kengr | Network

Posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries

https://www.metafilter.com/213472/Helping-big-personality-marsupial-recover-after-bushfires

Helping big personality marsupial recover after bushfires left them homeless. Artificial habitats are giving the Kangaroo Island dunnart a chance at recovery, after bushfires left them largely homeless.

https://www.metafilter.com/213472/Helping-big-personality-marsupial-recover-after-bushfires

hightown_funk posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that the poster has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

metafilter_feed

Posted by JHarris

https://www.metafilter.com/213471/Giving-facists-power-in-the-name-of-protecting-children

These age verification laws aren't about keeping kids off social media, they're about surveillance, control, and locking LGBT people out of public discourse. It's a fascist power play. Centering Children on Social Media as the argument for mandating IDs to use computers is a smokescreen, so that we're spending time arguing about how to best solve this very complicated problem, instead of talking about all the ways that this legislation will be used to facilitate the abuse of children and marginalized people.

From later in the thread: "[...]Anyone who sees a conversation about how age verification laws are going to cause widespread significant harm to lots of different groups of people and decides instead to talk about how social media is harmful to children is doing the work of disinformation spreading propagandists. They might not *be* disinformation spreading propagandists, they might have just been duped by disinformation spreading propagandists, but either way they are doing the *work* of disinformation spreading propagandists. This is a propaganda and PR technique that is in common use today. This is how it works: Person 1 makes a point that is harmful to the narrative the PR firm has been paid to protect. One or more accounts on the payroll of that PR firm, who usually just posts innocuous stuff but who *always* has an opinion on the topic of the day, chimes in with an indirectly related smokescreen argument, usually accompanied by an accusation or an emotional appeal. Person 1 then gets bogged down with that argument, tacitly approving that the two topics are in fact one topic. Lots of people then see the argument, and come to associate the smokescreen with the real issue. Some of them will be swayed specifically by the emotionally appeal ("think of the children") and some of them will genuinely believe in the smokescreen issue ("social media is bad for children") and accept that the smokescreen is important enough to justify accepting whatever the original post was arguing against. There are lots of these PR accounts floating around out there. They're sockpuppets. They look like real people, sometimes they *are* real people, but they're also sockpuppets. The end result of that is a bunch of people popping in to conversations about Age Verification laws to talk about separate and legitimately important issues as if those issues and Age Verification laws are the same thing. And some of those people might be paid PR Sockpuppets, but some of them are definitely real people who really care about the harm social media might have on children. And so we spend so much time talking about the nuance and potential solutions to this much more complicated problem that the real issue (these proposed Age Verification Laws are actually tools of fascist surveillance and control which will be used to suppress dissent and harm marginalized communities) gets lost." also (responding to someone): "'I'd rather give my 13 year old child a bottle of whiskey than access to Roblox' is a hell of a take, y'all. I'm not here to argue that Instagram or Roblox are good for kids (the opposite!) but 1) these arguments are still just providing cover to normalize laws that mandate sending government IDs to 3rd parties (like Peter Thiel) in order to use a computer or phone, which we have decided to allow politicians to call "age verification" 2) What the fuck? That's a hell of hot take. But! It's *exactly* the kind of hot take you'd get from a PR firm sock-puppet or propagandist who is trying to distract from the issue at hand. It provokes such a clear and immediate negative emotional response that it completely re-frames the conversation away from the very real threat of increased and increasingly inescapable mass surveillance and towards what is more harmful for kids!" Andrew Roach, a.k.a. ajroach42 (Mastodon, blog, website, newsletter) is an interesting figure, who among other things is responsible for New Ellijay TV, a real community television station in the mountains of north Georgia (US) with a strange and eclectic array of programming, much of it produced locally.

https://www.metafilter.com/213471/Giving-facists-power-in-the-name-of-protecting-children

sisterdivinium

I have things to answer here and elsewhere, I know, and that alone should stop me from finding even More Things To Do but, alas, I am not immune to Things. So.

I thought I'd pimp Sapphic Summer 2026 since it's The Thing of the moment (well, you know, apart from yet another

femslashfete fic that ended up far too long to be posted on the week its prompt came up and which shall show up at an amnesty at some point... As well as the second and final alternative ending to Under this roof which, yes, I still need to type and post in the not so distant future... *Sigh*. See! Things!! Lots of them!!!) :)

Current Music: Pulse/Surreal - Lantlôs

cosmolinguist

Things I wanted to get done today that I didn't do:

write that review of the gender-affirming sex toy for a sex blog
apply for that job

metafilter_feed

Posted by chavenet

https://www.metafilter.com/213470/Its-OK-if-youre-not-ready-Maybe-one-day-you-will-be

My day job is at a rural branch of a public library, and we have a Pride display. Yesterday I was at the desk when a man came in. Fifties, maybe, or sixties. Plaid shirt, mesh trucker cap, suspenders. He went up to the display and just stood there for a long moment. Then he came up to the desk. Not gonna lie, I braced. I mentally ran through the spiel I've prepared for when someone complains about a display. Especially a Pride display. It doesn't happen often, but it happens enough. Freedom to read. Something in the collection for everyone. Here's my supervisor's card.

https://www.metafilter.com/213470/Its-OK-if-youre-not-ready-Maybe-one-day-you-will-be

prisca posting in

fic_promptly

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

sovay

I have spent the majority of my day in the pursuit of bureaucracy, which is obfuscating and elusive and in our supposedly frictionless digital age requires multiple rounds of phone tag, and am seriously tempted to run screaming into the afternoon. I hadn't known there was a documentary about Pete and Toshi Seeger and the Clearwater, but it's playing the Somerville in July. Recent fruits of college radio include Violet Grohl's "Bug in the Cake" (2026), the Japanese House's "Boyhood" (2023) and Noah Kahan's "Doors" (2026), which the DJ at WERS declared would make her cry all summer as she drove around Boston, unless she'd actually just been looking at the price of gas. I took a picture of myself yesterday with the late-blooming dogwood in my mother's yard.

Current Music: Nxdia, "Nothing at All"

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.

This Week's Question: What kinds of organizers do you like to hold your arts and crafts supplies?

If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

metafilter_feed

Posted by KaizenSoze

https://www.metafilter.com/213469/PFAS-are-a-problem-micro-plastics-maybe-not-so-much

A bombshell': doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body

It appears that much of the research on micro plastics has a false positive issue

Previous on the Blue

Good general summary if you would rather watch a video: YouTube video discussion on micro plastics and PFASs: Claims starting from 2019 about the amount of micro plastics are people are consuming and that it is showing up in all parts of the body including the brain: Daily Consumption: No Plastic In Nature: Assessing Plastic Ingestion from Nature to People We consume up to a credit card's worth of plastic *every* week Estimation of the mass of microplastics ingested – A pivotal first step towards human health risk assessment Accumulation in the body: Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains Levels of microplastics in human brains may be rapidly rising, study suggests Worries about false positives starting in 2025: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics, U-M study reveals Avoiding and reducing microplastic false positives from dry glove contact Assessing the Efficacy of Pyrolysis–Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry for Nanoplastic and Microplastic Analysis in Human Blood PFAS still appear to be an issue, so it's not all good news: Our Current Understanding of the Human Health and Environmental Risks of PFAS TLDR: A common material used in Nitrile and latex gloves, called Stearates, has been contaminating research on the amount of micro plastics in nature. Also, the most common test used for detecting polyethylene aka plastic can be faulty due to human fat generating false positives. Caveat: The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. More research is needed.

https://www.metafilter.com/213469/PFAS-are-a-problem-micro-plastics-maybe-not-so-much

metafilter_feed

Posted by storybored

https://www.metafilter.com/213468/Strait-of-Hormuz-the-global-impact

The Cost of Closing the Strait of Hormuz. "Most critically for food security, the chemicals flowing through Hormuz are essential inputs to global food production—a vulnerability that standard analyses of chokepoint risk consistently overlook. Qatar and Iran are among the world's largest exporters of urea, the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer. The Gulf's cheap natural gas feeds the Haber-Bosch process that converts methane into ammonia and then into the granular fertilizer that sustains crop yields for billions of people."

Also: Helium Supply Shock and Semiconductor Volatility in the Context of the Iran War.

https://www.metafilter.com/213468/Strait-of-Hormuz-the-global-impact

reeby10 posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

icon_uk posting in

scans_daily

Is this a self indulgent post? Absolutely!

Is it one I regret? Absolutely not!

( New Marvel Legend figure confirmed )

metafilter_feed

Posted by Rash

https://www.metafilter.com/213467/Author-of-new-Weimar-book-says-stop-comparing-now-to-then

WaPo op-ed by Katja Hoyer, author of the new Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, published this week. Using Trump-Hitler and Weimar analogies is bad politics.
(archive link)

References to Weimar and Nazi Germany are usually intended to warn...consider the German left-wing activists who turned up at a conference of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Saturday, adding a swastika made out of vegan mince to the breakfast buffet. Such words and gestures are intended to send a clear moral message: This policy or party is reminiscent of the Nazis, and therefore you mustn't support it. The problem is that the message doesn't work. Trump-Hitler comparisons were already popular before 2016 and didn't deter American voters from making him president twice. (Before Trump, left-wing critics likened President George W. Bush to Hitler; Bush served two terms.) In Germany, the AfD is now the most popular party, according to all major surveys. Nowhere in the West does the Nazi label kill a political career. A Nazi tattoo did not make Graham Platner a Democratic Party pariah.

https://www.metafilter.com/213467/Author-of-new-Weimar-book-says-stop-comparing-now-to-then

james_davis_nicoll

If so, would anyone like to be me for the purposes of accepting the Hugo should I win?

brerrabbit posting in

scans_daily

( Read more... )

ranunculus

The solar project is plodding along. We have the inside unit installed, with the refrigerant lines through the wall and outside. Figured out the rack mounts, mostly. The next big thing will be to secure the racks so they can't be blown away. Solar panels are just big sails in the wind! The pad for the outside unit has been re-constructed to be a bit closer to the lines coming out of the house. I have identified breakers to provide "shore power" but new electrical will be the last thing we do.
Weedwhacked the last of the yard (in a super steep area where the regular mower can't go), plus two more short fence lines. The fences are both for Firefly's benefit. One of those two fences will solve a longstanding problem with power distribution . Can't imagine why I didn't think of it long ago. Basically electric fence tape is fabulous stuff, good visibility and pretty darn tough. However the wires in it are teeny, tiny and they eventually break, rust out or burn up. Yes they do burn if the wire gets stretched. In almost all my fences there is both wire and tape. The tape is only for visibility, the wire does the real work. Around the house I've thrown up tape fences "temporarily". They have now been "temporary" for some years. Many of them are starting to fail, by which I mean that they have stopped actually conducting electricity all the way to the end of the fence. Today's solution will build a slightly more permanent fence -with- wire and tape that should help with this problem.

reeby10 posting in

fandom_on_dw

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

metafilter_feed

Posted by Lorc

https://www.metafilter.com/213466/Polychromatic-Cloaks-and-Snooty-Unicorns

Snarlbear is a complete fantasy adventure comic by Natalie Riess. Daisy falls into a rainbow dimension full of monsters that need punching. It's colourful, energetic, well-panelled and zippily paced.

A pdf download of her Swan lake comic is available free here (Patreon link, but a non-member post). Her commercial comics work includes the adaptation of Erin Hunter's Warrior Cats series.

https://www.metafilter.com/213466/Polychromatic-Cloaks-and-Snooty-Unicorns