OK, so
I've reached the magical age of 40
AMA
Show & Tell
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Keni
will byers stan first human second
taylor price
art blog(derogatory)
trying on a metaphor

pixel skylines
Cosmic Funnies
No title available

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Not today Justin
i don't do bad sauce passes
h
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
DEAR READER
noise dept.
dirt enthusiast

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

Kiana Khansmith

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@thecraftybear
OK, so
I've reached the magical age of 40
AMA
“bits to use in everyday conversations”
You are 60% water and every lake, river, pond, swamp, creek, and ocean you encounter wants to reclaim it desperately. Be careful out there.
Good, I hope it haunts everyone about to enter a body of water so bad that they wear a life jacket. 🙌
Every single person I knew (past tense) who has drowned was "a strong swimmer." Water in the wild does not care how good you are at swimming.
I mean this with all due respect:
You are not going to pass a skillcheck against a rip current once it has you.
Waves will not bow to your physical prowess no matter how impressive.
Shock does not care that you used to be on your school swim team.
If you hit your head, being good at swimming isn't going to turn you face-up while you're unconscious.
You may be unable to return to shore. Rescue may be unable to find you quickly.
Scheduling this for when weather starts warming up. Be careful swimming this summer
Leave him alone, he's enjoying his meal. Too cute!
Just vaccinated three kids and got kicked thank GOD I am selling them today
Edit:
THIS IS A POST ABOUT GOATS!!
If you play your cards right when you die you get to be a poison ghost instead of a regular ghost
It's called a gas leak
u can hear the sparkles ✨️🐤
Some more Nines because I have missed him
news about pcos today
Decades-long campaign powered by patient perspectives results in switch from PCOS – a name that caused confusion and undue suffering – to PM
a health policy paper has been published saying the name is officially updated to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS)
polyendocrine= multiple endocrine factors
metabolic = affecting/affected by metabolism
ovarian = from the ovaries
essentially, instead of using the symptomatic term (many people with PMOS do not develop cysts) the new term widens the diagnostic area and makes it easier to diagnose, treat, and do research on people with PMOS (even atypical types, such as no cysts).
it may seem like a waste of time to change a name instead of focusing on research, but for a lot of medical professionals a name can be associated with a hard set collection of symptoms, so the name needs to change to acknowledge that the disorder is not well understood and has a broader, subtler, and often missed set of symptoms. for example ADD is considered an antiquated/unused term, and now comes under the ADHD umbrella. in healthcare names and terminology changes all the time, and this is a positive change. your local healthcare professional may not know about this unless theyre really up on the news though!
in case you want to read about the name change process that was published in the Lancet (one of the most impactful and well respected medical journals):
Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), previously named polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), affects one in eight women. However, the
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS FUNDRAISER IS UK BASED AS THIS IS WHERE I WAS FORMERLY BASED, AND M… Natalia Lee needs your support for Please help me
Simply put, it has become impossible for me to remain here in Bali. Not only financially, but in terms of my physical safety and survivial. Even though most people think of Bali as some idyllic “paradise”, for those who live here, reality is different, and my case is worse than most.
Back in June, a friend of mine from the UK sent me a care package of UK snacks. What was also in the care package was a THC vape pen: fine in the UK, but what my friend did not know is that this is super illegal in Indonesia. Even though I didn’t ask for or buy the pen, because it was sent to my address and my name, my home was raided. I, my father, and my driver were taken in for questioning. Due to administrative delays and a long weekend I spent 6 days in Polda Bali, the central police compound on the island, in the narcotics division. Living with no privacy on a small cot surrounded by police who would spend all day smoking while I was trying to quit nicotine, eating foods I could not stand, and watching TikTok on full volume. They would also regularly harass me, inappropriately probing into my private life, my relationships, demanding to know why I don’t have children, making insinuations about my sex, and displaying an absolute lack of regard for mental health. At one point it got so bad I suffered a psychotic break. I was eventually released but the ordeal has not only given me PTSD, but has brought up past trauma as well. Since then I’ve been constantly struggling just to stay alive.
My mental health is in full-blown crisis, but Indonesia has limited mental health services, and even those that exist often come with long wait times and high fees. My family and Indonesian society in general have a very tenuous grasp of mental health and will actively make my bipolar worse while also forcing me to mask and pretend to be coping which in turn exacerbates my state even more. Every day I am slipping further and further down the rabbit hole and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep going.
On top of this, being Indonesia, my family had to pay some £10,000 to get me out out Polda Bali. Money I am now expected to pay back without any job or stable income. In truth, this debt isn’t about the money, rather it is being used by my father to keep me here in his house where I, and the rest of my family, have to suffer his narcissistic and psychopathic outbursts. Every day it seems to get worse as his mood becomes more erratic and he is more and more prone to sudden aggression, coercive control, and displays of violence. We all live in fear that one day soon he will kill one, if not all of us.
Compounding this, as many will have seen on social media, tensions in Indonesia are at breaking point and Bali is no exception. There are protests regularly and government buildings, including the police compound where I was held, are being targeted. While I have nothing to do with these protests and do not attend, we live very near to the military police HQ (Brimob) on the island and are afraid that martial law will soon be imposed. Worse yet, I am ethnically part Chinese-Indonesian. While this would not be significant information in the West, here in Indonesia the Chinese population are regularly targeted for racial violence. This is partly due to long standing inter-ethnic distrust, but moreso because in times of crisis the government will try to save themselves by driving the peoples’ anger towards ethnic minorities. And we are one of the most visible and most othered minorities in the country. Many of my Chinese friends around the country are living in fear that they could be targeted next.
Ultimately, I just cannot stay in Indonesia. Every day is already a struggle just to stay alive and to be blunt, I won’t survive an other year here. This envornment is not only toxic, it is going to kill me. I have tried to find a way out of this situation but there’s nothing here in Indonesia that I can do. It’s all dead ends. My only hope is to go to Europe, find work, and start to build up a life that I can actually live. The irony of course is that to find a job, you need to be in Europe, but to go to Europe you already need to have a job offer. Catch 22. So, my best chance is the Chancenkarte, a job seeking visa in Germany. Unfortunately in order to even qualify to apply, I need to have just over €13,000 show money to prove that I am a legitimate job seeker. Money which I do not currently have.
I have tried every resource and connection I have at my disposal to get out of this pit but nothing has worked and despite my skills and capacities, and dozens of wonderful people in Europe who would happily vouch for and help support me, my passport and myopic migration laws are holding me back. This is my last ditch effort to save myself. If I can raise enough money to apply for a job seeking visa, I can finally escape this nightmare I’ve being held in, move to a stable country, get the help I need, find work, pay off my family, and be free to live my own life.
Any help, no matter how little, is a step in the right direction for me. I am not expecting money for free; as a Social Anthropologist with an MA in Humanitarian and Environmental Crises from the UK, I have been offering editing, proofreading, and university-level academic coaching services for over four years. I am a hard worker and do not expect handouts. If you find yourself in need of my services, any donation above £100 will come with editing assistance for any 2500 word essay.
I also ran the popular Elder Scrolls recipe and worldbuilding blog, @tastesoftamriel/Talviel's Kitchen between 2017-2024. If you would like a custom stylised fantasy tavern menu (please bear in mind I'm an Elder Scrolls expert but can attempt other franchises) of 4-6 courses, donations above £25 are eligible for one!
Hi all, it's been a while since I posted anything about this, but it's coming up to almost a year since I was detained at Polda Bali (the main police HQ) and donations have stalled entirely. My plan for moving to Berlin by the end of August is a hope that has been dashed and honestly, I am doubtful I will be out of here by the end of the year.
I will be going on holiday to Norway and the UK from next month until the start of August, and please rest assured that I have not touched any of the money I have thus far received from the very generous donations I have gotten for my trip. I just really need to get out of here for a while for my own sanity. I have also been throwing into my savings as much as I possibly can from the odd jobs I do here and there, but I'm still a long way off from my goal.
I would be eternally thankful for any donations or reblogs of this post to get things moving again. You can also donate directly to my P*yp*l here (please select Family and Friends Payment or else I get slapped with a fee as I have a business account). If you're after any of my skills and services, here is what I can offer; my rates are reasonable and negotiable:
Tutoring and proofreading services for university level Social Anthropology and Sociology (BA and MA level)
Custom fantasy menus and recipes for RP and personal use (not only Elder Scrolls)
Proofreading and editing for fiction and nonfiction (5+ years of professional experience)
Rune reading and Norse oracle card reading
English language tutoring and essay coaching
And more!
Stay safe, eat well, be kind. ~Tal
Reenactor throws a spear at a drone
What a time to be alive.
“The medieval warrior, realizing the consequences of his impulsive act, immediately approached the owner of the drone and offered to pay for the damage.
The owner of the drone was so impressed by the brilliant attack that he suggested organizing a competition for bringing down “dragons” with short spears next year.
Drone owners have another year to develop a unique “dragon-like” design for their flying machines.” (x)
I am 100% cooler with this knowing that the spear-thrower realized “oops maybe I shouldn’t have done that” and tried to make it right, and that the guy who the drone belonged to was cool with it
just so everyone knows, this has already been memorialized in a runestone
Everything about this post blesses those involved with a +4 on their next Today is Good Day roll
a rough translation of inscription on the runestone:
On the seventh day of May in the year of 2016 on hither spot the mighty warrior Ulf hath slain a dragon with his spear.
so yeah, happy birthday to this dragon-slaying event and to it only
Happy Ulf Hath Slain A Dragon With His Spear!
Bubbles are REALLY evil
I’m coming to GUELPH, ONTARIO TOMORROW (May 8) to deliver the Musagetes Lecture.
I am on record as saying that every economic bubble is terrible, but some bubbles do at least leave behind a salvageable productive residue while others leave behind nothing but ashes; indeed, this is the thesis of my next book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/
Here's a historical comparison that's illuminating: Enron vs Worldcom. Both were monumental frauds, the CEOs of both companies died shortly after the frauds were discovered, but they have very different legacies. Enron – a scam that pretended to secure billions of dollars' worth of new efficiencies through "energy trading" but was actually just engineering rolling blackouts in order to jack up energy prices – left behind nothing.
Well, not quite nothing. Enron did leave behind a little useful residue after it burned to the ground: a giant repository of emails. You see, after Enron went bust, it was sued by its creditors, who demanded access to relevant emails from the company's Outlook server. But the company execs decided they didn't want to spend the money to weed out the irrelevant emails before the court-mandated disclosure, so instead they published all the emails ever sent or received by anyone at Enron, including tons of extremely private, personal, sensitive information relating to Enron's employees and customers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_Corpus
This became the "Enron Corpus" and it was the first large tranche of emails that were in the public domain and available to researchers. As a result, it became the gold standard dataset for researchers investigating social graphs, natural language, and many other subjects that subsequently became very important computer science fields and commercial applications.
As legacies go, the Enron Corpus is pretty small ball, and even so, it is decidedly mixed, both because the Enron Corpus constitutes a gross, ongoing privacy violation for a huge number of people; and because a lot of that social graph and natural language work that it jumpstarted has been put to deeply shitty purposes.
Then there's Worldcom: also a gigantic fraud, Worldcom falsified billions of dollars' worth of orders for new fiber optic lines, which it then dug up streets all over the world and installed. When Worldcom went bankrupt, all that fiber stayed in the ground, and many people are still using it today. My home in Burbank has a 2GB symmetrical fiber connection through AT&T that runs on old Worldcom fiber that AT&T bought up for pennies on the dollar.
So while you have to squint really hard to find any benefit that can be salvaged from Enron, it's really easy to point at Worldcom's productive residue – it's a ton of fiber and conduit running under the streets of major cities around the world, ready to be lit up and bring the people nearby into the 21st century. Fiber, after all, is amazing, literally thousands of times better than copper or 5G or Starlink:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/07/swisscom/#stacked
Even though Enron's CEO Ken Lay and Worldcom's CEO Bernie Ebbers both received prison sentences after their fraud was revealed, the bubbles never stopped, and indeed, they only got worse. AI is the biggest bubble in human history, worse even than the South Sea Bubble:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company
A truthberry might make you tell the truth... But a lieberry? A lieberry will loan you books
I've opened a shop. Come take a look!
Hey everyone! In case you haven't checked it out yet, my Ko-Fi shop is live! I have removed my itch.io first edition recipe book, and you can get the second (way better and nicer) version here.
If you're not after anything in the shop but would like to help me out with a wee bit of mutual aid, you can help here. I have to take Skooma to the vet next month, pay for my medication, and now it looks like I will have to visit an endocrinologist too because my body clearly has it out for me 🙃 I only have enough left in my checking account to pay for my monthly bills next month before I have to dip into my moving fund, which I really don't want to have to do, so every penny helps.
I'm also open for fantasy menu commissions, so if you're after a snazzy little tavern menu for your own worldbuilding, I am available! And yes, I can even add irl ingredient substitutes if you'd like to make anything yourself! If you're interested, just shoot me a DM and let's bounce ideas, whether you're after something based on The Elder Scrolls or any other franchise I'd love to help yall out with your culinary worldbuilding 🖤
Anyway, have a great week everyone! Stay safe, eat well, be kind. ~Tal
Edit: for the new followers, this is Skooma, she says hi
Hi again I'm sorry to be a bother but I just did a check on my medication and I have 4 anxiety pills left and I take two a day to be able to function at a bare minimum and I don't know what I'll do when they run out (probably freak out).
A month's prescription is Rp. 1.5 million (£65), which I currently do not have spare as my storage bill of £68 is coming up and I am panicking.
Please please help by getting yourself a copy of the book or dropping a donation or subscribe to my Ko-Fi, even £2 will help. ~Tal
poke you with my noise
*sniff sniff sniff* ah, i see. you are not an ant.
cats have a long history of freaking out at invisible objects so this is normal