futurebird

futurebird, 3 days ago (edited 3 days ago) to random

The bald eagle could have easily gone extinct. But we did all sorts of "woke" things protecting it legally, ran conservation and study programs, banned DDT (that was good for other reasons too) and in 2007 they were removed from the endangered species list.

Likewise pine forests could be dead from acid rain.

The ozone could have a huge hole.

We CAN take care of nature when we want to. And the successes have been worth it.

I feel like we forget this, you know?

futurebird, 2 days ago to random

E-bikes are very cool and I'm glad they are getting popular.

However.

There is a big difference between a crash at 12mph and one at 20mph.

Your ebike can give you injuries normally only found in motorcycle accidents. And there isn't enough advice on what constitutes sufficient maintenance for ebikes.

If you don't get balding tires fixed on a regular bike you could fall off and bruise or break a leg.

At ebike speeds that same fall will shatter your leg in dozens of pieces.

BE CAREFUL

futurebird, 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago) to random

Trump has said FOUR times that he will withhold federal funding from schools that require vaccines. Not just COVID. ALL.

This is most schools. This is hitting me where I work. This will lead to children dead from measles. It's obvious, inevitable.

Someone on here said they just couldn't bear to vote for Biden to keep Trump from office since at least under Trump there were better masking rules.

I hope that person sees this.

Worse is worse.

edit: because I don't know measles from smallpox

futurebird, 3 days ago to random

What is the best explanation you’ve heard for 1 not being a prime number? For me it’s “because it breaks everything in my programs since the loops won’t terminate” but that’s obtuse. “Because the God of math decrees it so!” is compelling, but shallow.

“it can only be divided by 1 distinct number” is contrived.

1 “feels” prime— it has the fewest factors. (Primeness being about NOT having factors) ruling it out for having too few? eh.

“it’s the zero of multiplication” is better… thoughts?

futurebird, 4 days ago (edited 4 days ago) to random

I often brag on tumblr about how "on the fediverse I never have to ask people for image descriptions, why is tumblr so terrible at this?" etc.

But, I've made the mistake of re-sharing a few images without descriptions recently! I was lulled into thinking it was not a problem.

Just FYI I'm going to get strict again about not re-sharing undescribed images. (You should too, it keeps the feed readable.)

If you forget? If this is new? Don't feel bad, just stop doing that.

https://www.tumblr.com/aspirationatwork/750857131588304896

futurebird, 5 days ago (edited 2 days ago) to random

Which best describes you?

("records" in this context are shellac, vinyl or resin etc. recorded sound discs played using needle)

If you have some records you can play and others you can't choose the third option.

If you have a player but it's broken choose the first option.

You "own" a player if one is in your home and you can use it when you want.

You "own" records if you are one of the people who must be asked if they were sold or thrown away.

futurebird, 2 days ago (edited 3 hours ago) to random

Is it "unjust" and "mean" to not let Pica lick (but not even eat) my mozzarella sicks?

Facts:

1. She has done this before
2. She won't even eat them, just mouth them.
3. She has a strong opinion about doing this.

futurebird, 2 days ago to random

Official campaign video says "unified reich" to describe Trump victory.

Campaign blames the intern.

I guess we should be happy they aren't just doubling down and saying "what's wrong with unity" or whatever.

The Intern.

That doesn't explain anything!
Why do you have lil nazi interns? (we know why)

futurebird, 6 days ago to random

Sometimes when I'm really tired I'll stare at a post in German on here and just wonder why I can't make any sense of it... then slowly I realize.

futurebird, 1 day ago (edited 14 hours ago) to random

Best movement of “The Planets” by Holst?

futurebird, 4 days ago to random

I don't know how my ancestors survived.

apex predator who could easily subdue and eat me in a tree

my brain: Kitty Cat! Little kitty cat! Let me hug it!

futurebird, 6 days ago to random

Quick Tulip update: Didn’t see her for a few days and started to worry since she getting up in years for an ant. Just spotted her in the lower chamber doing some patrolling around. She’s at least two years old. Still full of life. #namedAnts #tulip #ants #tuliptheant

Close up of Tulip, a very good looking ant: she has a wide head and six sturdy black legs.

futurebird, 4 days ago to random

I bought some pink sand for my ants but it’s strangely hydrophobic? It is very fine sand and it will become saturated if stirred vigorously - but why does it trap air like this? isn’t this odd?

Piles of sparkling pink sand retains air at the bottom of the glass.
another view of strange sand.

futurebird, 4 days ago to random

Research means formulating a question. Sketching the kind of evidence you think would provide answers to the question and then dispassionately looking for that evidence and either answering the question or determining it can't yet be answered.

Falling into an internet rabbit hole and stimulating your sense of fear or wonder reading the strangest things you can find that creep you out isn't research. It's fun maybe, but it's not research.

Yes both involve searching and reading but ... come on.

futurebird, 3 days ago to random

Sam Alito is so much worse than I ever suspected. Watching him speak, reading his writing you encounter a man who clearly thinks he's smarter than everyone.

For various reasons, we do not often encounter smug academically styled conservatives. But, he's the genuine article. He sincerely believes himself a brave iconoclast who will be seen as a hero someday.

His self-flattery could be a weakness. He is very wrong about how history will remember him.

futurebird, 5 days ago to random

I hate what debates tend to be: soundbite mines where each side runs around claiming that they got in the best "dunk" and thus won.

It reminds me of when I as a teen and the ran the dozens in the school yard. "Yo mamma so fat the lobbyists say 'save some for me!'"

Can't even agree who won the last election. How can Trump ask to participate in a system he doesn't even recognize as legitimate?

Why debate Biden? You don't think he's president, right?

futurebird, 5 days ago to random

From: https://www.instagram.com/matrondesign/?hl=en

Thing is, centipedes are famously fastidious. They wash every single leg multiple times a day and seem rather like a very leggy cat while doing it.

Perhaps it's because they are predators. Predators seem to tend to be into washing up more.

(I know it's a millipede in the cartoon, but that just makes it funnier since the centipede would roll their eyes at the complaining. )

futurebird, 13 hours ago (edited 13 hours ago) to random

You can sniff at block-based programming if you like, but I do find that students who used such languages in middle school have an easier time adapting to object oriented and nonlinear programming later — the downside is that nonlinearity is nearly always an illusion in computer science. And under those floating islands of functions and classes there is an absolute order —

I’ll work with some middle school students next year and so I’m learning about all this scratch nonsense.

futurebird, 6 days ago to random

yeah moss is great but how about a vascular plant that has basically ... gone back to the way of the moss...

Azorella compacta

It's... it's a carrot that has given up on having leaves...

Imagine a hostile planet with plants like this... could you tell that they once grew in less cold and arid climates? What if flora of the twilight days of a planet look like the earliest life... but when you look closer there are abilities, and structures that tell their history....

It looks exactly like a tuft of green moss.

futurebird, 4 days ago to random

This is the kind of thing I always imagined a husband would get when grocery shopping before I had one and, lo, it’s the sort of thing they really do come home with.

Just… just random cheese—

can I complain though? I think not!

futurebird, 2 days ago to random

m'lady's false-fairhaird', faulty-functioning feral form

futurebird, 2 days ago to random

I have a bit of a problem with buying too many blank journals & notebooks. And as my taste has grown more fancy (I'm a paper snob for the ages) I've realized that I will never write in any of the notebooks on several shelves at home. But they are very nice blank books.

I could have maybe sold them as a lot on ebay for like $50 ... but that's annoying.

I took them to work and put up a little sign on the book cart in the hall "Free blank notebooks. Take one!"

They are all gone! I'm so happy!

futurebird, 4 days ago (edited 1 day ago) to random

Have you thought much about, or engaged with "liminal space" content in the past 10 years? (Through a reddit group, tumblr, compilation videos etc.)

Regardless if you care about such content now, if you ever spent some time enjoying or being disquieted by such images and media... that's "engaging"

If you don't know what this is about you have not. If you know what it's about but just never paid it any mind? Same.

futurebird, 2 days ago to random

Imagine architecture for creatures who easily climb vertical surfaces: a main entrance for a building could be in the center of the 2nd or 3rd floor— heck, you might not have floors, rather a system of depth: the number of major chambers from the main entrance— Theater ‘in the round?’ Try theatre in the sphere! Meeting rooms would have ceiling seats for the interns…

(If creatures are climbers & have fair sight the tension between natural light & space-efficiency produces incredible spaces)

futurebird, 4 days ago to random

It's the same picture.

https://www.rawstory.com/ron-desantis-mask-order-2654942318/

The photo of the "hot dog guy" from "I think you should leave" saying "We're all trying to find the guy who did this!" (he did it)