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AbsolutelynotaBot

@ducdepuce

Just lurking in the hellsite while the world burn
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Gameboy peripheral PediSedate was designed for dentists and dosed kids with nitrous oxide as they played games.

Time to enter the GAMER ZONE

Camera, printer, sewing machine, now a fucking anaesthetic adminstrator…was there anything the Game Boy didn’t have an accessory for?

Do you know about the fish finding sonar?

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transliquidsnake

gameboy sprinted so smart phones could lag and be ugly

A garden shop sometimes gifts mysterious tree sapplings to customers, but they always wither away. You receive one and plant it…and it ends up flourishing.

You weren’t sure what to make of it at first.

Like, you weren’t really that one person with the big green thumb yet somehow caring for this one tree was easier than all the times you ended up letting your windowsill flowers wilt.

It always popped into your mind, even when you were at work or out with friends. Somehow you were always aware of the sapling in your backyard and the times you go to water it or refresh the soil (that last one you learned from your mom after she popped by)

It grew quite well, as far as you could tell. You made sure to look out for anything supicious, checking the branches and pruning where needed. You didn’t know most of this at the start, had to look most of it up on the internet, but this time you oddly enough had the focus and mind of doing just that.

Not even the petunias your grandmother sent you last year got that same kind of attention.

Yet no matter how big it began to grow or how thick its trunk became, it never boasted even a single leaf.

You were, understandibly, a little confused.

Leaves are the parts doing the bulk of photosynthesis, right? But then why isn’t your tree green like all the others? Not even the sprouts where green!

But it grew as you cared. Grew as the years passed by and you lived your life.

It was five years after you planted it that you were called to the hospital. Your grandmother had a heart attack and was in intensive care.

She passed away a week later.

When you came back from the funeral you found that one branch on the tree had suddenly sprouted bright yellow leaves.

Your grandmother was never seen without her favorite yellow scarf that she’d knitted herself.

You cried and decided to put a small shrine in remembrance next to the tree.

Barely the next year your grandfather passed away, a combination of old age, bad health and heartbreak. Blue leaves like the old cardigan his wife had made for him bloomed right next to the yellow branch.

A decade passed as you mourned and moved on, making new friends at your new job and tentatively looking back into dating. Bonds grew and life was turning out great.

Then there was a shooting and your childhood friend who you stayed in touch with died.

A branch, curled carefully down enough you could reach out, bloomed the pink she loved to always have with her, all differrent shades like how she never cared what kind of pink as long as it could be identified as such.

You tied the old headband she’d given you when you were kids, also pink, around the thickest part of the branch and allowed yourself the comfort to cry for a friendship lost.

A few years later loss struck in the form of your father. A work accident that is doubted to have been a real accident. You weren’t phased much by the tan leaves on the branch that was intertwined with another.

(Much later on you would smile at seeing the other branch bloom your mother’s delicate pastel red)

As you lived on, experiencing the happiness and sadness and anger and love that so many seem to sometimes take for granted, on rare occasion a new branch would bloom as you went to funerals of close relations. None ever were exactly the same even when the people that passed claimed a like or love for the same colour.

Only as you began to grow old, your partner showing the same signs of age as you know you are, that you told your tale and showed the tree in the back of your aging home. Your children loved the different colours and enjoyed playing under its already somewhat thick canopy.

You looked up at the tree and can see, with an evergrowing acceptance of the timer ticking away in your head, the two branches close together. One will bloom with the bright purple of your partner’s beloved pen colour.

You knew, later on as your heart slowed and you are surrounded by your children and their own loved ones, that the other branch will bloom as well.

It ends up being the only one close to hosting the vibrant green leaves of the forests in your dreams.

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Reading a thing about rabbits vs hares ( @gallusrostromegalus‘s conversation) and I kept coming back to the forest. Back in the day of the 80s and 90s my family moved a lot from farm to farm while my father worked a job in a nearby city. For eight years we lived in Lanark County, Ontario. There is a reason, I believe, so much of Charles DeLint’s early work is centred there. Let’s just say… mushroom rings? Don’t step inside. But across the road from where my family lived was a large lot that had been a farm with a house and everything, converted into a pine farm. Trees in rows. Rust coloured needles covering the ground, giving the interior a look of a floor with endless pillars. Already, you see, you know things feel weird.  The first tree in the forest was a massive maple sitting at the edge of one of lots of trees. Big twisting, writhing limbs with leaves and bark you could lose a hand in. Only. Every spring when I walked by it would be filled with green and… clicking. I was told later it’s not common or something but someone needs to go find that tree and tell all the porcupines in it that they’re unusual. Because like spikey rattling fruit of owies and musk, they filled that tree. Silence but the sound of their quills (which at sufficient numbers is just… eerie as all hell). They’d watch you. Fill a tree and watch you.  I once counted to twenty before I stopped. I don’t even know where they came from or where they went. But apparently porcupines grow on trees. And then there was The Tree. As I said in monocultures like a planted pine forest there’s a kind of weird sense that you know This Isn’t Natural. But this one block of trees older by a little bit and more established. It was darker with only random spears of light hitting the rust or blood (after a rain) needled ground.  Except. There was an apple tree. It had long limbs that grew in gnarled curves and clutching branches parallel to the ground, spreading out more than up. Enough so it created a break in the canopy and light would spotlight it. Only. For the few leaves and the command of a clearing of it’s own, with a few sickly saplings that would try to grow from under it.. the bark of this apple tree was black. Like jet black. So, again. A forest of lines stretching out of sight. Floor of rust and blood needles, level as if made. Bone-white needles still on branches except. Where a black apple tree snarled and gnarled and twisted limb to throttle a patch of light from the forest. And it was always a kind of dim light. Like it should’ve been brighter but it never was. While the forest around it was pitch. Every single time I approached it all I could think is. We aren’t the only things that have gods. And demons. And beings from Outside. I was always convinced in the forest with the porcupine moot, where a black apple tree grows untouched, trees have their gods and I’d met one. I’m not at all sure it was kind. But I bet it was fair.

my favorite thing about “fbi/nsa agent monitoring my computer” things is it implies that there is at least one agent for every single person on earth with a computer

not really. like i know this is a shitpost but just in case folks aren’t aware: the fbi and nsa and whatev gov agencies do monitor all internet traffic. The idea tho is to catalogue and scan for things like keywords and other data analysis and use that info to flag accounts/ip addresses/identities. Basically, building massive databases of information on all people just in case you become a threat to the state.

Think of it like an automatic file being built on every single person in real time. Should you do anything to warrant state suppression, your file may be flagged for further investigation which may lead to being actively tracked or suppressed (as evidenced in the past with COINTELPRO)

so no, there isn’t an agent per person. But you bet your ass there is a profile of you that connects all your electronic activity (including GPS data/metadata and tracking via MAC addresses, user agents and/or unique hardware identifiers) to intelligence agencies.

of course, much of this is intended to specifically instill fear, uncertainty, and doubt as part of a larger culture of fear.

but I figure it is better to know what’s going on so you can understand what’s happening.

so anyway, yeah, shit’s real yo.

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hhh this is uh… kinda terrifying.

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Hey remember when this was exposed and not a single person in the US government went to jail or even lost their job over it

Remember 10 years ago when you were considered an insane and paranoid conspiracy theorist if you spoke about anything related to mass surveillance

Now everyone has just accepted it like it’s the new normal without a second thought

Remember when the guy that proved it was all real, and the guy who released the info, both had the US go after them rather than the agencies, and the media supported it?

I still remember when that guy from CNN was like “only WE are allowed to look at this info so don’t you dare go doing your own research”, about wiki leaks. Almost like the media and the government were in cahoots the whole time and even till now.

Exonerate Snowden

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The British Empire is collapsing before our eyes in real time <3

Critical support to Charles in his efforts to destroy the empire :) /s

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Dethrone all kings

Like to charge, reblog to cast

Obi-Wan: We call that a “traumatic experience.”
Obi-Wan, turning to Ahsoka: Not a “bruh moment.”
Obi-Wan, turning to Cody: Not “it is what it is.”
Obi-Wan, turning to Anakin: And DEFINITELY not “oof LMAO.”
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The most horrifying aspect of parents saying "my kid could do that" about art is that they never ever ever mean "wow my kid is good enough to be in a museum" and they always always always mean "I want to disrespect you so much I'll do it by implying that this thing is just as worthless as the things my child makes with their hands" and right in front of them too. Your kids can hear you u know, and the things they make with their hands are the least worthless and most precious aspects of human life I'll kill u

Listen my three year old child handed me a picture of a “weird bug” they had drawn this morning, and the explanation about the intention for it was as deep a journey into the universe as I could ask for. I instantly wanted to send it to everybody, not even to show it off, but just to explain things a bit. Look at this way of looking at the world, before one is taught differently; before one is shaped forcibly. Look at the purity and clarity of intention (something that my favourite artists and makers strive for, and which is what I am most attracted to: clarity of intention. The ability to communicate from brain to brain across the gulf of time, death, language, background, common ground. Knowing where you’re going! Knowing what you want to achieve - and doing it! The form does not matter!)

(Also, horrible things with legs. I’ll always give them attention too.)

(This was also a horrible thing with legs.)

So much of what we search for is here, all along. So much of what we chase after is already in this bug. The child scribbles it, hands it to the baby, who obediently folds it up and puts it in their mouth; the child answers a few questions, then runs off to get sticky; you are left holding the wonder, going: somewhere in here is something we are missing, something we’ve lost track of, and I could spend quite a lot of time trying to pin it down (anthropologically, psychologically, poetically, in a very special episode of a children’s cartoon, in a degree, as an instagram account)

What the hell else is art for, if not to send you on a little journey. If an artist can do that with a scribble then you should give them your attention. You should show other people, explain it a bit. Keep it forever as evidence of something - maybe a building, a collection that makes sense. You could call it a life or even a museum.

Show us the bug!!! Or describe it at least. I want to see it so bad.

- I love it! What is it?

- this is a weird silly bug. It’s weird!

- I love the smile.

- Yes, he’s very silly.

- I love the legs. So many!

- Yes; I drewed them like that.

- What does he do?

- He’s a present for the baby. He is a tummy bug (EDITOR’S NOTE: gastrovirus) and he loves sick (Ed: vomit) HAHAHAHAHA.

- Oh wow.

- HE LOVES TO EAT THE SICK! HAHAHA

- Oh wow. Did … did you know we use the word “bug” for two things - we can use it to mean a little animals, like a woodlouse, that lives outside? But also, when we say tummy bug, we mean a germ - the little tiny things we can’t see - they’re different. Which one is he?

- Oh this is a ninvisible bug.

- A germ?

(Image: a furry bug with lots of legs, wide staring eyes, and a slightly deranged grin from eye to eye.)

- He’s the BUG that makes you sick. That’s why he has so many legs. (Ed: here I thought this was possibly influenced by the educational book they have called “see inside germs,” depicting various microorganisms with flagella and mycelium and so on.) when it’s time to be sick, he uses his legs to tickle the back of your throat to make you be sick. And then he! eats! the! sick! HAHAHA

- (Ed: at this point I helplessly let go of my attempt to teach germ theory in the face of such superior theology) oh … wow.

- He lives inside you all the time but doesn’t tickle you all the time because it isn’t always time to be sick. He’s ninvisible. He’s not an outside bug. He’s the tummy bug. that’s why him make you be sick to come up to your throat and eat the sick. See, the baby loves that bug.

- does the baby… like germs?

- he is NOT a GERM!!

LATER

- what made you choose to draw a tummy bug, to give to the baby?

- The crying was annoying to me.

- Um…. I mean, why did you draw the bug?

- I choose a bug because they’re my favourite to draw to give to the baby to help them calm down. because the crying is annoying to me.

- What makes you choose to draw a bug?

- The baby loves bugs.

- How do you know that?

- The baby always calms down and stops crying when I’m give them my bugs.

- Oh, I see.

- I’m also best at drawing bugs.

- How are you so good?

- I’m just know.

LATER

- I see that you have cut the paper?

- Yes! I’m snipped him out carefully with the white (Ed: child-safe baby’s nail cutting) scissors.

- are you happy with it?

- Yes, I’m really pleased that I m draw him all by myself. He’s all wiggly biggly. I drewed him to be wiggly and biggly.

END

Some things that interested me: the way that the knowledge you put into them is synthesized and recreated: the very Greek-philosophy-of-medicine idea of the Tummy Bug as large soft benign prawn that triggers vomiting by tickling you. We are all fascinated by AI right now, the way it spits our own things back at us; here is a juvenile human intelligence, which does the same thing, but less predictably. The way the artist is already self-proclaiming their awareness of the audience: using the baby’s nail scissors, which are Allowed Blades, and stating in advance that they did so carefully, therefore dodging the expected reflexive criticism of “please don’t use scissors without me!” Or the tiresome parental “WHERE DID YOU GET SCISSORS?” The gentle reproach that the baby, fussing mildly for five minutes while I prepared breakfast, was so ANNOYING that the poor toddler had to create an art piece to meet this unmet need.

But also: a piece of work with thoughtfulness and attention given to medium, execution, and topic. Did it do its job? Yes. Did it communicate? Yes. Did it provoke reactions? Multiple ones. Was there intentionality? Yes. Was an emotion captured? Surely. Was the mark-making technically skilled and the result admirable? Of course. What about mastery? Mastery of some topics is clearly shown here. There was a clear trajectory from the artist’s brain to the audience’s, with evidence showing that the bridge was good.

And do you know that it is good? Yes, it is good. How do you know? I’m just do.

Often you have to re-enter education to get this much to grips with art, so it’s just cool to me. What we are seeking is so often found.

I love how both corvids and parrots are in general highly intelligent, but where corvids generally have strict hierarchies, solve disagreements in the pecking order by fighting, and have a strong dislike for anything new or foreign until they figure out how to make use of it, parrots are just here to party.

The New Caledonian crow, who knows how to specifically build a tool in order to build another tool, never engages in play. These motherfuckers are smarter than some people with the right to vote, and they are Extremely Serious Birds. They don't have time to play, they got work to do and kids to raise.

And then there's the kea, straight-up titled "clown of the mountains", that has a specific vocalization for "playtime!". Scientists decided to try what happens if they play the Play Call for two fully-grown adult keas that are together in an area and can clearly see there is no other, third kea to make the call, and they just go "great idea, disembodied voice! it's TIME TO FUCKING PARTY!" and start wrestling.

Imagine working really hard in order to make it into a top university to study astrophysics, making it to your first Very Serious Class, sitting down full of serious determination, and the dude next to you is taking notes without using his hands, with a glitter pen he's shoved up his nose. And his notes are good.

It's your first day of Bird University and you already fucking hate this guy.

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So there's this gene in humans called PLXNC1 or "Plexin", right? So Plexin is associated with increased neuron function and is generally thought to be correlated to human's increased cognitive ability for the use of language, i.e., "language learning". Super cool, right?

Humans aren't the only animals with advanced language learning that have Plexin in their genome. We can actually find homologous plexin between humans and PARROTS!

Using genomic alignment search tools, we can actually break down the sequence of human Plexin and directly compare it to the Plexin found in parrots. (This was actually a project I ran for an upper division genomics class, and running the program literally takes like... ten minutes.) I wanted to see how similar the plexin gene was between humans and parrots, so I queued up the human sequence against all of the available records from parrot genomes and sorted by greatest percent identity (i.e., which bird species had the closest plexin to ours?)

It was this funky dude right here:

THAT'S RIGHT BABY! The kea, notorious for being a straight up motherfucking prank god, carries Plexin with a 79.42% identity comapred to humans'.

THIS LITTLE ASSHOLE HAS A HOMOLOGOUS LANGUAGE LEARNING GENE WITH US!!!! A GENE THAT IS THOUGHT TO BE CORRELATED TO HIGHER LEVEL LEARNING AND INTELLIGENCE!!!!! AND THEY USE THEIR INTELLIGENCE TO WREAK HAVOC ON TOURISTS

Also these guys have been found to literally have predictive reasoning skills, which we consider REALLY FUCKING ADVANCED for a lot of animal species. They pass the Aesop's fable test with flying colors. They're so goddamn cool, I love them so much. The kea really said: "I will use my superior intelligence to have a good fucking time" and that's so powerful honestly

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One time at the zoo, a kea chewed a hole in my pants because I ran out of treats to give him.

reblogging for the Plexin thing, which is fascinating, and also to join the chorus of calling OP on their bullshit because corvids are extremely playful animals. Like…they’re kinda extremely famous for loving to get up to mischief. There is a reason why Raven is a Trickster archetype in quite a few cultures. As a matter of fact, they create and use tools FOR PLAY.

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I'll never not reblog this. (Not least because something tells me that one kea has a whole nestful of sunglasses somewhere.)

yeah I was reading this thinking "wait, basically all animals play, and I KNOW crows play."

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i always forget my grandma used to be a clown so it caught me the fuck off guard when she saw this

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and no hesitation saying “oh it’s that creepy clown- oh he’s drinking that’s against clown code”

1. ARE YOU NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN YOUR GRANDMA’S PAST CLOWN CAREER? 2. WHAT’S CLOWN CODE??????????????

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my-chemicalkismesis

Clown code.

I call a lot of y'all clowns but it turns out that’s too good for you since even they live by a code.

My grandmother didn’t allow her clowns to participate in a PSA back in the 80s because it would have violated The Code. They got actors to scab the roles anyway. My father long resented to loss of Ad revenue and publicity, but my grandmother was the sort of lady who would not sacrifice the dignity of the Clown for any price. Remarkable woman. It’s an open question as to how much the whole debacle contributed to the closure of her Clown College, but I suspect she wanted out of the game by then regardless.