of fowl devotees

a plover on the streets, a pigeon in the sleet not white, not cis, not straight. someone put a hit on my pancreas and I like complaining about it, along with talking about gardening, cooking, and other activities that your grandparents probably like. it takes work to be this thoroughly boring, but someone has to do it! portrait by pigeoncomics.

[pigeonfancier]

This is a new pinned post that I am primarily making because oh god, how long has that pigeon post been up there? Shoo, weird animal abuse scolding, your time has gone.

This is Mar/D/PF/Plover/a hundred different usernames on a hundred different sites, because a consistent identity is for people who actually use social media regularly! I reblog once a year or so. Every year, I look fitfully at the sky and say: ah! this is the time I will return to at least semi-regularly checking social media!

And then I do not. But hey, new pinned message for a new year!

[boobookittenartblog]

www.tommysiegel.net

[xenosagaepisodeone]

The person most responsible for a safe flight

The pilot: ❌️

Air traffic control: ❌️

The insanely anxious passenger seated perfectly still with her eyes closed who believes she has a horse girl-like spiritual connection to the plane and is whispering soothing things to it in her mind during turbulence: ✅️

[yaoiblackmold]

Look at her go! Stealing crab bait as a snack

[mikeybooch]

“…Hekate, with a torch in her hands, met Demeter, and spoke to her and told her news: ‘Queenly Demeter, bringer of seasons and giver of good gifts, what god of heaven or what mortal man has rapt away Persephone and pierced with sorrow your dear heart? For I heard her voice, yet saw not with my eyes who it was. But I tell you truly and shortly all I know.’

So, then, said Hekate. And the daughter of rich-haired Rhea answered her not, but sped swiftly with her, holding flaming torches in her hands.”

-Homeric Hymn to Demeter

[maxofs2d]

Firefox is adding an AI kill switch

Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, CEO of Mozilla, announced that AI will be added to Firefox. Public outcry prompted Enzor-DeMeo, and then Jake Archibald

Additionally, here are some interesting comments from a Mozilla employee who's been working on these features:

[thelegendofsqam]

[wrenchinator-central]

No, you should definitely keep calling it a kill switch. It helps describe my feelings on the matter.

I would also accept ai throttle. Not because I want to use levels of activity between fully on and fully off, but because I want to throttle the ai with my bare hands.

[irishironclad]

okay this makes me feel a lot better

[levourdalak]

Orestes by Euripides, 408 BCE (“…μὴ θεαί μ᾽ οἴστρῳ κατάσχωσι.”)

trans. Michael Wodhull, 1782 (“Lest those Goddesses should seize me/ With frenzy.”)

trans. T. A. Buckley, 1858 (“I fear lest the Goddesses should stop me with their torments.”)

trans. E. P. Coleridge, 1891 (“I am afraid the goddesses will prevent me by madness.”)

trans. Arthur S. Way, 1898 (“Lest the Fiends by madness stay me.”)

trans. Philip Vellacott, 1972 (“This: suppose the Furies drive me mad?”)

trans. Kenneth McLeish, 1997 (“If the goddesses come… another fit…”)

trans. David Kovacs, 2002 (“…the fear that the goddesses may seize me with frenzy.”)

trans. Anne Carson, 2009 (“The ghastly goddessess—they’ll send my wits astray.”)

trans. Ian Johnston, 2010 (“I’m worried the goddesses will stop me with this madness.”)

[finelythreadedsky]

#there’s so much lost if you just read one translation#you know the one#translation is difficult#and it’s even more so with an ancient text#meaning is lost#and that’s just the nature of translation#but anne carson did a verse translation#and intentionally sacrificed meaning in favor of poeticism#anne carson is a sublime writer and poet#but her works should be read as poetic interpretations of the text#it’s rotten work#is beautiful in its own context#but gone is the motif of sickness#be it the madness or violence that runs through their bloodline#and that’s why it matters that pylades is orestes and elektra’s cousin#because it’s their family curse#anyway#i just wish people would read more than three lines of one translation#these all reflect the time period in which they were translated#note how the mcleish translation sounds like it’s straight out of angels in america

[notwiselybuttoowell]

The sheep of North Ronaldsay in Orkney have been living on the island as far back as the iron age and have evolved to eat a diet of mineral rich seaweed

The Orkney Sheep Foundation

[dreg-heap]

Fun fact: these sheep have evolved to absorb more copper from their food than usual, because seaweed doesn't have much copper

But this means that if they try to eat grass they'll die of copper poisoning, and despite centuries of seaweed diet they still REALLY want to eat the grass

This lady, Sian Tarrant, is responsible for keeping the wall up so the sheep stay on the beach

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#my goats need more copper ugh 

I know of these great sheep you could get that wouldn’t have that problem

[astranite]

@batbetbitbotbut come look at these guys

[dragon-in-a-fez]

"if allowed to leave the beach these sheep will eat grass (normal sheep activities) and die" is such a powerful fact. dystopian far future sci-fi "these people have modified themselves to survive on a toxic planet but at what cost" vibes

[stuff-that-irks-me]

[victusinveritas]

[dboybaker]

[spiribia]

i would be a kittypet all the way in the warrior cats universe. if i heard a bunch of guys were in the woods killing each other for survival and they think i'm the lame one for getting mediocre banquets i would be like you guys are stupidd and then when the thunderclan medicine cat comes by my fenced lot to pick yarrow i would be like what are you doing and shes like medicine so my clanmates don't die and i'm like wow you guys really have it that rough. and she keeps encountering me and one day i'm like why don't you come inside there's plenty of kibble and she averts her eyes shyly and is like ...no that would be against starclan and i'd go To have a little kibble? and she's like You know what i mean. and i do. 5 moons later she is getting adopted by my people and visions of her ancestors still haunt her and she is from time to time like Did I do the right thing...? how could i be so selfish...? and i'm like my toy mouse squeaks

[valerie-an]

do you ever want to gently float up to someone and whisper “this isn’t a debate; i am actually educated on the subject and i’m telling you you’re wrong”

[shantronathon-deactivated201606]

Yes and I would also like to gently float in general.

[valerie-an]

this is the most positive addition that has ever been made on my post

[funny-tik-toks]

[allie-leth]

Okay, but she's right, the cat was so cute at the end

[stealingpotatoes]

i hauve a cold

[stealingpotatoes]

[stealingpotatoes]

yesterday a second witch curse'd this post with the 10k notes spell and it worked....

[exhaled-spirals]

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”

— D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (via exhaled-spirals)

[gift-from-the-bellow]

USERNAME LORE GIVE IT TO ME NOW YOU ALL