ideal living situation is what i call the 'sitcom special' : having all your closest friends live in the same apartment building or neighborhood where you each have your own space but can wander in and out of eachothers homes at will, seemingly always welcome and never at bad times. and also all of you only have jobs when its important to the plot.
i was so sad, i drew a little bat so i wouldn’t be sad. and now i am no longer sad.
here is a little bat to banish your sadness
This nice little bat reminds me of this other nice little bat who was drawn in the 1200s:
This is the only website where I routinely see people say things like “oh this reminds me of something I recently saw from the 1200s”
i actually get a bit annoyed with people who get a bit annoyed when people say “sorry” in response to their bad news. “why are you apologizing you didn’t do anything :/” like okay well a) you don’t know that and actually yes i am the secret architect of all your woes and have been this whole time, way to refuse to acknowledge a woman (gender neutral)’s accomplishments. and b) we’re both fluent english speakers so you know perfectly well that “sorry” isn’t always an apology and is very commonly used as an expression of general regret or sympathy. not in this case, because i have been your secret nemesis for years, meticulously plotting your every misery, but, like, in general
Janet Fish, Painted Water Glasses, 1974. Oil on canvas. Whitney Museum of American Art.
Friend group chats are fun. Today one of my friends, who keeps pet crayfish, found babies in a tank that was supposed to be a males only. No choice but to empty out the whole tank to fish out the babies of unknowable origins. But lo and behold, there was a culprit: one teeny tiny little female had somehow escaped containment, evidently specifically going out of her way to break into this all male tank to get railed by like 15 males twice her size. Possibly completely different breed, too. Monsterfucker supreme.
So for a good solid hour or so, the whole group chat was focused on. slutshaming this one specific little crustacean. With like 300 babies.
cure of ra
Now its blessing of Ra
"Sunburn will give you skin cancer"
Ra, God of the Sun
Fungus has done so much for humanity. Penicillin. Radiation cleanup. Delicious mushrooms. Deadly mushrooms. Psychadelic mushrooms. And now my boy RA has chosen the humble mold spores as his vessel through which to cure cancer.
"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"
if you’re wondering why spellcheck and grammar check is worse now, it’s because they replaced it with AI! 🥰
now, instead of maintaining a comprehensive, nuanced, and human-maintained encyclopedia by which to check your document, they have switched to an AI that just compares what you’ve written to what other people write in, say, Google Docs, and use the most commonly used iteration.
ever have it change something like “all intents and purposes” to “all intensive purposes” or “should’ve” to “should of”? that’s why!
people make the same spelling and grammar mistakes so often, AI thinks that’s the way you say it because it is a PATTERN DETECTOR and cannot THINK let alone use language.
"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"
Bunbushka
today i found out that when monarch butterflies migrate south for the winter, all the ones that go across the middle of lake superior suddenly stop going south and go west for five miles and then continue south. which really freaked scientists out cos like What is in the Middle of Lake Superior what do Butterflies know that We Dont Is This The End Times etc. anyway turns out about a hundred million years ago there was a mountain there and the butterflies still think they gotta fly around it. classic butterflies
Y’all, unfortunately, this is just not true. A few months ago, I urged people on this site to be skeptical specifically about ecology & wildlife biology posts with no sources. This is a perfect example.
This post has made its rounds for ten years (originally posted in 2015), and the earliest source I have ever been able to find for this claim is an article posted in 2013, which says:
“Biologists, and certain geologists, believe that something was blocking the monarchs’ path. They believe that that part of Lake Superior might have once been one of the highest mountains ever to loom over North America.”
Who these “biologists” and “certain geologists” are is a mystery. The article links two sources:
Dillard is an acclaimed author and nature writer, but she is not a biologist or geologist and cannot be referenced as such. The referenced excerpt from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
Dillard credits this claim to nameless entomologists and a book with no title. It’s a dead end. Bear in mind, the entomologists and books who may have made this claim, which Dillard later read, would have done so pre-1974.
The truth about monarch butterfly migrations may lack the sci-fi/fantasy allure of a mountain range that exists only in a butterfly’s primordial memory, but it’s still incredible.
These creatures with magnificently intelligent and fragile bodies are believed to use internal solar and magnetic compasses to traverse mountains and lakes:
The geologic history of Gichigami, aka Lake Superior, is also extremely cool:
But as far as I can find, there is no Monarchs’ memories of a long-lost mountain which dictates their modern-day migration route. If anyone has more insight on this, I would appreciate it, because I am not an entomologist. I specialize in marine science and scientific interpretation, and I only used those skills to find and present what I believe is the best available information on this topic. Thank you!
people keep calling this “a net zero information post.” you should click any of the links I shared about butterflies and the lake and learn something new and exciting! : )
GQ published an unedited version of a David Lynch interview about happiness they’d only briefly quoted before (x)
this is actually legitness
Gotta add the spiritual successor (among us medallion) + live among us reaction
