i've been reading a bunch of stuff online about public opinions in the USA about climate change, and. We need to talk about this.

Widespread climate change denial in the USA is a myth.

A majority in every single state believes that climate change is real and supports taking action to stop it

Source source source state by state maps from previous source

I encourage y'all to play around with these maps because they have some super important insights in them

Low-income Americans and Americans of color are the MOST concerned about climate change, but they are perceived as being the LEAST concerned

Social scientists have been sounding the alarm on this because even though most surveys and studies show that at least 70% or so of Americans across all states believe in climate change, Americans estimate that only a minority of other Americans believe this

This is BAD

Because the erroneous belief that climate change is controversial stops people from talking about it and emphasizing it in political and social movements, and fuels a sense of hopelessness that stops people from acting

IT'S NOT CONTROVERSIAL! AT ALL!

Talk to your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers about Native Trees, Ecosystem Restoration, Community Gardens, Farmer's Markets, and Building Local Community Resilience

Talk to the people you encounter every day about the reality that we are part of an ecosystem and the responsibility of learning about and caring for each other and the life forms around us

Don't ever hesitate. Reblog this. TUMBLR RULE. When you see it, REBLOG IT.

i may not take care of myself but you better >:(

His channel on YouTube also highlights other home growers:

Very cool, down to earth channel. I love his vibe.

He also did a challenge a little while back to see if he could truly live "self-sufficient" off his homestead for a full month. He emphasized throughout the entire video he made about it that he literally could not have survived it without the aid of friends and community. He busted the "self-sufficient homestead" myth to pieces, and it was so rad.

His work totally upgraded how I approach gardening and personal sustainability, and I really want to read both of his books!

He also, as of this January, owns Botanical Interests, which is a seed and garden supply company. I've been happy with the seeds I ordered from there, and their seed packets are gorgeous, with hand-drawn illustrations of each plant on the front. The packets are also full of information on the inside, if you cut the packet open, with info on planting, harvest, and even, sometimes, recipes.

Good news! Not only have we discovered that tardigrades thwart destruction by turning themselves into glass, but we potentially have a future in which we can use their proteins to freeze-dry medications and vaccines to transport to disadvantaged communities!!

y'all need to understand that fox news and Sean Hannity Show and the like isn't just reactionary gibberish it's conditioning viewers to view "liberal" or "leftist" ideas in the most negative, paranoid, suspicious light possible.

as much as I understand WHY people don't want to optimize how "palatable" they can make their ideas, conservative media has installed a button in the heads of half the American populace that explodes their brains when something is said that sounds Scary. Most hardcore Republicans are Evangelicals and involved with conspiracy theories like Qanon. Both of these things are cults.

like I was homeschooled and part of a right-wing christian homeschool group, and y'all would not believe the fear and paranoia that rules these people's worldview

All right wing media in the United States is funded or owned by Evangelicals - or people who are cool with taking Evangelical money, so long as they parrot whatever they want.

Evangelicals have a very serious political agenda, are organized, and have been working hard to brainwash your mee-maws and uncles for the past forty years. Their political agenda is to install a white nationalist theocracy into the United States, where a handful of crusty old Evangelical white men make the rules or “have dominion over the Earth as god intended”. What that means is everyone who is not them has no civil rights or liberties, and they have been furiously, aggressively, pushing for this via every avenue available to them - and there are a lot.

This shit did not happen overnight; they have worked for it, hard, but they have not won yet, and they are scared, because they know they have an expiration date. Their numbers and power and influence have been declining. The whole ‘great replacement’ conspiracy in the US is from them, and is a manifestation of what they are scared of: no longer being on top of the food chain. So they’ve been fighting tooth and nail to win before that happens, by taking over the Republican party and removing all moderate obstacles in their way. 

Evangelicals are a cult. And I am intentionally not calling them Christians, because I don’t think that they are. I think Evangelicals are an extremist cult that budded off of Christianity, and does not reflect most Christian values or beliefs at this stage.

They fundamentally believe that god chose them, specifically them, to have dominion, dominance, over the world - because of how special they are. Not humanity, mind you, them. They don’t believe in helping the poor or the sick or the less fortunate, because those people are being punished by god for sinfulness - basically, wealth and health and strength are symbols of god’s love to them. If you help the poor, or the sick, then by contrast, you are making the Evangelicals less special. When people point out their hypocrisy, saying Evangelicals don’t behave like they have christian values or are being bad christians - that’s, very frankly, because they are not christians. And I don’t mean that in the no true scotsman fallacy, I mean they don’t meet the definition.

They are a malignant cult that worships money and power and whiteness, and unfortunately, they are also very media savvy and good at using media outlets to condition and influence the people that have been trapped in their little fiefdoms for decades. 

The overlap between Qanon and Evangelical fearmongering and ideas isn’t a coincidence either. 

But yea, the reason so many average Republicans, like your meemaw or uncle or highschool buddy, have become so unreachable, and terrified of the world around them, is because these cult leaders have programmed them to be afraid for political gain. Even if they aren’t Evangelical themselves, and just listen to Fox or listen to the radio on their drive to work in Oklahoma, it is Evangelicals who own those networks and programs and who have been speaking in their ears for years.

And we gotta start finding a way to reach past that, where we can.

good things will happen 🧿

things that are meant to be will fall into place 🧿

THIS ONE FUCKING WORKS. REBLOG IT.

Okay I reblogged and got into the entrepreneurship program I wanted. This WORKS

I POSTET THIS HALF AN HOUR BEFORE MY JOB INTERVIEW AND I GOT THE JOB OH MY GOD

I submit to you that the most iconic feature of any animal is either unlikely or impossible to fossilize.

If all we had of wolves were their bones we would never guess that they howl.

If all we had of elephants were fossils with no living related species, we might infer some kind of proboscis but we'd never come up with those ears.

If all we had of chickens were bones, we wouldn't know about their combs and wattles, or that roosters crow.

We wouldn't know that lions have manes, or that zebras have stripes, or that peacocks have trains, that howler monkeys yell, that cats purr, that deer shed the velvet from their antlers, that caterpillars become butterflies, that spiders make webs, that chickadees say their name, that Canada geese are assholes, that orangutans are ginger, that dolphins echolocate, or that squid even existed.

My point here is that we don't know anything about dinosaurs. If we saw one we would not recognize it. As my evidence I submit the above, along with the fact that it took us two centuries to realize they'd been all around us the whole time.

XKCD

So that people don’t need to go through the notes:

- We have fossils of spider webs

- Paleontologists have reconstructed the larynx (voice box) of extinct animals and we have a pretty good idea what vocalizations they were capable of

- Fossilized pigments have been found in a variety of taxa

- Soft tissues fossilize more often than you think; we have skin impressions for like 90% of Tyrannosaurus rex’s full body (shoulder blades and neck are the only bits missing)

If pop culture is your only window into extinct animals, then you do not remotely understand how much we know.

We know the entire lifecycle of a tyrannosaurus. We know from the sheer amount of remains we have, from every stange.

We know exactly how other dinosaurs look, down to colors and patterns, because bones are not the only information that is preserved.

The Sinosauropteryx is one such dinosaur. Because pigmentation molecules were preserved in the feather impressions, we know it's colors, and it's tail rings (which one would argue would be it's "iconic feature."

(Art credit Julio Lacerda)

Microraptor is another! We know from feather impressions that it had four wings. We know from pigmentation that it was an iredecent black, like a raven.

(Art credit Vitor Silva)

This is not limited to dinosaurs, or feathers. We've found pigmentation in scales and skin. We've completely reconstructed two extinct penguins, colors and all. We've figured out the colors of some non-avian and non-feathered dinosaurs. We can identify evidence of feathers existing on animals without feather impressions.

We have feathered dinosaurs preserved in amber.

We can defer likely behavioral patterns through adaptations we see in bones, and from the environments they were found in. We can see how certain movements evolved through musculature attachments (yes, how muscles attached is often preserved). We know avian flight likely evolved by "accident" by the way early raptorforms moved their arms to strike at their prey.

We also understand behavior in extant animals and can easily speculate likely behaviors in extinct animals. (A predator running for it's life is not going to exhibit hunting behaviors)

We learn and understand way more from "rocks" than paleontologists are given credit for. And if you watch a movie like Jurassic World, which has no interest in portraying anything with any sort of accuracy, and your take away is "We can't possibly know anything about these animals," then you don't understand science.

As for shrinkwrapped reconstructions, we understand how muscles attach, and how fat works. Artists who lean into shrinkwrapping are are not generally concerned with scientific accuracy, or biology. They're only concerned with Awesombro.

If true paleoartists tried to reconstruct a hippo, while they naturally would not get every bit correct, it would certainly look like a real animal, and not that alien monster that tumblr is so fond of using as "proof" that paleontologists don't know anything (an art piece that itself was extreme and satirical, and a condemnation of the particular subset of paleoartists I mentioned earlier)

Every time paleoblr tries to show you how extinct animals actually looked, all we get is a chorus of "thanks i hate it" and "stop ruining dinosaurs!"

Sinosauropteryx lived in the same place as Red Pandas live now

Millions of years apart - same color scheme

🚨 SPOILERS FROM THEM'S THE BREAKS KID 🚨

I really like his design. And I chuckled with his picture above him.

Eda not having a care in the world. And the scorpion chair is kind of cool.

"I thought there would be more." Her face here. You can tell she just pissed him off and that little gleam in her eyes.

I love how she's going to get expelled, and her first reaction was "but what about Lilith? I have to be here with Lilith?"

She's so concerned about her sister and I love it.

Bump and Eda teaming up to win the ribbon for the school. So Bump likes Eda? And I love his mantra that even the troubled students are redeemable.

And then he has to manage Eda after her becomes principal, and that's why he kind of lost his mantra until Luz shows up and he has to reconnect with Eda.

If you ever get stressed, grab onto the stress toy.

*Eda squeezes and it pops* I'm very concerned that Eda has that much stress, but I also laughed that she immediately squeezed it when she saw Bump.

These two have a chaotic energy about them.

Eda, you prankster. But I died when the blob said "Oh no, it happened again!!"

Raine pestering Eda. I enjoyed their confidence here and how both of them hit it off right away. Granted, we, as the audience, know about their past, but it was great to see that they both are just attracted to each other from the beginning.

And I laughed how Eda got distracted by fire. She so has ADD.

lions are like transgendering lol

Explain

LOL theyre just transgedering :)

Game over, Republicans

TRANS PRIDE

This is trans chicken erasure culture

If something happens to a hen’s ovary and it ceases to function for whatever reason, the other gland will turn on, producing male sex hormones. The hen will grow longer and prettier feathers, a claw on their feet, a bigger comb, and they will begin to crow. Some, especially if they are influenced by other roosters, will begin to act aggressive, and protective over hens. The only way you can really tell if they were born a hen at that point is if you notice the rooster isn’t impregnating any females and by doing a blood test. Some people also say that their trans roosters tend to be a little bit sloppy at being a rooster if they didn’t have any roosters to teach them.

The Chicken are what

TRANS CHIMKEN

Forcing schools to out students six weeks after learning about their sexual orientation puts LGBTQ+ youth in danger. Florida schools should be a place where kids feel supported, not scared. 

This bill already required schools to inform families that their children identify as LGBTQ+ upon coming out. Outing students was not a requirement when believed that doing so might lead to abuse, neglect, or abandonment. With this amendment, there is no longer a way around it.

This bill will force children to hide who they are in fear of being outed. Our youth will be at an even greater risk of abuse, neglect, and even homelessness. This bill is dangerous for LGBTQ+ students and harmful to education.

Florida’s Don’t Say Gay amendment is not okay. Do better, Ron DeSantis. 

Visit stopdesantis.org for more info.

The final vote on this bill is today! (Thursday, feb 24, 2022) Reblog and contact your legislators to help make a difference!

Consider this (based on a conversation I had with some friends a while ago): Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for people who actually like Pride and Prejudice. Look–I tried to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I got about 20 pages in before I came to the conclusion that the person who wrote it did so out of the belief that the original Pride and Prejudice was stuffy and boring. There were out of character vulgar puns. And the trailer for the movie did not convince me that I had missed anything by cutting short my reading experience. So, what I’m talking about here is this premise: the world of Pride and Prejudice, but if you die, it’s highly likely, almost certain that your corpse will get up and try to eat people. But no one dies in Pride and Prejudice, you might say. In fact, few or no people die in any Jane Austen novel. This is true. But people do get sick with some regularity. Imagine the tension added to Jane getting sick after going to visit Bingley if there was the chance that she would become a zombie after she died. Becoming a zombie in an eligible bachelor’s house probably would have seriously wrecked any chances of any of the living sisters ending up with him. Imagine Mr. Collins, as a minister, having the duty upon someone’s death of severing their head with a ceremonial plate or something that would prevent the corpse from rising. Obviously important, but this only makes him more self-important and obnoxious. And dangerous. For you see, in this version, Mr. Bennett, who stays in his office all the time, whose life is the only thing allowing Mrs. Bennett and her daughters to stay in the house–Mr. Bennett is definitely a zombie. He died at home, and Mrs. Bennett decided that, no way were they dealing with this, and so…just started faking it. Jane and Elizabeth know. The younger sisters don’t. In this universe, I think we have to go with zombies that are not any faster or stronger than the humans they were, and in fact tend to get weaker as time passes because their flesh is rotting. And…hmm, okay, how about they are pretty violent upon rising, and for about a week afterward, trying to bite people and spread the infection (even though most people are carriers anyway, but getting a nasty bite from a corpse will give you other stuff that will have you die while carrying the virus). But then they calm down and basically just start sort of attempting to act like they did in life, that is, taking habitual actions with no consciousness, in a depressing and desiccated way. So Mr. Bennett is a zombie, and Mrs. Bennett’s number one goal is to get her daughters married before anyone finds that out. And this, actually, makes Elizabeth’s refusal of Mr. Collins more frustrating for Mrs. Bennett–obviously Mr. Bennett didn’t tell Elizabeth that she could refuse Mr. Collins, because Mr. Bennett is dead, but Mrs. Bennett can’t say anything or the game would be up. Another question in this version–does Mr. Darcy find out about Mr. Bennett being a zombie somehow? Does Elizabeth find out that he knows and didn’t say anything and this is something that helps repair his earlier actions? Anyway, this is the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that I was looking for.

Okay also: in the original, when Elizabeth walks through the rain all the way to bingley’s to care for Jane while she’s sick, it’s a very dramatic expression of both Elizabeth’s love for her sister and her penchant for flamboyant rebellion, but consider, if there is a chance Jane will wake up a zombie and Elizabeth knows it, how does that change the dynamic? Elizabeth might be going to help take care of Jane, or to *take care* of Jane should things take a more morbid turn…by killing her zombie sister.

This works especially well if zombieism is communicable prior to death; if mr. Bennett is a zombie and only the elder Bennetts know, that means Jane has been pre-exposed and is almost certain to wake up as a zombie should she die in the Bingleys’ care— which the Bingleys do not know. Elizabeth has to forge through the rain to be there in case things get ugly, because she knows that the Bingleys aren’t prepared.

Yeah you know what? I am 100% for this. A few additions:

*Mr. Collins self-importantly bragging to everyone that he is the one personally responsible for decapitating  Lady Catherine de Bourgh  should she fall victim to the devil’s touch and become a zombie, and that she specifically ordered her head to be burned in the grand fireplace at Rosings. 

*The ambiguity as to whether or not Catherine’s pale, sickly daughter is in fact a zombie herself, but Mr. Darcy is expected to marry her anyway for the sake of family and keeping up appearances. 

*Wickham is a necrophiliac, ‘nuff said

This is so much better than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which honestly just felt really lazy to me.

Lydia’s vivacity is encouraged by Mrs. Bennett in part because being having an outgoing, cheerful, lively child who socializes with a lot of people all the time helps counter the rumors about Mr. Bennett. Obviously she wouldn’t be so happy and flirtatious if her father were dead; he’s just always been a bit reclusive and Odd. Kitty is encouraged to follow her example in this for the same reason.

Mary is prone to sermonizing about zombiism and what one should or would do in the event of one’s own family members falling victim to it. 

They *have* to pretend that Mr. Bennett is still alive. If they don’t, they lose the hose and Mr. Collins gets everything. Zombies fit perfectly in with the themes Jane Austen was interested in examining: putting on a good face at all costs, the problem of idle aristocrats… it works really well. 

Also, Lady Catherine’s daughter is DEFINITELY a zombie. I can’t decide if it’s better if A) Lady C is in complete denial about this, but she’s so high ranking that no one says a Damn Thing. or B) Lady C absolutely knows her daughter is a zombie… and STILL thinks she’s better than Lizzie.

Excellent and spot on about the zombies book just being a lazy edgy version with pointless dick jokes (and racism). The movie is actually decent though and I do recommend checking it out. It definitely does go in a different direction with the story as opposed to the book which is literally just Pride and Prejudice with zombies and racism thrown in for shock value.

The swarm approaches

(via)

I love how all of the Batman villains are like “ah he’s not at the manor, it’s defenseless! and then alfred just racks an AK-47 and is like pull up bitch

Batman’s Villains: The butler will be easy prey!

He’s just an old man…he doesn’t have any of the Batman’s gadgets or training or fighting skills!

Alfred: Oh my you’re right

There’s something else of Master Bruce’s I don’t have as well

(Cocks a shotgun) A CODE AGAINST KILLING

Batman’s Villains: Wayne isn’t here to save you old man!

Alfred:

Alfred is the original “Call an ambulance — but not for me”

@dragonpuppies I spent way too long on this

Bruce: I have a code.

Alfred: And I have a gun.

Bruce: time to remove the guns.

Alfred: good fucking luck.

I’ve peer reviewed @ebonyheartnet’s addition and found that it deserves a reblog.

batman doesent put supervillains in jail to prevent them from hurting civilians, batman puts them in jail to prevent alfred from hurting them

This is why Death in the Family is unrealistic. Joker would’ve shown up to kidnap Alfred, and Alfred would’ve put a bullet through his head. Then sent a snapchat to Jason and Barbara complaining about how his wallpaper needs to be changed now because the blood splatter ruined it.

@aalghul exactly but also your tags

Dumb Villain: Wayne isn’t here to save you, old man!

Alfred: Correction, Wayne isn’t here to stop me, young man. *cocks shotgun*

Best scene in the whole show

It’s often been remarked that Spider-Man’s schtick wouldn’t work nearly so well if he didn’t live in a town with so many tall buildings, but consider: how well would Batman’s “I am the night” routine work if he was operating out of a normal city where people actually live, rather than a perpetually twilit urban hellscape that looks like the Art Deco movement had a one-night stand with Soviet Brutalism in a wrought-iron-and-gargoyle factory?

That is my favorite description of the Batman aesthetic ever.

OMDFG that’s a perfect description.

Imagine Spiderman ballooning in wide open areas.  No, sorry, can’t get to that crime, its against the prevailing wind.

Also, Batman brooding on top of a Wafflehouse.

Batman: God, this stupid city with its sufficient lighting and lack of crumbling infrastructure to shoot grappling hooks into

Superman: Everyone for miles has lead poisoning, I’ve spent the entire night stopping crossword puzzle museum robberies and heists at the Second National Bank of Gotham on the corner of second street and second avenue, and earlier the wall of…clouds? smog?…cleared up for a minute and I’m pretty sure the sky was literally blood red

I HATE METROPOLIS FUCK EVERYONE WHO LIVES THERE i’m not super into gotham IT IS THE WORST PLACE ON EARTH AND I HOPE IT BLOWS UPWHY DO THESE PEOPLE LIKE THE SUN SO MUCH it’s kinda gloomy a lil bit of a bummer WHY THE FUCK DOES CLARK WANNA DO THIS HOUSE SWAP THING i saw a reality tv show and i was like bruce we gotta try this

RODRIGO NO

So I’m currently enslaved employed by a cable company, and I can offer a few pointers:

This went from really funny to “holy fuck what kind of nightmare dystopia do we live in that we need to be educated on how to get a company to actually cancel an account with a company that bills you monthly” really fast.

look: our neanderthal ancestors took care of the sick and disabled so if ur post-apocalyptic scenario is an excuse for eugenics, u are a bad person and literally have less compassion than a caveman

Yes but they also when extinct which implies whatever they were doing at the time wasn’t fit for their environment.

So, it’s been awhile since I took a human evolution course, so some of this might be a little out of date, but

1) Whether or not Neanderthals went extinct is still kind of up for debate, and seems to hinge largely on whether you think that Neanderthals are a H. Sapiens subspecies or not, which often seems like a mildly pointless argument to me since it’s largely a fight about which definition of “species” to use

2) Even if we argue that Neanderthals are our direct ancestors and never went extinct, several Neanderthal *traits* (like their noses and their forheads) *have* left the population. Care for the disabled is not one of them.

Saying “Neanderthals cared for their sick and injured and are now extinct, therefore care for the disabled is maladaptive” is like saying “Dodos are extinct therefore beaks are a terrible idea”

Statements about “less compassion than a caveman” still stand.

–Peter

I teach human evolution to college students, so in addition to that, here’s what we know. There’s some citations (and footnotes) behind the cut, if you’re interested.

So Neanderthals aren’t our direct ancestor- more like a branch of the family tree that didn’t lead to us. Close cousins- close enough to breed- but they evolved outside of Africa about 400kya, while our species evolved in Africa about 200kya*. This is important because it means that altruism can’t possibly be a Neanderthal trait that left the population during the evolution into modern humans; we didn’t evolve from them, so it’s not like we can say “well, this was maladaptive in our ancestors.” This is a behavior you see in two temporally coexisting species (or subspecies), and I do mean two, because it wasn’t just Neanderthals practicing altruism. We did it too.

We have really good evidence that early Homo sapiens sapiens (i.e., us, just old) also took care of their injured, elderly, and disabled. At Cro-Magnon in France, a few individuals clearly suffered from traumatic injury and illness during their lives. Cro-Magnon 1 had a nasty infection in his face; his bones are pitted from it. Cro-Magnon 2, a female, had a partially healed skull fracture, and several of the others had fused neck vertebrae that had fused as a result of healed trauma; this kind of injury would make it impossible to hunt and uncomfortable to move. This kind of injury can be hard to survive today, even with modern medical care; the fact that the individuals at Cro-Magnon survived long enough for the bones to remodel and heal indicate that somebody was taking care of them. At Xujiayao, in northern China, there’s evidence of healed skull fractures (which would have had a rather long recovery time and needed care); 

This evidence of altruism extends past injured adults, as well. One of the most compelling cases is at Qafzeh, which is in Israel. Here we see evidence of long-term care for a developmentally disabled child (as well as a child who had hydrocephaly and survived). Qafzeh 11, a 12-13 year old at time of death, suffered severe brain damage as a child. Endocasts (basically making a model of the inside of the skull, where the brain would be) show that the volume of the brain was much smaller than expected; likely the result of a growth delay due to traumatic brain injury. The patterns of development suggest that this injury occurred between the ages of 4 and 6. They very likely suffered from serious neurological problems; the areas of the brain that were injured are known to control psychomotricity. This means that the kid may have had a hard time controlling their eye movements, general body movement, keeping visual attention, performing specific tasks, and managing uncertainty; in addition, Broca’s area might also have been damaged, which likely would have affected the kid’s ability to speak. Long and short of it, without help, this kid wouldn’t have survived to age 12-13. 

But they did. They lived, and they were loved. When they died, they were given a funeral- we know this based on body position and funeral offerings. Mortuary behavior was common among both Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens, and this burial was particularly interesting. The body was placed on its back, its legs extended and the arms crossed over the chest. Deer antlers were laid on the upper part of the chest; in the archaeological context, they were in close contact with the palmar side of the hand bones, meaning it’s likely that they were placed in the hands before burial. This points to Qafzeh 11 being valued by the community- why go to the effort for somebody you don’t care about? Compassion is a very human trait, and to call it maladaptive is to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human experience.

Keep reading

“Compassion is a very human trait, and to call it maladaptive is to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human experience.”

Would you be alright with me borrowing your words when someone poses the above comments’ line of thought to me?

Of course! (And feel free to use anything else in my anthropology tag.)

Compassion is a very human trait, and to call it maladaptive is to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human experience.

The ShotBlocker

I’m a trypanophobic, meaning I am afraid of needles. My phobia has caused me to put off or completely avoid injections out of fear. However, recently I found something that helps immensely, the ShotBlocker, by Bionix.

From Bionix’s website,

’Bionix ShotBlocker® is an innovative device that instantly alleviates the pain and anxiety of needle injections. ShotBlocker® works through a novel application of the gate control theory of pain management. It is a plastic, C-shaped device with small bumps on its back. When pressed firmly against the skin at the injection site, ShotBlocker® saturates the sensory nerves and distracts the patient from pain signals caused by the needle poke. The device is both simple and easy to use, bringing comfort to users of all ages.’

The bumps aren’t sharp. Here’s a picture of my hand after I pressed the ShotBlocker to it:

Here’s a picture of the instructions that come with it:

My doctor had no problems administering the shot, and I felt no pain. I don’t mean that as in ‘just a small sting’, I mean that the needle felt just like one of the plastic nubs. Absolutely no pain at all. I was stunned.

Of course, it doesn’t get rid of the anxiety/dizziness/nausea that I get during injections. But with time, I think I’ll be able to train myself out of that.

You can buy them on Bionix’s website for 5.99 USD, I think I got mine from Amazon for a few cents less. They’re reusable and relatively inexpensive. I’d recommend them to anyone.

Coming out of our pandemic-induced hiatus for half a second because this is quite timely and so dang useful for anyone struggling with balancing a phobia over a desire to get the COVID vaccine ❤️

What They Tell Us: Tabletop RPG dice don’t have the greatest quality control, and often have large air bubbles or pockets of unfused plastic powder inside them. Additionally, most commercially made dice have their casting sprues removed by tumbling them in a modified rock polisher rather than filing them off by hand, which can render the dice imperceptibly lopsided. These two factors taken together mean that many – perhaps most – tabletop RPG dice are unintentonally “loaded”, and that’s why certain dice seem to favour certain numbers more than ideal probability would suggest.

What We Know: Those dice are rat bastards, is what they are.

So dice superstition is founded?

Yes and no. It’s based on real observations, but the cause of the issue is an intrinsic, physical flaw in the dice, and cannot be corrected by punishing them.

Well, except for the microwave thing, oddly enough. Depending on the composition of the offending die, microwaving it may cause the plastic to deform slightly and effectively re-load it toward a different number. I strongly suspect that whoever “invented” the idea of punishing misbehaving dice by microwaving them was well aware of this fact!

(Also: do not microwave your dice to punish them. Not only can they potentially emit toxic fumes, but if the misbehaving die is loaded because of a hidden air bubble rather than an uneven shape, microwaving it may cause it to explode.)

Who has the most balanced dice, if you happen to know?

If you’re truly concerned about randomness, your best bet is to play with a system that exclusively uses d6s and get your hands on some “retired” casino dice. Any dice that have seen actual use in a casino will have been rigorously tested for fairness, and any irregularities caused by wear and tear or being marked as retired – typically with a stamp or small drilled hole – will be insignificant for RPG purposes.

Beyond that, none of the major tabletop RPG dice manufacturers particularly have a better track record than the others. Just buy translucent dice (i.e., so that it’s easy to visually inspect them for interior flaws), and if you’re really keen, buy them unpolished and hand-polish them yourself. Most RPG dice that are sold as “precision” dice fall into this category; marketing claims aside, they’re typically 100% identical to the non-”precision” dice sold by the same manufacturer, the only difference being that the tumble-polishing step has been omitted.