Geek. Biologist. Knitter.

Come join me in my epic forays into geekery, science, craftiness, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy!

[l-a-clift]

“That’s why it’s hard to make friends when you’re older,” she said. “Friendship is rude.”

Her friend’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Think about it! When we’re kids we decide who we like and stick by them no matter what. As adults, we’re taught to be polite.

But, friendship is an imposition— at least, I want it to be. Call me after nine o’clock. Don’t think you’ll ever wear out your welcome. Overshare, show up at my door, go to the grocery store with me so we can waste another hour chatting.

We’ll never be friends if we spend all of our energy trying not to bother each other.”

[escuerzoresucitado]

[gatheringbones]

tbh a lot of my advice boils down to “hey you know that terrible horrible looming thing you’re doing your best to avoid and distract and escape as much as possible but no matter what you do it just keeps looming and looming and ruining your life”

“just, fuckign, run straight at it screaming.”

[quasarkisses]

i needed this as a background

[spectrexviiii]

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding like an effete intellectual, I do actually think you should be allowed to just take college courses indefinitely

[yourunderwaterskies]

technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.

Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.

Free courses on Coursera.

Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison

For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.

When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses." Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.

[aloeverawrites]

@yourunderwaterskies I wanted to say thank you so much for adding these links, seriously, they've been life-changingly helpful to me-

And I also wanted to mention that humanitarian organisations have free courses too, like the Red Cross on international humanitarian law.

Humanity in War

Learn more about the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Program to train policy professionals, government officials, academics,

Kaya

Kaya is a free humanitarian learning platform which offers hundreds of training opportunities across a range of key topics, including the hu

[ebookporn]

[netscapenavigator-official]

You should be starting a recipe book. I don't give a shit if you're only 20-years-old. The modern web is rotting away bit by bit before our very eyes. You have no idea when that indie mom blog is going down or when Pinterest will remove that recipe. Copy it down in a notebook, physically or digitally. Save it somewhere only you can remove it. Trust me, looking for a recipe only to find out it's been wiped off the internet is so fucking sad. I've learned my lesson one too many times.

[motherfuckingshakespeare]

A HANDY CHART FOR THOSE OF YOU WONDERING WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THESE. NOTE THAT THESE ARE ALL THE INFORMAL AND YOU IS THE FORMAL SO LIKE YOU WOULD ALWAYS ADDRESS YOUR SUPERIOR/ OLDER PERSON/ SOCIAL BETTER WITH YOU BUT WITH YOUR BUDS YOU CAN USE THESE. 

[kawuli]

random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Keeping a list of Google alternatives just in case…

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine

[positivelyqueer]

You've gotta have good biodiversity in your reasons for not killing yourself. Rotate them out like crops when the yield gets low and the soil poor. We're mixing our metaphors. Whatever helps it stick.

You like warm blankets. You like the sound of birdsong. You have a pet that needs taking care of. You have someone to outlive. You have a loved one. You think death would be boring. It's coming for you anyway. Death is patient. When was the last time you had cake? Your favourite musician is going on tour. Or maybe just a halfway decent band at your local bar. You've never seen an elephant. Isn't it amazing that the sky is blue? Aging is a gift not afforded to most. Don't let the bastard grind you down. You can't mend any suffering in the world with your death. You want to see if you can grow herbs on your windowsill. Killing yourself seems like so much effort. What does tiramisu taste like? You're trying to be curious. You're angry and spiteful. What you want more than to die is to rest. This sandwich is so good you don't want to die. Not so long as there are plums to eat and somebody, anybody who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. A stranger on the internet is holding their hand out and asking.

[draconym]

You haven't finished that book. It's almost strawberry season. There's a chrysalis on the porch that should open soon. There are pastries you've never tried. It's going to be sunny tomorrow. You're going to look very distinguished with gray hair. You have to outlive him. There aren't any easy ways to die. Your package is supposed to arrive on Friday. There are people who will love you that you haven't met yet.

[secretly-a-velociraptor]

You’ve got your ttrpg group on Saturday. You have ideas on what details you want to add to your art. One of your best friends is visiting next month. You have a great idea for a birthday gift for your mom. You want to finish playing that game. Costco is nearby and has delicious cheesecake and no one can stop you from eating the entire thing yourself. A new frog species has been discovered. Someone wants to read that book you recommended. Making a pot of Japanese curry brings back all the soft memories you’ve had eating it in the past. Your quote list has so many fantastic quotes on it that you want to make a game to play with your friends. You haven’t been to Hokkaido for the snow festival yet. Your closest loved ones love you with their whole hearts. The new hobby you picked up is even more fun than you thought it would be. Your writer friends wants you to beta their fanfic. A work trip offers the opportunity to visit an online friend in person for the first time. You’ve got enough in your budget for another Lego set. You don’t want to die. You know that life can get better and you want to be there when it does. You want to live.

[ruukachoo]

The catbirds have come back and they're so funny to listen to. The next chapter in your favorite video game is coming out soon. It's almost blueberry season. There will be fresh tomatoes soon. The gardenias are blooming. You haven't stuck your nose into every rose yet. There's still ice cream in your freezer. There's a dog down the street you need to meet. You have that hobby you want to start. There's baby bunnies in the yard. You haven't seen enough rainbows yet. What about all those recipes you want to try? There's that knitting project you've promised yourself you'll finish. Don't you have noodles to eat? There's so many silly jokes and memes on the internet you haven't seen yet. The hummingbirds get fussy if you don't refill the feeder. Fall will come soon, and all the delicious foods that come with it. You want to go somewhere where you can see the center of the Milky Way. You haven't written that story yet, and if you don't, who will? The end will come regardless. Make the bastard wait. Keep going out of sheer spite.

[were--ralph]

they slayed

[crappycheese]

[broccoliseason-deactivated20210]

A close up of the Blanket Octopus during a blackwater dive with The Three P diving club , Romblon Island, Philippines. Credit: Joseph Elayani

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

[raingerr]

doing a little jig

[z-bot]

attn @ruukachoo !!

[ruukachoo]

EXCELLENT, QUALITY CONTENT!!!

[boomer-mythology-destroyer]

[okayyoureacab]

Hexagon Quilt

[3liza]

Bra Fitting Graphics

 

[3liza]

fyi

[3liza]

this post has been up for five hours and has two notes. i think tumblr shitcanned it because it has pictures of women wearing bras on it. very cool. no censorship message, just vanishing it

[boxingcleverrr]

AHHHHHH someone put all the info from the now-extremely-hard-to-read, 10+ year old bra post into one nice infograph! THAT POST WAS MY BOOB BIBLE. Yay Boob New Testament!

[naomiknight-17]

@aspect-rei

[darcylindbergh]

further FYI: it is EXTREMELY common for breasts to be different shapes and different sizes. if you find that your breasts are different to the point that it's hard to find a bra, if your cup sizes are extremely different, you may find that masectomy aids are helpful - ranging from variations on bras to partial forms or shapers!! a lot of insurances in the US will aid with cost if you ask your doc for a script, and a lot of docs are willing to write that script bc not only is breast support critical, the emotional impact is no joke. you don't have to have had a mastectomy to use these aids!! it's ok!!

here's one place that will let you see what is available but there are a number of sites -

https://www.mastectomyshop.com/

[3liza]

also ms-demeanor mentioned this recently but the ABraThatFits reddit scene can sometimes make it seem like if you dont fit the recommended bras or they aren’t comfortable for you, its because there’s something wrong with you. that is absolutely not the case. sure sometimes you can fuck up taking a measurement but also you know what makes you comfortable and what doesn’t. in my limited observation, these posts above are most helpful to medium and large size breasts and can be (not always) less helpful or pointless for very small breasts. idk i just wanted to make it clear: you do not need to wear a bra unless you *want* to, are being forced by circumstance to do so (such as clothing surveillance or policing at work), or need it for support or functional/medical reasons.

[ruukachoo]

I am no great artist by any stretch of the imagination. If I ever become half-decent it'll be as much a shock to me as to everyone else. But I also felt compelled to draw something, so I might as well revel in the act of Making a Thing with My Own Two Hands.

So here. Have a little guy. Made entirely by me, flaws and all. He didn't exist before, and now he does. He has a nice warm drink. He is doing his best.

[littlealienproducts]

PDF FILES - Luna the Crow Sewing Case - Raven keepsake Pattern by TheWishingShed