a garden, and other ramblings

Literally every neurodivergent person when somebody mentions their interest.

This has been going around my work and friend group on other platforms, and I thought it deserved a place here too.

#it’s a good limitus test. take out the specifics of drinking or not drinking alcohol vs owning a dog or not #it’s basically 1) would you spend an evening laughing and enjoying conversation with someone and walking away like ‘that was good.’ #and 2) do you trust this person has a basic level of willingness and ability to care for others and repay your trusting in them? #it’s just getting you to tap into the unconscious micro-tells our brains collect about other people #which are by far the most accurate assessment tools we have to judge peoples’ characters on the fly and in general (via purplehawke)

Shoutout to that time someone posted this on one of my servers and multiple people were going “this is exclusionary to people who don’t drink/are allergic to dogs, also it is ableist to expect me to understand the concept of an analogy”

Like yes ok I would definitely have neither 2 beers with you nor leave a puppy with any of you

My wife and I have a little game we play called "Speaking From Ignorance."

To play Speaking From Ignorance, all you need is a phone with a voice recorder, and another person who knows considerably more or considerably less about a topic than you do. The topic can be anything: from "how to bake a quiche" to "what happens in the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies" to "who is Florence Pugh" to "how does the traveling salesman problem work." All that matters is that one of you has a firm grasp on the material, and one of you absolutely the fuck does not.

Then the person who knows about the topic turns on the recorder, and says to the person who knows barely anything: "Hey - tell me everything you think you know about [X]."

The speaker is then not allowed to ask any questions. Nor is the expert allowed to volunteer any information. The expert is allowed to pipe up with a faintly incredulous "Oh--really? Do you--do you think so?" from time to time, but for the most part, the expert's job is just to sit there and make encouraging sounds while the speaker digs their own grave.

This is never not funny.

The reason you record it is because, very often, the first thing the speaker wants to do after finishing the recording is find out how you actually make a quiche, or whatever. Then you both get to go back and listen to how wrong they were.

We have a small library now of Speaking From Ignorance recordings, and I'm going to be listening to them until I'm eighty.

I just realized that many many people have jobs

Rb with your job, wtf do you people do while offline???

if i’m ever brutally murdered and everyone feels like they need to do something productive in my memory, all i want is for you to pass legislation banning LED headlights in my name. regardless of how irrelevant it is to my murder. it’s relevant to my heart.

I’m at a sociology conference and just attended a memorial for one of the giants of our field, and one of the panelists told this story…he was at a meeting with this guy, who he got his PhD under and had a long standing relationship with, and he was bemoaning the current state of the world, and he asked this old professor, “how can you be so optimistic? I can’t ever be anything but a pessimist.”

and the old professor said, “you little fucker, I’m going to make a statement and then I’m going to take you out to the parking lot and beat your ass. What good does your pessimism do?”

and that really struck me. not the least because I also knew this old professor and he very rarely swore, so I know this was something he was really worked up about. what good does your pessimism do? What GOOD does your pessimism DO. I’ll be thinking about that for awhile.

- Lois McMaster Bujold, Borders of Infinity (1989)

"It helps me be prepared!"

As a recovered pessimist raised by a horrendously toxic pessimist: No, it doesn't.

Foresight and practicality are completely separate qualities that can exist without pessimism. You can acknowledge the worst that might happen and prepare for it without having a completely negative worldview.

And pessimism can absolutely exist without those qualities. Which is a miserable way to live.

If you see someone with a really bad fandom take, I’m begging you to open your emails and write a strongly worded missive to your local government official about something bad happening in your community or country.

If you’re in Canada you could email a rep about concerns about Elon musk interfering in our next federal election.

If you’re in the US the list is endless.

If you’re in the UK you could email about trans health care.

If you’re in Australia, what about dental care in Medicare?

If you’re in Europe, look into some EU initiatives of particular concern. Perhaps something to do with nature and biodiversity? Idk

Just today I emailed my local mla about coal mining in the Rocky Mountains and tomorrow I’m going to pick something else and do it again

Don’t get me wrong I love a fandom wank as much as anyone but perhaps you can take an iota of the energy you’re spending on that and put it towards making sure your elected representatives hear from you on a regular basis

Honestly this seems like a legit mental health emotional de-escalation strategy. New grounding technique just dropped and it's going to revolutionize the world at the rate I see bad takes as a regular tag scroller

very obvious that carnivorous plants live in the wild but none of my times seeing carnivorous plants in various commercial and enthusiast settings had prepared me for almost stepping on them at [redacted southeastern US location] i got to go to on the conference plant field trip last weekend. they were actually eating flies and stuff next to like mud and grass and some sand. sundews and pitcher plants there too. just in the bushes. crazy stuff out there folks

pov you're a fly or other suitable creature and you're approaching the mundane perennial grass patch that kills you instantly. no thoughts and why would you have any

I can’t get into it without outing myself and my job, but damn I wish people could figure out how to break the rules on their own. If you involve me, if you tell me you’re going to violate a contract, I am required to do something. I’m not a cop! I’m not a narc! You could simply not tell me this shit! I am begging you to not tell me! Don’t send me an email to my work address that says “I’m going to violate our contract, how would you suggest I do it?” Well first things first don’t fucking tell me

Like one time I was working at the bar years before weed was legal. The owner hated pot and pot smokers. And this regular was standing in front of the front door smoking his little glass pipe

“Hey man, go around the corner”

“Naw it’s cool”

“It’s really not. (The owner) will ban you if he sees you doing this in front of his bar like an idiot”

“He won’t see me”

“Yeah but I see you. And I’m asking you to go around the corner so you’re not right in front of the fucking bar”

“It’s just weed. Are you scared of weed?”

“Listen you stupid hippie I use drugs that would blow your burnout mind. I don’t give a shit about weed. But do not fucking involve me, do not involve the bar. Just take seven steps to the corner and smoke your heart out”

“Naw man it’s cool”

Then the owner came outside and blew his fucking stack and the guy was barred for life. And then the owner got mad at me for not running to him and telling him hippie Dave was burning it down in front of the bar. I’m just begging you to not involve me in your poorly thought-out crimes in a way that will get us both in serious trouble. I am begging you

Bringing this back in a general way to remind people who might be considering breaking rules that maybe not telling strangers you are about to break some rules might be wise. Because you do not know where that information is going to end up

Like, if you have thought about it and decided a rule or law is unethical, immoral, stupid, or otherwise wrong, and you're gonna break it, don't advertise that fact.

Unless you are on-purpose advertising that fact as a political act to get the rule/law changed- in which case, tell the largest group of people you can, not a random person nearby or a singular cop.

In neither case should you be ignoring people who are gently trying to keep you out of trouble.

I can’t get into it without outing myself and my job, but damn I wish people could figure out how to break the rules on their own. If you involve me, if you tell me you’re going to violate a contract, I am required to do something. I’m not a cop! I’m not a narc! You could simply not tell me this shit! I am begging you to not tell me! Don’t send me an email to my work address that says “I’m going to violate our contract, how would you suggest I do it?” Well first things first don’t fucking tell me

Like one time I was working at the bar years before weed was legal. The owner hated pot and pot smokers. And this regular was standing in front of the front door smoking his little glass pipe

“Hey man, go around the corner”

“Naw it’s cool”

“It’s really not. (The owner) will ban you if he sees you doing this in front of his bar like an idiot”

“He won’t see me”

“Yeah but I see you. And I’m asking you to go around the corner so you’re not right in front of the fucking bar”

“It’s just weed. Are you scared of weed?”

“Listen you stupid hippie I use drugs that would blow your burnout mind. I don’t give a shit about weed. But do not fucking involve me, do not involve the bar. Just take seven steps to the corner and smoke your heart out”

“Naw man it’s cool”

Then the owner came outside and blew his fucking stack and the guy was barred for life. And then the owner got mad at me for not running to him and telling him hippie Dave was burning it down in front of the bar. I’m just begging you to not involve me in your poorly thought-out crimes in a way that will get us both in serious trouble. I am begging you

Bringing this back in a general way to remind people who might be considering breaking rules that maybe not telling strangers you are about to break some rules might be wise. Because you do not know where that information is going to end up

Once you start thinking about humans as a species in a biome, it affects your entire way of looking at normal things.

The other day I referred to female morning joggers as an 'indicator species' in that if you see women jogging in the dark it means that the environment provides migration pathways (sidewalks, clear signs) and doesn't have any known predators of female morning joggers (guy with knife, bear, BigTruck, male morning joggers).

Though, I think that people consider framing humans as animals reacting to their environment as rude.

I should start doing that more.

Im thinking about mermaids and want to know other peoples thoughts

If you've seen my mermaid art you know my opinion on this, but i wanna see if i'm in the minority or majority here :3

You can tell a lot about the health of a civilization by their warning signs. Places with a lot of dumb folks will have very broad, very dumb warnings in public. "No feeding the birds." "Stop swimming in this drainage pond." That kind of thing.

Advanced civilizations have very precise signs. They've covered the bases of their regular, run-of-the-mill idiots, and now they're working hard to cover that other end of the bell curve: the talented idiot. When I was in Germany last time, there was a big warning sign that consisted of a 76-letter-long word that means "stop bothering this particular goose, Sven." I don't know who Sven was, but the goose looked pretty calm. It worked.

Now, I have a secret to tell you. You can just make your own signs. There's no law against it, except perhaps "littering," and the municipal sign factory doesn't have very good security. If you show up there past close and put in the door code that you shoulder-surfed off one of the employees returning from lunch a week prior, you have all night to fuck around with their sign-printing machine, making the most official-looking placards you can think of.

Is this wrong? I don't think so. It's a public space, and being able to put up an aluminum sign that says wacky crank shit is your right. For instance, just last week, I banned pickup trucks from parking by the playground. The cops figured out something was going on, because they didn't get any calls for toddlers getting backed over for a couple of days and sent a patrol truck to investigate. Took my sign right down.

What I discovered after that is that nobody keeps records of what signs are supposed to be there. Why would anyone put up a sign for no reason? They cost money, after all. The city is now suing the shit out of that officer for stealing the "no trucks" sign, thanks to an anonymous tipster who called in the theft. Guy wearing a reflective vest came by and put like four more of them up after the lawsuit made the news, just out of spite. I'm not entirely sure if he's actually a city worker; we ran into each other at 3am at the sign factory and just grunted. He was working on some really crazy signs about not feeding a particular swan. Probably German.

It's always, "ew, you smoke? You should quit. Have you tried patches and gum?" and never "oh, you smoke? Do you need help organizing the working class against capitalism and the American healthcare system, so that you can eventually have access to proper mental and physical healthcare instead of being forced to rely on nicotine and weed to sand the edges off your disabled brain and get some relief for your chronic pain? In the meantime, here's a light. Sorry you have to self-medicate in our fucked-up society."

Anyway, join a union.

Incredible how Americans are so brainwashed by capitalist realism that a large contingent out our leftists genuinely believe government regulation isn’t physically possible.

There was a time, not that long ago, when regular savings accounts paid you a whole-number-percentage of interest.

There was a time when the federal government forced auto makers to stop putting taillights in bumpers because they got damaged too easily.

There was a time when Chicago Midway Airport wasn’t 85% one god damn airline.

We could have this kind of world again we just have to kill the Ghost of Ronald Reagan.

A fun aside about this post: I made the 85% number up off the cuff as a hyperbole, but looked it up afterwards and found that, at the time, the number was something like 94%