ashermiss

[ashermiss]

you've all gotta stop acting like "overweight" is a gentle PC alternative for the word fat and not itself an assertion of the ontological wrongness of being large. Over What Weight Precisely

[ashermiss]

SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH | 1.05 - A Halloween Story

[ashermiss]

they hate me for my ardent refusal to accept cruelty as the status quo

[ashermiss]

If you don't really know anything about the history of stocks in the US and are trying to place this most recent movement in context, this might be a decent start:

https://www.morningstar.com/economy/what-weve-learned-150-years-stock-market-crashes

When you incorporate the effect of inflation, one dollar (in 1870 US dollars) invested in a hypothetical US stock market index in 1871 would have grown to $30,711 by the end of February 2025.

The substantial growth of that $1 highlights the enormous benefits of staying invested for the long term.

Still, it was far from a steady increase over that period. There were 19 market crashes along the way, with varying levels of severity. Some of the most severe market crashes have included:

The Great Depression, which began with the crash of 1929. This 79% stock market loss was the worst drop of the past 150 years.

Inflation, Vietnam, and Watergate, which began in early 1973 and ultimately led to a stock market decline of 51.9%. Factors that contributed to this bear market include civil unrest related to the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, in addition to high inflation from the OPEC oil embargo. This market downturn is particularly relevant to today’s environment, given issues like the recent inflation surge and the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars.

The Lost Decade, which included both the dot-com bubble burst and the Great Recession. Though the market began recovering after the dot-com bubble burst, it didn’t climb back to its previous level before the crash of 2007-09. It didn’t reach that level until May 2013—more than 12 years after the initial crash. This period, the second-worst drop of the past 150 years, ultimately included a stock market loss of 54%.

[ashermiss]

My car is getting serviced and this auto shop has a shop dog and he's ridiculous. Look at this guy. This is a grown ass man.

[ashermiss]

The US literally invented the playbook by invading Iraq 2 decades ago and keeping it under occupation for nearly a decade after that (and it still is under occupation really, what with US troops still strewn throughout the country)—and we still have people thinking that their every pro-Israeli move isn’t made with the very intention of killing Arabs, as they historically have in the past. Get serious.

[ashermiss]

To anyone who follows me, I don't care about nor trust Colossal Biosciences anymore (The people behind the "Wooly Mice"). They have proven themselves to be headline-chasing grifters after this latest stunt. They are claiming to have de-extincted *Aenocyon dirus*, aka the Dire Wolf, by editing just 20 genes from the the DNA of a Grey Wolf (*Canis lupus*) to make this thing:

If it wasn't clear from their scientific names, Grey Wolves and Dire Wolves aren't remotely related to one another aside from being Canids, despite what pop culture like Game of Thrones would have you believe. If they did look like each other, it would have had to be via convergent evolution, as they only shared a common ancestor over 5 million years ago.

This distinction, however, isn't found in the publicized articles about this so-called resurrected Dire Wolf and makes their claim that they brought the Dire Wolf back by simply editing *20* genes from the genome of a Grey Wolf laughable. A Dire Wolf would have shared more in common genetically with a Maned Wolf (*Chrysocyon brachyurus*) or Bush Dog (*Speothos venaticus*) than it would with a Grey Wolf.

Bottom line, don't fall for whatever this company is trying to tell you. If the Dire Wolf were to be brought back, it wouldn't be via something like this, and certainly wouldn't *look* like this. If you want an idea as to how a real Dire Wolf would look like in life, here is some fantastic paleoart by artist Mauricio Antón:

Addendum: I seem to have partially miscalculated Dire Wolf genetics. They were not closer to Maned Wolves or Bush Dogs, but they were still not closely related to Grey Wolves. They were basal members of Canini, related to canids like Jackals (genus Lupulella) but distinct from them. I am sorry for this misinformation in my attempt to correct other misinformation. My main point, however, is still correct.

[ashermiss]

[ashermiss]

The misuse of the "insult to life itself" quote from Miyazaki on AI burns my yams so bad bc the original context is being disgusted with how a characters movements are dehumanizing to disabled people specifically bc of his empathy for a disabled friend and it's such a sadly rare sentiment, this cognizance of how we casually inflict indignity upon disabled people and how he finds it disgusting, I hate seeing it obfuscated

[ashermiss]

“I’ve really tried to understand the Israelis. I used to work on a farm in Israel. I speak Hebrew. I watch their news. All the time they talk about fear. How they have to run to their bunkers to hide from the rockets. How their children can’t sleep because of the sirens. This is not a good way for them to live. We Palestinians don’t talk about fear, we talk about death. Our rockets scare them; their rockets kill us. We have no bomb shelters, we have no sirens, we have nowhere we can take our children and keep them safe. They are scared. We are dying.”

— Mohammed al-Khoudry a Palestinian farmer in Gaza. (via champagnefather)

[ashermiss]

nothing funnier to me than when AI does math wrong. like I get why it happens, it's a language model that's treating the numbers you feed it as words rather than integers and then giving you an answer based on how those words typically appear in a block of text instead of actually performing a calculation. but the one thing computers are genuinely incredible at. you fucked up a perfectly good calculator is what you did, look at it it's got hallucinations

[ashermiss]

So many Americans seem to think that there is no society, and morality is literal magic. Like, people don't make choices based on a complex interlocking web of desires and institutions and material conditions. The world is good guys and bad guys. Deviance is a literal magical poison that disrupts the fabric of reality. If enough young women dye their hair blue, the crops will fail.

[ashermiss]

[April, 2025] This visual created in partnership with Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), tells the stories of children whose lives and limbs have been stolen by Israel in its years-long siege of Gaza, and how Israel’s targeted destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system makes it impossible for them to access much-needed medical supplies and rehabilitation services.

From Visualizing Palestine

[ashermiss]

This is just a semi-regular reminder that the idea that all people in a society *can* and *should* be literate at even a basic level is an incredibly modern concept. For the vast majority of human history, only an incredibly small percentage of the population was literate; was ALLOWED to be literate.

Some points to draw from this:

Despite the talking points about how awful the American education system is (and there are flaws and serious underfunding, yes), literacy rates are higher now than they have ever been in human history.

Being literate, especially literate at a collegiate level, is an incredibly specialized skill. It's a difficult, though valuable, skill. Struggling with it is not a sign of low intelligence or low effort- its natural to struggle with difficult things.

One of the best ways to improve literacy is exposure and easy access to a wide variety of texts. Anyone who shames, restricts, or disparages whole genres of text (graphic novels, fantasy, romance, etc) as being frivolous, dangerous, etc does not have the best interest of potential readers at heart.

[ashermiss]

Like I say my dad was bi bc people will piss their pants if they don’t understand things in plain terms but in reality he was out as gay till mid 20s and then showed up with a girlfriend one day and refused to elaborate and still only liked men other than her and this being the backstory to my parents explains quite literally everything about me honestly also power move

[ashermiss]

A comic based on this poem

[ashermiss]

Hamlet as a D&D paladin.

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