Rat Speaker

some sort of moss goblin | he/they

[headedoutleft]

had a meeting at work yesterday with a guy i didn’t know and he said the phrase, “feed two birds with one scone”, which i thought indicated a conscientious and generous spirit

[brightlotusmoon]

I was explaining the numb white scars on my right index finger, and someone asked "but why would you put your finger against the blade of a hand mixer" and the entire chat repeated "intrusive thoughts" and "call of the void" immediately and almost in synch. And people started talking about how they've injured themselves that way, and a few people said they learned a genuine lesson.

[weaselle]

yikes. I've almost never had that with anything -- but I have felt the siren call of the Hobart Dough Hook

This is an industrial stand mixer (often it has a grating attachment to that round top port sticking out like a pipe end on the top left of the pic) and Hobart is a very popular brand for these machines, which are often nearly as tall as a person

the thing hanging from the mixing arm into the bowl part is a dough hook

it looks like this and spins around mixing the dough

Here is a smaller one, but you can see what it looks like when it goes

So one of my first kitchens, everyone who got shown how to use the enormous 5ft tall Hobart we had, they got some variation of this speech:

"DO NOT reach into the mixer while it's on. I know, you think that now, but you're going to get comfortable around it, it's going to seem like it's moving slow, and you're going to feel like reaching in there to check the dough or something without turning it off. DON'T. DO THAT. One guy a couple years ago went to the hospital with every bone in his arm broken and a dislocated shoulder and it was from reaching into this exact machine we're using today. You're going to feel like you can reach in real quick without stopping the machine, and I'm telling you, turn it off first."

I got that speech too, and sure enough, there came a day when I felt the urge. Which i resisted. But then. Then there started to be reasons to reach in there.

Like maybe the person using the grating attachment hadn't cleaned the port good enough and a couple of strips of grated carrot fell onto the dough, where it would stay sort of oscillating on the top of the dough ball for a little bit before getting sucked down to be kneaded deep into the dough. It's a single button to stop the machine, but, for some reason it just seems like such a hassle, and you've always wanted to do it, c'mon, look how slow it's moving...

So i did. And it was fine! Altho i could see why people get it wrong, what seemed like about a 3 second window actually turned out to be less than a full second once you got your hand down there, and there really wasn't as much space as it seemed like there was, and the angle you had to go at did slow you down just a little... But now that i knew all that, i should be fine to do it as long as i was careful, right?

Then one day it happened. I must of brushed ever so slightly against the metal of the dough hook. It is shaped and moving in a way designed to draw material in toward the center and down and it tugged my hand ever so slightly in and down.

Which would have been fine but I was already touching the dough, so it tugged my fingers into the dough just enough for it to get the slightest grip on them, which tugged my hand in just enough to get caught between the hook and the dough which gripped it surprisingly hard and yanked my hand down and in a circle like having someone hold your hand tightly and spin in a circle and all my joints locked up against each other painfully so fast!

Luckily I was able to get my arm out before I suffered more than a sore shoulder, hurt elbow, and sprained wrist and sprained finger... but things went from totally fine to sheer panic faster than anything i've ever experienced.

Even so, only a week later and barely recovered, I caught myself just before i reached my hand into the dough bowl while it was on, the siren call of the Hobart singing strongly still.

So many people felt it. I heard so many close call stories. Some models like the Hobart 660 comes with this wire cage safety guard now, and I guarentee it is 100% because no matter how you warn people, they can't resist reaching in while it's running

[brightlotusmoon]

tags: #hobart is perfect size for arm of person perfect safe for to put arm in

_

This was inevitable. Thank you.

[catscraftsandcommentary]

I swear to god, moving machinery is so entrancing and once you get used to it, it can be sooooo tempting to go "oh, I can totally stick my hand in and Do The Thing, that will definitely be faster and easier than stopping production" and you might get lucky for a while but eventually, you will learn:

PLEASE DO NOT THE MACHINE, IT WILL BITE

- PSA from someone who spent 5 years in a factory operating heavy machinery

[anandasamsara]

I've reached a few times into the cutting machine to see if the blade did cut through the stickers or if i have to stop everyting to change the pressure settings. I can attest to the speed being way more than you expect even after dealing with and looking at it work very closely for almost 5 years.

Also have a few guillotine cuts, can tell you that a paper cut from a 200g paper corner is way worse than a 70g one and that it does happen way more than you'd want or expect it to, and that you should never, ever, disable the safety stoppers.

Remember, if you dont take your hands off the machinr, the machine will take your hands off. It is always thirsty for blood, do not feed it.

[un-monstre]

In hindsight being a “gifted kid” is so funny. You have substantial difficulties with socializing and fine motor skills but we’re going to ignore that because you’re really good at reading chapter books

[foone]

We don't need to raise this one because it can read novels.

[fageleh]

hobbies should not take up this much space. there ought to be a hobby pocket dimension, where I am able to store everything I need in a breadbox that weighs no more than my cat.

[c-53]

The yellow tang market feels like one of those train dilemmas straight up

[c-53]

The yellow tang is a Hawaiian fish that was chronically overfished due to popularity in the aquarium hobby. To resolve this, hawaii places a complete ban on the export of tangs until sustainable practices could be achieved.

In this market void of a very popular fish, BIOTA group and ORA sprang up to breed captive populations of popular aquarium fish to take pressure off reef poaching and overfished species.

NOW. Flashforward to 2025. Hawaii has made their own captive fish farming facilities, and outlined sustainable practices of wild caught fish from their native waters. They seek to reopen trade of ornamental fish. BIOTA however sees this as a threat to their cornered market, and is doing everything in their power to keep the export ban in place, on grounds that poached fish will slip through the cracks if any export is legalized.

So we have a bizarre ethical dilemma. On one hand, the ban being closed allowed hawaiian reefs to recover, and reopening trade WILL lead to exploitation of the reefs again, just less so than before. On the other, this is an american company demanding complete sovereignty over hawaiian wildlife and trying to undermine competition from the nation that SHOULD have the final say in what happens to their reefs.

And this is all happening because this yellow fuck

[xenosaurus]

it’s a shame more vampire media doesn’t pull from vampire bat behavior because they’re such sweeties. they can only survive their incredibly specialized diet because bats will share blood with colony members that didn’t find a meal! there’s evidence that suggests the donors sometimes initiate this behavior themselves by approaching hungry bats! the colonies are mostly harems of females with a few males but they’ve been observed letting unrelated males in when it gets cold so they can all stay warm! cute little social critters!

[xenosaurus]

@yupekosi your tags have created such a beautiful world

[serps-up]

so happy and free

[reachartwork]

this is going to be a silly reblog but i have kind of a fixation on animal qualia and the idea of an animal's umwelt, so i ended up wondering whether pudding was actually "enjoying" this.

which meant i went and read about snail brains.

here's the bad news, at least by human standards:

snails do not have anything like a centralized brain. their nervous system is made up of small clusters of neurons (ganglia) that mostly handle very local tasks. they don't have a cortex, they don't build big integrated models of the world, and they almost certainly don't experience things like appreciation, anticipation, or savoring.

pudding is not looking at the sky and thinking it's beautiful.

snail eyes are basically light sensors - they can tell bright from dark, but not form images. snail "taste" is done through chemoreceptors on their tentacles and around their mouth. those receptors don't produce flavor the way ours do; they just detect chemical compounds and sort them into "approach," "ignore," or "avoid."

so there's no evidence that snails enjoy food, or wind, or views, the way mammals do.

and that does sound kind of sad. but then i thought that maybe we are asking the wrong question.

snails do have valence. they detect aversive things (like salt or dryness) and withdraw from them. they detect non-aversive or beneficial conditions (like moisture) and stay extended. when pudding is stretched out like this, it means his nervous system is basically saying "this is safe; nothing is wrong."

if we define pleasure not as our human experience of dopamine and reward chemicals but instead as "the absence of aversion" - a state where the organism is open to its environment instead of defending itself - then this does count as something positive, even if it's extremely nothing like human enjoyment.

pudding isn't appreciating the wind. but his body is registering humidity, safety, and the ability to keep functioning, and that matters to him in the only way his nervous system can make things matter. he does not think "this is great, this is awesome, i love the weather", because he doesn't think in the way we do at all, but the neurological action in his ganglion tell his body that he is safe, that the moisture is an acceptable level, that it's not too dry or windy, and that there's nothing imminently threatening.

i think a lot of the sadness comes from assuming that a good life has to look like ours: full of enjoyment, meaning, and aesthetic experience. but a snail isn't missing those things. its world just isn't built to include them.

snails don't have a sense of flavor. they don't even have tastebuds. this seems like a gimme, right? but again that might be asking the wrong question about what "taste" is. biologically speaking, it's chemoreception. we taste sweet because it indicates high value, high calorie sugar molecules. we taste salty for salt, umami for proteins. so in what way does pudding's chemoreceptors differ from ours instrumentally? we can say "by our human perspective, pudding can't experience "preference" or "savoring" or "anticipation of delicious food"", but from pudding's perspective we have radically overengineered ourselves for the task at hand. pudding can tell what's salty, what's high value, what has the chemicals he needs. the functional outcome is that he can discriminate food souces based on their composition. is that not taste?

so maybe the point isn't "this is sad because he can't enjoy it," but "this is a reminder that minds come in radically different shapes, and value doesn't have to be rich to be real."

[greelin]

someone else at my school has a yellow honda fit (theirs is a mystic yellow pearl while mine is a helios yellow pearl. For all my fellow fitfreaks out there) and i want to meet them. so bad. We are brothers

[greelin]

LET’S FUCKING GOOOO

[greelin]

got to park next to them today and when i finished my last class they’d left a note :^)

[greelin]

leaving this for them tomorrow :)c

[greelin]

AHEHEHEHEHEHE

[greelin]

we park next to each other every day now :)

[rat-speaker]

@attitudesolutions

[fashionablyuninvitedx]

sorry for being weird and evasive. i was raised to believe that having wants and needs was a moral failing

[storyweavingspider]

There’s a spider in the corner of your window. Her name is Astrid. She’s saved you from contracting West Nile Virus in your sleep at least twice and is very proud of that fact. She knows this because those mosquitos taste a lil spicy.

[poshgoth1897]

Scottish agate snake brooch/kilt pin. Mid 1800's.

[inkskinned]

y'okay can we stop pretending yet. like can we all acknowledge that eating disorders are chic again, and it's going to kill someone.

and like. do we have to keep gently phrasing things to protect naturally-thin people's feelings. in my life it has never been fashionable to be fat. "fat" is still a bad word. there has never been institutional power pushing people to gain weight; no trillion-dollar industry to "fix" skinny people. a larger body type has never been over-represented in models, influencers, celebrities. sure, people might say "i'm worried for your health," but they do it with respect and gentleness, like they're talking to a scared deer.

every single fucking time i talk about this, i have to be so careful with what i say, in case i offend even one skinny person. it is just true that skinny people have social capital across many cultures. there is a reason you almost never hear someone say "i wish i was fat," but you will constantly see people say "I wish i was thin." and yet inevitably some skinny person will tell me: i thought you wanted body positivity. it is the same fucking attitude as when a cis man says "when you say men have power, well, i've been bullied for being a man. i thought you believe in mental health awareness. don't you know men have a higher suicide rate?"

two things can be true at once: your experience being bullied for being thin was terrible. and people with larger bodies probably have it worse.

i have been big and small. i know many other people who have been big and small. trust what i'm about to tell you: being small is much easier. the world is kinder to you. people treat you better. honestly, this pattern occurs pretty much regardless of gender - my guy friends have confided that they'd rather be bullied for being thin than be bullied for being fat. if you're skinny, the pressure might be to gain weight, sure, but it's often to do so in a way that keeps you skinny - to gain muscle, specifically.

thinness is seen as innate and natural, genetic. whereas carrying any fat - that is a moral failing. it is assumed to be related to your character, your personality. i have seen people equate it to discipline, to hygiene. that bias is why we need to talk about this.

of course i want nobody to make a comment about anyone's bodies. and i think that hyper-thinness and an obsession with weight loss and a recession and a rise of conservative values... all of this is very fucking concerning. we are watching a return of "pro-ana" content, reframed as choice feminism, "health-conscious" behavior, "looksmaxxing". it's fucking terrifying.

[radiqueer]

Human relationships are not transactional but they are reciprocal, which I think many of you with your ‘i don’t owe anyone anything’ shtick are too happy to forget

[aromanticduck]

Transactional: everything has to be exactly 50/50 all the time, pay me back for the £5 sandwich or buy me something worth exactly £5, I refuse to make an effort for you if there’s nothing in it for me

Reciprocal: you were there for me when I needed help, and I’m going to do the same for you, it doesn’t matter if one of us needs more or is capable of less, because the point is not equivalent exchange but mutual care

[gryffon]

[rebeccathenaturalist]

The Guts of Predatory Cats Can Destroy CWD Prions

The prions that cause chronic wasting disease in deer are nearly indestructible. So it's good news to learn cat guts are their mortal enemy.

Okay. So. You know how some people want to finish exterminating all large predatory mammals so they have less competition for deer and so they don't occasionally lose livestock? And you know how native deer species in North America have been hit increasingly hard with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in the past couple of decades due to overpopulation thanks to the eradication of large predatory mammals that normally keep them in check?

We already have evidence that reintroducing predatory mammals to their native ranges not only knocks deer populations back to a healthier level, and now we've discovered that apparently the digestive systems of cougars and bobcats are lethal to CWD prions. Prions are among the most difficult pathogens* to eliminate; you have to heat them up to about 1,800 degrees F in order to thoroughly destroy them. And prion diseases like CWD are almost universally fatal.

So to find that these wild cats can safely eat CWD-infected animals AND significantly reduce the chances that the prions will be spread to other deer is a pretty big deal, especially since some other animals like coyotes and crows do pass prions undamaged through their digestive systems. And it's just one more example of why an ecosystem needs all of the species that have evolved in it over thousands of years, not just those are convenient for humans to have around. The spread of CWD is directly related to the overpopulation of deer, and it's likely that continuing to reintroduce large predatory mammals to their native range will help quell this awful prion disease.

[xphaiea]

N’KISI BRICOLAGE STURGEON

carved and painted mahogany, mica, nails, handmade paper, found natural objects, tintypes, 1800’s text paper, Ethiopian and Coptic bindings

13x59x14 inches

[crabussy]

thinking about diatoms again

[crabussy]

microscopic living stars made of glass that eat the sun. and they're all around us. in every body of water. glass sun-eating stars.

[crabussy]

I like them a lot. they produce up to half of all earth's oxygen. the air you breathe is thanks to sun-eating stars made of glass. and that's pretty cool.

[crabussy]

and you know. like oblongs and triangles and some other bullshit