Miscellaneous ramblings.

[motherfucker-somewhat-limited]

[airplanned]

We all agree, right?

AI to write your novel is wrong

A bargain with a demon to write your novel is okay

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Only if you specify in the contract that the demon can't use chat-GPT

[athenadark]

I've been thinking about this - and why asking the demon is also a bad idea

Tartini was a composer and violin teacher and no one respected him, he was generally broke, and he started having weird dreams in which the devil asked him to teach him violin

despite being catholic tartini agreed - although everything told him this was a bad idea

so he taught the devil violin in his dreams and when he had taught him everything he knew the devil offered him payment, he played an original composition in his dream

Tartini woke up weeping and struggled to write it down

we have a historical version of "couldn't remember the greatest song in the world, this is just its tribute", and the song he wrote down made him "Sonata in G Minor, aka the devil's trill" it's usually played by 2 violinists because it's evil difficult,

now imagine you make a deal with the devil to write your novel, he writes it but only lets you read it in a dream and you have to transcribe it from memory the next day.... 150k of the best prose and plot you've ever seen in your life and you have to remember it

chatgpt is evil, but that's just mean

[themanedwolf]

This brings a whole new element to my understanding of Devil Went Down to Georgia

[calicocatjack]

@roombagreyjoy

[longseasons]

[gwydionmisha]

Bonus: If I buy a book I get to keep it! The publisher can't turn up at my house at random and confiscate all the books I bought.

[recklesslyinfatuated2]

This is surely becoming an increasingly popular opinion now.

[unpaid-inchworm]

Obsessed with the fact that, in a show that got away with a ton of gore, swearing, and innuendo for something rated tv-pg, they still managed to push the butt jokes to a point where someone had to step in and be like "ok that's too much ass"

[lostinhistory]

[curlicuetruth]

found this in one of the news articles

I can’t decide whether seven bushmaster bites means you should stay away from bushmasters or declare yourself bushmaster king

[themarchrabbit]

Out of curiosity, I looked this up to verify the details. The name of the establishment was the Cape Fear Serpentarium and this tale is everything promised.

So the owner’s name was Dean Ripa, and he died in May 2017. His wife, Regina Ripa, was found to be unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the murder, was ruled not guilty by reason of insanity, and was committed to a psychiatric care facility instead of being convicted. In real life, this is an extremely rare ruling, and from what I read, she had a history of instability where she suffered from delusions and paranoia. When law enforcement had come out to the residence earlier that day because of a call she made, Dean, her husband, did in fact tell the officers she was genuinely unwell and needed to take her medication.

Their child was, at the time, three, and was unharmed in the incident. As the child was the rightful owner of Dean Ripa’s estate, the Serpentarium was unable to remain open legally. Being a child, they were unable to legally hold the necessary permits for the snakes their father had on the premises. A family friend had attempted to keep it going, but it looks like it was legally too complicated.

There was an article written about the site and Dean Ripa himself in the Oxford American that was posted posthumously. It provides a lot of detail and background on Dean Ripa, who was, to put it mildly, an intense man.

There are pictures on Trip Advisor of the exhibits.

[clouds-of-wings]

"Watching my dad (a GP doctor) watch House is more entertaining than the show"

[zoi-no-miko]

GOD, I wish more doctors were more like this redditor's dad

[sighinastorm]

been ages since I saw a rage comic!

>thread is from 13 years ago

oh.

[ninjamouse13]

[wertfi-penguin]

Maybe the most damming thing about Nolans odyssey is i haven’t seen a single gifset from it

[geekyhistoriansunite]

[senatortedcruz]

Wonderful photo

[treasure-of-the-ancients]

Gold earring with glass head pendant, Phoenician/Carthaginian, 3rd-1st century BC

from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[chimpachum]

This ancient Rockabilly pendant holds tremendous power

[m1male2]

Efeso, Turquía

[questingbeaste]

The Lion Mosaic, located in the Terrace Houses of Ephesus, Turkey, dates back to the 1st century CE.

[nitewrighter]

"Borrowing the Tiger's Power" by Yuzu Katou

[ouppygirlcity]

My hyrax tribute video

[cute-catts]

this is amazing 🐈 ♥️♥️

[legally-a-bastard]

im blowing up this is adorable

[should-be-sleeping]

I had a cat we rescued from an abuse case where she had to have minor reconstructive surgery to regain jaw function, and she went straight from that into a foster scenario where all of the other cats bullied her relentlessly and she could not leave this person's bathtub without being attacked by 3-5 other animals. She spent a month under my bed.

I did not bother her. I felt so bad for her, I just gave her all the space and time she needed to feel safe. I had a litter box at the foot of the bed, I never saw her use it, but it needed cleaning each morning. I put her food and water on a tray and quietly slid them under the bed to her. After quite some time, I would feel her get up into the bed with me as I slept and curl up gingerly by my feet. I just pretended to remain asleep.

One afternoon as I sat on my couch watching TV she quietly emerged from under my bed. She looked around and then slowly made her way to the opposite side of the couch, climbed up, and laid down there. After a few commercial break she got up and laid beside me. By the end of the show, she was jn my lap. I offered her a gentle head touch and she started purring so hard and so fast I could hear her inhaling between purrs.

[kness]

A Meditation : 68 Capybaras

Available as a print.

[cannabiscomrade]

I wasn’t going to derail the disability pride month post for people with peanut allergies but in relation to that topic

I have never seen another allergy that has been so viscerally hated and mocked by people working in education like nut allergies. I’ve seen fellow teachers cringe that their classroom was the “nut free” classroom that year. Support staff that are trained and willfully don’t follow cross contamination protocol in the lunchroom because it’s too “tedious” or “time-consuming”. Full preschools + childcare centers that refuse to accommodate nut allergies. Schools where the only free lunch is a PB&J. Before/after school programs and summer programs whose food curriculum has nuts and doesn’t provide an alternative activity.

Allergy discrimination is so so insidious and prevalent. It’s happening behind their back and it is everything from the exposure joke to possibly causing someone to go into anaphylaxis from willful ignorance.

Also other parents in the classroom are guilty too. The “not my child not my problem” brain rot means that those lunchboxes are like bombs for airborne exposure allergies

[cannabiscomrade]

A woman with a severe peanut allergy says airline staff laughed at her and ignored her requests when she tried to fly to Costa Rica

A 22-year-old woman said Lufthansa staffers were not sympathetic to her condition when she tried to explain her life-threatening peanut alle

I was not downplaying this. The stigma is real, and people are 100% willing to let people with allergies die.

This woman was laughed at for asking for allergy accommodations at multiple points in her trip, and was denied to the point that she was practically told she’d be refused care in the event of anaphylaxis.

[bethany-sensei]

I work in healthcare. I cannot get my coworkers to consistently change their gloves after handling a PBJ. They literally do not think of it, and I don’t understand why. I also don’t know how to make it stick in their brains that this is a thing they need to do.

[trixree]

I grew up in the early 2000s with severe allergies to not just peanuts, but ALL nuts as well as beef, pork, shelfish, seeds, kiwi, and some food dyes. The resistance that my family faced from educators in the early 2000s is frankly bananas, not to mention the shit other parents and kids got up to.

When my mom tried to enroll me in preschool, the school principal refused any basic accommodations like asking everyone to wash their hands after lunch before re-entering the classroom, not bringing straight up peanuts to snack time, etc. There was no such thing as a nut free classroom at the time. The principal told my mom and me (I was 4 at the time and definitely in the room when this happened) “if she’s so sick, she belongs in a bubble, not at school.” THE FUCKING PRINCIPAL! My mom had to threaten legal action under the ADA to get them to comply.

Look, I was on a 504 accommodation plan under the ADA for the entirety of my formative education (elementary thru high school). That’s all 12 years!!! And yet I have had teachers hand me items I’m allergic to as a “reward”. I have had other kids intentionally try to send me into anaphylaxis. One girl in 3rd grade asked me why I “wasn’t dead yet” when she had put on a lotion with almonds in it and then held my hand. I’ve had other parents write letters to the school saying what a terrible inconvenience it was to them to not be able to send their kiddo to school with PB&J, demanding I be Removed to a special education only class if my “needs” were such a “burden” to others. During elementary school “parties” held in the classroom on holidays and for student birthdays, I was always sent to sit out in the hallway or go to the library, because even though parents were only supposed to bring safe foods into the room (they had a list of all my allergies) they never once got it right. Administrators fought me tooth and nail for the right to carry my epi pen and other meds on my person at all times. Why they thought I would start dealing benadryl on the playground, I do not know. At lunch, I was always sat at a specific segregated table labeled the “Nut Free Table” alone because who the fuck is going to sit there with the literally segregated outcast? But ONCE notably I was sat on one side of a line of blue masking tape down the table top with the rest of my class on the other. One side was the NUTS side!!! As if allergens would respect that tape barrier. (Spoiler alert: they do NOT!)

Literally from preschool to my senior year of high school, I was “the peanut kid”. Other parents gave my mom books about how to “cure your child’s food allergies from HOME” by micro dosing with things they are allergic to (please never ever ever even attempt anything like a food challenge with a known allergen outside of the care and supervision of a medical professional, holy shit that’s so dangerous). My mom joined the PTA in my last year of high school so that I could maybe participate in all the senior-focused events like pool parties and breakfast at school on the first Friday of the month. The number of times another parent either (a) decided it wasn’t worth it to care or (b) intentionally brought peanut products to an event to spite either me or my mom??? I literally could not count. It happened constantly.

College was better, but I still occasionally had people BALK when I asked them to please not eat a Nature Valley bar with whole nuts in it right the fuck next to me in lecture, thanks. Work parties and catered lunches were always impossible. A few conferences I went to as an undergrad were SUPPOSED to be nut-free, but always fucked up the catering. At one, they set up snack tables by every exit of the conference auditorium so that when people left after the talk, they all congregated around the exits and opened macadamia nut cookies and granola bars. When I had subsequently had a massive allergic reaction and needed help getting home (I’d walked) after taking like 200mg of benadryl, the staff offered me a stack of napkins and a lukewarm apology.

Food allergy is a disability which touches literally every aspect of a person’s life. Everytime I share with someone new about what it was like growing up with my allergies, they have never heard anything like it in their lives. They’re always like “holy shit, seriously??? People did that??? Kids tried to kill you??? Parents wanted you kicked out of the classroom????” Yeah, man. Yeah. My own brother (who doesn’t have any allergies at all) doesn’t understand why I don’t “eat more adventurously” and why I won’t travel internationally. So, saying it REALLY LOUDLY for people in the back:

FOOD ALLERGY IS A DISABILITY FOR WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO ACCESS ACCOMMODATIONS AND HAVE THEM TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

[radar-and-his-one-am-thoughts]

So this story is less about me and more about an acquaintance of mine. About a year ago some classmates and I were privileged enough to go visit Germany for 3 weeks as a school trip. My acquaintance, who for the sake of her privacy we will call Amy, had a deadly allergy to sunflower seeds and certain other grains. I do not know for certain if the flight attendants were made aware of this fact.

When on the flight Amy was fed bread that contained multiple things she was allergic to. The packaging was completely unlabled and she was never offered an allergy warning before or during the 13 hour flight. She had an allergic reaction and had a very hard time breathing and had to take the ONE epipen she had access to for this whole trip that day. She would not be able to get a new one. The flight attendants did not give a singular fuck about what happened to her and the position she was put in because of their carelessness.

Fast forward to the end of the trip. Luckily Amy had no further incidents during the trip. We get on the plane for the flight home and Amy asks about the food for the flight and if she can have the ingredients list. She also makes it clear to the flight attendants that this is really important because she has already had an incident and no longer has her epipen.

Do you want to know what the flight attendants did?

They kicked her off the plane. They kicked a seventeen year old off a plane and left her behind in an unfamiliar city because they would rather not deal with her disability. She delayed the flight for several minutes begging and crying for them to not leave her there. She told them she had no way of accessing a new epipen here, but they said she couldn’t fly without it. Me and my friend who were sitting next to her held her and argued with the flight attendant to keep her on the plane. She sobbed as she said she could just not eat anything, or that she could eat what she brought aboard. They still kicked her off. Bless the chaperone that chose to stay behind with her so she wouldn’t be alone.

You want to know the most fucked up part after that? The flight attendant who kicked her off was amused about the whole thing like it was some funny joke. Another one complained that “In all his years of working this job he had never been so disrespected.”

Amy and the chaperone ended up sleeping at that airport over night before they could get on another flight. I don’t remember if she was able to get another epipen for the flight home but I think she was.

Case in point, allergies are a serious disability that NEED to be treated with more respect and severity. Regardless of what they are. Someone’s life could be at stake. When someone has a disability they need to be accommodated. Don’t give them a hard time or make jokes at their expense. So what if you have to give up a thing or two to make sure they don’t die. You’ll survive not eating that specific thing for a bit. And as someone who grew up with someone with a serious allergy, I promise you it is not that hard to give something up for the safety of others.

[grac3yn]

eva stratt they could never make me hate you

[immortalbeingz]

[athelind]

If you search "Keyhole Gardening" on StartPage or any other search engine that isn't AI-corrupted, you'll get a bumper crop of information.

The Wikipedia page is very detailed.

[victusinveritas]

Also adding some book recommendations on Permaculture from the fine folks at Lithub.