irritating as fuck when people get mad at Black people existing in premodern historical fiction/fantasy media. like first of all, you're racist. and second of all, you are acting as though Black people didn't exist in premodern Europe which is simply false. especially when we're talking about the Mediterranean, like what the fuck do you people think is along the southern half of the Mediterranean Ocean?? everyone's on boats, there are GOING to be interactions with Black people in Northern Africa, and there are GOING to be Black people in Mediterranean Europe. stop being stupid. your imagined homogeneous white European past is not historical reality, get over it you massive losers
always going to include this Psych reference
there’s a lot going on here
Tiger found caged in abandoned home gets second chance at wildlife sanctuary: ‘He seems to be so happy’
The estimated 350-pound tiger was transported to the facility, an affiliate of the Humane Society of the United States, on Wednesday afternoon, and is settling in well, Almrud said. There, he will have the chance to roam in enclosures of up to three acres.
Almrud, who estimates him to be about 2 years old, described the moment he first walked onto the grass at the sanctuary as remarkable.
“It was just amazing to see him walk out on grass and to see him explore and have that freedom of movement,” she said. “It was just such a reward and fulfilling to us.”
Now, he spends his days rolling around the grass in glee, Almrud said.
“He comes right up to the fence every time a staff member is present,” she said. “He seems very amenable to our presence.”
The tiger is eating well – a combination of chicken, humanely raised non-processed beef and whole prey complete with organs and bones. It appears that he was being fed chicken, which is what owners of exotic cats often feed them, but chicken alone does not provide the complete nutrition they need to thrive, Almrud said.
In addition, caregivers are tasked with keeping the tiger mentally stimulated by creating “pretend hunting” games and rotating him through different areas so he has access to new smells and environments to explore.
“He seems to happy and content,” Almrud said. “Our staff is just falling in love with him.”
Just an update! Since I got curious and the og post is from 2019.
His name is Loki now! In June he celebrated his 7th birthday at the sanctuary where he lives and thrives. Here’s a few pics of the boy:
The tiger
He escaped his cage
Yes
YES
The tiger is out
❤
this is so cute, laios is such a good brother
I have never seen a more accurate depiction of how an autistic child reacts to things they're happy about. Of course he goes to tell all his animal friends.
Also I've said this before but advertising is an industry that should be considered as pointless and harmful as fossil fuels.
"as harmful as fossil fuels? don't you think you're exaggerating a bit?" the world's largest and most sophisticated surveillance networks that gather incomprehensible amounts of personal data to make profits technological companies who are the largest corporations on the world and shapers of public opinion often for the worse, all do it for advertising.
Cut the head, just ban advertising.
It’s odd when men blame women for the “male loneliness epidemic” because oftentimes men are lonely in their own friend groups. Of course you’re lonely dude, your friends know literally nothing about you. You haven’t had a vulnerable moment with them ever. They don’t even know your surname. Instead of leaning on a random woman go lean on your buddies bro
In June, I had the first real hurdle in my relationship. I won't go into the details, but I was on a narcolepsy medication that makes people more prone to addictive behaviors. It did so with me.
During this time, my closest friend was extremely busy with work, I couldn't afford therapy because I was struggling to even make rent, and I didn't have someone I could talk to.
I have OCD. One of my compulsions is "checking" and it often takes the form of googling. Googling a word I know just to check that the definition hasn't changed. Googling whether xyz is normal. Googling how to choose some relatively unimportant things.
I googled all kinds of things. I googled to find out if there's a word for intentionally letting someone hear you cry in hopes that they'll comfort you. (Not because I was doing that, but because I had an overwhelming urge to.) I googled odds of relationship survival after addiction. I googled how to tell if your partner has stopped loving you.
And Google ai overview answered every single question. And on mobile, when I was curled up in the dark at 4am, there's a convenient text box to ask the AI a follow-up question. And the AI says things like "that's a hard situation to be in" and "that must be painful to hear"
And I'm not a fucking idiot. I know perfectly well that AI is trained to be sycophantic and that talking to a fucking LLM about my relationship fears was a massive mistake.
I was also terrified, alone, heartbroken, and desperate.
I spent literally hours of time googling questions on AI mode. Holding conversations with the AI. I have stickers on my laptop and water bottle that say "AI Hater Club" and "generative AI? Nein danke" and I wish Sam altman would fall off the face off the earth.
And none of that mattered. I was desperate. I recognized that, and once things began to calm down (my doctor took me off of the narcolepsy med and put me on a medication for addiction called Naltrexone, I was able to start therapy again, my partner and I worked together and took steps to repair what was damaged) I stopped turning to it for an open shoulder.
But I realized a few days ago that I hadn't stopped using the ai entirely. I would Google "best [item] on a budget" and instead of reading a cnet link that reviewed multiple brands, instead of checking consumer reports, I expanded the AI overview and asked follow-up questions.
I'm currently finishing up an astrophysics internship for the summer. Usually when I don't know how to code something, I look at the documentation or find a post on Reddit or stack overflow to explain. Instead, I was asking Google overview for instructions on how to use sys.argv. At no point was I vibe coding, but I was basically asking Google ai to walk me through it like a tutor.
And then, last week, I realized that I no longer Google things the same way. I used to search like "pokemon sun and moon original release date" but lately I've been searching "what year did pokemon sun and moon come out?" Even my checking OCD has changed. I used to Google "n30i mask cleaning +seal +oily" and now I Google "I use a resmed n30i CPAP mask and it keeps losing its seal when I'm trying to sleep. My face gets kind of greasy when I have it on. I already clean it with CPAP wipes every day and run it under water to rinse, do I need a different kind of mask?"
A few days ago, the news about Hank Green using LLMs to find research papers dropped, and I saw his response on Reddit. I saw the way he talked about the dopamine hit he got from it. And something clicked.
I had to install a different OS launcher on my phone so I could change the search bar widget to Firefox search instead of Google, because that's the only way to ensure I don't get the ai overview when I Google something. It's actually really frustrating because I instinctively search in long rambling questions, which does not work well. But I'm having a hard time going back to how I was.
People who suffer from AI addiction are not idiots, we aren't moral failures, we aren't traitors. We are victims of a predatory system and we need support, not smug superiority aimed in our direction.
This is important to read. EVERY form of addiction is insidious, and you can't tell it's happening until it has its hooks deep into you, and this is just as true of AI addiction as heroin.
"I don't know how to feel about 154 people wanting to see furry Willy Wonka"
- Me
Send me to Mars with party supplies before next august 5th
No guys you don’t understand.
The soil testing equipment on Curiosity makes a buzzing noise and the pitch of the noise changes depending on what part of an experiment Curiosity is performing, this is the way Curiosity sings to itself.
So some of the finest minds currently alive decided to take incredibly expensive important scientific equipment and mess with it until they worked out how to move in just the right way to sing Happy Birthday, then someone made a cake on Curiosity’s birthday and took it into Mission control so that a room full of brilliant scientists and engineers could throw a birthday party for a non-autonomous robot 225 million kilometres away and listen to it sing the first ever song sung on Mars*, which was Happy Birthday.
This isn’t a sad story, this a happy story about the ridiculousness of humans and the way we love things. We built a little robot and called it Curiosity and flung it into the star to go and explore places we can’t get to because it’s name is in our nature and then just because we could, we taught it how to sing.
That’s not sad, that’s awesome.
*this is different from the first song ever played on mars (Reach For The Stars by Will.I.Am) which happened the year before, singing is different from playing
This is humanity
Happy Birthday, Curiousity.
Happy birthday, Curiosity.
Happy birthday, Curiosity.
Happy birthday, Curiosity!
Happy birthday, Curiosity!💕
Happy Birthday, Curiosity
The rover is still operational, and as of August 4, 2026, Curiosity has been active on Mars for 4974 sols (5111 total days; 13 years, 363 days) since its landing (see current status). Via Wikipedia
Hope it's okay to share some quotes from the transcription of this interview:
SM: Why would they do that as a favor to the president, do you think? Why do you think Trump would see that as an assist for him? AH: Because the president, you know, tweeted directly about us. Our case is the first case in United States history where any defendant has been successfully tried and convicted as part of a, like, an antifa-related thing, right? The Justice Department said, “This is the first time we have put antifa behind bars,” basically. But not in those exact words, right? But this is a part of the president’s agenda, you know, to create this narrative of left-wing terrorism, you know, basically in order to be able to prosecute political dissent against him. So I think that, like, if the Fifth Circuit were to overturn this case, which is the first of hundreds, right? The Justice Department has tried to go after, you know, people from Stop Cop City, you know, people from Minnesota and the George Floyd rebellions, and say like, “These people are antifa,” and hundreds of such cases have been shut down. Ours is the first such case to have made it all the way to conviction and sentencing, and that’s because of the fact that they were able to get such a conservative judge, such a conservative prosecutor, and have it tried in such a conservative district, right? In other jurisdictions, this would have been thrown out as a matter of law, but it’s thanks to the fixing of Mark Pittman and the pressure that the prosecutor Sean Smith’s superiors put on him to take this case all the way to trial, that that is what happened and I am here today.
And:
SM: What has this been like for you from a mental perspective? How has it affected your state of mind? Like I can’t imagine this has been easy, and through this interview to me, you’ve come across as kind of chill. AH: You know, I’m a pretty spiritual person, pretty philosophical person. When I am in a situation where no action is likely to lead to an acceptable outcome, I take no action. And to a certain extent, I do not believe in 50 years. I don’t. Maybe I’m in denial but I still kind of don’t believe that I’m actually going to serve out this whole sentence and I think there’s a little reason for optimism in that regard. There is a big movement of support for a political pardon for us from the next Democratic president of the United States. My mother told me that my father said that the next time a Democratic president is in office, he’s going to write him a letter to ask for a pardon for me. And that was the first positive interaction that I’ve had with my dad in five years. And when I heard that, I just burst into tears and, like, just became hysterical for five minutes because it was just the perfection of the absurdity of the time to me. My arch-conservative father, who I can’t really stand to be in the same room as right now because of his transphobia, that he would do this thing, right, like appeal to a Democratic president on my behalf. And it really shows this bipartisan sentiment that this is obviously unjust, this is obviously political. You know, if this arch-conservative and I can find common ground over the belief that this is a political persecution, I think that there’s a very strong chance for some future good thing to come our way out of that.
And:
SM: Is there anything else I didn’t ask you that you want to get out, that you wanna say in this context? Obviously, people will see this and I know you have limited connection to the outside world. AH: I would say the same thing that I’ve said before, which is: Be brave. We’ve been accused of being terrorists, but terror is the power that this administration wants to ply in order to keep people quiet, in order to keep people content. Fear of incarceration, fear of homelessness, you know, it’s this fear, this fear that we’re going to lose our privileges, that we are going to use our comfort, that keeps people docile, keeps people from speaking the truth. Don’t be afraid.
Reminder that there is some easily accessible info available about Mark Pittman, the “judge” who denied the Prairieland defendants the right to a fair trial. I can’t confirm if it’s up to date
hate when people say something along the lines of "we must get along so well because you are/i am [some astrological sign]" to me. what are you fucking talking about. we get along because im fucking nice. a decision which i regret when you say shit like that
this post is a good rent lowering gunshot. in case anyone needs one of those
just watched a star trek episode about a planet that relied so heavily on it's computer system that they all forgot the basics of their own knowledge. and that allowed them to miss the fact that they were being posioned with radiation and nearly ending their civilization. because they couldn't use their own knowledge to figure things out. i bring this up for no reason in particular
So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.
Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?
The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!
This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.
Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:
- Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or
- Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.
The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.
The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).
Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.
So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.
can ppl pls reblog this version
Serbian here living in Belgrade! This is all true and I've actually seen some of these around the city a few times. They're amazing at what they do and really cool to watch up close because you can see pretty swirling inside them. It's not only functional but aesthetically pretty nice as well!
Tl;dr, the best time to set up an algae tank is now
Also, I'd really love if the "smarter than everyone else" attitude the internet has about new stuff could just die already.
- There's a reason people are building these algae tanks beyond "replacing trees."
- There's a reason scientists do "water is wet" studies that prove something you or your community already knew anecdotally.
- There's a reason people choose to live or eat or work or play or worship in a way that you personally don't find appealing.
How about we cut each other some slack and be curious and ask questions instead of assuming we know better? That sure would be nice.
Eternal Sloptember
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
I'm sure that working in social media – dealing with people as mass statistical abstractions – is a cognitohazard, the sort of thing that could make anyone a little solipsistic, convinced that everyone else is a kind of stimulus-responding automaton lacking the interiority that you yourself experience.
But when it comes to Mark Zuckerberg, I'm increasingly convinced that he didn't acquire his worldview through the self-inflicted brain damage of his long exposure to the back-end of a vast social media system. I think the causal arrow points in the other direction: I think that Zuck founded Facebook because he doesn't really believe that other people are truly real, at least not as real as he is.
We see this in Facebook's very earliest days, as we see it today, as we see it at every critical juncture in Facebook and Zuckerberg's history.
Consider Facebook's origins, founded by a young Zuckerberg in his dorm as a means to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of his fellow Harvard undergrads:
The boy Zuck was delighted and surprised that so many of his fellow students entrusted him with their data but even then, he had no inkling as to why they would do so. Privately, he jeered at his users for trusting him, calling them "dumb fucks":
Zuck has since prosecuted history's most ruthless war on privacy, a surveillance campaign that would put the Stasi to shame and make Orwell scoff at the hacks butchering his work with over the top absurdities.
Zuck doesn't think you deserve any privacy, but boy does he ever value his own. This is a guy who bought the four houses surrounding his San Francisco home and left them empty in order to form a buffer zone:
When a single candid photo of Zuck and his family in their kitchen leaked (from Facebook!), Zuck, his lawyers, and his operatives treated it as a three-alarm fire:
Zuckerberg's acquired a vast Hawaiian acreage and left most of it undeveloped, fenced off and patrolled by guards to prevent anyone from catching a glimpse of his private life. In order to acquire this acreage, Zuck exploited a dirty legal tactic called "heirs property," which leverages the informal basis of indigenous land claims by locating a single person with a colorable claim to their distant relatives' territory in order to force an auction of the ancestral land:
If Zuck thought other people are as real as he is, he wouldn't spy on them in ways he himself could never tolerate. He certainly wouldn't pay fancy white-shoe lawyers to steal their land out from under them. At heart, Zuck is a billionaire solipsist to beat all other examples of the form – a billionaire social media solipsist who sees others as manipulable collections of statistical abstractions, and not as people at all:
When Zuck is forcibly reminded that other people do indeed exist, he takes it very badly. He's insisted that Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former FB exec turned whistleblower, must pay him $111,000,000 as punishment for her excellent tell-all memoir Careless People. His lawyers say that Wynn-Williams violates the non-disclosure and non-disparagement "agreement" of her old Facebook employment contract merely by standing motionless and silent for an hour on-stage:
Once you realize that Zuck doesn't really think other people exist, "the metaverse" starts to make a lot more sense. Why would Zuck light $61b on fire in a bet that we will all stand still while he converts us and everyone we love into legless, sexless, low-polygon, heavily surveilled cartoon characters that he imprisons in a virtual world he stole from a 25 year old satirical dystopian cyberpunk novel? It's easy to understand if we're all non-player characters – if that's true, then the metaverse is surely our native habitat.
For Zuck, people aren't co-equals with needs that are as real and important as his own. For Zuck, people are problems to be solved. He embodies Terry Pratchett's maxim (voiced by Granny Weatherwax) that "sin is when you treat people like things."
Nowhere is this sin more on display than in Zuck's relationship to the social connections that bind together the users of his platforms. Zuck has benefited enormously from the fact that you love your friends more than you hate him, but (because hell is other people), you can't all agree on when to leave and where to go next, so you stay put on Facebook and Instagram:
For Zuck, the fact that you and your friends have trapped one another in a mutual hostage-taking is maddening, because those friends who've tied you to his platform refuse to organize their social contact with you to "maximize your engagement" with Facebook and Insta, which would let him maximize the number of ads he shows you. Rather, these friends just want to be your friends, which means that they don't want to get into stupid endless fights to keep you replying or stage little entertaining skits to keep you scrolling.
Someone will say "as a queer person in the heart of empire, my life is in danger every day" and you'll find out they're a developer for Amazon and live in San Francisco or Seattle or some shit, and then you'll meet a trans girl from Alva, OK who's like "Yeah, things are pretty good. AutoZone moved me to full-time."
Someone in a queer group in my current blue city said that they didn't like expressions of solidarity because it "diluted their oppression".
#That's what I mean when I say the foundation of feminism and queer community should not fixate on victimhood #Once you feel that our suffering is our shared experience an not our love then our suffering becomes vital to the culture #I don't want a culture where suffering is vital #I want a culture where love is celebrated #The suffering is an imposition not a prerequisite #And yeah I sure fucking hope our oppression is diluted bitch you WANT us freebasing the uncut shit???
"adventurers are actually more scared of you than you are of them"
"he's literally just doing what an adventurer is supposed to do"
"do you think they think of us as Giant Adventurers?"
"do you know how many other creatures would be infesting our cave if there were no adventurers?"
"how would you like it if you were bumbling along on your little adventurer day, and some giant dragon thing squished you for the crime of being yourself?"
"y'know, so many dragons are grossed out by them, but i think they're fascinating! Did you know some adventurers form symbiotic relationships with small monsters? Some of them even do a simplified form of spellcraft! Like, with actual magic and everything!"
"Of course they are swarming your cave, you dolt! You captured a juvenile queen and took it home with you, what did you expect!?"