Abandoning this blog due to how long ive been using it and the urge to start tagging things again

Moving to @harlequin-stars

Abandoning this blog due to how long ive been using it and the urge to start tagging things again

Moving to @harlequin-stars

Abandoning this blog due to how long ive been using it and the urge to start tagging things again

Moving to @harlequin-stars

Okay. This seems pretty insane if you don’t know what the existing state of terminally ill patients’ options is. So let’s go over that.

Terminally ill patients can sign up to be part of pre FDA approval trials for treatments which might potentially cure them. As these treatments are experimental, untested, not guaranteed to get results, and intended to provide profit to the medical provider in the long run, patients cannot be charged for these experimental treatments. As it should be. It’d be pretty unethical to get people to pay you to be your guinea pig for treatments which may not even help them.

This “right to try” law changes that. It makes it legal for terminally ill patients to be charged for experimental treatments. Furthermore, it removes FDA testing restrictions from the process. Currently a company which tries an ‘experimental’ treatment they know won’t work will get the hammer dropped on them by the FDA. But under this new process, medical providers would be legally allowed to provide ‘treatments’ they know won’t work, without oversight. This would legalize medical predation on terminally ill patients.

Labeling this bill ‘right to try’ makes it seem like terminally ill patients aren’t allowed to seek out experimental treatments right now. But they are! All this bill does is make a terminally ill patients more financially burdened and more vulnerable to predation.

That’s why the Democrats blocked it.

Thank you for explaining it

Reblogging for EXPLANATION

Yeah… let’s NOT let companies make terminally ill patients pay for “experimental treatments” they already know don’t work…

well well if it isn’t my old nemesis

important for AO3 writers

So a while ago I asked staff at AO3 why it was that I could post a work, update it with chapters, and have it appear no higher than tenth, ever, even with new chapters, on a busy fandom. I finally got an explanation. 

“If, however, your work is appearing below works that were already visible, it’s possible you’re running into an issue that occurs when a work is posted between 12:00 AM and 5 AM UTC - works posted during this time frame cause the system to believe the work has had a posting date set manually. (Normally you would do this by ticking “Set a different publication date” in the posting form.) This also applies to works that were initially saved as a draft on a date previous to the day they are posted. Works that have been backdated are assigned a default time of day, which may be earlier than the actual time you posted the work.”

So don’t post during that time. It just HAPPENS to be between 5 pm and 10 pm Pacific time so posting things after dinner is RIGHT OUT if you happen to live on the west coast of the US. That’s between 8 pm and 1 am east coast time.

So until they fix this (and it’s been going on a LONG time, they’re working on it but it’s a massive code overhaul, apparently) I’ll be posting fics OTHER times.  This means if you’re posting a long, multichapter work, posting the first chapter in the evening can screw up the entire rest of your posting. Posting a draft before posting for reals will also keep you from being at the top of the list. And this probably explains why some of my fics have done better than others.  What does this look like? Someone posts at, say, 4 in the afternoon my time. I come along and post around 8 pm, which is pretty typical for me, but it gets marked as “set manually” and given a time much earlier in the day, and thus appears behind everything posted that day. So it’s never on top, people start reading down the list, think they’ve seen everything that’s at the top, and don’t poke any farther.  So for writers, DO NOT POST BETWEEN  12:00 AM and 5 AM UTC. Google will translate, just plug in 12 am UTC and it will pop up your local time in most places.  For readers, realize this exists and that you’re probably missing something. Scroll back if it’s between those hours, and after those hours. 

And at some point they’ll fix this to something less arcane.

WHAT

I was wondering why that kept happening

*Insert ‘excuse me wtf’ meme here*

That’s basically the only time I’ve ever posted that’s kind of amazing. I very clearly remember chapter 3 going up then. Glad to know there’s a reason for this, always figured there was a bug of some sort!

“ #note for later#ao3#i wonder if this has been fixed?#original post is from July 2020 ish “

I don’t think it has yet. This has been a bug for pretty much *waves hand* all of it. Like a decade or more. I would expect it to change sometime when they make a really large update, or if they ever take AO3 out of beta.

First, a disclaimer: it doesn’t happen to every work posted in that period.

It’s a weird interaction between server time, code time, and the batch processing to update the works lists. The last I asked the coders, the solution involved a gut-and-replace of how we handle time-dates. Not something that would be wildly visible, but something that will take a lot of hand-hours.

Not every work, no, but enough of them, and I suspect it affects west coast US particularly strongly. I’ve gone through some SHENANIGANS trying to get a work to show up before I knew there was a window when it could happen, up to and including posting like 3 chapters an hour apart and having none of them bring it up to the top while the same work that was at the top stayed there for five effing hours. And it might not be super visible to readers, but it makes a huge difference to writers. I posted a couple of series before learning about the bug where the quality of feedback was very high but the hit count just stayed very very low, and they didn’t seem to show up any higher than like, 10 stories down, so people just weren’t seeing the stories. Posting new works in a series would get more hits on the earlier stuff, but compared to the only series I’ve done entirely outside of that window… It’s the newest series I have, but the second most popular thing I’ve ever written, and the only thing that’s had more hits last I checked was posted FIVE years ago. And while it is an active, involved fandom, so were all the others. I was getting demoralized before I found out about this, because working that hard on something and having it just… disappear because no one ever saw it… *shudder*

I love AO3, I do, but this is a worthy project and it really needs to be addressed. When it was happening to me it was just completely demoralizing. And there are whole works that I could post but haven’t gotten around to because I’m just not in a position to do so at any time outside the bug window. Evenings would be a perfect time for me to post stories. Afternoons, late night and mornings are not–it just requires much more executive function for me to arrange for it to happen.

Pretty good, right

Say hi to your

For me!

Dr. Olivia Octavius

HEY AUNTY YOU WANNA TELL US SOMETHING

I just wanna remind everyone that there was a time in the Spider Man comics that Aunt May was gonna marry Doc Ock

and throw in that this would be a GREAT continuity to bring that back in.

Mx. Moz did fan art of that cover. Link to artist https://twitter.com/MLeeLunsford/status/1084990686892453888

I love the implication that every other spider was invited to the wedding and did nothing to stop it

fake horse adventures

@elodieunderglass this seems right at the intersection of Horrible Things With Legs and Strange Choices Horse Girls Have Made

And at that intersection I run a tasteful gift shop

*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free

invasive species encroach on lesbian territory

This is a common misconception because they’re such similar environments, but you should be aware that dads are native to Home Depot, while lesbians are actually native to Lowe’s. At this point, however, both dads and lesbians have made themselves at home in both Home Depot and Lowe’s to the point that trying to separate them back into their original ranges would probably do more harm than good to the delicate ecosystem of large chain hardware stores.

A properly raised and socialized Dad will be perfectly comfortable cohabiting with Lesbians. Its not really “encroaching on another’s territory”. You wouldn’t say that about foxes in a forest that also homes bobcats, would you? No. It’s just two different species that have both evolved to live in similar/the same environment. As long as they recognize each other as equals, Dads and Lesbians are more than capable of cohabitation.

Now, if you were to release a pack of Lumberjacks into a Lowes or Home Depot, that’s where chaos will reign. Being adapted to a far harsher and more demanding environment, the Lumberjacks would simply push Dads and Lesbians both out and also consume far more than a sustainable amount of resources. It would be like releasing bears at a country club.

As a former timber-harvester… I feel this is potentially accurate in theory. But highly improbable in actuality.

Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.

This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.

A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.

Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.

One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.

Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.

Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.

Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.

Please stop labeling Lumberjacks as dangerous roving social predators. They are intermediate level omnivores and remarkably peaceful unless threatened.

As a hardware store worker I can say that this is all 100% accurate.

now how in the FUCK am i supposed to leave tumblr when a god tier post like THIS is just is just waiting for me daily?!?!?!

question where does the “art student” or “DIYer” “crafter” or “soap maker” or “miniaturist“ etc. who has ventured into the store for supplies fall into the ecosystem/what is their impact of said ecosystem?

Most of the above are native to craft and hobby stores (art students, historically, are native to museums, but having been introduced to hobby stores, have found a niche for themselves and thrived), but all can be seen in hardware stores on occasion due to territorial overlap. They are generally low-impact, as they tend to stick to specific small areas and primarily utilize different resources. While a large group of any of them can be disruptive (art students, in particular, are known to travel in packs), in general, they are more likely to have territorial disputes with one another than with the local fauna. 

A point of clarity -“crafter” is a bit misleading; while it conjures a specific image, much like ‘fish’ or ‘reptile’ it actually covers a broad array of wildly disparate species, and in general, more descriptive nomenclature is preferred. Fiber artists in particular are a genus to watch out for, particularly in groups. Beware a roving pack of domesticated quilters. They fear nothing, will go anywhere, and due to their social nature, will often seek interaction from other species that thrive best in solitude. They are quite friendly, and will happily adopt members of other species; the concern is that their adoptees do not always wish to be adopted. 

#in search of taxonomic precision and peaceful coexistence (via welkinalauda)

early homo sapiens b like help i cant stop making bowls . help i cant stop domesticating plants and animals. help i cant stop developing language and architecture and religion

ok im obsessed w this tag

Yknow what while I’m here I know we as a website agreed to oppress the business majors but all the bullshit that comes around every April over ao3’s business practices makes me think we should’ve kept at least one to explain to people how nonprofits, despite their name, still need money to function and do not in fact run on rainbows and dreams alone

Woo! It’s a good thing y’all didnt oppress accounting majors because we understand this stuff better than business majors. (We were around before capitalism and we’re already set up for after capitalism.)

First things first - I dont regularly use or donate to AO3 but I have made an account to see what the fuss was about. Fanfiction just isnt my thing but I see why people like it.

AO3 is a 501©(3) organization. What that means - No Profit for owners or investors. What that does NOT mean - no cash at year end or not paying employees a livable wage/salary. If you’re contrivance with a non-profit is that they allow their employees to survive under capitalism, then you need to rethink your priorities.

That being said, AO3 has no employees. All work is volunteer based. ABSOLUTELY ZERO people are making money from this site. (Outside of contractors and professionals who are vendors and not affiliated with AO3.)

I’m going to break down the 2019 Audited Financials because that’s the most recent. And compare them to the budget and notes:

The auditor’s opinion is “unmodified.” That means these are as accurate as they get.

Their assets: $1.3M in cash. $197k in the value of the servers. (That’s the price they bought the servers minus depreciation. Depreciation is a tool we use to slowly devalue fixed assets over time. Without it, companies would recognize huge losses at year end when they sell old assets. That’s not reliable information when you’re trying to analyze the financials.) Why would a non-profit need a million dollars in cash? Partly to fund the next year’s work - it looks like they’re trying to bring on new servers which can cost upwards of $400k each time. They also have a history of protecting fans from people like Anne Rice who wants to sue them into debt and oblivion. We’ll talk about the legal stuff later. But in the case they would lose an expensive case, they need funds on hand to pay that out.

Revenues - this is the money in. They received $733k in donations and the like. Their expenses are about 37% of these. Which tells me, they are focused on managing their cash balance, and doing well. Again. No organization would survive if they had no cash at year end.

You might see the “In-Kind Revenue” and not know what that means. $190k is a big amount. But if you look at their expense statement on page (4) you’ll see “In-Kind Expenses” for the same $190k. In-kind means services in kind of cash. Or services instead of cash. So they had $190k of pro-bono (donated) legal work in 2019. They mention it in the budget and later in the audit footnotes. There are other “professional fees” for about $28k. That’s also legal/audit work but they had to pay cash for. It wasn’t donated.

Cash expenses:

Server fees = $79k (these are higher than 2018 because they installed a new server.)

Transaction fees = $27k (these are charges from your banks/credit cards/paypal to process donations. They are roughly 3% of donations which is about correct.)

Contractor fees = $15k (the budget noted they paid for a security test - this is actually a pretty low cost for something like this.)

Supplies = $14k (I couldn’t find notes on this but it’s similar to 2018, so it’s probably just normal business things.)

Postage = $12k (This is high compared to 2018, but I hazard a guess it’s related to sending out promotional items for donations.)

Advertising = $10k (looks like a new cost this year, but is related to fundraising efforts. And might be related to those promo items.)

Other non-cash expenses:

In-kind = $190k (those donated lawyer fees we talked about earlier.)

Depreciation = $74k (again this is an accounting process that every company with fixed assets does.)

The cash flows statement just confirms which expenses were and weren’t cash. And it shows us that they have $1.3M available for the next year. Glancing at the 2020 budget they planned on spending a third of that to upgrade servers. And they have another $400k budgeted for 2021. Honestly to me, the cash looks low considering some years (2018 in particular,) their legal work was valued at half a million. There is a risk that they would have to pay that amount out of pocket the same year they plan to bring on a new server upgrade.

So all in all, if you want to donate to AO3, this looks like a reliable organization to donate to. There is no evidence in the financials that they don’t deserve the donations. (And if you do donate, remember it is a tax credit!) I also don’t see any verifiable reasons not to donate. If you have other places you would rather place your donation, that’s fine! Do that! But there doesn’t seem to be a reason to campaign against their fundraising efforts.

This is a really neat breakdown! And it’s explained so that idiots like me who don’t know how stuff works can understand!

After quite a while, I finally managed to adapt these fun shark anatomy illustrations to Redbubble products! Many asked me to make posters or art prints available for sale and it is now possible in my little store! This is my store’s profile! ✨

I tried to adapt these arts to other products, but I think they were very ugly, so focus on looking for poster, art print or stickers options! I hope you like it and that the price offered by Redbubble is affordable! 

In the future I want to make other species of sharks! Thanks a lot for all support! ✨ If you want to follow me on instagram, this is: @AstralRequin

@bucketofchum

How the media depicts the Apollo 11 mission:

Actual quotes from the Apollo 11 mission:

also according to michael collins when the three of them were discussing what neil armstrong should say when he first stepped on the moon, collins suggested armstrong say “Oh, my God, what is that thing?”  and then scream and cut out his mic.

all you’ve done is convince me that michael collins was one of the funniest men alive tbh

Michael Collins is a HILARIOUS SPACE ANGEL and I will shout this from the rooftops every time this post comes up on my dash. He showed up at my school in Boston for an event and the first thing he said was “I just learned what the state bird of Massachusetts is. It’s the upraised middle finger.” He followed up with “Buzz and Neil were bickering like an old married couple the whole time. It was nice to get some peace and quiet while they were on the surface. Forget being the farthest from all humanity, I just wanted to be the farthest from those two.”

Oh and let’s not forget his long and distinguished post-astronaut career in the State Department and as the director of the Smithsonian.

Reblogging again in memory of Collins’ passing today. Godspeed spaceman.

Tortoise beetle, Microctenochira diffinis, Chrysomelidae. Found in South America.

Photographed in French Guiana by Frank Canon // Instagram

Photos shared with permission - do not remove credit or re-post!

My gender is that I'm a boy but I'm also not a boy while still not not being a boy. I have the range, darling

Cis people think nonbinary genders are like "both" or "neither" and they can be but personally I'm unlocking the Secret Genders, such as

it delights me that seebs isn’t the only one who finds ‘biblically accurate angel’ to be a good description of their gender

Out of Touch

Out of Touch Thursday

OUT OF TOUCH THURSDAY

‘’drakengard 3 was a bad game’’ ok but consider this

You need to turn the sound on.  For the dragon’s voice.

I never knew a single thing about drakengard. This is the first and only thing I have ever seen from a drakengard game. How can the rest ever live up to this.