Adulting

All about rodenticides! Bird Friendly London (www.birdfriendlylondon.ca) hired me to make this comic with a grant from Nature Canada. Rodenticides are harming my local raptors so it's an issue that's close to my heart.

Apparently Serbia, and especially Belgrade, has a huge problem with air pollution.

Ms. Francine Pickup, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Serbia, explained that: “It is estimated that cities are the source of as much as 75% of total CO2 emissions in the world, of which the largest percentage comes from traffic and cooling and heating in buildings”. She later continued to explain that 59% of the Serbian population lives in urban areas and that the number is constantly increasing. Because the population density is so high, creating green areas and planting trees – which represent natural air purification in urban areas– is a complex goal to achieve, as there is a lack of free areas for landscaping.

The microalgae replace two 10-year-old trees or 200 square meters of lawn. The function of the LIQUID 3 is practically an imitation of it. Both trees and grass perform photosynthesis and bind carbon dioxide. However, the advantage of microalgae is that it is 10 to 50 times more efficient than trees. The team behind LIQUID 3 has stated that their goal is not to replace forests or tree planting plans but to use this system to fill those urban pockets where there is no space for planting trees. In conditions of intense pollution, such as Belgrade, many trees cannot survive, while algae do not have a problem with the great levels of pollution.

The project is designed to be multifunctional. LIQUID3 is also a bench, it has chargers for mobile phones, as well as a solar panel, thanks to which the bench has lighting during the night.

Dr. Ivan Spasojevic also explained that “the Institute used single-celled freshwater algae, which exist in ponds and lakes in Serbia and can grow in tap water, and are resistant to high and low temperatures. The system does not require special maintenance – it is enough to remove the biomass created by dividing algae, which can be used as an excellent fertilizer, in a month and a half, pour new water and minerals, and the algae continue to grow indefinitely. This project aims to popularize and expand the use of microalgae in Serbia, because they can be used in wastewater treatment, as compost for green areas, for the production of biomass and biofuels, as well as for air purification from exhaust gases from the factories”.

[Image ID. Screenshot from twitter. User @pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (with an icon of a pixelated boat) wrote: “My goal is to be the first person dead inside one of these.”

pixelatedboat is responding to a tweet from the account @yupthtexists who wrote: “Scientists create Liquid Trees; a tank full of water and micro-algae that could be an alternative to trees in urban areas.”

Underneath is two photos of the tank in question: a rectangular green tank in a black frame of about human height. There is also an ivory bench attached to the tank. In the background is a street scene with cars, businesses, bike racks and trees. End ID.]

[ID: a light brown rabbit under a blanket with black text in the corners reading “it has gotten better before / and it will again”. /end ID.]

I’ve been guilty of the, “Ariel gave up her voice for a man,” stance too, but upon examination one of the messages in The Little Mermaid is that it’s important for parents to listen to their children as much as they want to be listened to. If Triton hadn’t destroyed Ariel’s collection, she never would’ve felt hurt and desperate enough to go to Ursula and take her deal. And seriously who was hurt by her having her human collection? Because her father lashes out and refuses to be a person she can feel comfortable being honest with, she goes to a person who poses a threat to her. Listen to kids, even if you don’t immediately like what they’re saying or you’re putting them in a position to seek out safe spaces with unsafe people. 

YES! THIS is what the little mermaid was always about, thats the core theme of the movie, in fact I would argue the romance, in the 89 version, is just a cutesy backdrop and thats why is not as detailed, because it was never the focus, triton and ariel was, its such a subverting story too, ariel is a curious and driven young woman who doesnt change because she doesnt need to, its triton who needs to unlearn his bigortry, accept and love his child

THE ICWA IS UPHELD

THE ICWA STANDS

obligatory welcome guide for redditors

A lot of the guides I've seen don't actually seem to understand how reddit works in comparison to tumblr so

finally, from the bottom of my heart, fuck u/spez

so I will say: the way some online talk about infertile people feels weird and insensitive to me, as an infertile person.

infertility is absolutely not an excuse to be anti-abortion and adoptees have every right to criticise adoption / the adoption system. however, saying stuff like “just be a cool aunt” to those struggling with infertility trauma is not exactly helpful either. to anyone.

So like, the Reddit strike going on right now, yeah? I've been seeing a lot of people comment on how they appreciate the protest and then go on to say that this has the notable downside of them constantly looking up questions and not being able to easily find the answers because all of the easily-findable answers are exclusively on Reddit. I am not sure if most of the people making this observation are within the line of thought of "man, maybe this protest isn't such a good idea after all" or "man, it really sucks that we've let the internet get so consolidated," and I'm really hoping its the latter.

Like, all of this? This right here? Reddit making a shitty, anti-consumer grab for money and control over how people are allowed to access the information on their servers, and the website going dark in protest causing tons of people to not be able to access important information? This is exactly what people mean when they say that it's bad that the internet has shrunk down so much and is mostly comprised of, like, 10 websites. It's a fucking problem that one company making one bad decision and causing their website to crash and burn can jeopardize so much of humanity's cumulative information.

This two-day glimpse into the internet without Reddit is the warning shot. Imagine what will happen if Reddit actually goes down for good for one reason or another one day. Imagine what will happen if/when Discord or Fandom bites the dust, or gets rendered practically-unusable without paying an ever-increasing premium because they're owned by blood-sucking corporate leeches.

Another big thing is Twitter clamping down really hard on your ability to DM people if you don't have Twitter Blue. If this goes through, it'll put a ton of artists and sex workers who rely on Twitter DMs for their business operation into a shitty situation. Now, obviously, it's not gonna be the end of the world for them, but once again, it feels like a warning shot to me. Twitter is a sinking ship, and unless something changes and it starts to course-correct, I worry that it'll go under and all of the creators who rely on it will suddenly be in an extremely precarious situation.

These are the sorts of things that we, as the users of the internet, need to seriously think about as time goes on, and if we don't find an adequate answer sooner, we're going to pay for it later. I still hold that the best solution is to start making and using more individual, niche websites. Things like Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc. have their place, of course, but I seriously think a lot was lost through the death of things like individual forums and the existence of many different wiki-hosting sites.

We need a concerted effort, not just on the side of larger creators, but on the users themselves, to stop exclusively using these larger websites and support the creation and growth of smaller, more niche websites, and prevent a catastrophe before it actually happens. I simply hope that people with larger platforms than my own pick up on all this and start talking about it and swaying people to act sooner rather than later. I know it's possible to correct the problem of the mysteriously tiny internet before a modern Library of Alexandria moment happens, I just don't know if that correction will actually happen in time.

I really would like to see more old-fashioned webmasters like in the early days of the web.

I have run a family of websites for around 15 years now, with some of my older sites being well over 20 years old now, and one of the frustrating things to me has been seeing fewer and fewer actual websites and more things just moving onto social media.

This affects the quality of search results, even when good search pages exist, because when you don't have a network of websites with the owner of each site curating links, it is harder for search engines to assess the quality and authority of a particular site or page.

It used to be that, if you had a good website, you could network with other webmasters, who would be enthusiastic about linking to it.

Nowadays, a huge portion of the remaining independent webmasters out there who have their own sites instead of just using social media, are essentially spammers and self-promoters. It's really toxic. I get tons of form submissions for my websites of people wanting to sell me links or pay to put content on my site with links to theirs, or other scammy stuff like that. It disgusts me.

More and more sites shut down.

I don't know what to do about it. I miss the early web, the web of the 2000's in particular.

I don't really know what to say, I wish more people would learn HTML and rent a cloud server (they're cheaper than ever, you can get incredibly powerful infrastructure for $5 a month) and learn a little about server administration, databases, and some language to dynamically generate webpages, and just cut loose and create something.

Even just creating a flat webpage and then maintaining it manually is something that is disturbingly missing from today's web.

Honestly, if Discord went down tomorrow I don't think it would make a difference on the same scale as the Reddit thing in terms of people being able to easily access information. You can't just find a link to a discord post on google that discusses your question. If people are talking about the solution to a problem you're having in a Discord server, you have to know somebody who knows about it or you have to get lucky enough to find a forum or reddit post or whatever post that is searchable where somebody has posted a still-active invite link to a server where you can get the answer you need.

That's another thing: In the wake of things like Reddit and Fandom getting worse and making anti-consumer moves, a lot of people are using Discord as a replacement for these things because they find it easier, more immediate, and less annoying. Increasingly, people are putting documentation for all kinds of things exclusively on Discord servers that can go down really easily for a plethora of reasons, and it's very irritating. I've been watching this shift happen in the modding communities for games like Minecraft and Terraria where now, if you want to know what a mod does, you usually need to join the creator's Discord server, and now we're starting to see high-profile game releases (notably, Street Fighter 6 has this problem) start to be Discord-first because nobody wants to bother with making a wiki and keeping it updated with all the relevant information players want to have access to. And it's not as though people aren't making any wikis or putting any info onto Reddit, it's just that the priority is increasingly becoming getting information out onto Discord servers first, and this sucks because Discord is all private and not searchable.

At any rate, yeah, I absolutely agree with your tags that what we need is a balance of all of these types of websites/services, since they all cater to different needs. I don't want my original post to come across as, like, "we need to burn down the large websites and go back to the '90s" or whatever, because I really don't believe that. If the large sites coexisted with the smaller, more independent ones without trying to absorb them, hollow them out, and destroy them, I think it would be purely beneficial to everyone.

One of the other impacts of stuff going to Discord is that you can't link to a private Discord thread as a citation source, which means wikis end up with less info because you can't really add in "apparently this is the case but it's 3rd hand information", at least not to any halfway decent wiki. It just causes so much suffering down the line.

(Also your OP didn't come off as "burn it all down"! You make it clear all these things have their place, but the balance is skewing so badly right now it's a dangerous mess)

A very, very gentle reminder that "prev tags" is now completely useless, bc you can no longer click back thru the reblog chain and see the prev tags. You can see the reblog in front of you, and you can find the original post - by itself, completely devoid of context - but you can't click thru to the previous reblog. This is apparently intentional, since I literally emailed support about it - being able to click back thru the reblog chain and being able to see the source post in context on op's blog are fundamental parts of the user experience imo and I am pissed - and their response was basically like yeah we meant to do that but if you want to talk about it you can go to our WIP blog, where the ask is literally only open one day a week and we will completely ignore you.

discovering the queer country scene has honestly been so healing because most queer musicians i've seen recommended for years i just couldn't really connect with because it wasn't the sort of music i listened to or had investment in and with queer country it's like. yes. this is the language i speak in. this is Fuck You, I Belong Here Too, not just as a queer person in the country but as a rural person among (sub)urban queers, and saying it with a laugh. when will my hometown take pride in me, goddamn it

Drop the list!!

FIRST: rachel holst does the adobe & teardrops blog as well as the rainbow rodeo newsletter & zine. look into the black opry also, there are plenty of black queer country/folk/americana artists & there is a lot of collaboration between them and other queer country/folk/americana musicians

my personal list:

There ain't no possible way that I'd remember to listen to any of these artists on my own so I made a handy-dandy playlist on Spotify with an on-the-nose title for all the other cowpokes who need to save/bookmark something and come back to it later.

It's basically the most recent album of all the artists listed above. It's about 7 hours long so have at it, y'all

🖤🤎🤍🩵🤍🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💜🎸🎶🦄

Love that they put “a sense of impending doom” as one of the symptoms of a heart attack, like girl, that’s just how it is to be alive these days, you’re gonna have to be more specific

This made me chuckle but after scrolling away I felt the need to come back to it.

Because as someone who has felt this I can not stress how different it actually is from anxiety. Which is saying a lot because I have a massive anxiety disorder.

I've only felt this twice in my life - once when I was going into kidney failure due to an infection and again when my body was going into shock due to dehydration and malnourishment due to GI issues - and I can not stress how much it saved my life. It's hard to even put it into words. It's not like a panic attack, or anxiety. It is a horrific gut turning feeling of absolute dread.

Especially if you have anxiety you'll know the difference honestly. It's so much worse. It's every cell in your body and your brain screaming that there's something horribly wrong in a way you've never felt. It's your brain screaming out that you are going to die in a way no panic attack has ever done before.

I can not stress how important it is to get yourself to the ER if you feel this way. Especially if your having other physical symptoms.

This is amazing and incredibly helpful, oh my god. Thank you.

"Everyone NEEDS to work, or they're not contributing to society!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm busy thinking of ways to replace jobs with automation so we can vastly reduce how many people we employ."

how badly has the world fucked up that “robots will do your job” is seen as a bad thing?

It is actually way better for 100 addicts to get their fix on pain pills than a single person in pain go without. I call this the "Torture is bad" principle. You should be able to get the good stuff forever after a single doctor's visit. If you're worried about addicts fund rehab centers and needle exchanges instead of torturing people.

Among other things if you can't use the legit market you turn to the black market anyway.

if you're worried about addiction, build a society where people get their basic needs met, including pain management.

I had this work friend at my previous job who was gay. Lovely kid, from a kind of traditional family.

He hadn't told anyone he was gay, because he was scared of being judged. But... thanks to the resident lesbian, he was outed to everyone without his knowledge because she clocked him and asked everyone about it while he was off work.

Everyone then put the clues they'd noticed on their own together rather than what they were doing beforehand, that being remaining blissfully and politely unaware of how his variety of behaviours linked back to him being gay.

Had I already clocked him? Absolutely. But I should not have been told about him, before he chose to come out to me.

This pride month, remember that even in the most accepting of environments, even if you personally feel comfortable being out where you are, that doesnt mean someone else around you is too. Do not assume that someone is comfortable with everyone knowing, or that everyone knows.

Because we might not have known. That person might not have told us yet. We might have been politely ignoring the signs because we didn't want to assume.

It's not your place to tell everyone someone else's business.

I think people need to be more comfortable with illegalism and I’m not kidding. Of course the more legal something is, the safer and easier it is to do, but the more people who disregard the law, the harder it is to enforce. There are plenty of laws on the books that people just ignore and are never or rarely policed.

Becoming more comfortable with little illegal activities makes you more comfortable with bigger more important illegal activities. Additionally, it is crucial to build a wall of silence. Nobody talks everybody walks.

People who give out food without a permit, hold a march without a permit, grow a garden without a permit, are more likely to be people you could turn to to work with on preventing an eviction, or keeping people out of cop hands, or helping your friend Jane get crucial healthcare when it’s not legal in your state.

Communities comfortable with these acts won’t call the cops, and then nobody knows that it’s happening.

People have got to shift from both the idea that lawful = good/ illegal = bad, and that the illegality of something means that’s the end of it, and the only fight left is to make it legal again.

ngl if a bi girl is talking about a hot guy and shes like “im so gay” you dont get to be like “but-” no buts. shes feeling queer about it.

HELL YEAH

people who laugh at ""man buns"" are so fucking stupid ngl. it's literally. just a hairstyle. it is hair. in a bun. women do it. it just has a stupid-ass name for when men do it. my boyfriend wears his hair in a bun sometimes and he's hot as fuck when he does it

The fact that Microsoft Word has to be a subscription is upsetting. I already paid for it why do I have to pay again

Yes please be mad about it, genuinely- You used to be able to purchase a single disk to install it and use it forever after that initial purchase of one key. It sickens me to see all this stuff which used to be a one time purchase be shunted under a subscription now.

THIS

"Why is pirating going back up?!"

This. This is why. People don't mind paying a high price for software if it's only the once, or every 4-5 years.

But having to pay a high price regularly? Especially in the cases where you lose access to your own work if you don't?

That's why people are pirating software.

It’s possible to buy a non-subscription version of Word; Microsoft just intentionally makes it very difficult to find (and also expensive).

However, I know a guy who knows a guy website: MS Office Pro for $50. If the link starts going to a Page Not Found, just search the site; they usually have some form of this sale available. 

Worth noting: while $50 is still more money than $yo-ho-ho, that money is a great way to make VERY clear to Microsoft that we DO want one-time-purchase products, not subscriptions.

Or just download libre office or one of the MANY open source word clones

Yeah, seriously guys - don't bother with Word at all. It's sad, over-priced crap, even for the cost of a $50 one-time purchase. I know free office software used to have a bad reputation for crappy UI and for missing fairly essential features, but that hasn't been true for years now.

These days, unless you're an absolute Visual Basic fiend, LibreOffice is probably a better choice for your word processing needs than Word is. OnlyOffice is pretty good too. Heck, if you're willing to go in on a Nextcloud server with some friends, you can even do real-time collaboration like in Google Docs, but in a full-fat office suite instead of Google Drive's dinky mini tools.

Here's a comprehensive guide to LibreOffice (and tbh, office tools in general) for any of you who are hesitant to take a peak outside of the M$ bubble. Seriously, it could not be easier to switch. This stuff is free. It's open-source. By using it you will be actively supporting and uplifting the free software movement and weakening the monopolistic hold big tech companies have on all of us. It's basically the sustainable community garden of the software world.

And to push back on the idea that buying Word will "make VERY clear to Microsoft that we DO want one-time-purchase products, not subscriptions"?

No.

No, it won't.

You know how I know it won't?

BECAUSE IT DIDN'T.

We've all been dutifully paying for Word since the 90s - through our school licenses, through our workplaces, bundled with Excel, doesn't matter! We took one look at the labor-of-love free alternatives, decided that they couldn't meet our needs and that we weren't interested in waiting for them or financially supporting them, and so we paid for Word instead. And what do you think Microsoft learned from this? The same thing Microsoft has always learned, of course: when you're a monopoly, you can force any damn thing down your users throats.

You want to make very clear to Microsoft that you're not going to take their bullshit anymore? Then stop using their crappy, overpriced software. Period.

No amount of one-time purchases will ever convince Microsoft that they can't squeeze you for even more via a subscription if, when push comes to shove, you blink first because you're just not willing to ever walk away from their products entirely. You want to show Microsoft that this shit is unacceptable? Start by taking your business elsewhere.

I use LibreOffice.

It is FANTASTIC.

LibreOffice for work stuff, Scrivener for fiction. Both better than MS Word. Scrivener is paid but it's a one-time purchase and it's well worth it.

Neil Gaiman writes his stuff with LibreOffice you could too

I know many people swear by scrivener but I found some users very elitist that it had too many bits and bobs to be useful to me. I love libreoffice

couples t shirts that say “please ask me about birds” and “please for the love of god don’t ask her about birds”