A Monster Factory Rap? Don’t mind if I do!
Three Goblin Art
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Not today Justin
Game of Thrones Daily
trying on a metaphor

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AnasAbdin

izzy's playlists!
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pixel skylines
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
i don't do bad sauce passes

★

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

Kaledo Art
DEAR READER
Cosimo Galluzzi

roma★
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open

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@makinaro
A Monster Factory Rap? Don’t mind if I do!
11 habits of highly creative people
It’s my birthday so I will indulge in reposting this old favorite nonsense
Where has this comic been all my life?! (link to this one in the archive)
New on the Nib: We're Currently Living in a 1990's Cyberpunk Dystopia
My newest comic for The Nib takes a humorous look at how emerging technologies are creating a world that is not all that much unlike aspects of cyberpunk fiction. Things like the surveillance state, cyber warfare, and even social currency—like that one episode of Black Mirror. Well, more like all the episodes of Black Mirror. I worked with Nib editor Andy Warner on this comic, and I think we came…
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“Triggered”
Today I heard the last shitty joke in passing I can handle about my mental illness without speaking up. Not about the people making the joke, or even the joke itself, but about the illness - it’s extremely poorly understood, partially due to media presentation of it, and partly thanks to the internet hijacking the terminology of one of the symptoms and extrapolating it so far from it’s original, highly specific meaning that most people have no idea what they’re referencing.
I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t know the first thing about PTSD, because I didn’t know what PTSD was until I was diagnosed with it. Not really, anyway. I had the same pop culture version of the illness most people have - it was something soldiers had, and flashbacks were hallucinatory caricatures about as accurate as most portrayals of what taking LSD is like in pop culture - with the character and the writer equally divorced from reality.
When my doctor handed me the preliminary screening inventory sheet to fill out while I was mid-sentence during our first meeting, it seemed so obvious. So many things that I’d chocked up to having depression and going through a… significant amount of stress, but that weren’t getting better and seemed to just kind of linger unwanted in my head, ready to flare up and shit all over whatever I was doing made sense. He explained to me what flashbacks actually are, that it wasn’t simply a hallucination and more a spiral down a memory well of horrible shit you’ve gone through, of feeling like you’re mentally and emotionally “unplugging” in response to something bringing all that up, and the feeling that everything is just as fragile and fight-or-flight as it was when you were actually in danger. He explained that the most common sufferers of PTSD aren’t soldiers, but survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and were more often women than men. He even explained the changes to my body that had occurred, that the acrid, metallic taste that would pop up in the back of my throat was *adrenaline* - that I was physically tasting the flood of “oh shit” that my brain was producing because parts of my body had a hair trigger for locking into survival mode.
I scored a 73 out of 100 on the inventory, and later my doctor would categorize my ptsd as “severe”, but told me with trauma-specific treatment I could hope to see that number lower into the teens. It’s been over a year since then and it’s taken *so much work*, but he was right. I’m a lot better than I was several years ago, especially before I knew what the hell was going on with me.
I’m a comedian and can find so much to joke about in my mental illness. When my doctor added a C for “complex” onto the PTSD I felt that combined with my ADHD, I had started collecting an alphabet. My doctor laughed when he prescribed me the medication that would take my extremely vivid, constant nightmares away and told me that it would also take my regular dreams with it, and I responded with “I’m sorry doctor I’m an artist you can’t just phrase things that way without spawning a million insufferable conceptual pieces”. Anything can be joked about - being a dick about it is more related to how you do it.
I make jokes because comedy can take the sting out of having a nasty knot of pain lodged inside my skull that my ex planted there when I took away his ability to hurt me himself. If I didn’t have the jokes, all I’d have is the anger and violation I feel at being someone who can go from joking with friends in a UPS store to a crying mess because someone grabbed my arm and spoke to me in the same place, the same way, as that ex the last time I saw him, before I had a friend stay with me for a while because I was so afraid he’d come back. I hate that I’m like this, and that even with all the work I put in and the therapy I do, there are still these little, extremely specific things that cause that familiar ember in my brain to ignite and immediately need to be dealt with. It’s a nightmare to feel like there’s any part of you that seems so frail where it was once strong, to be someone who has to be tough enough to put up with an enormous amount of shit but still have these things out there that can immediately pierce any armor you have, like the shittiest version of magic words. The sheer irrationality and the sense of lost control is such a deep and frustrating violation, it’s hard to write about without seeming too melodramatic.
There aren’t many things that will send me down that rabbit hole anymore, or make me taste adrenaline and feel the same fear that everything I have is about to be destroyed again. But they exist. They’re extremely specific, innocuous to everyone else but poison to my peace of mind. I’ve calloused over a lot of the minor ones, but there are two or three big ones that feel like a crack across my skull and immediately knock me on my ass seemingly no matter what I do.
You’d think the specificity of these things would make them easy to avoid or to tell people in my life about, but it’s kind of the opposite. I largely don’t bother, because the language around it has been so completely and utterly demolished and politicized in a way that makes it nearly impossible for me to use in a productive way without having to take on the additional, exhausting work of explaining my illness to people.
I’m talking about “triggers”. It used to be that only anime nazi assholes used it as a joke, but then “trigger warnings” became a cultural battlefield over imaginary “political correctness” and a ton of other shit I don’t remotely want to get into. I don’t want to talk about other peoples’ experiences when it comes to triggers, and I know triggers aren’t limited to PTSD - but speaking for myself, as the Discourse evolved, I felt completely left behind. My mental illness doesn’t have any political affiliation, it just exists. Now I see obnoxious “trigger” jokes just about everywhere, even people who are just parroting a “meme” 20 steps removed from the anime nazi assholes who send me the corresponding Junkrat UI image along with their misguided efforts to actually trigger me. It’s to the point where even nice people say shitty things without realizing it.
And that fucking sucks, man. Having a very real aspect of your mental health made into a meme and a joke that has seemingly worked its way into nerd culture at large helps make it feel impossible to actually talk about my mental health, especially when it’s an illness that pop culture constantly misrepresents. The last thing anyone needs when they’re trying to speak up and identify something to someone as being bad for them is to be made fun of. It’s like showing someone a knife in your back and asking them to pull it out for you, only to have them kick it a little to see if it’s real or not first.
Hearing “triggered” jokes is grating and tiresome, especially since bringing up what being triggered actually feels like makes you a huge no-fun killjoy (not to mention the inevitable backlash of people with underdeveloped empathy glands actively trying to trigger me after saying this), but here we are all the same. If it sounds annoying, trust me, I am *way* more annoyed that I have a mental illness than you are. I’m tired. I want to be able to explain to people what is going on with me without the baggage of other people misusing a word for cheap jokes with hidden costs, simply so I don’t have to do all the heavy lifting of educating people just so I can get them to understand that a specific thing messes with me. I’m not about to tell anyone what to say, and I largely feel that plenty of otherwise well-meaning people legitimately just don’t know any better (I know the people who want to continue being little shits will continue to be little shits, water is wet, don’t @ me about it). I want you, dear reader, to know all this so you know what you’re actually making fun of.
I want you to know all this so you know why I’m not laughing with you - it’s because you’re laughing at me.
(in b4 bland peepants hacks respond with lazy “triggered” jokes)
Happy New Year
New Years, for me, means standing outside my apartment in the cold with an armful of bread, coins, charcoal, whiskey, and (on one year) a dog, waiting for the stroke of midnight so I can be let back in. I love every moment of it. Happy New Year, everyone.
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Hey Maki! When is SuRe coming back? I miss it greatly. Happy holidays!
Soon! As early as the beginning of January :)
Hi Maki, I have a conundrum of sorts and I blame you for it, so I find it fair that you help me solve this mystery that wont leave my head. Who or what the F is the Ekermo test? I've been trying to find out about it and all I've learned about is that is related to the Turing test, but there is no mention of Ekermo anywhere! So, instead of trying to figure this out on my own (and spend another hour on it) I instead ask you. Can you please tell me or at least say where I can find info on it? Thnx
Hey! Sorry for the delay. Tumblr is really bad at telling me when I have messages.
Since SuRe is near-future sci-fi (I keep it pretty subtle), one of the kickstarter reward tiers was that I would name a science concept after the backer. So far I’ve filled 2 out of 3, so if you stumble upon something that doesn’t seem to exist, it’s just because it hasn’t been invented yet. Sorry to send you on a wild goose chase :)
9 out of 10 Doctors Recommend You Get Your Opinions Checked Regularly
"Polyp" is the grossest word in the English language. Fight me.
There’s a common misconception that all opinions have equal value. I think it might have had noble beginnings—everybody should be allowed to express and defend their opinions. But that doesn’t mean some aren’t more harmful, misinformed, or just flat out wrong than others. Throughout my career as a science communicator, I’ve had to push back against this false notion of “hearing from both sides”.…
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Are We Living In A Computer Simulation? Elon Musk Thinks So.
What does Silicon Valley's fascination with simulation theory say about them?
My latest comic for The Nib was written by physicist and science writer Matthew Francis. In it, he explores simulation theory, the concept that we’re all part of an advanced computer simulation, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s fascination with it. During the making of this comic, it was revealed that tech billionaires like Musk have been secretly funding research into simulation theory—as well as how…
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This is the best description of South Park (and their brand of apathetic conservatism) I ever read.
I was never able to really articulate why I’ve never liked this show until now.
Now on Gumroad: I Am the Best at Drawing Totoro, a PDF of all your favorite Totoro drawings by Maki Naro.
Get it now
New Pokemon GO Trainers!
Many of you are just starting your adventures in this world of Pokemon and for lots of people, it will hold familiar elements but you must remember that this is not your standard Pokemon game!
The provided tutorial is weak at best, so I’m here as a previous beta tester to answer all of your questions! It’s a LOT to read, so I’ll try to make searching for what you’re looking for easier!
TL;DR Spend 10 dollars on lucky eggs and incubators, time your throws for the smallest circle when catching, when you place a Pokemon in a gym it’s stuck until it gets defeated, dont forget your daily bonus!, train using lower CP Pokemon, get stardust/Pokemon candies to strengthen your Pokemon, Pokemon candies evolve your Pokemon. If none of that made sense, you should keep reading!
Let’s go over the original tutorial or “tips!”
Poke-stops! Professor Willow explains them pretty well and they’re simple. When you’re close enough, it’ll change shape and expand. Tap it to bring up the monument or art piece nearby and swipe the disk to spin. You can tap the individual items to collect or just exit the Poke-stop and you’ll automatically collect everything that pops up
Next he shows you what a gym looks like. When you hit level 5, you’ll be able to join one of three teams. Team Instinct (Yellow), Team Mystic (Blue), or Team Valor (Red) and then you’ll be able to interact with these gyms
Assigning Pokemon leaves a Pokemon at that Gym until it is defeated. It cannot be interacted with (leveling up or evolved, etc)
Training Pokemon! the tips doesn’t explain this at all. I will later.
Challenge a rival gym to lower its Prestige and level! again not explained.
During Battle swipe to dodge attacks. They forgot to mention that tapping attacks and holding does a special attack. (my words in bold)
A LOT of this game is “how does this thing work?” so I’ve written a FAQ to answer your questions!
Basic F.A.Q.
To answer all of your “How do I play this $&*#$ game” needs
1. How does catching Pokemon work?
As you wander around, Pokemon will pop up around you! Tap the Pokemon to enter a new screen. You can choose to have Augmented Reality mode on or off (uses your phone camera to place the Pokemon in your surroundings) There’s a convenient AR swipe button at the top right to turn off and on. A poke-ball should be floating in front of you. You can flick it at the Pokemon and if it connects, you’ll attempt to catch it! Think Safari mode in a standard Pokemon game
2. Are there any tricks to catching Pokemon?
Yes! If you hold the poke-ball, you’ll notice the Pokemon has a green(easiest) or yellow or orange or red (hardest) circle around them that cycles from large to small. The smaller the circle, the better your chances of catching the Pokemon.
You can also continually swirl the ball to create a curve throw in the direction that you’re rotating. So if you’re rotating clockwise, the ball will curve right.
Accuracy is also a factor! You’ll notice if the poke-ball lands directly, you’ll get “nice” “great” or “excellent” experience bonuses
There are also Razberries from Poke-Stops that you can feed to a Pokemon to increase your catching chance on your next throw! It says next throw, but what it really means is the next time you hit the Pokemon with a poke-ball!
Besides Pokeballs, there are Great Balls and Ultra Balls confirmed in the game to catch even stronger pokemon!
3. Now I’ve caught the Pokemon, how do I make it stronger?
Good job! For catching the Pokemon, you should receive 100 Stardust, some EXP, and 3 Pokemon Candies of that Pokemon. (IE a Pidgey will give you 3 Pidgey Candies, An evolved form of a Pokemon will give you their basic form candies. IE a Pidgeotto will still give you 3 Pidgey Candies)
Each Pokemon has a CP or Combat Points which is their strength. To increase CP, tap the Pokemon you’d like to strengthen and you’ll notice a large POWER UP button with a Stardust cost and Candy Cost. If you can fill those costs, you can up your CP meter. Once your CP Meter is maxed, the CP of that Pokemon wont go any higher until your trainer level also increases!
4. Wait, you just said I also need candies to evolve?
Yes I did! Each Pokemon with an evolved form has a candy cost to evolve. Pidgey requires 12 Pidgey Candies to evolve into a Pidgeotto, and then another 50 Pidgey Candies to evolve into a Pidgeot!
So each Pokemon you catch will give you 3 candies. If you like, you can also Transfer any Pokemon to Professor Willow for an additional candy! So each Pokemon will provide 4 candy total, but it’s irreversible, so be sure you don’t want that Pokemon you’re transferring!
If you look at the picture from Q3, you see that EVOLVE has a price of 12 and I have 28 Pidgey Candies on hand. 5. How do I get more Stardust?
There are three ways to get stardust! 1. Catch more pokemon! You’ll get 100 stardust per pokemon you catch, 2. Hatch some eggs! 3. Control gyms for a daily Stardust/Coin bonus!
6. How do I get and hatch an egg?
You’ll eventually come across eggs at Poke-Stops and there are three different kinds. 2km, 5km, and 10km eggs. Your character comes equipped with an eternal Incubator that has infinite uses as well! You can hold up to 9 eggs at one time
Go to your Pokemon tab and at the top, you should have an Eggs tab. Swipe or tap to the tab and all of your eggs will be shown.
Tap an egg and hit “Start Incubation”
You’ll get an option to place it in any open incubator you have. You can purchase more from the store at 150 coins each for a 3-time use incubator.
Here’s the crappy part. As of launch, your PokemonGO app only records distance traveled while the app is open. Which is a HUGE battery drain. Hopefully they change this in the future.
Once you’ve walked the requisite distance, your egg will hatch and you’ll get a Pokemon from it! Also quite a bit of stardust (1000ish for 2km, more for longer distance eggs) and 10-15 candies of that Pokemon!
7. If I have multiple incubators going, will they all accumulate distance?
Yep! So you should get those eggs in incubators ASAP!
8. So … how do gyms work?
First, get to level 5. Once you do, you’ll be prompted to pick a team. Team Instinct (Yellow), Team Mystic (Blue), or Team Valor (Red) Once you pick, you’re stuck! so choose wisely! *coughINSTINCTcough* If you come across an empty gym, you can place a Pokemon that is at FULL HP there. If has taken any damage, it cannot be placed in a gym. Be careful though! Once it is placed, it cannot be leveled up, evolved, or transferred or anything else until it has been defeated.
9. What about an enemy gym?
An enemy gym will be any gym that’s not your team’s color. So since I’m Team Instinct, all Red (Valor) and Blue (Mystic) gyms are enemy gyms. An enemy gym will have at least one Pokemon defending it with a certain number of Prestige points as well. You can take 6 of your Pokemon in an attempt to defeat all the Pokemon at a gym. You can also team battle if you’re training with your friends to work together to take down a gym.
10. How does combat work?
Combat in PokemonGO is pretty simple. You can only fight in gyms and it’s a pretty quick experience. ATTACK TYPE MATTERS. Using a water move on a fire Pokemon will be SUPER EFFECTIVE In an enemy gym, you’ll set your lineup of 6 Pokemon to come out in order, while the enemy gym will bring out Pokemon from lowest CP to highest CP. Combat is a tap/swipe game. If you bring up a Pokemon’s stat page, you’ll notice that everyone has two moves. A basic attack and a special attack.
Every time you tap, you’ll perform a basic attack. every time you tap and hold, you’ll perform a special attack. However, you need to build up energy to use a special attack. Under your Pokemon’s HP bar, you’ll notice a small bar that fills up with each basic attack. Once a bar is filled (there might be multiple) then you can use a special attack.
You can also dodge enemy attacks by swiping left or right. Your pokemon will attempt to dodge out of the way. You can’t avoid special attacks though!
DONT SPAM THE APP BY TAPPING A MILLION TIMES. In beta, there was a huge bug where if you tapped a bunch of times without letting the app catch up, the opponent’s Pokemon would get stuck at 1 hp and keep attacking all of your Pokemon. Honestly, just wait until the animation is close to finished before tapping again and you should be fine and still do the same amount of damage.
11. How do I take over a gym?
Once you’ve defeated all of the gym’s Pokemon (or been defeated) you’ll come to a end battle screen that will tell you how much EXP you earned and how much Gym Prestige you’ve lowered. If you managed to lower the Prestige all the way to zero, then you’ve defeated the gym and can place your own Pokemon there now! You might need to defeat the same team multiple times to lower their prestige all the way to zero.
12. What about a friendly gym?
A friendly gym can be trained to increase prestige! If there is a slot for more Pokemon, you can also add one of your Pokemon like you would add to an empty gym! If you look at the top of the gym, under the name, there should be a Crown for the highest CP Pokemon and some dots next to the crown. If any of those dots are blank/empty, then you can add a Pokemon! If not, that means they’re full, but you can train a gym to a higher prestige level so that it can hold more Pokemon!
13. How do I train a Gym?
You can only train at friendly gyms to increase their prestige level! You get to choose ONE Pokemon to fight all the Pokemon at the friendly gym. You can definitely choose to stomp that gym with a Pokemon with a MUCH higher CP, but you wont gain much in Prestige.
The real trick is to take a lower CP Pokemon and defeat as many Pokemon as you can! Even if the Pokemon is only one CP lower, it qualifies for full prestige benefits (i think it’s 500 per Pokemon you defeat of a higher CP) while a much higher CP Pokemon will only net like 100 prestige or less.
14. So how does having a Gym get me Stardust?
If you go to the shop, the top right has a “Defense” bonus that can be activated once every 21 hours. For each pokemon you have that is currently defending a gym, you gain 500 Stardust and 10 coins for a maximum of 5000 Stardust and 100 coins! So if you have at least 10 gyms when you collect, you’re receiving the maximum gym benefit!
15. My Pokemon fainted! How? Why? What can I do?
Don’t worry! It’s going to happen a lot in this game. If your Pokemon fainted, then it was either in a gym that was just defeated, or you were training and it couldn’t go the distance and beat all the Pokemon at the gym. If the Pokemon is at 0 hp, you can spend a Revive or Max Revive on it to give it HP then top the Pokemon off with Potions/Super Potions/Max Potions etc. If you don’t have any more revives, you can spend stardust to level it up just a teeny bit and give it a few HP so that you can spend potions on it.
This is the ONLY way to heal a Pokemon! There are no PokeCenters or anything else. You just have to keep collecting potions and what not.
16. My Item/Pokemon bag is full! What do I do?
You can purchase a 50 slot upgrade for either Item or Pokemon bag at 200 coins each (pricey!) or you can go to your items page and start throwing away excess things. You probably realistically only need 100 pokeballs at any given point because you’ll get tons back as you hit Poke-Stops
17. What is the Nearby Tab and what does it mean?
Remember in the show they used to do “WHO’S THAT POKEMON?” This is kind of like that! The nearby tab will show you any (but not all) pokemon that are nearby! If you haven’t seen them yet, you’ll only see the silhouette, but once you’ve at least seen it, the silhouette will fill to show you the pokemon!
18. What are the multiple paw prints?
Each paw print represents distance away from you (at least it did in the beta, but I’m pretty sure it’s equivalent) The less paw prints, the closer they are.
In the nearby tab, you can select a specific Pokemon to keep track of so that you can tell if you’re going closer or farther away from them. Usually once you’re within 1 paw print, they’ll pop up on your screen.
19. What does the compass button do?
Hitting the compass button will orient the map to north or south and will toggle between the two.
20. Is spending money worth it?
Honestly, I’ve already spent 10 dollars on just Lucky Eggs and Incubators and I’m level 10 after about 2 hours of actual play time. Lucky Eggs double your EXP and whenever you unlock a pokedex entry, it’s normally 500 EXP plus 100 catching EXP plus any extra bonuses from a Nice Throw or a Curve throw. So each new Pokemon I get ends up being around 1300 EXP, which lets me level SUPER FAST. Each egg that hatches is also 1000 EXP at least so that gets doubled as well. Having lots of incubators is also always super useful.
Whew! Okay! That should be pretty good for any basic questions people might have about this game!
If I neglected to cover something, please let me know! Throw it in my ask or hit me up on twitter @MyLifeAsJoeKim and I’ll answer ASAP!
Are there any more questions?
Proof you can market anything as a “Superfood” if it says Organic, Raw and Gluten-free.
THERE’S A FREAK’N WARNING ON THE BACK THAT IF EATEN IN EXCESS THEY CAUSE SYMPTOMS OF CYANIDE POISONING!
Their suggestion to eating these is to methodically poison yourself by eating 2-4 every other day. Since when has eating Apricot kernels been a thing in anyone’s diet!?
these can be found at Wholefoods
Jesus Christ, how is this legal
What in the HELLS O.O
Mmm, delicious poison.
Please do not eat the Healthy Poison O.O
Someone could fucking kill someone with these if they poured them in a ziploc bag and called them peanuts
QUESTION: if i eat enough of these, can i build up a tolerance to cyanide poisoning
This is apparently a real thing. More info from Wikipedia.
Alright, folks, time to get Science Side of Tumblr on this. There is SO MUCH BULLSHIT packed into this that I ended up writing an obnoxiously long post, for which I apologize.
Let’s start with the product description page that Nora helpfully linked to. There’s just a ton of bullshit pseudoscience and feel-good woo in here and I’m gonna break it down.
“Apricot Kernels are one of the highest natural sources of a rare phytonutrient called amygdalin, also known as vitamin B17, an important nutrient which has largely disappeared from Western diets.”
Wow. Lots of fail in one sentence. Amygdalin is not, in fact, particularly rare; as the wiki page states, it’s found in “many plants” “particularly the Prunus genus, Poaceae (grasses), Fabaceae (legumes), and in other food plants, including linseed and manioc.” The only people who refer to amygdalin as a vitamin are those trying to make money from it. It is absolutely NOT a vitamin in any way, shape, or form. The definition of the word “vitamin” is “a compound which is required by the body in small amounts, which it cannot make on its own and thus must be obtained from the diet.” Your body does not *require* amygdalin in the least. In fact, if you consume too much of it, you will LITERALLY DIE OF CYANIDE POISONING. It is NOT an “important nutrient.” It has not “disappeared from Western diets” because it was never a part of any culture’s diet. Any group of people who ate too much of it probably died.
Moving on:
“Our raw, certified organic apricot kernels originate from wild apricot trees that have never come into contact with any sort of pesticide, herbicide or synthetic fertilizer. The apricots are harvested gently by hand, then the kernels are removed and slowly sun-dried. Our farmers pride themselves on cultivating the highest quality kernels possible while maintaining eco-friendly and sustainable agricultural practices.”
Wait, there’s a contradiction in there.
“…originate from wild apricot trees…” “…farmers pride themselves on cultivating…”
Listen, I don’t wanna be a pedantic asshole and debate semantics here, but if farmers are cultivating something, then it’s not wild. Okay? You can certainly have a bunch of people going out into a forest and harvesting things from the wild; for herbs this is called wildcrafting and for fruits/vegetables it is generally called foraging. No part of this involves cultivation or farms, which are about as far removed from wild plants as… well, most varieties of fruits and vegetables that we eat today.
Now we get to the hilarious part:
“WARNING: Sweet apricot kernels contain amygdalin (Vitamin B17) which can cause symptoms of cyanide poisoning when eaten in excess. DO NOT EAT MORE THAN 8 SEEDS PER DAY. See a doctor immediately if you experience symptoms like nausea, fever, headache, or low blood pressure. Do not eat if you are pregnant or nursing. Not intended for children”
THEY LITERALLY FUCKING TELL YOU THAT THESE CAUSE CYANIDE POISONING. Oh wait, no, my mistake, they tell you that they cause “symptoms of cyanide poisoning.” Well, you know what else causes “symptoms” of cyanide poisoning? CYANIDE. If you read the wiki article on amygdalin, you may have noticed this part:
“Amygdalin is hydrolyzed by intestinal β-glucosidase, emulsin, and amygdalase to gentiobiose and L-mandelonitrile. Gentiobiose is further hydrolyzed to glucose, whereas mandelonitrile is hydrolyzed to benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide. Hydrogen cyanide in sufficient quantities (allowable daily intake: ~0.6 mg) causes cyanide poisoning (fatal oral dose: 0.6-1.5 mg/kg).”
Also, from the article on apricot kernels that Nora also linked (thank you Nora), there’s this little nugget of info:
“On average, bitter apricot kernels contain about 5% amygdalin and sweet kernels about 0.9% amygdalin. These values correspond to 0.3% and 0.05% of cyanide. Since a typical apricot kernel weighs 600 mg, bitter and sweet varieties contain respectively 1.8 and 0.3 mg of cyanide.”
The kernels that these assholes are selling are the sweet variety, so they do have less cyanide than bitter apricot kernels do. However, let’s run the numbers, shall we? One sweet apricot kernel contains approximately 0.3 mg of cyanide, which means that to get to the fatal oral dose of cyanide (0.6-1.6 mg/kg), one would have to eat between 2 and 5 kernels per kilogram of body weight. Now, admittedly, this would take some effort; I weigh about 84 kg, so a fatal dose of these would be between 168 and 420 kernels. These are 8 oz bags, or approximately 226 g, and one kernel weighs about 600 mg, which means there are around 376 kernels in an average bag. This is WELL within the lethal range for me, and I’m a pretty big guy; someone who weighs a lot less than me would have to eat a lot fewer kernels to get a lethal dose.
Let’s not mince words, folks; cyanide poisoning is fucking awful. Cyanide blocks an enzyme that your cells need in order to properly process oxygen. It basically causes you to suffocate on a cellular level. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
And these things are legally for sale? In fucking HEALTH FOOD STORES?!? Can you imagine if a small child got into one of these bags? I can only hope these alternative health wingnuts buying these things are keeping them away from their kids.
Oh, what’s that? You’ll be okay as long as you don’t eat the whole bag? Well, I have unfortunate news for you. Cyanide is not like iocaine powder; you don’t build up an immunity to it by ingesting small amounts daily for years. It can still kill you, although in much more horrible ways than acute cyanide poisoning. From wiki: “Exposure to lower levels of cyanide over a long period results in increased blood cyanide levels, which can result in weakness and a variety of symptoms, including permanent paralysis, nervous lesions, hypothyroidism, and miscarriages. Other effects include mild liver and kidney damage.” Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
Oh, and if you want a real treat, read the reviews on the product page above. Hoooooooly shit, people can fool themselves into thinking ANYTHING is good for them if it has the words “organic” and “natural” on the package, and if the seller hypes it up to be this AMAZING LONG-LOST SUPERFOOD OMG. Here’s some of the highlights, in case you don’t want to read them all for fear of losing too many brain cells (note that all of these quotes are from separate reviews):
“I eat these apricot kernels because of the B17 cancer fighting factor.” No such thing as B17, and amygdalin has been shown to be useless against cancer.
“I noticed that my energy is constant all day and I believe they are actually helping me to lose weight.” Chances are it’s whatever else you’re putting in your smoothie. Keep eating these long enough and I doubt you’ll have energy all day.
“I love them even more after researching all of the health properties!” Clearly you didn’t do any research outside of browsing a couple articles on fucking David Wolfe’s website or some shit.
This next one has three separate hilarious bits so I’ll quote all three parts together: “I still am not sure what they do for me yet; however they are loaded with B17 which is said to be really good for certain health benefits.” 1/Well, that sounds promising. 2/Loaded with cyanide, yum! 3/“certain health benefits.” Not sure which ones, but a website said it, so it must be true!
“Too bad I can’t eat too many without lowering blood pressure too much.” I can only assume that this person is referring to the fact that your blood pressure drops to 0/0 when you’re dead.
“I like them…not too bitter, but enough so that I know I am getting what I need.” Because something being bitter is a great indication that it’s good for you, amirite? I mean, kale is great for you, and it’s bitter, so that must mean the bitterness is what makes it good for you!
“I have cancer and eat 5 kernels, 3 times a day.. I eat them with some food so I don’t end up with a stomach ache.” I would make a comment about how you should know better than to eat things that give you a stomach ache, but then again, this person could conceivably be on chemo, which also causes awful symptoms, so maybe they’re just conditioned to believe that things that make them feel horrible are actually helping cure them.
“I eat a few a day and I will hopefully see my blood pressure down next dr appt” …folks, please don’t eat poison instead of taking blood pressure medication. I know doctors tend to overprescribe pills, but COME THE FUCK ON.
“I’m trying to get off medication (over 30 years) and want to use natural food to help heal my body!” Which is an admirable goal, and certainly possible. But this is not the way to do it. You need to do your research into the foods you eat to try and heal yourself, and if you did the SLIGHTEST BIT OF RESEARCH you would have found that these things contain CYANIDE. Which absolutely WILL NOT heal your body.
“they are crunchy, aromatic, and slightly bitter, and numb the tip of my tongue when I chew on more than a few at a time.” HOW IS THIS NOT A GIANT RED FLAG HOLY FUCKING SHIT
“It is important to read the information about how many to consume per day as it is a medicinal food with great potential.” Great potential to kill you, yes. Medicinal food, not so much.
tl;dr Apricots are the devil’s nutsack, please don’t eat his testicles.
When people start arguing with randos in your mentions
good morning fandom
How much must Luke Skywalker be freaking out right now?
Can you imagine?
You are moping on your island of self-imposed exile, and then this girl shows up.
She’s flying your best friend’s ship. The ship that Han thought he lost for ever. The ship that was stolen and passed through so many hands that he was sure he’d never see it again. The same ship that took you away from home for the first time.
She’s accompanied by your personal droid. The droid you left behind and abandoned. The droid that C-3PO was sure would never be the same again.
She holds out her hand and she’s holding your father’s light saber. The sword you were sure was lost forever. The light saber that you dropped down a bottomless air shaft on a gas giant thirty years ago. The light saber you knew you would never see again.
You look up and you see her eyes. Maz Kanata says that if you live long enough, you see the same eyes looking out of different faces. The girl’s face is different, but those eyes are the same. You know those eyes. They’re the eyes you thought you’d never see again.
And that’s when you know it.
You’re screwed.
They say sometimes the Force works in mysterious ways. Sometimes, the Force will send you little signs. Subtle clues.
Other times, the Force will just beat you repeatedly over the head with a gigantic neon sign that says: “You can’t run away from your past anymore, Luke. I won’t let you. Look, here is your past come back to haunt you. Now deal with it.”
You have no idea how much I adore this post with my whole being
I like the idea of the Force sending Luke little signs over the years that it’s time to return to his loved ones, gently increasing in intensity as he ignores them, until it finally gets fed up and shoves the events of Episode 7 into motion, finishing with a flourish of HERE’S YOUR NEW APPRENTICE, SPACE HOBO.
space hobo
My first cheeseburger was amazing
That’s a weird looking cheeseburger
I’ve fallen down this adorable red tegu rabbit hole