Chaosfay's Bit of Madness

I, knowing that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, waited carefully for the lab director to be deep in conversation with someone else on the other side of the laboratory. And then I took my chance.

Test tubes, as it turns out, are really bad as shot glasses. Their shape turns any liquid inside into a stream, so you really can't knock it back quickly - it takes a couple seconds. Additionally, the best way I can describe the taste of virus concentrate was "sterile rot". A very unique kind of bad! Made worse by the test tube's inefficiency as a shot glass.

(by the way we were studying bacteriophages, not animal viruses. these viruses are too specialized on attacking prokaryotes to even recognize our cells as targets at all, according to studies.)

(but also like. if the viruses managed to successfully switch hosts and killed me with a violent infection, itd still be worth it.)

So yew trees are weird. They are extremely long lived with basically no known upper limit to their age. They do this by simply being extremely good at not dying like other trees do.

When a normal tree gets to an old age what usually happens is a fungus gets into their heartwood and takes hold. Their internal, dead wood rots away and they hollow out, lose structural support and collapse. Depending on the species this process can take decades or a good few centuries or so.

While yew trees do hollow out in this way they simply keep going afterwards. A ring shaped yew tree with most of its trunk missing is actually just middle aged and the most ancient yews get even weirder than that.

Wikipedia has this image of a Scottish yew where the start of this hollowing process can be seen. To be clear - for most tree species this would already have been fatal.

The thing is seeing a very old yew in this condition looks wrong to a tree surgeon, it's like the tree is constantly on the verge of death. So, if it's a well loved tree you try and do what you can to stop it from falling apart entirely.

A hundred years ago people tried all sorts of things like chaining up branches and also, yes, plugging the hollowed trunk with concrete. We know better nowadays.

Funnily enough there are even yews that survived this treatment and are still alive today.

This is a picture of the Tisbury yew in 1998 from the Ancient Yew Group, barely a minute ago from the tree's perspective.

Yews are fascinating plants with roots in European culture as ancient as the trees themselves. A few individual specimen trees are even estimated to be around five thousand years old - literally prehistoric in age.

Oh also they do weird things with sex as well sometimes. One of the oldest UK trees, the Fortingall yew appears to partially be turning from male to female on one side. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of it in the next few centuries of its life.

We had our shower/tub replaced last year because the previous homeowner was a landlord and messed things up badly. It was one of those plastic shells that goes over old bathtubs. Except this had nothing beneath it. Just open space. It cracked and pulled from the wall, aka had to be replaced.

The first bill arrived today. We had contracted them for $125/month. It's $448. We called them with a solid WTF and they will be calling us soon. We don't know if they can adjust this first bill, so we need to acquire the funds by September 1st. Otherwise, we're looking at the finance company putting a lien on the house.

Use TOOHOT for 40% off everything in the shop.

Commissions are open.

My husband is still hunting for a second job. I'm Disabled and doing the best I can selling my work. Please, reblog this. It's free, takes no effort, and it may reach someone who really loces what i do and has the funds to spend.

And they were like "What?"

And I was like, "Agility isn't the ultimate form of preparedness. Contingency is. Agility still requires you to flounder and figure out a solution in the moment, but if you have a contingency plan, all you have to do is implement it."

And they were like "But you can't make contingency plans for every situation!"

And I was like, "Yeah, you basically can if you just identify all of your basic dependencies and contingency plan around the loss of any dependency," and then I gave a few examples.

And they all stared at me like I'm an alien.

As he described to the interviewer a moment of panic and how he he overcame, the interviewer said, in one of those, summarise-last-answer-given-with-appropriate-levels-of-respect-in-order-to-proceed-to-next-question phrasing’s, “Wow, so you rose to the occasion -“

Anyway apparently Mr. Eclipse made 5000 years' worth of solar eclipse graphics, which you can find the simpler versions of here

That said, sometimes your body and brain do genuinely just need a pick me up.

The more frequently you practice intuitive eating like this, the better you'll get at figuring out what it is that your body is asking for.

Also, a great trick is to take a look at what you're craving, note the nutritional contents (fat, carbs, protein, plant matter/fiber) and try and figure out what else sounds tasty for your particular craving. This can give you more data points to go off of. For instance, if you're craving ice cream, but a sweet roll sounds just as good, it's probably carbs your body is asking you for. That said, if you're craving ice cream and a sweet roll doesn't sound good at all BUT a bagel with strawberry cream cheese or avocado toast DOES sound good, you know it's fat you're needing.

A couple of months ago, when we were trying to get my insulin/blood sugar all set and I was struggling real hard, I also had a HUGE craving for shellfish. I generally don't eat shellfish on account of, you know, Jewish, but when all I could think about for DAYS was eating COLD SHRAMP RIGHT NOWWWWW, I went and got some.

I felt better right away, and my wife pointed out that we usually use sea salt in our food, which usually doesn't have iodine in it. She got us some sea salt with iodine, and I stopped dreaming of shrimp, and my blood sugar/insulin situation calmed down, bc iodine helps glucose processing.

Also like... even though it was extremely treyf, it made me feel good to listen to my body and give it what it asked for, even if it was a "forbidden/bad food" the way that most Americans talk about ice cream. Sometimes just listening to yourself is what you need as much as anything.

It makes you more confident in your body, and that's rad.

I’m sorry but that’s thinking way too small, hear me out:

We need to have Miss Piggy as Odysseus, and Kermit as Penelope.

Think about it… who’s the more fickle, prideful, warlike one in that relationship? Who is absolutely ready to go ham, at a moment’s notice?

Canes come in a HUGE variety of colors, styles, materials, and ways to decorate it. As long as it's the right length, sturdy enough for your weight, and has a non-slip tip there's a good chance it'll do for you*.

Additionally: there are a lot of assholes that don't want you to take care of yourself this way. People who use accessibility aids despite the social pressure not to and their own internalized ableism are powerful people.

Additionally additionally: You are not taking anything away from anyone else when using your own personal cane or rollator. You're just making it easier for other people to exist while using them.

The largest dam removal in U.S. history. So successful that the salmon that haven’t run freely in the river for literally over a century came back the next year. Not steady progress over a decade as expected, the very next salmon run they came home. No one alive saw salmon in that river outside the hatcheries kept by native’s tribes and the Department of Fish And Wildlife scientists desperately trying to save them. One of the activists who helped bring the suit spoke of their dying grandmother making them promise to bring the fish home, and they didn’t know how that was possible, but they spent decades doing it.

The legal basis for successfully suing the power company who owned the dams was Indigenous treaty rights to eat the fish. Eating the fish was the one thing in a century that succeeded in being a clear and legally binding right that superseded the desires of white capital and industry. I have been going to the public interest environmental law conference off and on for 20 years where a lot of organizing for Undam The Klamath happened. I’ve heard updates about every legal tact they tried as they happened, and they tried everything.

There are healthy, thriving salmon, trout, and lamprey in a rewilding and recovering Klamath River right now as a direct result of Indigenous people eating them. Of their legally binding right to eat them. They sure as fuck care more about those fish than any white vegan ever could. They are salmon people that the Creator sent Salmon to feed, while charging the People with protecting and stewarding them. It’s not possible to learn about salmon and trout in the Pacific Northwest without learning this, and it’s unambiguously racist to dismiss this symbiotic relationship.

The white vegans are trying to get all hunting and fishing banned in Oregon, and that’s quite possibly the single most catastrophic thing that could be done to the animals here because we killed off all the major predators of creatures like deer and without anything hunting them their numbers will explode, eat all the vegetation, destroy the ecosystem, and then die along with everything else in that failing ecosystem. Controlled hunting of deer is vitally necessary for the deer to survive. This is something Native people know, but patronizing racist savior-complex white people refuse to listen to.

I have a whole collection of Oregon’s Public Broadcasting’s documentaries about Klamath River or the larger story of fish and people in the region. If you watch nothing else, watch Klamath Dams Are Coming Out, First Salmon Ceremony, After The Dams, and First Decent (Native made). It could not be clearer that the salmon are being protected and nourished by the people who eat them, and that stewardship is a massive part of their creation myths. But it contradicts political vegan dogma so they don’t listen.

2. Hobby books are even more often written by people who don't have or are actively neglecting their partners/full-time jobs/pets/children/household maintenance.

3. Hobby books are often written by people with ADHD, and an hour in ADHD hyperspace is like 2-7 hours for everyone else, including other ADHD people who are not currently in the zone.

4. Hobby books are written by people who, when told by an editor to add in how long it will take, just make shit up

5. If you're doing something for the first time, you're going to take way, way longer to do it than someone who's had years of practice. Maybe it does only take an hour IF YOU'VE BEEN DOING IT FOR TEN YEARS. Think about how long it took you to make idk your first excel spreadsheet vs how long it takes now

To actually answer your question: proud. You should feel proud, because you made something, AND you did so while learning a brand-new skill! Go you!!

Spite Week Day 4: Curiosity

Spite seeks out Rook and Retribution, something he will find to regret.

Thank you @dread-red-queen for hosting this event!