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Still Can't Swim

@uncreated-creation

:0 (raven)
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The kind of thing a good coder wouldn't mind seeing on their tombstone:

DEGRADED GRACEFULLY

Finally, a truly useful flashlight design!  Because even just some light from one or two functional batteries is better than having not enough batteries to even close the circuit!  Plus, if the contacts corrode at one spot and you don’t have the time & means to clean it, you can still get light out of the thing!

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Like now that I am awake I need to reiterate how huge this is. It was presumed harvested to extinction by the Romans. It was a favorite flavoring and according to historians one of the best contraceptives ever known. True or not it would be fantastic to study that but it being extinct made that impossible.

This is such a huge deal! I hope they get it figured how to grow it.

i'm at a concert thingy and the bands don't start for another 2 hours, but they have the stage set up and are letting people come up and do karaoke. this family just went up w their kids to belt out cartoon songs and when they held the mic up for the baby to try, it babbled cutely for a sec and then grabbed on and unleashed one of those horrible piercing baby SCREAMS at the top of their little baby lungs and i'm pretty sure wiped out the first 3 rows of people lmao

one of the bands sampled the baby shriek and added it to their songs

it's extremely not good to listen to

Turns out the British public has more positive views of lgbt people than the British media would suggest. Cis lesbians are tied with cis bisexual for expressing the most supportive views on trans people

Article date: August 11, 2023

Some encouraging news.

Really glad they did this research - especially because YouGov is a credible, well-regarded, and fairly accurate pollster. They're one of the most prominent polling organizations in the UK. So it's not like just anyone is giving these numbers - you can have a fair amount of confidence in them.

Given British media and assholes online, I definitely would not have called that cis lesbians and cis bisexuals are tied for most supportive of trans people. Very, very nice to hear.

Trees, like animals, can also experience albinism, though it is extremely rare.

the reason it’s rare is because without chlorophyll, the plant can’t get energy, and dies shortly after sprouting unless it has some other source of food. so if you see a plant as big as the one in the picture that doesn’t have any green in its leaves, it’s getting its nutrition from the roots of a neighboring plant of the same species, feeding on the sugars created by the other plant’s photosynthesis.

albino plants are basically vampires.

For a long time, scientists thought they were parasites, and couldn’t figure out why the bigger plants didn’t release chemicals to kill them.

Turns out, the lil’ ghost redwoods benefit their hosts by filtering toxins and acting as a sort of backup immune system.

They’re vampires, and they’re commensal, symbiotic mutualists!

this is super cool! I had no idea

This is among the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

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we’ve already discovered forests where trees share nutrients with young or disadvantaged trees and forests where trees can ask their neighbors for some extra food (they literally send a signal requesting aid, via the web of fungus that connects their roots) and forests where surrounding tees will keep a tree alive even when it has been reduced to a stump through some tragedy…

so, while i love the playfulness of “vampire” and i commend the specificity of “commensal, symbiotic mutualists” i think it’s worth considering, at this point, if “member of the community” might not be at least as apt

What was the point in animal planet airing those incredibly convincing fake documentaries about dragons and mermaids

If the aim was to convince incredibly gullible children that they were real it worked on me

I distinctly remember watching these and being like why is no one talking about this this is INSANE and then my mom had to explain that it’s fake

Sorry for believing animal planet. The channel that tells me facts about animals 99.9% of the time

It drives me insane how many people dont realise how often they break the law and that if the full force of it was ever applied life would basically be unliveable. Like between traffic violations, petty workplace theft, account sharing and piracy alongside how common it is to have been in posession of some illegal drug at some point in your life. People still manage to get away with thinking "criminals" are people who commit crimes not just populations that are surveilled enough to be routinely prosecuted

a little bloody mary comic idea I had last halloween

[image ID: a four page digital comic.

panel 1: a thin woman with long dark hair and light skin is seen from behind sitting in front of a vanity mirror in a room full of mirrors. text placed on the back of her head reads, "lots of people know my name."

panel 2: a group of school girls gather around a mirror in a dark school bathroom lit with candles as one of them writes "bloody mary" on the mirror. text on one of the girls' backs reads, "I get calls all the time."

panel 3: the girls run out of the bathroom screaming. text: "but no one is ever happy to see me."

panel 4: a curvy person with light skin and a partially shaved head half-laid out on the floor of a bedroom looks startled as bloody mary emerges from a full-length mirror in front of them. text: "when they don't run away[...]"

panel 5: the person is shown from behind as they hold up a polaroid to bloody mary. text: "they ask me, hunched and trembling, to perform curses and hexes for them."

panel 6: bloody mary shown halfway through a mirror. text: "I never quite know how to respond."

panel 7: bloody mary has her head down on her vanity desk. text: "no one ever calls just to see me."

panel 8: a darker-skinned hand with long black nails writes bloody mary's name on a mirror with red lipstick in a candlelit room. text: "no one[...]"

panel 9: bloody mary emerges from the mirror in front of a darker-skinned woman with two buns and red lipstick, who is smiling. no text.

panel 10: bloody mary is shown up close as the woman tucks mary's hair behind he ear, showing more of her ghostly face, and a bright red lipstick kiss mark on her cheek. text: "except her."

panel 11: bloody mary sits in her mirror room admiring the kiss mark on her cheek with a hand mirror. no text. end ID.]