That rabbit/hare post is messing me up. I’d thought they were synonyms. Their development and social behavior are all different. They can’t even interbreed. They don’t have the same number of chromosomes. Dogs, wolves, jackals, and coyotes can mate with each other and have fertile offspring but rabbits and hares cant even make infertile ones bc they just die in the womb. Wack.
These
are more genetically compatible than These
and that’s why morphology-based phylogeny has Issues
The problem is perspective. People always think dogs are the ‘standard’ animal, the metric to use for whether or not two organisms “look like” they’re related. When in fact they’re a massive outlier due to the fact that we fucked up this lineage of wolf beyond recognition with selective breeding. It’s why people always say “breed” when they mean “species”, especially when talking about groups like lizards which can’t even be defined cladistically since some of them are closer to snakes than each other. To say nothing of fish.
I once read an article that emphasized there is no such thing as a fish. Sharks and rays, lamprey, lobe-finned fish like lungfish and coelacanth, bichir and sturgeon, and of course the multiple infraclasses of more “modern” fish groups are all only very distantly related to one another. They’ve maintained semi-similar body structures only because there are limited ways to efficiently move through water as a vertebrate.
This
And this
Are more distantly related from one another than you and I are from a lungfish
Which is absolutely fuckin wild.
Not only that, but all of us air-breathing land vertebrates, all the lizards and chickens and people and frogs, are closer to one another than those three “fish” are to one another as well.
these
are genetically closer than these
and…
these
are genetically closer than these
and my personal favorite, it really fucks with people…
these
are more genetically similar than these
COOL.
i’d just like to add that this
is more related to this
than this
this is not a joke—elephant shrews, ends up, are not shrews but are actually closely related to elephants.
next year james patterson is slapping his name on a book called "the secret lives of booksellers and librarians," which is real bold considering that every bookseller and librarian that i've met in my time as a bookseller and librarian absolutely loathes him. including me.
"rowan if you hate james patterson how come you know about a book of his that's coming out seven months from now?"
I Must Keep The Scope Of My Sniper Rifle Trained On The Beast At All Times
Okay, I feel the need to explain just why James Patterson is so hated by librarians.
See, it's not just that he writes mediocre, churned-out thrillers; there are many, many authors of mediocre, churned-out thrillers out there, he ain't special.
It's also not that he "writes" them with "coauthors" and slaps his name on them - again, this is not unique.
It's not even - though this is starting to get there- that he chases every publishing trend and creates His Version of everything from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Nicholas Sparks, which nobody likes as well as they like his thrillers but still buy because they have His Name on them like a summoning charm.
No, what makes James Patterson uniquely loathed is the combination of the frequency of publication and his popularity. Because, to be honest, I'm not sure that anyone even likes his books anymore, but it doesn't matter, because if they have the James Patterson name on them then readers will be queuing up like zombies desperate for a fix of decaying cerebral matter. Which would be tolerable if he had the decency to only write one book a year like most other bestselling authors, but "James Patterson" (quotes VERY intentional) puts out roughly two books per month. So as a librarian, not only do you have to buy every new book James Patterson puts out, you have to buy multiple copies in order to fulfill demand. Somewhere around 5% of my fiction budget is spent ENTIRELY ON JAMES PATTERSON. Every new James Patterson that comes out means a dozen or more queer romances, inventive sci-fi novellas, unique cultural viewpoints, etc, etc that you can't buy because YOU HAVE TO BUY JAMES PATTERSON INSTEAD. (See also, you just weeded and shifted the Ps in fiction to make room and now it's full again oh god why.)
And the clincher - the absolute clincher - is the knowledge that the publishers will be "finding" "unfinished manuscripts" by "James Patterson" for a minimum of fifty years after his death, so even if some right-minded bibliophile with a claymore takes one for the team, we will never, ever be free.
And that is why we hate James Patterson.
I was wondering about this when i saw the first version of this post
how to keep following people when a major social platform implodes
(...and you don't want to join 20 new websites)
First, get an RSS reader*:
- Desktop: Feedbro (browser extension), QuiteRSS, Raven Reader
- Android: Feeder
- iOS/Mac: NetNewsWire
You'll be able to make a custom feed to follow blogs, webcomics, social media feeds, podcasts, news, and other stuff on the web all in one place. To follow something, find its "feed URL"-- often marked by an icon that looks like this ↓-- and paste it into your reader of choice as a new feed.
Some feed URLs for social media:
- Twitter: Feedbro can use Twitter profile URLs as feed URLs. Otherwise, use nitter.net/username/rss (or other Nitter instance) (You can get a CSV file of all the accounts you follow using "Download a user's friends list" on Tweetbeaver)
- Tumblr: Use username.tumblr.com/rss or username.tumblr.com/tagged/my%20art/rss to follow a blog's "my art" tag (as an example)
- Cohost: Use username.cohost.org/rss/public (WIP feature)
- Mastodon: Use instance.url/@username.rss
- Deviantart: Info here
- Spacehey: Info here
- Youtube: Go to a channel in a web browser, view page source, and use Ctrl-F/Command-F to find a link that starts with "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id="
- Instagram: Feedbro can use Instagram profile and hashtag URLs as feed URLs. Otherwise, Instagram doesn't have RSS feeds, and due to aggressive rate limiting on their part, it's not so simple to generate a feed URL.
- Facebook: Feedbro can use public Facebook group/page URLs as feed URLs.
(If you know an artist who exclusively posts to Instagram, you may want to gently suggest that they crosspost elsewhere...)
Also see how to find the RSS feed URL for almost any site. Try using public RSS-Bridge instances or Happyou Final Scraper to generate feeds for sites that don't have them (Pillowfort, Patreon, etc).
*You can set up your subscriptions in one reader and import them into another by exporting an OPML file.
This!
RSS feeds were a great way to keep track of things before the rise of the platforms, and (if we’re smart) they’ll be great again.
@eldriwolf sent me this, and I immediately thought of the Indian bagh nakh “tiger-claw” weapon, which isn’t usually articulated or as realistic - for a given value of realism - but was a very nasty piece of kit.
The basic version was a steel bar with two rings for index and pinkie fingers, and four steel claws for ripping into an enemy’s soft parts - probably neck and stomach, where there were no awkward bones and the result would be more effective.
These simple versions had an extra advantage of being easy to conceal…
…and sometimes the finger-rings would be gilded and decorated with gems as if they were just jewellery.
Okay, maybe quite a lot of jewellery.
I bet that if timing and location were organised properly, political assassination could be passed off - in honest belief or for convenience - as the victim having encountered a real tiger.
“But where are the marks of the tiger’s teeth?” That too could be arranged:
These double daggers have proper flattened-diamond blade profiles, and their points are too close for a full-grown tiger or leopard - but (fiction-writer imagination at work) there’s no reason why a special-purpose one couldn’t have been made with realistic separation and correct tooth-spike shape.
The modern era has seen plenty of convenient “accidents” and “suicides”(what writer Len Deighton calls XPD or Expedient Demise) so how good was Mughal-era CSI?
Or more correctly, when required by Certain Circumstances, how bad did it need to be?
If an Important Person announced: “Clearly a tiger did it. How sad. Too bad. Long live the new maharajah, my Dear Little Nephew”, the best way for doubters to maintain good health would be agreement…
*****
There was another version which - if the “attacked by a wild beast” excuse was still used - came with a suggestion that tigers in that particular region were getting disturbingly smart. (Though pointing this out may not have been wise, see above…) :->
These are bichuwa bagh nakh, “scorpion-sting tiger claws”, the dagger name deriving from its recurved blade shape resembling the business end of a scorpion’s tail.
They were sometimes carried in combat, bichuwa bagh nakh in the left hand and a talwar (curved) or khanda (straight) sword in the right.
During close-quarter grappling the claws could rake and the dagger stab, while the finger-rings meant less risk of dropping it.
In the same way that many Indian weapons had “tacticool” add-ons - miniature pistols, axe-gun combinations, concealed daggers and so on - there were bagh nakh with more than just one extra blade…
…bagh nakh with extra folding blades and a knuckle-guard…
…and this articulated contraption which (IMO anyway) was for defence as well as attack.
*****
It was, like the much simpler two-ring-no-blades version, a lot less obvious than the first photo suggests…
…and since many Indian helmets were open-faced while others had face-protection only of mail…
…a surprise slap across the face might spoil any warrior’s day.
The reason I think it also had a defensive purpose is the fairly thick metal palm and that little spur low down on it, almost certainly meant to stop a palm-blocked blade from sliding any further.
I’m not sure there’s enough articulation for such a blade to be actually gripped tightly, but once trapped between spur and claws it could be twisted aside for long enough that a weapon in the other hand could attend to its wielder.
*****
Yet again: when creating a fantasy weapon for writing or RPG, do a search for whatever you have in mind, because it may well have been made for real a couple of centuries ago by an Indian weaponsmith demonstrating what he could do to advertise his skill, or just making some oddity in steel to see if it was possible… :->
guys i am fucking crying i got an old copy of pilgrims progress from a used booksale and i just opened it and there's a handwritten dedication to a girl from her grandfather from christmas 1888 and she put a little fucking drawing in the back and im sitting on my bed losing my fucking mind over a hundred years ago a grandpa gave this book to "miss maggie" and she loved it and it's lasted a century and im holding it right now
i showed the book to my mom when she came home from a trip and she reminded me that in little women (1868) each of the march sisters got a copy of pilgrim’s progress under their pillow for christmas there is a high, high, HIGH chance that this little girl was a huge fan of little women and talked to her grandfather about it and he got her a classic book just like her 1880s blorbos i am flailing on the ground humanity is so special
An Egyptian rock crystal of a chonky hinpopotamus amulet
(Middle Kingdom, ca. 2050-1650 BCE)
Amulets were worn by ancient Egyptians for their protective and regenative properties. Used in both in daily life and during funerary rites, amulets represented animals, deities, symbols or objects thought to possess the magical powers of warding off evil spirits.
As animals were popular representations, the hippopotamus was known for its apotropaic (e.g. ability to avert bad luck) qualities and was associated with rebirth.
LOVE WINS???!?!??!?!
Obsidian is a natural volcanic glass formed when lava high in silica cools quickly preventing crystal growth.
Cracking open a cooled one with the geology boys.
I'm not a psychology researcher, but my guess would be that the nature of it being a time-limited puzzle game where you have to juggle multiple factors means that your short-term memory gets filled and the traumatic images are "dumped" in favor of remembering how many times to rotate the L piece. "As soon as possible" is probably because the sooner you do it, the less likely it is to become part of your long-term memory.
If that is true, then other time-limited activities where you have to remember and plan in a tight time frame may serve a similar purpose.
This can have an effect hours after the traumatic event happens too! All participants were treated within about 6 hours and played for a total of 20 minutes of Tetris (with at least one play time of 10 minutes straight).
Here are the links given in the screenshot:
Here is the paper that the second link uses as a source:
