a song of fields and forests

kate. 34. she/they. gardener. woodworker. bassist. homebody. lover of cozy spaces.

[largishcat]

okay now that we’ve a had couple lesbian blockbusters and milfs are having a romance moment, we need to bring back the manic pixie dream girl. she was never fuckin suited to fixing all the problems of some boring twenty year old everyman, but you know who could actually benefit from a quirky free-spirited blue haired girl with pronouns (she/they)? a newly divorced forty-something mom who’s trying to learn how to be herself for the first time in her life

[drchucktingle]

we all know this classic way

[justalurkr]

Truncated text of tweet from MrPitBull, Mar 11, 2026:

She kept finding women in laboratory photographs from the 1800s. Then she read the published papers—and every single woman had vanished. Someone had erased them from history.

Yale University, 1969.

Margaret Rossiter was a graduate student studying the history of science. She was one of very few women in her program.

Every Friday afternoon, students and faculty gathered for beers and informal conversation. One week, Margaret asked a simple question: "Were there ever any women scientists?"

The faculty answered firmly: No.

Someone mentioned Marie Curie. The group dismissed it—her husband Pierre really deserved the credit.

Margaret didn't argue. But she also didn't believe them.

So she started looking.

She found a reference book called "American Men of Science"—essentially a Who's Who of scientific achievement. Despite the title, she was shocked to discover it contained entries about women. Botanists trained at Wellesley. Geologists from Vermont.

There were names. There were credentials. There were careers.

The professors had been wrong.

But Margaret's discovery was just the beginning. Because as she dug deeper into archives across the country, she found something far more disturbing.

Photograph after photograph showed women standing at laboratory benches, working with equipment, listed on research teams.

But when she read the published papers, the award citations, the official histories—those same women had disappeared. Their names were missing. Their contributions erased.

It wasn't random. It was systematic.

Women who designed experiments watched male colleagues publish results without giving them credit. Women whose discoveries were assigned to supervisors. Women listed in acknowledgments instead of as authors. Women passed over for awards that went to male collaborators who contributed far less.

Margaret realized she was witnessing a pattern that stretched across centuries.

Women had always been present in science. The record had simply pushed them aside.

She needed a name for what she was documenting.

In the early 1990s, she found it in the work of Matilda Joslyn Gage—a 19th-century suffragist who had written about this exact phenomenon in 1870.

In 1993, Margaret published a paper formally naming it: The Matilda Effect.

The term captured something that had been hidden in plain sight for generations. Once you knew the term, you saw it everywhere.

Her dissertation became a lifelong mission.

For more than 30 years, Margaret researched and wrote her landmark three-volume series: Women Scientists in America. She examined letters, institutional policies, individual careers. She gathered undeniable evidence that women in science had been consistently under-credited and structurally excluded.

Her work faced resistance. Many dismissed women's history as political rather than academic. Others insisted she was exaggerating.

Margaret didn't argue emotionally. She presented data. Documented cases. Patterns repeated across decades and institutions.

Eventually, the evidence became undeniable.

Her research helped restore recognition to scientists who had been erased:

Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray work revealed DNA's structure—credit went to Watson and Crick.

Lise Meitner, who explained nuclear fission—omitted from the Nobel Prize.

Nettie Stevens, who discovered sex chromosomes—received little credit.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who discovered stars are made of hydrogen—initially dismissed.

And countless others whose names had nearly vanished.

Margaret changed the narrative. Science was no longer just the story of solitary male geniuses. It became a story of collaboration that included women who had been written out.

The Matilda Effect became standard terminology. Scholars used it to examine how credit is assigned, how authors are listed, who receives awards, who gets left out.

[orteil42]

unconvinced i'll ever find "the vitamin" that makes me all better so i can get real work done but i do expect they'll elucidate whatever my deal was post-mortem, after which what i did manage to accomplish with my life will be regarded on the level of Beethoven composing despite being deaf or Gordon Ramsay cooking despite being british

[spin-the-wheel-polls]

You wake up one day and discover you've lost control over a random action or feeling!

Spin the wheel to find out what!

How bad is it?

Actually way better than before!

Its good

It's alright

It's annoying but I'll be fine

It's pretty bad

IM DEAD

worse than death

Nothing changes/results

Voting ended onAug 13

This idea was submitted by @dbnekonico!

[spin-the-wheel-polls]

Yeah I think most people do

[apolladay]

Have you ever had a tattoo or piercing done by someone who was not a professional? For example, an at home stick-and-poke tattoo or sewing needle piercing

Yes, piercing(s)

Yes, tattoo(s)

Yes, both

No

Voting ended onAug 11

[sarahwestcott]

Absolutely fucking not. I don’t have a death wish.

[becherdireinen]

"you're overthinking this" bro i have anxiety. i have no other type of thinking available.

[apricops]

as part of their ongoing boycott, Canada will no longer provide the US with totally real long-distance girlfriends who definitely exist

[robin-in-the-tulip-tree]

@ God: pls send thunderstorm elsewhere. the grass behind the retaining wall is getting too tall for the push mower, and if I take the tractor instead, this is gonna turn into an in-person meeting.

Best,

[greeniery]

if i ever interacted with you and it was awkward just know im sorry and painfully aware that sometimes i come off like a person who is having the first conversation of their life

[kcggggg]

I collaborated with the Human Artistry Project to make this strip alongside other web cartoonists to make the point that “Stealing isn’t Innovation” when it comes to A.I. usage. It seems to be doing numbers on instagram and elsewhere, so you may also read it here, tumblr.

May the discourse that ensues be long and unhelpful.

[anarchopuppy]

How to Build a Small Solar Power System - Low-tech Magazine

Readers have told me they like to build small-scale photovoltaic installations like those that power Low-tech Magazine’s website and office. However, they don’t know where to start and what components to buy. This guide brings all the information together: what you need, how to wire everything, what your design choices are, where to put solar panels, how to fix them in place (or not), how to split power and install measuring instruments. It deals with solar energy systems that charge batteries and simpler configurations that provide direct solar power. Conventional solar PV installations are installed on a rooftop or in a field. They convert the low voltage direct current (DC) power produced by solar panels into high voltage alternate (AC) power for use by main appliances and rely on the power grid during the night and in bad weather. None of this holds for the small-scale systems we build in this manual. They are completely independent of the power grid, run entirely on low voltage power, and are not powering a whole household or city but rather a room, a collection of devices, or a specific device. Small-scale solar is decentralized power production taken to its extremes. Most of the work in building a small-scale solar system is deciding the size of the components and the building of the supporting structure for the solar panel. Wiring is pretty straightforward unless you want a sophisticated control panel. You only need a limited set of tools: a wire stripper, some screwdrivers (including small ones), and a wood saw are the only essentials. A soldering iron, pliers, and a multimeter are handy, but you can do without them.

[slechterick]

the videogame industry will see their own foot and be like is anybody else gonna shoot this and not wait for an answer

[bogleech]

The fuck do you mean the only two pronunciations of "wyvern" are "WHY-vern" and...."WEE-vern?!"

I was saying "wivvern" my whole life. Like "wither" with an extra "n" sound.

[fairycosmos]

this lifetime is very bizarre and then youre not even supposed to also be bizarre. Ok

[etiennelux]

the ideal chai latte is one of the most amazing things on this earth. it’s a shame that most cafes think they have to serve either a cup of grit or milk that they whispered the names of spices to

[legallybrunettedotcom]

[inbabylontheywept]

Until death, all defeat is psychological.

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

vibes