Life, Love and the Dream

How I live as a person that loves nature and all things awesome!

[maureen2musings]

Grandala in the Tirthan Valley

vinay.blue.sheep

[principessa-6]

💙💙💙

[captainjoongki]

kim taeri for marie claire korea - january 2025 issue

[feefal]

Star baby✨

[s-n-arly]

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

[sosuperawesome]

haranikala on Instagram

[sosuperawesome]

choomoranma on Instagram

[fishfishlove]

[druidx]

[Image description: two versions of a badly-drawn, MS Paint style, person. First they look sad with their arms hanging limply. Over their head is the text “what if everything i wrote is horrible”. In the second picture, they look happier, with their head up and their hands raised to their chest. Over their head the text now reads “what if i keep writing anyways because fuck ‘em eh hehehe” /ID]

[socialistexan]

Some things I think people are overlooking in the tiktok ban bill, because it's not just a tiktok ban:

It gives the US government the ability to ban *any* app, website, or company they believe to be "controlled" by an "adversarial power" which can change whenever they want

It allows the President and the Administrative branch almost unilateral power to designate *any* app, website, or company to be under the control of an "adversarial power" (and just think about how that can be used un the hands of, say, Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis)

They have to offer little to no evidence for this. For example, tiktok - a Singaporean-headquartered and ran company, partially owned by US interests, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and whose userdata is stored Austin, TX - is apparently controlled by the Chinese government

It also gives the Federal Government the ability to investigate and shut down any provider who gives access to these banned websites or services, including VPN. They will have unilateral power to dismantle VPNs through outrageous fines what will essentially force them to not operate in the US

A lot of the Congressional Representatives who supported this bill have large donors and/or stock in US Tech companies like Meta, Google, or Palantier who would benefit from the downfall of tiktok or the ability to purchase it and monopolize the market

Those same tech companies which sell our data constantly anyway, including to "adversarial powers"

This is so much more than just a tiktok ban.

[mckitterick]

from the NPR story:

...but first it must clear the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future. Several other anti-TikTok efforts in the Senate have stalled, and it is too soon to tell whether the House's legislation will meet a different fate.

Whatever happens with this measure, it marks the first time a chamber of Congress has passed a bill that could shut down a social media platform, a move that civil liberties advocates say tramples on the free speech rights of millions of American users.

[maruti-bitamin]

wind chime

twitter/ insta/ store

[versegm]

Literally cannot emphasize enough that my #1 writing advice is to stop being afraid. Stop being afraid of sounding too cringe, or too stupid, or too horrifying, or too horny, or too weird, or too much, or too little, or too you. You need to put your entire pussy into your art. Sure, it won't be to everyone's tastes, but if you keep yourself to the blandest tamest safest roads possible you will be of no one's tastes, not even yours.

[makaylajade-author]

Me whilst writing: This is a masterpiece…I am a literary genius

Me whilst editing my writing: I am an abomination to the writing community

[16woodsequ]

Me whilst reading it back a second time: Hey we might actually got something here

[fyblackwomenart]

Elf In Winter by KiraTheArtist

[fyblackwomenart]

Leo by Harley & J 

[humansofnewyork]

(10/54) “Mitra loved anything beautiful. She kept countless notebooks. And on every page she’d paste something beautiful: a flower, a feather, a line from a poem. One time we went to a large antique shop, and the owner challenged us to choose the most expensive items in the shop. Mitra looked around the store and chose two that nobody else had noticed. The owner was shocked. He announced that those were the only two that were not for sale. She had a genius for beauty. It was one of her greatest gifts. But her greatest gift by far, was her memory. Mitra could memorize an entire poem after hearing it a single time. Her favorite was Hafez: The Prince of Romance. She’d memorized two hundred of his ghazals. And whenever she found a verse that she loved, she’d bring it to me to read. We’d heard our voices many times before in arguments. But it was different when we read poetry. There was a softness, a delicacy. When you’re reading a poem, you must find the 𝘢𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨. Melody. The instrument is your throat. And the words are the notes. Some you strike suddenly, with a bang. Others you unroll gently, like a bow being slowly pulled across the string of a violin. Every word has life. Every word has its own soul. The word roar has a soul. 𝘒𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘩! And so does the word kiss. 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘩. We were married in the traditional way. It was a small ceremony at the home of Mitra’s father. On the morning of our wedding Mitra and I visited a famous photographer in Tehran. We took a series of photographs standing side-by-side. She was so conscious of her crippled hand, she found a way to hide it in every photo. But she’d never looked so beautiful. When the session was finished, I suggested one final photograph. I could tell the photographer was annoyed, but he agreed. And it’s the photograph that still hangs in our house today. Mitra is sitting on a chair. And I’m down on one knee, looking up at her, holding her hand.”

 میترا هر چیز زیبایی را دوست داشت. در دفترچه‌های پُرشُمارش و بر هر برگی از آنها چیزی زیبا می‌چسباند: گُلی، پَری، بیت شعری. روزی میترا و من به عتیقه‌فروشی بزرگی رفتیم - فروشنده ما را به چالش کشید که گران‌ترین‌هایش را شناسایی کنیم. میترا نگاهی به پیرامون انداخت و به دو قطعه اشاره کرد. صاحب فروشگاه شگفت‌زده گفت که هیچ‌کس تا کنون به آنها توجه نکرده بود. او گفت که این دو تنها چیزهایی هستند که فروشی نیستند. میترا نبوغ ویژه‌ای در زیباشناسی داشت. یکی از بهترین توانایی‌های او بود. ولی برجسته‌ترین توانایی او حافظه‌اش بود. میترا پس از یک بار شنیدن شعر، ‌بسیاری از آنرا به یاد می‌سپرد. عاشق شعر بود. تنها زمینه‌ای که بر آن توافق داشتیم. شاعر مورد علاقه‌‌اش حافظ بود: شاهزاده‌ی عاشقانه‌ها. میترا بیش از دویست غزل او را از بر داشت. برخی را که دلپسندش بود به من می‌داد تا بخوانم. باور داشت که من آهنگ درست شعر را پیدا می‌کنم. صدای همدیگر را در بگومگوهامان بسیار می‌شنیدیم. ولی هنگام شعر ‌خواندن چنان نبود. حالتی از دلپذیری و نرمش. در شعر، حنجره ساز شماست. و واژه‌ها نُت‌هایتان. برخی را ناگهان می‌نوازی - با آوایی بلند. برخی دیگر را به آرامی، مانند کشیدن آرشه بر زه. هر واژه‌ ویژگی خود را دارد. هر واژه‌ را جانی دیگر است. واژه‌ی خروشیدن جانی خروشان دارد! همانگونه که واژه‌ی بوسیدن و بوسه، دلآویزی و آرامشش را! پیوند ما ازدواجی سنتی بود. جشن کوچکی در خانه‌ی پدر میترا. بامداد روز ازدواجمان، به آتلیه‌ی عکاسی پرآوازه‌ای در تهران رفتیم. میترا را هیچگاه به آن زیبایی ندیده بودم. چندین عکس ایستاده در کنار هم گرفتیم. در هر عکسی حالتی را می‌یافت تا دست چپش را پنهان کند. هنگامی که کارمان تمام شد، پیشنهاد عکسی دیگر دادم. عکاس آزرده می‌نمود اما عکس را گرفت. و آن همین است که تا امروز بر دیوار آویزان است. میترا روی صندلی نشسته و من یک زانو بر زمین نهاده، محو تماشای او، دستش را در دست گرفته‌ام

[textless]

This is a secretarybird, the most alien-looking bird I have ever seen in person. It stands about four feet tall, and hunts lizards, snakes, and other small animals by walking along looking at the ground. It can strike prey with its beak, but often uses its long legs and claws.

I have read that secretarybirds often hunt in pairs or groups, but the two I saw were solitary.

Masai Mara, Kenya, July 2023.

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 281, Stardust

[sunbookie]

✨

[fyblackwomenart]

“flashbacks” by Jenifer Prince on INPRNT