ObsoleteCripple

trying something new this year called the Mosquito Bucket Challenge!

it's an initiative being pushed by Homegrown National Park as an alternative to mosquito spraying and pesticides

the key concept is intentionally attracting mosquitos to buckets with standing water, but adding mosquito dunks to prevent them from successfully reproducing

mosquito dunks are a product containing a bacteria called Bti, which prevents larvae from developing into adult mosquitos

Bti does not affect most other animals/insects, and is thus safe for wildlife and pollinators! you can find mosquito dunks easily online or at home improvement stores

so basically, you fill the bucket up with organic material like leaves, add water and a quarter of a mosquito dunk once a month....and that's about it! you also use a wire cover or a "rescue stick" to prevent other creatures from falling into the bucket and not being able to climb out

Homegrown National Park is encouraging people to decorate their buckets to help spread the word, but i am lazy so Lowe's logo and a tumblr post it is

we can talk about the important role mosquitos play in ecosystems, but the reality is that many people won't tolerate high numbers of mosquitos in their yards. this is an easy and low-cost alternative to much more harmful control methods – a bucket, mosquito dunks and some chicken wire cost me a total of about $20!

every year around spring, being outside becomes intolerable because of the mosquitos, which also get into my house when i take my dogs out

so i'm REALLY excited to say that my outdoor spaces are actually usable this year! i think i've been bitten by one mosquito all season and i'm outside gardening pretty much every day 🙌

Anis are bizarre, coal-black cuckoos with long floppy tails and unique, curiously tall, flattened bills. Groove-billed occurs in a variety of open and semi-open habitats in tropical lowlands and foothills, typically staying low in shrubs and grasses. Gregarious and not particularly graceful; usually seen crashing around awkwardly in small groups.

i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3

unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it

i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map

i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs

this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.

crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.

This sick bleach shirt I made. Something to showcase my undying love for prehistoric cave art.

Posted by The Library of Congress on Facebook:

Once more, due to annual popular demand, we like to share Rosa Parks’ pancake recipe on National Pancake Day. Jotted down on an envelope, it came to the Library along with the rest of her papers, a gift made possible by the generosity of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation in 2016. Learn more about the Rosa Parks Collection: https://www.loc.gov/.../rosa.../about-this-collection/...

Here is the Library of Congress page for the recipe!

And the full transcription (text) of the envelope!

And the recipe itself:

Featherlite Pancakes Sift together:

1 C flour

2 T B. Powder [presumably baking powder]

1/2 t salt

2 T sugar

Mix:

1 egg

1 1/4 C Milk

1/3 C peanut butter melted

1 T shorting or oil

Combine with dry ingredients Cook at 275° on griddle

-----

This Tumblr post is the first time someone has explained to me *why* I couldn’t feed them before those instances.

every single time i have had to say, "i understand that if he had food or water, he could aspirate it into his lungs under anesthesia. i am not lying to you." THEN someone would make a little note and i would stop being repeatedly asked.

not a single time was that risk explained to me. the only reason it came up was because i already knew. i still don't understand why it isn't standard pre-op counseling or pre-op check information, when me as a parent acknowledging the actual risk also put THE MEDICAL STAFF at ease because i conveyed that i had informed understanding as reason to not lie about giving my kid food.

Have you guys seen that clip

I means it's honestly unlikely they did x, y, and/or z. Most call out posts are just bullshit lies or so taken out of context that they're just as fraudulent as a bullshit lie.

However, if they did? A callout post is useless. It's utterly pointless.

A callout post does nothing but:

Isolate the supposed perpetrator, making it impossible for them to stay in a community that would otherwise be able to go "Hey bro/sis/sib, that was fucked, let's talk about it and fix it".

Puts a spotlight on the possible victim that prevents them from recovery or healing.

Creates drama that creates damage for all parties.

And that's if their was any truth in the post.

A callout post that's just a bunch of garbage though? That:

Isolates the victim of the slander, leaving them volunrable to attacks and harassment

Feeds into transphobia both generalized and specific to the victim of slander

Creates infighting, gatekeeping, and policement of the community

Often forces people who had nothing to do with the initial drama to take part in a now ever delevoping drama, which creates more callout posts, more slander, more harrasment, and more attacks on community members. Most often effecting the most marginalized members of out community.

Forces people to view content that is often triggering and demands that they make a moral statement about it, while trying to process or cope with the content.

Creates room for Terfs, tehms, radfems, and transphobes of all brands, to stick their ugly heads in and go "see, I was right about the trans cult, do you see what monsters they are".

You should know that I've written and erased a number of answers before coming to this conclusion.

Anger is not an emotion unto itself. Anger is an expression of fear, of helplessness, of frustration, of grief. Where there is Anger, there is something deeper, like the roots of a vine that might strangle you. If you cannot reach the roots, you will not kill the vine.

Anger, though, serves a purpose- to inspire urgency, to act, to move in the defense of self or others, to call out injustice.

Anger is only an evil when it is acted on without discipline. When it is allowed to become a reflex motivator, when it skips higher thought and speaks directly through the teeth and the hands. This is anger without control.

This question has forced me to ask myself if there is a difference between anger and hatred.

Is hatred irrational? Anger may be as well. Is hatred directed to the innocent? Anger can be, too. Is hatred akin to cruelty? Anger, again, is not innocent of needless suffering.

So what purpose must hatred serve, in pursuit of a just world? What can hatred do that anger cannot? What does it mean to hate something?

I'm not a scholar. I haven't studied these things academically. But thinking of my own experiences, and remembering the exact circumstances and contexts and the nuance of every little piece on the board, I can tell you that there was revulsion, and there was myself, and there was forces beyond my control.

I think that Hate is when anger fears it cannot win. I think Hate is when you are faced with something that you want to believe you have possibility of overcoming while suspecting in some way that you cannot. I think that Hate is when you are afraid of the thing that enrages you.

Hate, if you ask my opinion, is a bit like being mauled by a bear, knowing that you will not survive, and going for the eyes regardless, because it doesn't get to grow old and happy if you can't either.

Good for the continued existence of your peers. Bad for everything else.

So I suppose, if you are in a position where a bear is mauling you- metaphorically- hate probably isn't your biggest obstacle right now.

But if the bear is out there somewhere, on the other side of the forest, and you are sitting in a hole somewhere in a stiff rigor of rage and spite and terror, then I think it may be best for you to tell yourself now:

The bear will kill. Killing is in the nature of the bear, and a bear is helpless to change its nature. Knowing the nature of the bear, I will stay away from it, and deter it, and stay away from its path, and I will pity it for the nature it cannot compel itself to resist, and for the wonderful things it will never experience.

I do not need to fear the bear, because I understand its nature. I do not need to hate the bear, because I needn't fear it. All I must accept is that there is a bear, and it is wise to stay away from it.

It's unfortunate that the bear must live this way. It's unfortunate that you share your forest with a bear and not something kinder. But if you cannot change it, and it cannot change itself, then all you can do is accept that it is a bear.