I'm not a bot I'm just bad with social media

That's it about me. I'm 25 The theme of this blog is whatever media I am into at the moment, or whatever is going on with my mutuals and the people I follow. I'll reblog any cute art or animal that pops up in my feed. It's a bit messy but I've come to like it here

[lenacraft]

Shoutout to Sophie in the Wedding Job and her response to the question “Alright, Sophie, where are we at?” That woman completely forgot about the con after hearing that. She fully thought he was talking about their relationship. This is episode three.

[seafoampuddings]

Peer reviewing @aardvaark 's tags; you're so right, and you need to say it louder

[kremlin]

uninstall adobe acrobat. it is malware. it has been malware. these aren't opinions: acrobat meets the definition of malware.

it installs a user-login-time "startup" executable that ignores any windows directives to disable it on startup. doing so only removes the even-more-malicious taskbar-icon-creating advertisement-notification-creating process. no matter what you do, the sleeper "updater" process starts when you log in, and runs perpetually

it sends & receives encrypted network traffic both periodically and non-periodically. both are bad, both are suspicious, and a program doing both is more suspicious than the sum of their parts. and to boot: acrobat will polymorphically edit its code after such network activity

this isn't new: it has always done this. now, it does not even do the thing it is meant to: provide a way to interact with documents, which is amongst the very first features computers were built to provide. you can merely open PDFs and read some of their content in the narrow space between the requests for adobe to give them your money, and interface for features you cannot use (because you don't) or do not, have not, and will not ever need

adobe and microsoft would very much like the user's cultural norms around computers to allow for advertisement built into the local software and even operating system itself. the web being 100% advertisements was not enough! sure enough, acrobat will hijack the windows notifications system thing to give you the 2026 equivalent of pop-ups

i don't really know enough about windows software equivalents, so i'll paypal $20 to the first person that reblogs this with a list of 3-5 PDF reader/editor/etc acrobat equivalents that meet the following criteria:

open source, locally-built executables must match checksum of prebuilt distributed executable

no paid features/premium version/subscription/whatever

not a toy hobby project thing, must be windows-users-proof

cheers

[blurds]

this is the funniest thing I’ve seen in weeks

[luxshine]

The “Thunk” will always kill me.

[falconratesbirds]

14/10 doing his best

[littleguysdaily]

[walking-teabag]

my only evidence of vimes being bi is him having the most chemistry with a woman who could crush his skull and a man who's one loud sneeze away from breaking in half. which is like. the bisexual culture

[shinraalpha]

i am losing my mind over discovering that there's a species of jumping spider (Pellenes nigrociliatus) that builds nests in empty snail shells and makes little silk webbing curtains to close off the entrance

look at her!! she is so cute!!! i want to cry!!!!

[pangur-and-grim]

I won't publish the ask (they asked me not to), but I thought I'd still answer it publicly!

no, royalties are not a significant source of income for most authors. if you wrote something like Project Hail Mary, then absolutely, the royalties would be substantial! but that's like winning the lottery. Ryan Gosling is not starring in the movie adaption of most books.

when you sell a book to a publisher, you get what's called 'an advance against royalties'. it's usually split into multiple parts, so you might get one third for the initial sale, one third for the final revised manuscript, and one third on the publishing date.

an advance against royalties is the publisher saying "we believe you will eventually make X amount in royalties, so here it is ahead of time." and then you don't actually see any money from royalties until the advance is paid off. most books do not make enough in royalties to pay off the advance (I have two children's books and one fiction book, and have yet to see royalties for any of them).

advances are still great, but you need to make them stretch! for instance, last year my net income was about 30k Canadian (21k USD), which is fantastic when you consider that I mostly made it through writing. but I'm definitely not a millionaire. I can live off my writing (not trying to undersell that!) but I'll probably remain in a low income bracket for the foreseeable future.

this isn't meant to discourage anyone from seeking out writing as a career! however, there is a reason that many authors have alternate jobs with writing on the side. or, you know, rich spouses.

[pangur-and-grim]

this isn't me making a fuss about pirating (I've pirated way too many shows to run my mouth on that lmao), but there IS actually a financial incentive to having people buy your books!

buying books shows the publisher that they can make money off you, which means they're more likely to give you advances for future books. and advances are what authors live off (if they don't have a side job). that's why I always push pre-orders so hard! you have to be a racehorse worth betting on, or else they send you to the glue factory....

if I can offer one alternative to pirating: asking your library to stock the book also helps authors, and doesn't cost anything. the only downside is the patience required.

[pangur-and-grim]

OOPS yes, @stjohnstarling makes a good point! everything I'm saying is from the perspective of traditional publishing, but it's a very different game if you're a self-published author

[gollancz]

I will also add that this is why pre-orders can make a HUGE difference to authors - because if there's enough hype, publishers can pull more levers to build that momentum and reach more readers to help authors earn out their advance faster.

[gudgercollege]

Trad publishing contracts person here to co-sign everything in this post. If you want to support an author you really like but are broke as hell, then you can buy their book when it's discounted, buy it used, borrow it from a friend, or use the library. The first step as an author is to get your book read, not to get it bought. The important thing for you as a reader is to spread the word about how good the book is so the publisher knows the audience is there even if sales aren't spectacular. Piracy of books, especially books from small/indie publishers, means the publisher will print fewer copies of their next book, and sometimes if it's an ongoing series the next books in the series will be canceled, either to be replaced by a book with a different premise or they'll cancel the contract for the next books entirely. The "hack" where you buy the ebook or audiobook and then return it for a credit also takes money directly out of the author's pocket since those payment/royalty systems are set up differently than if you were to buy a book from a bookstore and return it. In that situation the bookstore absorbs that loss, but returning the ebook means the money gets clawed back from the author's advance or royalties and they'll have to earn that back.

Pre-orders and Amazon/Goodreads reviews are used as a gauge by publishers to predict how many copies they are likely to sell and therefore how many copies they want to print. They want to sell most of what they print rather than print too many and end up with a bunch of copies no one wants that they'll have to pay to store or sell at a huge discount or recycle, which is what happens to unsold books. Most publishers have a limited amount of money and manpower to dedicate to any particular book, so if there's a book building up a lot of buzz, that'll give them reason to put their resources towards promoting that book to get a better return on their investment. If the publisher can't make money off a book or author they'll dump them.

Generally, every aspect of the publishing and book industries, including writers, agents, publishing employees, librarians, and booksellers are overworked and underpaid. Unless you're Stephen King or already famous, you don't make money off of books. We do it for sheer love of the game.

Use your library! Publishers have a whole department dedicated to selling their books to libraries and the author gets part of those sales. Increasing circulation of library resources means the libraries can make a better case to get more money from the government to buy more books that you want to read and they're a place to hang out for free. Libraries are the best gift humanity gave itself, use yours as often as possible.

[fujokafka]

we need to bring back old school tumblr communication and im so serious. sending an ask to a mutual just to say hello. seeing three different asks in your inbox all asking how your dentist appointment went. seeing a post you think one of your mutuals would enjoy and tagging them/sending it to them in the dms. nowadays its just silently liking a post or (if youre feeling extreme) replying under posts. WHAT HAPPENED TO US!! we used to be a proper community!!!! #LetsBringWhimsyBack

[andthelaw]

reblog if you want ppl to send you random lil' asks

[anarchic-miscellany]

Unironically, Count Binface is restoring faith in democracy: Professional grifter and fascist Nigel Farage called a by-election to distract from his upcoming corruption investigation, only for everybody to step aside due to the farce it was EXCEPT for our saviour Count Binface (who no longer can go by Lord Buckethead due to a copyright dispute), running on a pisstake platform. BECAUSE he is the only other candidate, BBC News and other outlets have to give him the screentime they would normally reserve for the red carpet of Nige, and it's fucking amazing. A cretinous racist who wanted to start this year by showing his party is serious and has widespread appeal as "the party of the people" and that he is "the prime minister we need" is now going to be spending the next three weeks arguing with a bin, who put up 500 quid to run for a giggle, and the best part is that his party of fucking coat-tail riding dead-eyed goons are tearing themselves asunder demanding to know which "leftist agitator" and "establishment shill" is funding Count Binface. Clacton, please. Please elect him

[todaysbird]

The Cheerful Smilers (Despereaux and Nico) hope you have a good day today!

[city-of-ladies]

British women served at the same guns with their husbands, and during a contest of many hours, never shrank from danger, but animated all around them.

—Admiral Edward Pellew, Viscount Exmouth, reporting on the Battle of Algiers 

"Not all women living in naval vessels disembarked when the crowds of prostitutes were sent ashore shortly before the ships sailed. From the late seventeenth century until the middle of the nineteenth, it was customary for wives of warrant officers to go to sea. A warrant officer was assigned to a particular ship “in constant employ,” unlike both commissioned officers and seamen, who were signed onto a vessel only for a single commission, and who were often transferred to another ship before the commission was completed. A warrant officer and his wife might continue to live in a ship even when she was taken out of commission. 

The wives of the ancient triumvirate of warrant officers—the boatswain, the gunner, and the carpenter—went to sea as a matter of course. So did wives of the purser and the master, who associated with the commissioned officers on the quarterdeck, as well as those of lower rank: the cooper, the sailmaker, and the cook. Petty officers—men who were selected from among the able seamen to direct the less skilled—and a few seamen, usually experienced men who made the navy their career, also sometimes brought their wives to sea. 

Most of the women who joined their husbands or sweethearts at sea knew before they went that life on board would be both tedious and perilous, and they realized that they might be away from home for years. Looking back at these women from a modern viewpoint, it is tempting to decide that they went to sea because they wished to find adventure. This was seldom their motivation. The evidence is that wives went to sea because they did not want to be separated from their spouses. Women who joined naval crews disguised as men were often seeking a broader experience than society allowed them on shore. Seagoing wives, on the other hand, did not set out to break social taboos. They were, in fact, behaving as a good wife was supposed to behave: cleaving to her husband and serving as his helpmate, no matter where that took her. 

Officially, the women living on the lower deck did not exist. Even when a woman died at sea, the fact was seldom recorded. Their names were not listed in ships’ muster books, and since only those people who were mustered had any official existence, women were not paid and not victualed. Wives had to share their husbands’ food ration, and so did any children with them. In contrast, soldiers’ wives who traveled with their husbands were victualed at two-thirds the men’s ration, and their children got half a ration. This meant that in a ship carrying both seamen’s and soldiers’ wives, the soldiers’ wives, who were merely passengers, were given food while the seamen’s wives, who were an integral part of the ship’s company, got nothing."

Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail, Suzanne J. Stark

[bethanydelleman]

They were, in fact, behaving as a good wife was supposed to behave: cleaving to her husband and serving as his helpmate, no matter where that took her. 

This is a good encapsulation of the idea that for a woman in the past marriage was like picking a career. An innkeepers wife helped keep the inn, a blacksmith's wife would help with the forge/take care of the apprentices, and a sailor's wife either lived most of her time alone or followed her husband.

[toadbreath]

👀

[eddieintheocean]

[im-a-goat-in-disguise]

[shamebats]

Emos & scene kids got this close to abolishing gender for real. I try not to think about it too much.

[shamebats]

The idea of a popular teenage subculture where girl & boys pretty much all dress the same feels impossible now but for a while it was reality and it was beautiful.

[consider-me-leveraged]

hardison/eliot "two good old boys behind the wheel chasing down bad guys in lucille" bit you will always be famous to me

[wildflowerdraught]

In retrospect, it's hilarious that Stratt made everybody on the vat speak English in deference to Grace being monolingual

Because with how quickly Grace was able to pick up Eridian, even with literally NOTHING about it being familiar the way a human language would be, they probably could have chosen Mandarin as the universal language on Stratt's Vat and he would have just. Learned it.

[shrubfriend]

I love you Martha Wells. I love you and your beef with privatized transit and whatever happened to you at Rainforest Cafe.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Fucking love Peregrine Falcons

Marvelous

[asteroidtroglodyte]

In urban areas, where it tends to nest on tall buildings or bridges, it subsists mostly on a variety of pigeons. Among pigeons, the rock dove or feral pigeon comprises 80% or more of the dietary intake of peregrines.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

In many parts of its range, peregrines now also nest regularly on tall buildings or bridges; these human-made structures used for breeding closely resemble the natural cliff ledges that the peregrine prefers for its nesting locations.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

A study testing the flight physics of an "ideal falcon" found a theoretical speed limit at 400 km/h (250 mph) for low-altitude flight and 625 km/h (388 mph) for high-altitude flight. In 2005, Ken Franklin recorded a falcon stooping at a top speed of 389 km/h (242 mph).

[curlicuecal]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1ac1g6c/pigeon_tries_to_court_falcon/

Ok but is anyone going to bring up

[naughtypiggy]

The boy saw a baddie and decided to swing hard out of his league. Props.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Who are you to be so wise in the ways of science

[maybeasunflower]

The males are about one third the size of the females, and are known as "tiercels". Also, their nostrils are shaped like fighter jet engine intakes - this slows down the air, so they don't get air entering their lungs at 250mph.

[toyotathonics]

post like nobody's watching, reblog like you've never been blocked; dm like no one is offline, and rpf like they actually fucked