jack of all trades, master of none

There is a Japanese water beetle called Regimbartia attenuata. It has developed an incredible adaptation to be being eaten by pond frogs.

It walks out the frog’s butt.

The beetles get swallowed whole, and usually that would be considered Kinda Fatal, but this particular species is just like “DID YOU THINK A FROG’S DIGESTIVE TRACT COULD HOLD ME?!” and proceeds to walk through the frog’s intestines, then presumably stimulate the frog’s hind gut with its legs so that the frog poops. The beetles emerge headfirst and 93% of them survive and live on for weeks afterward.

Apparently some beetles can do this obstacle course in six minutes! (Usually takes a few hours, but some people will speedrun ANYTHING.)

Isn’t that COOL?!

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"Among the cooks, I am the best engineer, and among the engineers I am the best cook."

“Protect the children” generally means something like, “preserve their innocence.” And I can see why someone might earnestly believe this is good. Because integrating new ideas into your worldview is genuinely uncomfortable. I think, uncharitably, that this is especially true if your worldview is conservative; your whole political bit is resistance to new ideas!

The idea that children shouldn’t have to grapple with ideas they may find uncomfortable for whatever reason maps perfectly onto the idea that children don’t get to grapple with ideas that you may find uncomfortable for whatever reason. And I can’t speak in super general terms here, but I can definitely say that my childhood was impoverished because of this.

Not everyone bothers with this step. But a lot of people do it because if you move a young plant out of a sheltered environment into a radically harsher environment with no prep, it had a pretty good chance of dying. They need time to adapt. If you protect them in the greenhouse the whole time so they don’t get any damage on their perfect widdle leaves, you’re not doing them any favours; it’s going to be a massive, potentially fatal shock when they get planted out, and if they die it sure as hell wasn’t the plant’s fault.

Raising a child is just a long period of hardening them off.

The reason it’s evil for an adult to solicit sex from a thirteen year old isn’t because there’s some Pure Natural Innocence about them that Cannot Be Corrupted. It’s because they are still learning about sex and how to navigate relationships, they don’t have the experience or maturity to make those kinds of decisions yet and won’t for several more years, and soliciting or agreeing to sex with them is inherently dangerous and a gross abuse of power taking advantage of this fact. It is because the thirteen year old is supposed to be safely learning about sex and their relationship to it on their own terms, in a safe way without people taking advantage of them. If you decide that that child shouldn’t have any education about sex until they’re eighteen, that they shouldn’t have sex ed or be allowed to witness any indication of its existence, you’re not protecting them. You’re creating eighteen year olds with a thirteen year old’s understanding of sex (assuming your attempt even works, which it often doesn’t -- often you just create pregnant teenagers). And then throwing them out of the greenhouse into the garden, where other people have no way of knowing how vulnerable you’ve left them until it’s too late.

If you protect children from having to learn about racism, or from seeing disabled people that might make them feel uncomfortable, or from learning about other cultures, or death, or sex, or drugs... you’re not helping them. At all. This is the period where they are supposed to be learning this kind of thing.

just a long period of

hardening them off.

but she’s already dressed again, after peeling off the skin that would previously have been under that armor

the only logical conclusion here is that she wanted a picture of herself at her SHINIEST and PRETTIEST and hurried to get dressed once enough of her fresh and shiny new skin was uncovered

I bet her bestie took the picture and has been eagerly waiting with the magical fantasy camera for like, hours

if you want a good RECENT (as of the end of February 2022) overview of what is going on behind the scenes at tumblr, it is basically what i’ve been saying for years: the core staff is tiny, constantly not being listened to when they advocate for us, the community, and working there is a nightmare: