Sometimes I think I'm a Horseshoe Crab

Now imagine you've had a life long fascination with animals. And this turned into an interest in animal care. You personally have done a lot of research into specifically enclosure creation. And you just got hired at a nature center that has sub par enclosures. You learn they had better enclosures but the person who made the better ones no longer works there.

Then you learn the old man who thinks he's right all the time and is stubborn is the one telling you stuff about the animal care at the nature center. He has told you things that are incorrect about the animal's care. You also pick up he remade the enclosures to the current subpar state. You also also pick up he is very protective of these animals and thinks he's doing a better job than the other person. He currently feels he has ownership over this situation and doesn't seem open to you trying to correct him. Despite saying two animals have died since the changes he made.

Now imagine trying to navigate that situation.

Okay now try and imagine that a few days before this you and your sister got a new roommate. And when this roommate moved in you met their adoptive father who was helping them move. Okay now merge the two. Imagine when you showed up to work to learn about animal care. It turns out your coworker is your new roommates adoptive father.

So he really takes a shine to you and has decided to take you under his wing. So this stubborn thinks he's right all the time, fussy, old man who is incorrect about animal care and always wants his way thinks he needs to be the one to teach you everything. So he won't leave you alone. So now you have to navigate the social situation of trying to figure out how to get this old man to take you seriously and hopefully listen to you when he has filed you away under "child who should learn from me" in his head but also you can't let this slide because you don't want his mistakes to hurt more animals.

Yesterday asked another coworker about the animal enclosures. They were bioactives. Now need to get old man to clarify because if he is upset that someone put plants and leaves and clean up crew in in a tank I'm genuinely baffled on how I should explain that's not a bad thing. It's actually a good thing.

He (old man) also was like "you need to change the filters monthly the last guy didn't change them enough thats gross". NO PLEASE DON'T CHANGE YOUR FILTER MEDIA MONTHLY OH MY GOD. DID YOU ONLY READ THE FILTER BOX AND DO NO RESEARCH.

Flase foward yesterday. I asked my other coworker about the changing filters monthly. And yes they only looked at the filter media box and did no research. So I explained doing that disrupts the cycle in your tank. You don't need to be doing that. You shouldn't be doing that. He seems to listen. Okay nice it seems like one of my coworkers will be an ally here. <- thought this far too soon.

Not 10 minutes later he walks over to me and going "okay but this says you should change out the actived carbon in the filter monthly" then shows me the google AI overview.

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you need to take them into the woods

I do outdoor education work, and within minutes of any elementary to middle schooler getting free permission to mess around with their friends in a clearing, they’re curious and driven again. they’re asking each other questions and yeeting pinecones at trees (science) and using their bodies. sometimes for evil. as is developmentally right. they want to know the names of birds! they want to teach someone pokemon! they want to build stuff and kick stuff and tackle each other and you into the snow!

they’re basically fucking institutionalized for 90% of their lives but their spirits are alive. you need to take them into the woods you need to treat them like animals with powerful inner lives and they’ll show you they are.

If you read the link the company does of course say they’re replacing the existing forums with new ones, and I’m sure no one would say the old ones didn’t perhaps need a lil bit of a glow up, some tech debt fixing… but there’s a few key notes in there:

They are NOT carrying over any history, data messages etc. from the old forums

They are NOT archiving, retaining or in any way saving the existing forums in any way

They have NOT provided any reasoning past ‘as part of continued efforts to support developers’

As an offhand, moderate read, this sounds to me like a desire for some change in the forums but deciding nuking everything is less expensive than rebuilding and carrying over info.

If I’m cynical, and likely realistic? Probably to increase sales of their latest GameMaker software by making it inherently more difficult for someone getting the older software for cheap pushing it to its limits. The amount of institutional knowledge on those forums is absurd.

And even if it is a benign reason, it’s still terrible because what do you mean you’re doing this with no recourse or potential for change? You sell software that runs on community goodwill? In an era where people are pulling away to open source software?? Crazy.

There are yeeeaaars of answers, plugins, suggestion, community built up on those forums - I’ve used the em to learn and grow my own skillet!!! And soon it won’t exist.

At the very least, they gave a ‘heads up’ - the deletion occurs mid December, so archiving by the community is possible from now. It’s just absurd that it needs to happen in the first place.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/

https://rpgmakerchat.com/

https://github.com/imraf/rpgmakerweb-archive/

happy new year -------------_--------------------

transmedicalist statements:

being trans is a medical disorder

being trans needs to be diagnosed by a doctor or psychiatrist

not everyone who disagrees with their assignment is really trans, and the fakers make the true transsexuals look bad

you can "fully" transition and then you're not trans anymore. trans only refers to the medical transitioning process. if you find out you are not trans, you can detransition back. the goal is to not be trans, and transition is a middle stage to get through as quickly and privately as possible.

"male" and "female" are real, biological realities and anyone who says they are not one or the other is lying or delusional

not transmedicalist statements:

a lot of trans people need and/or desire access to surgical and/or hormonal healthcare options which are currently restricted on the basis of sex assignment at birth

when healthcare access is denied due to a patient's diagnosis of "gender dysphoria," that denial is specifically targeting trans people for being trans (even though not all trans people have that diagnosis)

sometimes trans people assume they do not want transition care because they have internalized transphobic propaganda about what it is, how it works, and how accessible it is for them. giving them information about it can help them make a more educated choice about what they want.

"transgender" and "transsexual" are not synonyms but refer rather to whether or not someone is/intends to/has engaged in medical transition (as defined however one wants to define that)