A bittersweet tale of retirement, this odd crime-less story from Holmesâ pen is a rare insight into the mind of the ageing, lonely ex-detective. There is much that we learn about his life after leaving the bustle of London: the quiet nature around him, his simple routine, his new friendships, his interest in photography, and his estrangement with Watson. What June Thomson in her fascinating Holmes and Watson calls âa slow drifting apart, brought about by the physical distance between them, rather than through any specific alienationâ is not a pleasant thing to muse on, but it is clear, at least from what the two men share with their readers, that Holmes retires alone while his friend stays in London with his new wife and flourishing practice. Though they still correspond and enjoy âan occasional week-end visitâ, this unexplained estrangement makes the lack of a Watsonian touch much more jarring than in Holmes' previous recollection, as his absence echoes throughout the narrative.
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The Oregon Zoo has released more than 1,300 Oregon silverspot caterpillars to coastal habitats in a major effort to bolster the threatened b
This is really exciting news from my corner of the world! The Oregon silverspot (Speyeria zerene hippolyta) is a highly endangered subspecies of the zerene fritillary that is only found in northern California and Oregon, and once ranged in extreme southwestern Washington. It is found in coastal meadows, most of which have either been developed, or closed in by forest due to repression of natural and cultural fires.
The silverspot is an excellent example of how insect herbivores tend to have very limited diets. Plants don't want to be eaten, so they produce chemicals that deter and poison herbivores that eat them. It takes a long time and many generations for an animal species to develop a tolerance for these chemicals, so insect herbivores usually only manage to overcome a small number of toxins. Some species, like the silverspot caterpillar, can only eat the leaves of a single species of native plant, and if that plant disappears, so does the insect.
This also illustrates that "save the pollinators" isn't as simple as planting some flowers for adult butterflies and moths. You have to also consider what the caterpillars will eat, and around here planting a bunch if butterfly bush or other non-native species isn't going to cut it. If you aren't feeding the caterpillars, you certainly aren't going to get the butterflies.
Why preserve a single species that is so dependent on one other species? Well, for one thing, every species deserves to exist regardless of whether we consider them to be useful to us or not. Moreover, when we preserve habitat for these isolated species, we also preserve habitat for many others who live in the same place. And we ultimately know very little about the intricate connections species have among each other; when we lose a single species, we have no idea how far-reaching the negative impacts will be across the entire ecosystem.
So while it may seem like a waste of resources to breed and reintroduce the caterpillars of one butterfly species, the potential benefits across the board are more than worth it.
Panel 4
Ligeia: Or did they overlook it? And leave it below the waves,
Panel 5
Ligeia: Down, down, down, to the ocean floor?
Panel 6
Ligeia: âŚRegardless if they have it or not, they could find it, if sufficiently motivated. Its captain does not venture on land. HoweverâŚhis professor does.
[ID: An embroidery in a hoop. Most of the surface is filled in with a pattern embroidered with a gradient of green colours. In the middle there is a eating sheep. The sheep holds a green thread in its mouth, and is unraveling the pattern. End ID]
Here's a post I hope will help some people, because I seem to be increasingly encountering fics that have been accidentally backdated by the author. This will mean fewer people see the fics, but don't worry it can be avoided/fixed!
Here is the issue:
This a draft I made just to illustrate. By default the 'published' date on an AO3 fic/chapter is not in fact the publication date, it's the date the draft was created. This is not obvious in the interface and if you write in the AO3 text box (please don't do that, it's too risky) or if you create a draft there and spend a few days tweaking the tags, or if you've put all your chapters there at once and will be clicking 'post' later this can be a problem. Most of us don't bother to check the date on our fics when we post them because we'll just assume it must match the date of posting. After all it says "Published" right there!
Here is how we can fix the wrong date:
Clicking on 'Set a different publication date' will open a dropdown menu where you can pick the current date so that your fic/chapter will post with the actual date of publication.
I don't know if accidental backdating is becoming more common but in the past year I've talked at least 4 or 5 people through this process because I spotted a fic that was newly posted but not at the top of the page. I'm sure there's a lot more I've missed because they ended up further back in the tag than I scrolled to that day, or it's a multichapter where I read part of it but didn't subscribe so I never saw the updates. Most of them had very low hits when I spotted them, which is usually the thing that made me wonder if this draft dating issue had happened - if your fic is not being seen there is a chance this is why, so it's worth checking the date on it especially if you're new to AO3.
A lot of people could benefit from realizing that the vast majority of the time, when someone says a space or resource is âAFAB onlyâ, the thought that this might include trans men or nonbinary people who look masculine has not even remotely crossed their mind. When most people say âAFABâ, they are imagining cis womenâand maybe, as an afterthought, nonbinary people that they are able to mentally categorize as basically cis women. Certainly, they never imagine someone who looks like or is a man. Any intersex person who doesnât look like a cis woman or who didnât experience growing up as a girl, definitely the furthest thought from their mind by a hundred miles.
About the Disability Pride Flag
(its design & meaning)
Because:
A) I see it around the Internet where the proportions are off, and I think people are copy/pasting from different thumbnail images that come up in search results, and not clicking through to get the original. It's not a big deal, but it causes a hiccup in my brain whenever I see it.
and
B) There's been some discussion in the Disability Community here on Tumblr on what the precise symbolism should be, and it's changed a bit and gotten complicated. So I want to simplify and broaden it, so it can be explained to curious Normate folk -- without going into a 15 minute explanation of social constructs.
So I'm making a fresh post right now to put all that stuff together.
I'm gonna leave the detailed description of the flag design's proportions just in the alt text (so that people with screen readers know what they are, without having to listen to it twice)
The width of each colored stripe is proportional to the overall width of the flag, but I decided to leave the general proportions of the flag flexible (so it's easier for people to make one based on what materials they can find -- just in case there's a need for a protest sign for a pop-up rally).
The Meaning (Short Version -- what to tell someone who asks while you're waiting for the elevator)
6 colors represent how the Disability Community is Global
The 5 colors in the middle represent how diverse that community is
The black is inspired by pirate flags: rage at injustice, fighting back
The stripes are diagonal to represent cutting through barriers.
The in-depth reasons behind the meaning (Long Version -- If you actually want a 15+ minute discussion of social constructs and history)
The flag has all 6 'standard' colors recognized in international flags, to represent how the Disability Community is bound together by their varied, but shared, experiences, rather than geographical or political affiliation (borrowing that symbolism from Olympic Flag, which represents the global community of athletes -- also bound together by their shared experiences and aspirations).
The five colors cutting across the center of the flag represent the diversity of the Disabled Community, both in terms of physical conditions and in terms of the social-political-economic ways by which disability is understood in society. (No longer trying to assign a specific meaning to any of the individual colors)
The stripes begin centered in the top corner because that's where the "canton" of a flag is, and in flag code, that's the place of highest honor; this is where the stars are in the U.S flag, and also the stars in the flag for the People's Republic of China, and the Union Jack in Australia's flag. It cuts all the way to the end that flies in the wind to show our striving for freedom.
The field is black because Pirates!, yes. But it's also in recognition of the Black Triangle Badge (link goes to Wikipedia), which the Nazis used to mark out a wide range of people in their concentration camps, including the Disabled, that they considered "asocial." And it's in solidarity with the UK-based Black Triangle Campaign (link goes to deathbywelfare.org, from 2010), protesting cuts to disability benefits, and reclassifying disabled people "fit for work."
"you can be 15 years old and also a terrible person" teenagers do stupid shit all the time, adults do stupid shit all the time, what matters is that you learn about that and that you don't let that define you. you are figuring out yourself and you never really stop doing that.
this is a thing i saw on tiktok and it's been bothering me forever and ever. okay yeah you took bad decisions/hurted people/etc. but that doesn't mean that you're destinated to hurt people or to be a bad person forever and ever. perhaps at the moment you thought what you were doing was good. perhaps you were trying to protect yourself. perhaps you just didn't know any better. perhaps you thought that it wouldn't be that bad. whatever thing you've might've done on the past doesn't define you in any sort of way. you are a human being and you will do a lot of mistakes until you die. putting yourself down won't help on anything. others putting you down doesn't mean anything. don't let your mistakes be something that defines you, but let them be a reminder that you're still here and that you can grow as a person.
âPeople should pass a test before being allowed to have kids.â âIsnât it scary how white people have this inborn capacity for evil?â âIâll never pass because males and females have different skull shapes.â âAutistic people have a stronger sense of justice than anyone else.â âI donât want AMABs in my space because theyâre dangerous.â âYou shouldnât have access to hormones if you dress like THAT.â âAnyone who does something that awful isnât human.â âSome people really shouldnât be allowed to vote.â
This is eugenics. This is phrenology. THIS IS NAZI SHIT, YOU ARE A LEFTIST BUYING INTO NAZI SHIT. YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO NAZI SHIT.
I've seen a lot of people in the comments saying people needing to pass a test to have kids is a good idea, but I don't think they understand what that means. The US government used to take Indigenous children from their parents for reasons as asinine as grandparents living in the home (called "overcrowded environment") or using only their native language at home instead of English (because it "failed to prepare" children for a world where English is the dominant langauge).
Children placed in residental schools were abused, murdered, and sold into arranged marriages with white men. More recently, children "adopted" out into white households are often also subjected to the same, as well as forcibly converted to Christianity.
The most effective way to protect children in the country is to give them rights to ensure their safety, autonomy and dignity. Eugenics and laws to control reproduction will not do that. Crafting legislation with the help of child wellness experts is a better choice.
I should add - the US government STILL disproportionately targets Indigenous families for child welfare checks. ICWA is supposed to protect against this but is unevenly enforced, and there's even talk of overturning it. Protect ICWA and Indigenous children.
And even without a long and horrific history of abuse, placing external restrictions on who is allowed to reproduce is definitionally eugenics. That is what the word means
