they are sending their familiars and their lab assistants to fight each other in the forests and in the parking lots

What are those cool spiky feathers?? (Sorry I know nothing about these cool gals!)

You've been!! BAMBOOZLED!!

Those are actually not spiky feathers at all! They sure do look like it, though, and that's likely the point- if I were a raptor looking down upon a pincushion, I would think twice about grabbing it with my bare feet.

However, it's a ruse! Just a marking on a feather

Pretty neat, yeah?

Operation Gay Spite has claimed its first straight relationship! I’m not sure I’ve ever been prouder of anything in my life!

If making lunch broke them up it was never a good one in the first place

He gets it.

I’m genuinely curious how the lunches caused the breakup to happen, and I fully support the Gay Spite lunches

Literally since my bf saw this he’s started doing other things to model relationship goals for other guys. He’s always been lovely to me, but he’s made more of a point to show off the things we do for each other and raise people’s standards. He told his friend that we make dinner for each other every night and that guy went home and made his gf enchiladas. He posted about doing my laundry while I was at work (he does stuff like that all the time but usually isn’t public about it) and 2 other guys cleaned stuff up before their ladies came home.

Basically what I’m saying is that @solarpunkarchivist has started a chain reaction of straight people doing better and setting better examples and we appreciate it.

My dad has always sung to my mom on their birthday*, their anniversay, and the winter solstice because that’s her least favorite day of the year. He did this well before they got married, and he kept doing it after they started working in the same office building, walking over to her cubicle a few times a year with a dozen roses and singing a love song from broadway or an operetta. More often, he came over with a hot takeout lunch, or fresh salad or a dessert and would double-check who was picking me up today and what Mom wanted him to make for dinner if he was getting home first.

Some men gave him shit about doing that, bitching and moaning about “Maaaaaan you’re raising the bar!” or “Isn’t picking up the kids your wife’s job?” and so on.

But more men- many more men- came to him for advice. “Where did you learn to sing?” “My wife’s allergic to flowers and doesn’t like chocolate. What should I get her for her birthday?” “How did you get time off to pick up your kids early?” “I wanna do something nice for our anniversary, but it’s right before tax day and I never remember and I feel like an ass. How do you remember?” Net, he thinks setting a good example like that ended two relationships and saved five.

Setting a good example is a good idea to inspire people to realize they deserve better, but even better is that there are lots of people out there who want to do better and will glady take notes from you.

*they have the same birthday 4 years apart.

Transparent!

just in case you didn't click through, this is an appox. $80,000 mouse

I learned a new concept

Graceful degradation is the ability of a computer, machine, electronic system or network to maintain limited functionality even when a large portion of it has been destroyed or rendered inoperative. The purpose of graceful degradation is to prevent catastrophic failure. (Tech Target, first result on the search engine)

Literal opposite of planned obsolescence. I love you graceful degradation.

Oh neat the first time I heard of the concept the guy described it to me as "catastrophic functionality".

He was talking about it in the context of designing robots that would go in and stop nuclear reactor meltdowns, something that would 100% destroy the robot, but they would be designed to keep functioning and fighting the meltdown for as long as possible. He had some designs where over 80% of the robot has died and it was functionally dragging its corpse around by its one working arm because one more minute of functionality might save thousands.

I've been having a few bad years mental health wise, and thinking about those robots a lot .

This is also why NASA missions usually keep going so long after schedule. They are *masters* of graceful degradation, able to keep machines limping along on minimal power and after sustaining heavy damage