Algorithm Free Shitposter since 2015

2X|Scotland|CompSci Professional. Lover of life, vodka and radical polyamory. May or may not be two great danes in a trench coat. He/they. Veteran of the great exodus (some of us had to stay behind)

[theinevitablestorm]

According to an IRL mutual, this blog gives off the energy of an American lesbian woman in her 40s. I am now taking this to heart and beginning my lesbian arc immediately.

[incendavery]

DONT ask why corvid isnt wearing a shirt bc the answer is embarrassing. (i forgor to draw it)

[leebrontide]

So I volunteer with a local branch of an eco org, and just got out of a meeting to see if we wanna endorse a local candidate, and I was really heartened that this 60 year old white guy from HOA-ruled exburbia, running in that community with a good chance at winning, had his sights firmly set on clean energy, protecting water, and holding back AI data centers.

[leebrontide]

He and his family had also been part of ICE resistance, btw. Which I can not over-emphasize is the norm in much of the extended metro right now. The degree to which every rando you meet probably did at least a little something is very very high.

It’s really reminded us that more people care than you might assume.

[leebrontide]

Did another one. Another exburb that has traditionally been pretty white, pretty NIMBY. We were deciding whether to endorse an un-opposed democrat running out there.

She's one of the thousands of environmental scientists fired by the current regime, with a history in international diplomacy, running on a ecological justice platform. On making sure the environment is protected and the most vulnerable be first protected. She could name those vulnerable populations without mincing words of flinching. She loves landback and mass transit and helping voters vote.

She's going to win this big chunk of midwestexburbia.

And, again, she was key in her area at ICE resistance. This has become next to a prerequisite for running in Minnesota, now.

I want you to think about that.

Resistance to a federal agency as a key prerequisite to holding state office. We keep seeing it. People want to know- people ask- when we and our neighbors were in danger, what did you do about it?

I am gonna keep saying it- the democratic party belongs to the people who show up to steer it. So show up. Not just once every 4 years. Every time. Every chance you get. It's free. It's important. It needs you. Caucus. Vote in local elections. Go to town halls. Hell, run for something! She wasn't in politics 6 months ago and she's gonna win! Grab that steering wheel in your own hands and pull.

[seracadash]

(goverment voice) we need to protect the children from pornography so our plan is to remove their eyes so they would never see something so traumatic. if you are against removing children's eyes you are basically a pedophile

[talons-and-stucco]

Lets go All Over The Fucking Place with mama

[loveridden1999]

[aphractal2]

mourning my emotional support tree

[duckinpink]

Somebody on the medical team put him on his bunk in a wrong way...

I refuse to draw him in pants btw

(there is pt 2 now)

[hymnism]

making a collection

[putridghost]

Wait I have more

[acemingo]

[thebibliosphere]

The kid next door (talking toddler age) is playing outside and just wiped out in his Fisher Price car, and I just heard the babysitter say, “oh no, your insurance premium is definitely going to go up!” And the kid who had only been mildly sniffling before made the most confused, but startled sound you’ve ever heard.

Just very clearly an attempt at saying, “my what?”

He straight up forgot about his scraped knee and is now worried about whatever the fuck an insurance premium is.

[xxxdragonfucker69xxx]

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

My garden, with the innumerable herbs and alliums I let flower instead of pulling out, has suddenly acquired a myriad of wasps. They’re mostly solitary species and fairly chill so of course I had to stick a camera in their faces.

So far I’m really happy with these!

These will eventually make their way to the @animalphotorefs repository, once I sort the uh…. Six thousand and seven hundred something bug photos I just took.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Oh man I am so pleased with today’s attempt.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

#jfc 4000 iso...#<- im a beginner. i've never seen iso that high#or shutter speed that fast prev tags from @time-teller

What you'll find - for prev but also anyone interested - is that the faster the moving animal you're trying to photograph the higher the shutter speed gets. I normally shoot birds at 2000-3000 frames per second in order to get sharp feathers in flight, and after a bunch of trial and error anything under about 8000 was just not enough for these little wasps while in flight if I wanted to see detail. They're so fast that even getting these shots required setting my focus distance when they were sitting on the flower, shooting burst, and hoping they took off during the burst.

The reason the ISO is so high is because that lets me use a higher aperture (how wide open the lens is). The narrower the aperture - the higher the F number on the screen - the less light gets in, but the deeper the depth of field is. If you have a shallow depth of field, you get photos like a lot of my early macro attempts... where the nose of an animal facing the camera is in focus but the eyes and ears are not! When you're shooting with a high ISO your images can get really noisy, especially in low light, but I was working in really strong direct sunlight so I had room to mess around with settings. (You can push this too far. I accidentally took a bunch of baby elephant pool wrestling photos on 12000 ISO because I was exhausted and forgot to reset after messing with settings in a really dark reptile house. There's a reason those aren't online.)

I also just want to point out that I am also fairly new at photography overall - I've only really been doing animal photography seriously for the last three years - and that a lot of what will help you get better is trial and error. I have two photography mentors who are both super technical guys and they repeatedly tried to explain the exposure triangle theory to me (the relationship between ISO, aperture, and shutter speed). It never stuck. Y'know what did? Taking a truly astounding number of photos and just messing around with my settings until it started making sense. I shoot with all my settings on manual now, but I absolutely did not start there.

So even as a beginner you too can learn to use ridiculous settings! Find a thing you want to photograph, put the settings where you think they need to be to get what you want. Get enough photos to make you happy, and then change one setting a little bit and try again. I suggest using auto settings where you only have to pick a value for one setting manually and then the camera automatically adjusts the other two for the best photo. Play with a couple adjustments to the same setting on the same subject so you can compare the photos. Over time, it really will start to make sense and come more naturally. And then you can join me in the "your shutter speed was what?" club!

[hawkpartys]

If you want to take higher aperture macro photos without hitting ISO numbers like that, I cannot recommend enough using a flash unit. Even(and honestly especially!) in sunlight. The flash even gives you room to knock the shutterspeed down-- I've gotten beautiful "freeze-frame" shots working at 250.

(ISO 100, F11, 1/250)

(ISO 100, F11, 1/250) (dont be fooled, this guy was not actually sitting still)

(okay this ones mainly just here because its funny) (ISO 200, F13(ish, manual aperture ring so some fudgy inbetween value), 1/250)

I only say this because high ISO plus a high aperture is a surefire recipe for fuzzed out photos-- As you raise your aperture value, once you hit the diffraction point, your resolution begins to go down, which when combined with the noise can be a huge pain.

(Though that also depends on your lens. I could get up to F32 on my nikkor without the resolution getting too bad, but F16 and above on my laowa are a pain. Such is life)

The increased clarity of lower ISO can be worth it in my opinion cause you can get stuff like this

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

See, this is a person who knows more than I do about macro photography!

I had not thought about trying flash - you can’t use them at zoos so it hadn’t crossed my mind for wildlife.

They are really right about the combination of high aperture and ISO making things grainy. I was able to push to F10 there because of the lens I was using, but I couldn’t go much further and smaller glass wouldn’t work at those settings at all.

Lovely photos and thank you for chiming in!

[pangur-and-grim]

alright I'm almost finished Project Hail Mary, and I have to say, I don't get why people are shipping the guy with Markiplier when he's already in a perfectly healthy queer-platonic relationship with the alien spider made of rocks

[pangur-and-grim]

that's insane. we need to change this

[targetedknowledge]

[frankiesbullshit]

someone tell OP i did it, i spent about 3 hours on it

[jvlianbashir]

my friend's discord server has a "proof of touch grass" channel where they post pics of them doing regular activities outdoors/in public. i think many online spaces could benefit from such a thing

[weaselle]

when i was super depressed - like struggling to eat anything barely able to get out of bed to pee depressed - my good friend asked me every day to send her a picture of me holding a leaf and a picture of a meal i was eating and it helped me significantly

(also, she was never judgey - if my meal was a single potato chip she would simply say good job eating a potato chip today <3 )

which is to say, i agree proof of touch grass is a good idea for online spaces

[yadelah]

This kinda required my brain a bit

[skajador]

Message to all Americans: you BETTER NOT have brought BURGER in your SUITCASE

[malcolmschmitz]

I'm starting to think that a lot of fantasy writers who are writing Heroes and Wars and Quests would be a lot happier writing the magic equivalent of a sports anime.

[malcolmschmitz]

If the thing you want to focus on is your magic system, good news! You can just... do that. You don't need to know the entire history of Japan to understand why the anime boys want to win their volleybasketskateball tournament; it's no different in a secondary world setting.

If you're uncomfortable with the human cost of war and don't want to glorify it... good news, you don't have to! A tournament arc gives you all the fun of competition and rivalry and struggle to improve, without the uncomfortable knowledge that your protagonist's subordinates are likely doing awful things offscreen.

Similarly, if you like getting into your antagonists' heads and humanizing them, but don't like writing the kind of monster that makes a good high fantasy antagonist- good news! In a tournament arc, the only thing that makes an antagonist an antagonist is that they want the same thing Blorbo wants and are fighting them to get it.

Struggle to come up with a plot? Tournament arc has defined beats. Struggle with making high stakes feel cool and not corny? Tournament arc. Want to write a big ensemble cast? Tournament arc.

Tournament arc is there for you. Put Blorbo in Tournament Arc Mouth.

[ladywarlock03]

Grace wearing Eridian Jewelry 💫

(if you find inconsistencies in this, no you don't 🫵🏻)