This is from 2020, but it definitely still applies.

I 100% agree that we should do this anyway

Hey there Tumblr. Trans kids in England are under threat. and no one is talking about it. so I need you to be noisy. The government is currently proposing “guidance” that would force teachers to out students who are questioning their gender. (here's an article in The Gardian about it)

I don't think I need to tell you how terrible this is. How it is ultimately going to cause so much harm to so many kids. And not just trans pupils. Just gender-non conforming students who don't fit stereotypes. Because this guidance isn't just about students who've come out to teachers. It's anyone they suspect to be questioning their gender.

And the worst part is. I can barely find anyone talking about it. I think there was an Instagram post I saw going around a little while ago, but even then... I was talking to some trans adults at a pride event a few weeks ago and they didn't even know this shit is happening to us. I don't know what to do. I feel completely powerless. And making a stupid Tumblr post is the only think I can think of. Because if people don't know this stuff is happening, there's no way we can stop it.

I think the guidance is due to come out next week, although they keep on saying things like that and then nothing happens, so who knows.

And to any others trans kids in England (or anywhere, really) right now. Good luck. I see you. We will stick together and we can make it through this

I think the English should stop copying us (the United States) we’re doing it wrong you don’t have to follow us

If there was a way to run SUPER MEGA AD BLOCKER on this website I fucking would

“Please oh please open up your computer to a porn virus! If you don’t you’re evil!”

Freeloader Comin’ through!

We didn’t start this war internet users have with ads - We might have moaned about banner ads, but it was only when they started making noises when we might be listening to music or a podcast or whatever, causing two sound sorces at once, that we started trying to block ads universally rather than just a specific type of ad (pop ups).

And since then ads have gotten worse - Actual malware rather than merely breaking one of the fundamental sins of web design - though shalt not autoplay anything with sound. And the more aggressive a website is with ‘please turn off adblock’ the less I trust it to bother to vet ads and advertisers to make sure they’re not installing malware.

Not to mention that the idea that avoiding ads is “freeloading” is hilariously backward. Advertisement is a transaction between the platform and the advertiser, the user has no obligation to provide the views/clicks the platform has promised. Using an adblocker isn’t freeloading in the same way that leaving the room to get a snack during a commercial break isn’t cheating the tv network.

Ok y’all, I work as a web developer and I’m here to tell you that you are 100% right and that it’s shit. SO I’m going to tell you how to get around websites that block you from using their website if you’re using an adblocker. 

Every website uses a language called JavaScript; long story short it’s a website language that allows developers to do the crazy shit you see on websites. Now the easiest thing to do is to disable JavaScript to stop them from knowing you have an adblocker:

Oh no! I’m blocked from viewing the website. It would be a terrible shame if I were able to right click and select the “inspect” feature

Click the three dots in the top right and open the “Settings” Menu

And then scrolled down to “Debugger” and checked the “Disable Javascript Option”

And then just refreshed the page

Reblogging to save my life

saving a life

still thinking about wolf 21

[BEGIN IMAGE TRANSCRIPTION]

Twenty-one was “remarkably gentle” with the members of his pack, says Rick. Immediately after making a kill, he would often walk away to urinate or lie down and nap, allowing family members who’d had nothing to do with the hunt to eat their fill. 

One of Twenty-one’s favorite things was to wrestle with little pups. “And what he really loved to do,” Rick adds, “was to pretend to lose. He just got a huge kick out of it.” Here was this great big male wolf. And he’d let some little wolf jump on him and bite his fur. “He’d just fall on his back with his paws in the air,” Rick half-mimes. “And the triumphant-looking little one would be standing over him with his tail wagging.”

“The ability to pretend,” Rick adds, “shows that you understand how your actions are perceived by others. It indicates high intelligence. I’m sure the pups knew what was going on, but it was a way for them to learn how it feels to conquer something much bigger than you. And that kind of confidence is what wolves need every day of their hunting lives.”

In Twenty-one’s life, there was a particular male, a sort of roving Casanova, a continual annoyance. He was strikingly good-looking, had a big personality, and was always doing something interesting. “The single best word is ‘charisma,’” says Rick. “Female wolves were happy to mate with him. People loved him. His irresponsibility and infidelity – it didn’t matter.”

One day, Twenty-one discovered this Casanova among his daughters. Twenty-one ran in, caught him, and began biting and pinning him to the ground. Various pack members piled in, beating Casanova up.

“Casanova was also big,” Rick says, “but he was a bad fighter. Now he was totally overwhelmed and the pack was finally killing him. Suddenly Twenty-one steps back. Everything stops. The pack members are looking at Twenty-one as if saying, ‘Why has Dad stopped?’” The Casanova wolf jumped up and — as always in such situations — ran away. 

But Casanova kept causing problems for Twenty-one. Why didn’t Twenty-one just kill him so he wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore? It didn’t make sense — until years later.

Fast-forward to after Twenty-one’s death. Casanova briefly became the Druid pack’s alpha male. But he wasn’t effective, Rick recalls. He didn’t know what to do, “just not a leader personality.” and although it’s very rare for a younger brother to depose an older one, that’s what happened to him. Casanova didn’t mind; it meant he was free to wander and meet other females.

Eventually Casanova, along with several Druid males, met some females, and they all formed another pack. “With them,” Rick remembers, “he finally became the model of a responsible alpha male and a great father.” Meanwhile, the mighty Druids were ravaged and weakened by mange and diminished by interpack fighting; the last Druid was shot near Butte, Montana, in 2010. Casanova, though he’d been averse to fighting, died in a fight with a rival pack. But everyone in his pack remained uninjured — including grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Twenty-one.

Wolves can’t foresee such plot twists any more than people can. But evolution does. I’s calculus integrates long averages. By sparing the Casanova wolf, Twenty-one actually helped assure himself more surviving descendants. And in evolution, surviving descendants are the only currency that matters.

So in strictly survivalist terms, “should” a wolf let his rival go free? Is restraint an effective strategy for accumulating benefits? I think the answer is yes, if you can afford it, because sometimes your enemy today becomes, tomorrow, a vehicle for your legacy. What Rick saw play out over those years might be just the kinds of events that are the basis for magnanimity in wolves, and at the heart of mercy in men.

Early on, when Twenty-one was young and still living with his mother and adoptive father, one of their new pups was not acting normal. The other pups were a bit afraid of him and wouldn’t play with him. One day, Twenty-one brought back some food for the small pups, and after feeding them, he just stood there, looking around for something. Soon he started wagging his tail. “He’d been looking for the sickly little pup,” Rick says, “and finding him, he just went over to hang out with him for a while.”

Rick suddenly seems to be searching inside himself for something deeper he wants to express. Then he looks at me, saying simply, “Of all the stories I have about Twenty-one, that’s my favorite.” Strength impresses us. But what we remember is kindness.

The majority of wolves die violently. Despite a violent, eventful life even by wolf standards, Twenty-one distinguished himself to the very end: He was a black wolf who grayed with the years and became one of the few Yellowstone wolves to die of old age.

One June day when Twenty-one was 9 years old, his family was lying bedded down when an elk came by. Everyone jumped up to give chase. He jumped up, too, but just stood watching the action and then lay down again. Later, when the pack headed up toward the den site, Twenty-one crossed the valley in the opposite direction, traveling purposefully somewhere, alone.

Sometime later, a visitor who’d been way up high in the backcountry reported having seen something very unusual: a dead wolf. Rick got a horse and rode up to investigate.

The last day, it seems, Twenty-one knew his time had come. He used the last of his energy to go up to the top of a high mountain. In a favorite family rendezvous site, where he’d been with his pups year after year, amid high summer grass and mountain wildflowers, Twenty-one curled up in the shade of a big tree. And on his own terms, he went to sleep for the last time.

[END IMAGE TRANSCRIPTION]

the story above was taken from this article, and the whole thing is really worth a read.

https://theweek.com/articles/577618/what-animals-think

Common Dinosaur Mistakes

• you know the "bunny hands" pose everyone does to indicate t. rex? with the hands folded down, palms facing the chest? yeah. almost no dinosaurs could do that. it would break their wrists. only one unique group evolved to do that, which doesn't include any of the Jurassic Park dinosaurs. the term for this is "pronation" and actually the vast majority of land vertebrates can't do it. mammals can. mammals are weird.
• not a single dinosaur has claws on their fourth or fifth fingers. not a single one. not even if they're quadrupedal.
• most dinosaurs have very stiff tails and can't wiggle them around like a lizard tail. the tails were stiff for balance.
• the "tongue flick" thing that lizards do is a lizard thing. dinosaurs wouldn't have done that. they don't do that today (birds, birds don't do that)
• "nonavian" dinosaurs with feathered wings had them like birds. they covered the hands. and attached to the hands. stop giving Velociraptor hands. it had wings. and very big ones, too, based on Zhenyuanlong.
• dinosaurs with scales don't have lizard scales. lizard scales are a derived trait found only in lizards. they had scutes similar to those of living birds, but much smaller compared to body size, and often in crazy shapes and patterns. dinosaur scales are super weird tbh
• sauropods don't have elephant feet. they handled the problem of size in a much weirder way: instead of spreading out the weight, they turned their feet into columns. like pillars. some of the biggest species didn't have any fingers, their front limbs just. end. for maximum column support.
• dinosaurs were chonky. you could not see the bones like a silhouette under the skin. some might have been skinnier and some of the features of the bones would be somewhat like with skinny bird legs, but most of the time? no. so stop making the holes in their skulls visible on the outside like damn. jurassic park/world is the biggest offender for this one.
• the whole unique feature of dinosaurs is having their legs DIRECTLY under their bodies. they do not sprawl. I can't believe I have to say that, but I do.
• hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) front feet were hooves. like, seriously, hooves. not little flippers. not three fingered hands. hooves.

I reserve the right to add more to this post as I think of things.

other people can too, but just research before you do.

what a beautiful day to not be in high school

I will be like "I'm fine" and then another fucking event will occur

yeah baby im having raunchy visions of a naughty parallel world

-austin powers if he had shamanic farseeing abilities

"Your disability doesn't define you" Okay but what if it does? What if my disability is inherently entangled in who I am and how I experience my life? Would that dehumanize me in your eyes? Because then that's a you problem you shouldn't project onto me