Science, Stories, And Shenanigans

Professional fact-checker and writer. Agender autistic. Exclamation points are numerous but justified. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/miriam-forster/bugs-forster/

[miriamforster]

IT’S OUT! My giant gorgeous book, Bugs, a Skittery Jittety History is out in the world!

Kirkus 🌟 review: “Aspiring entomologists, paleontologists, and artists won’t want to miss this one.”

My mother’s review: “wow this is a lot of information, like an entomology 101 class.”

And LOOK at the beautiful art Gordy Wright made for it! It’s even prettier in person.

Anyway if you like bugs, check it out.

Bugs: A Skittery, Jittery History

Bugs: A Skittery, Jittery History isan epic, oversize nonfiction picture book and companion to Sharks: A Mighty Bite-y History that is all a

[sesamie]

learning that addiction is a progressive narrowing of the range of things that make one happy was kinda life changing for me. i apply it to everything not even just addiction i am always checking to ask if i am narrowing my range of happiness or widening it

[argumate]

always good to check whether your coping strategy has become something that needs its own coping strategies

[phantomrose96]

[copperbadge]

I cannot get this poem out of my head. It haunts me. Joyously, it haunts me. 

[peepingnee]

This poem format is my favorite thing and this is the first time I’ve ever seen it’s origin story. I love it. Every time.

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

THE SACRED TEXTS!

[kristinsmindinpictures]

shoutout to r/ilikthebred

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

I work with kids and I've had two occasions where a little boy straight up won't listen to anything I say because I'm a woman. and like yeah he's gonna continue to be raised by terrible role models and probably grow up to be a sexist douchebag but I have three hours a week to get through to him and so far I'm crushing it. I got six year old boys who previously didn't listen to a word I said telling their shitty dads to not speak to me like that. yeah that's right I'm the teacher making your kid woke. go fuck yourself about it.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

you left your kid with me and I taught him that women are people. and also to question authority. and also how to kick someone in the nuts. have fun with that.

[rainbow-demoness]

Do you have advice for people wishing to also learn the skill of getting through to little boys who've been taught not to listen to women?

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

honestly there's nothing that's going to work for every kid but I've found just turning kid behavior back on them usually works pretty well. like if they say something about "girls are like this and boys are like that" be like why. why. why. why. exactly the way little kids do. they'll try to come up with an answer but usually after like five rounds of me asking why they'll eventually be like huh. idk.

in my case it definitely helps that I teach kids martial arts classes at a boxing gym with a lot of women. so little boys just factually cannot tell me that girls can't fight or aren't strong or something, because they're constantly surrounded by proof that isn't true. also rules are very different in a boxing gym so if a kid is being a little shit I'm allowed to pick them up and put them in upside down air jail. you probably can't do this in most contexts.

I think the biggest thing is that they need to see men and other boys listening to women. they're following the example that's been set for that. at home maybe their dad never listens to their mom, but when they show up at my class all the other boys are following my instructions. peer pressure is real and you can use it to your advantage. I make a point to tell the biggest buffest manliest dudes what to do in front of the little boys. now this works because those dudes already listen to me, but getting any dudes to follow your instructions could probably work.

the best punishment is the natural consequences of your behavior. if a kid isn't going to listen to me, he doesn't get to do class. this works because class is fun and he wants to kick stuff and hit people with noodles. kids want to have fun more than they want to misbehave. as long as listening to me is more fun than misbehaving, they'll listen.

because these boys are learning this behavior from their dads, the dads also tend to be the kind of tough strict emotionally distant parents that would yell at "girly" behavior or crying. even when I'm strict with the kids, I never yell, I obviously never hurt them, and I always listen. they want to yap at me about pokemon or youtubers. it can be tough when they're really sexist at the beginning but eventually they will show you something that their dad wouldn't approve of, whether they want a pink noodle or quietly mention they like a girly show. this is the part where you simultaneously act like it's no big deal while encouraging it. you need show it's completely normal for a boy to want or like that. if you can, bring up another boy or man they know who likes the same thing. I always show off my nails to the kids and bring over the guy who also paints his nails. you'll probably get "boys can do that?" comments and I usually just go "well he's a boy and he did it, so unless his hand falls off right now I think it's okay"

for me, it's always eventually gotten to a point where the boys realize that everyone else thinks it's normal to listen to women, and that if they want to have fun they need to listen too. they also realize that these people and these women are nicer and listen to them more than their dad does. they notice how all these nice people that make them happy talk to women very differently than their dad does. when those boys yelled at their dads for being rude to me, I made a point to thank them and say that they were right and their dads were rude.

encouraging the behavior you want to see is even more important than punishing the behavior you don't want to see. you can't tell kids what not to do without giving them something to replace the behavior with.

[monidoll]

instant loss 2koma

[prokopetz]

The really funny part is that many modern sources that want to gas up Sparta will bring up this specific anecdote, but stop at the "if" and just not mention what happened immediately afterwards.

[elucubrare]

similarly, "μολὼν λαβέ" (come and take them) is a really cool thing to say, made significantly less cool by having them taken

[cabbageheadgames]

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

I'm gonna be so real with you guys. I'm gonna be 100% honest. I really don't care if writing HP fanfic or rereading the books or buying unlicensed merch actually I directly benefits Joanne. my objection first and foremost is that anyone who knows that woman's politics and still refuses to get that wand out of their ass is just an insufferable dork.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

the people trying to "um actually" and give me their crybaby sob story about why it's impossible for them, personally, to move on from HP are so funny. like. I don't care. you can't appeal to emotion or logic me out of this my principled philosophical stance is that I think you suck.

[ltsophia]

No argument for continued interest in Harry Potter can hold up against a radical Marxist analysis that "You Are Fucking Annoying Stop Trying To Talk To Me I Promise I Don't Care"

[mapswithoutwyoming]

legend tells of a mysterious being called “nuance” that allows multiple things to be true at the same time. some say you can still hear its voice whispering in the trees

[socialmaya]

[v-e-l-v-e-t-g-o-l-d-m-i-n-e]

Last month my mom sent me a link with a story about a pack of desert lions in Namibia that decided to move to the beach in a search for food, and I've been thinking about it since I read it, like

Imagine finding those big girls in a beach, of all places

Photographer Documents World's Only Marine Lions, a Pack of Big Cats Who Left the Desert to Live on the Beach

A pack of desert lions in Namibia is adapting to the rugged terrain of the Atlantic coast, and wildlife photographer Griet Van Malderen is d

[miriamforster]

This is how you get New and Scarier Whales.

[wiki-but-made-them-up]

[greatmountainfloofsquatch]

[androfembot]

note to self: do NOT double the chocolate chip cookie recipe. the mixer can’t handle it. I can’t handle it. my knees hurt. I’ve been rotating cookie sheets since I was born and I will be rotating cookie sheets until I die

[androfembot]

help

[alder-knight]

[kvothes]

oh someone told me something useful yesterday. she said she’s been thinking about her tbr less as an overwhelming list of books she Must Read and more like she’s cultivating a wine cellar. making a rich collection that will provide the perfect thing when needed. a bottle will get uncorked when the time is right

[rohie-deactivated20191102]

“Years ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

— I Know What You Think of Me, Tim Kreider for the New York Times

[owlmylove]

after YEARS of seeing this quote online and finding it to be the most deeply and resoundingly profound writing i finally found the source article and absolutely nothing could prepare me for this opening paragraph

[bi-icon]

Okay but the whole article is really interesting and also contains this quote which I’ve never heard before but really like:

“Anyone worth knowing is inevitably also going to be exasperating”

[rollercoasterwords]

*giving you a tour of my tumblr dashboard* well that’s my mutual who posts beatles rpf and that’s my mutual who posts gifs of tv shows i haven’t watched and that’s my mutual who posts pictures of animals frolicking in fields or cool buildings or things like that and that’s my mutual who posts various images of men having sex. sometimes women too

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i am some sort of fey creature and my cat is the human who i have arbitrarily decided is my favorite human.

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i live, to him, an unfathomably long life

i have access to powers and locations that he cannot access independently; he needs my help to navigate the world i've brought him to

i simply found him outside and abducted him one day

there are many cats in the world, but this one is the best and my most favorite. why? because he was available to abduct that morning and for very little other reason.

i have a much greater understanding of this world than him, but he has unshakable confidence in his ability to figure it out and i find that really cute

the power dynamic is fundamentally unbalanced, but i let him have a little audacity. a little combativeness and sass. as a treat.

some humans are needlessly cruel to cats or take them in for a short time before neglecting or abandoning them. but i have chosen to love and guard this one with my life. because i think he's neat.

he is very well-treated and has pretty much everything he could possibly want or need, but he is my prisoner.

[kedreeva]

You feed him food found nowhere in nature, but that tastes reminiscent of things he could eat- birds and mammals.

You could give him divine treats at any time that taste so much better than food it might drive him a little mad wanting more. You do not give them to him on any schedule he can discern.

You can lay a dry powder on the ground which causes him to lose his mind a little and behave differently for a short time should he inhale any of it. Sometimes this is inside of his entertainment for the day, and he becomes your entertainment.

You create illusions on flat surfaces that look like prey or other things, illusions that move and sound like they are real and yet when he touches them he finds only cold, flat walls.

You give him prey he cannot eat, prey that are bright colors and make strange sounds and may look nothing like real prey and yet he is enticed to chase and kill, especially the small, uncatchable red dot.

You sleep in a nest of impossibly soft material, and allow him to share this space to sleep beside you, and even to sleep there when you are gone.

Sometimes you disappear and he can find no way to follow or escape in your absence. You create and destroy openings in solid walls at your convenience.

You speak a language he cannot understand, and sometimes you say garbled words in the language of his children, and so he speaks back to you like a mother does a child in the hopes you will understand him and sometimes you seem to.

[drferox]

While it’s great to let your international community know what’s up, if you are sending a complaint to a corporation (like, say, cancelling a show that looks an awful lot like censoring free speech) you probably want to make sure you’re complaining to the right spot.

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has nothing to do with Jimmy Kimmel.

The ABC (American Broadcasting Corporation), does.

Complaints about Kimmel being axed meant for US ABC sent to Australia

The ABC has received hundreds of complaints about US talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! being pulled off air and threats to boycott sponsors ... b

[ceevee5]

[samrobotize]

People in the USA should be reading foreign news.

This is what they did to a Canadian

Quebec man warning Canadian boaters after he was detained by U.S. Coast guard, put in jail cell

A Quebec man says he is outraged after the U.S. Coast Guard accused him of fishing in American waters and then arrested him before putting h

A Quebec man says he is outraged after the U.S. Coast Guard accused him of fishing in American waters and then arrested him before putting him in a jail cell for nearly two hours.

Edouard Lallemand, 60, said he nearly drowned during the ordeal last Sunday afternoon after the Coast Guard’s boat “pushed” his boat, causing it to capsize.

Days after the incident, he’s still shaken up.

“I’m never going to be the same,” he told CTV News.

[phynali]

Seconding that Americans should read and seek out foreign news. Seriously. The BBC, the CBC, the Guardian app, GroundNews, whatever. Stop relying on fucking.... the NYT or MSNBC or whatever y'all are watching.

People aren't traveling to the US. Even Forbes is reporting a 29 billion dollar loss to your tourism industry for this year. And literally everyone outside of the US is like "yeah of course that tracks, I keep reading news stories about citizens from my country being detained when they go there".

(to say nothing of the incredible anger amongst Canadians for the annexation threats and tariffs attempting to create economic pressure to capitulate to the orange one's bullshit, let alone stories like what happened to the man in the story linked above. We are NOT taking our tourism dollars south anytime soon)

Begging Americans to learn about the world outside of the US.