

The brain doesn't really care about small details like "facts."

It felt afraid/threatened then, and it feels afraid/threatened now, and it's starting to develop a certain ~sense, a subconscious wariness, about the experience of going on reddit.

(Which... that wariness likely makes it hyper-vigilant and more likely to notice homophobic comments it might have otherwise skimmed over, reinforcing the experience.)

Thus, over 15 years, I have become convinced that Reddit is informational (esp in the age of Google becoming useless), BUT is also irredeemably homophobic, racist, sexist, etc. etc. despite the fact that I mostly curate my experience and stay off egregiously unpalatable subreddits.

Some things feel threatening for good reason. Racism, homophobia, misogyny are scary bc they can portend real harm. (Even fandoms with too many fans willing to harrass and death-threat others can result in real harm.) It's good to know how to deal with that fear, but the fear isn't unwarranted.

Other things, like seeing a black person at a shopping mall, you know, doing their shopping... or seeing a somewhat broad-shouldered woman in the ladies' room going about her business, you know, going into a stall or washing her hands... these things are threatening bc someone has conditioned others to consider these things threatening.

Who did it? Why? What did they stand to gain from your fear?

Generally — money, power, and control on a scale that the casual pleb racist/transphobe doesn't get so much as a whiff of.

Unfortunately, these aren't questions people are asking themselves so... we continue to try to integrate through education (history, science, critical race theory) and through exposure in non-threatening contexts (sesame street, will & grace).

Idk what's so threatening about topless women in public, nipples are generally quite dull and soft and can't hurt you, but whatever it is, perhaps we can import more European films to finally free that nipple, idk.

[bayesic-bitch]

If you read interviews with homicide cops, two things very quickly become clear

It is really not all that hard to get away with murder. A basic amount of foresight and prep will get rid of enough evidence that the police either won't find the killer or will be unable to make the charge stick.

Despite this, most murders do get solved, because someone who decides that murder is the solution to their problems is probably not the kind of person to be levelheaded and careful enough.

I think something very similar is true of sockpuppet accounts. It's not that hard to make a convincing sockpuppet. However, people almost always make sockpuppets as a way of defending their egos, of making it look like they have more support than they actually do. And this passionate defense of someone the sockpuppet ostensibly doesn't know and has no reason to care about is a dead giveaway. So if you want to validate a sockpuppet you have to lose an argument to it. You have to get owned. Once it makes you look like an idiot, basically no one will ever suspect it again.

Unfortunately, by posting this, I've burned my only chance to actually do it. From now on, whenever you see me getting dunked on, you'll assume it's staged sockpuppet validation. and you'd be right. i have never lost an argument on this website. every single one was staged. i did not get owned. i did not get owned.

[fitnessadvicethatfitsinyourlife]

I do not promote weight loss mentalities because I believe that if weight loss is going to occur in a healthy way, it's going to occur as a side effect of adopting appropriate fitness habits

Not as the goal, because adopting fitness habits does not always result in weight loss.

And it's the habits, like building muscle, improving flexibility & mobility, increasing nutrient intake & hydration, and getting quality rest & sleep that actually matter.

If you're successfully doing those things your health is quantitatively improving, no matter what your weight is doing. But if the metric your most concerned with is just loosing weight, you may actually be getting less healthy not more.

Because weight loss can occur for many reasons, and most of them are not healthy.

[tony-hawks-prole-skater-2]

[xxrie]

That’s why you should never accept the excuse “Well it was a different time.” They knew it was wrong. They always knew.