Just an Earthbound Misfit

[cherryhatter-deactivated2015072]

KICK THE CAN!

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

To kick the can, reblog it. I wanna see how long this can go on for.

[my-dailydreams]

[showtimechamaco]

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈HAPPY PRIDE🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

(x)

[justphilosophical]

This is definitely on par with the original

[depsidase]

[amazon-me-bitches]

LEAVE THE LEAVES, IT DOES NOT HURT YOUR GRASS GROWTH AT ALL BTW. anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something, LEAVES HELP THE SOIL AND ARE BIODEGRADABLE. STOP THE BIG LAWN GOLF COURSE BULLSHIT.

also if you rake up your lawn the very second a single leaf falls on it I kind of never want to hear you on about how you "LOVE FALL SO MUCH" again. bitch no you don't or you would like it to LOOK like fall too. every single excuse I have heard for keeping your creepy sodded weed free/life free lawn has been stupid as all get out. -Leaves are good for soil -"weeds" are not a real thing and your yard should have diversity and natural growth in it, especially clovers!! -you want butterflies and bees to thrive don't mow your yard in the fall/winter they hibernate in the tall grass also birds need seeds from it sometimes. -it should be illegal to not have a tree in your yard, at your first chance please try to plant some trees, they have endless benefits. -stfu about 'ew but bugs!' please get off the internet and go touch grass, I am actually worried for you. -Don't over till your soil, once topsoil is gone its pretty much gone, it takes YEARS to rebuild it. THIS IS HOW THE DUSTBOWL HAPPENED AND IT CAN AND WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. treat the land with respect.

[plantnerderyallday]

It not hurting grass growth is entirely dependent on species of tree and climate. Here, oaks and big leaf maples will 100% kill off patches of grass.

The solution to this, of course, is to leave the leaves, note how far out from the trunk(s) they kill grass, and declare that area a garden bed and plant it with understory plants/plants that can handle getting a bunch of leaves dumped on them. Ideally with plants native to your area and that naturally grow under that species of tree or similar. But you can also throw in some helebores and bleeding hearts to appease HOAs/neighbors with opinions.

Also, do keep an eye out for non-native weeds that like to create monocultures. Everyone should be familiar with noxious weeds and invasive species and know how to deal with them. They can and will crowd out native species and this does have negative effects.

A lot of bees and other insects do hibernate in the hollow stems of plants and birds feed on seed heads, so it's a good idea to find out what plants native to your area provide that kind of habitat and include them in your garden. Here we have a species of golden rod, pearly everlasting, triteleia etc. I wouldn't recommend demanding on lawn gasses to provide this ecosystem niche as there's a very good chance they aren't native to your area and some insects won't use them because of that.

Another note: a lot of people are worried about bugs, and I get that. But here's the thing: in a balanced ecosystem, the predators of bugs are there as well, so you'll actually see fewer of the "pest" bugs. Pesticides are usually non-selective, meaning they kill everything. "Pest" bugs reproduce and thus recover their populations much faster than predator insects, so by spraying you end up with population explosions of whatever was bothering you in the first place. What really helps is creating habitat for predator species because they then keep those populations under control. This is one of the ways organic vegetable producers do it.

[petefoxshend-deactivated2018062]

“Big Pharma” okay are we talking about how privatization and monetization has deeply corrupted the field of medicine or are you talking about how you think chemicals in the water are making the frogs gay

[greyramblings]

“GMOs”? Are we talking seeds that grow sterile plants and patenting genetic modifications then destroying any competition no matter how small they are? Or are we talking life saving rice with vitamin a to make sure kids don’t go blind in regions not suited for other high vit a veg? … or are we talking about your chidoodle?

[omelas-kid]

There is so much casual ableism towards people with intellectual-cognitive disabilities. I was listening to a podcast I listen to religiously (and is a very very leftist podcast) and they hit me with the "you'll understand this unless you are Three Years Old." And it was something I didn't understand. And this podcast (that I love!) does this quite frequently. The hosts would never purposely make fun of someone for their disability- but they say things like "no one is that stupid" or similar quite frequently. And as someone who is that stupid- it kinda fucking sucks.

[vampire-loving-vampire]

out of all kinds of people, even among disabled people , we are among some of the most vulnerable largely because the idea of us existing in and participating in society like a person is completely unfathomable to almost EVERYONE . like u said , even people who are leftist strongly in every single other way .

[yourreddancer]

The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.

The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market.

Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there.

Given that no company walks away from European consumers voluntarily the phones are going to change and once they change for Europe the rest of the world will ask why theirs still do not.

[dreamsrunfaster]

[thegentlemanstar]

this site gets accused of being way too usamerican a lot but i wonder what the actual proportion is

are you usamerican

yes

no

some other nuanced answer (pls elaborate in the tags i’m nosy)

Remaining time: 4 hours 19 minutes

[thollandss-deactivated20231215]

reblog to send your mutuals a hug. maybe just the thought is enough to cheer them up 🥺

[yesornopolls]

Americans who have either visited another country during Trump's 2nd term or have moved to another country, have you been treated with any animosity, hostility, or scrutiny for being American?

Americans who have either visited another country during Trump's 2nd term or have moved to another country, have you been treated with any animosity, hostility, or scrutiny for being American?

Yes

No

See results

Voting ended onJun 1

[probablybadrpgideas]

Threequel!

Part One

Part Two

Your return to your little village on the coast. What do you do here again?

fisher

merchant

boat maker

chandler

farmer

sailer

priest

politican

odd-jobber

something else

Voting ended onMay 27

[probablybadrpgideas]

After regaling the people at the pub with the tales of your adventures (and selling several of them some soup cheese), you go to check out the town noticeboard.

What draws your eye?

Ship for sale (mildly haunted)

Lost cat (reward). Answers to Jumbo

Crew wanted for COMPLETELY LEGAL expedition

Whoever is playing trumpet every night please stop

Help wanted: appretice netter

plEAs fnd sexy mermAid

Cockles 2 copper an ounce

Election next week! Last chance to run for mayor

Missing child: last seen near the salt pans, answers to Lucas or Mr Pants

Voting ended onMay 30

[ephemeral-gremlin]

[cacodaemonia]

(Heads up: this post is mostly about US policy, but the propaganda I'm going to talk about has impacted places all over the world)

So, you know that statistic people always cite, about how PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) euthanizes most of the animals it takes in? Or how the HSUS (Humane Society of the United States) doesn't financially support animal shelters?

Yeah, that's all disinformation cooked up by Richard Berman and The Center for Organization Research and Education (formerly The Center for Consumer Freedom, which you're more likely to have heard of):

Though Berman and his companies/front organizations have been involved in a lot of anti-environmental causes, they've also majorly impacted the US food and drink industry. There's a good chance that if you've heard any damning 'facts' about animal welfare organizations, unions, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Greenpeace, the Food and Drug Administration, vegetarian/vegan food companies, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, green energy, or science-based research on the effects of food/drink/tobacco on human health, they started with Berman.

I've been checking in on this guy's evil exploits for years now, but almost no one in the US seems to have heard about him—let alone know how massively he's influenced US Americans' beliefs, the economy, politics, and (a lack of) government safety regulations in a variety of areas.

His organizations are supported by tobacco, beverage, and oil companies, as well as the animal-industrial complex. Their goals are, respectively: preventing laws that proposed to add warning labels to cigarettes or ban smoking in certain places; fighting Mothers Against Drunk Driving and preventing regulations that would tax soft drink companies; spreading disinformation about green energy, like solar and wind; and smearing food companies that make alternatives to animal products, like plant-based milks, fake meat, and egg substitutes.

All of these efforts are, of course, allegedly in the name of 'consumer freedom,' but I'm betting this information will shock absolutely no one:

He's a real dirt bag and we should all be aware of the lies he and his ilk have spread, because they're truly insidious. I've fallen for some of them before.

You can of course find more info about Berman on both the Wikipedia pages I linked to and from many other reputable organizations, but I wanted to share one more section from CORE's Wiki page:

Did you see that real sneaky one? The Environmental Policy Alliance? "You mean the EPA," you ask? Yeah, no, the real EPA is the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, the anti-vaccination, anti-trans American College of Pediatricians took a page out of Berman's playbook by giving themselves a name similar to the legitimate American Academy of Pediatrics.

Not only has Berman been directly responsible for a lot of disinformation, but his example has taught other people how to deceive and manipulate the public.

So, yeah. Go forth and be fucking skeptical.

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)

[hope-for-the-planet]

Chart: US to overwhelmingly build clean power in 2026

A federal agency says solar, battery, and wind additions will vastly outpace new gas facilities in what’s set to be a record year for power

Federal agencies report that a significant majority of new power capacity being built in the US in 2026 will be clean energy. Solar alone makes up 51% of this progress--fossil gas is the only fossil fuel to make it on the chart at only 7% of new power capacity.

This will also be the most energy capacity of any kind that the US has ever added in a year.

[aetherograph]

I'm gonna say cautiously this is good news, but I'm cautious because one of the biggest solar farms in the US, in Death Valley, is run by the military and vaporizes birds bc it has mirrors that heat up the air in a cone around the solar panels. And that's... bad.

Renewables can still be built in ways that don't care about the environment, and owned by those who want to extract rent. A lot of solar is being built in the desert by people who think the desert is "barren" and "a wasteland" without an ecosystem in it. A desert has an ecosystem as rich and delicate as a rainforest.

So like, yay for renewables but I have Questions and Concerns.

[13thpythagoras]

this is why the solarpunk focus is on small rooftop solar energy systems, rather than the big industrial scale plants. Those big mega plants magnify the sunlight to boil water, but photovoltaic rooftop panels don't magnify the sun at all, or hurt birds, sometimes rooftop panels need nets around the sides to actually keep birds from nesting under them.

[aetherograph]

Small systems are fine and dandy, but big ones are needed to gather enough power to meet our needs. Solar is not as practical or efficient as wind, however. Wind is where we should really be focussed. And wind is far less dangerous to wildlife, and far less disruptive to the immediate surroundings.

We can put giant solar panels on awnings that provide shade in places without it, like parkinglots, suburbs (make suburbs pay their way, the parasites!), pools, and sport fields, as well as putting them on rooves.

But none of that matters if they're all privately-owned. They need to be publicly-owned utilities, not privatised for profit. None of that matters if they aren't built carefully and with input from scientists who specialise in that particular biome, and with respect to disturbing it as little as possible.

The "privately-owned" and "owned by the military" are parts that concern me more than anything, because those are the elements that caused the problem of "vaporises birds" and I feel like you aren't really grasping that.

Energy-gathering devices should not be privately-owned, even if they're on someone's home. They should be publicly-owned at all times, and not operated for profit at all. That way there's no loophole for capitalists to wiggle through.

[moniquill]

https://youtu.be/EtJzOtOpYdo?si=I8KZlQKsCcycDBiH

[quasi-normalcy]

Not to sound like some Victorian temperance fuddy-duddy, but I think that gambling is objectively terrible for society and that being publicly drunk all of the time is bad, actually

[quasi-normalcy]

I don't know; I think that, at some point, you actually need to have some kind of moral lodestone to your society, because otherwise you just end up with rapacious exploitation and nothing else.

[quasi-normalcy]

Not to be one of those "Comparing real-life politics to fiction" people, but doesn't all of this feel an awful lot like Babylon 5?

[quasi-normalcy]

Everyone thinks this is about the "EarthGov" thing, and it kind of is, but I'm also thinking of the Centauri Republic, a fading power, going off on one last spree of brutal imperial aggression against their neighbours in a doomed but nonetheless bloody attempt to recapture their former glory.

[saathiray]

It also doesn't bode well for after the fall because the big threat may be gone but we will do a shit job of cleaning house, leaving room for the "dark servants" to fuck up things further.

[tegdoh]

Yes. And we don't even get Ivanova or Delenn as consolations.