krill-joy

[krill-joy]

WHAT???? Fuck him

[krill-joy]

i got into ecology because i want to make the world better and now it seems like the left can’t decide if they love or hate this entire field of science. so that’s neat.

[krill-joy]

Here's the top 2 stories from each of Fix The News's six categories:

1. A game-changing HIV drug was the biggest story of 2024

In what Science called the 'breakthrough of the year', researchers revealed in June that a twice-yearly drug called lenacapavir reduced HIV infections in a trial in Africa to zero—an astonishing 100% efficacy, and the closest thing to a vaccine in four decades of research. Things moved quick; by October, the maker of the drug, Gilead, had agreed to produce an affordable version for 120 resource-limited countries, and by December trials were underway for a version that could prevent infection with just a single shot per year. 'I got cold shivers. After all our years of sadness, particularly over vaccines, this truly is surreal.'

2. Another incredible year for disease elimination

Jordan became the first country to eliminate leprosy, Chad eliminated sleeping sickness, Guinea eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus, Belize, Jamaica, and Saint Vincent & the Grenadines eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, India achieved the WHO target for eliminating black fever, India, Viet Nam and Pakistan eliminated trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, and Brazil and Timor Leste eliminated elephantiasis.

1. The EU passed a landmark nature restoration law

When countries pass environmental legislation, it’s big news; when an entire continent mandates the protection of nature, it signals a profound shift. Under the new law, which passed on a knife-edge vote in June 2024, all 27 member states are legally required to restore at least 20% of land and sea by 2030, and degraded ecosystems by 2050. This is one of the world’s most ambitious pieces of legislation and it didn’t come easy; but the payoff will be huge - from tackling biodiversity loss and climate change to enhancing food security.

2. Deforestation in the Amazon halved in two years

Brazil’s space agency, INPE, confirmed a second consecutive year of declining deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. That means deforestation rates have roughly halved under Lula, and are now approaching all time lows. In Colombia, deforestation dropped by 36%, hitting a 23-year low. Bolivia created four new protected areas, a huge new new state park was created in Pará to protect some of the oldest and tallest tree species in the tropical Americas and a new study revealed that more of the Amazon is protected than we originally thought, with 62.4% of the rainforest now under some form of conservation management.

1. Millions more children got an education

Staggering statistics incoming: between 2000 and 2023, the number of children and adolescents not attending school fell by nearly 40%, and Eastern and Southern Africa, achieved gender parity in primary education, with 25 million more girls are enrolled in primary school today than in the early 2000s. Since 2015, an additional 110 million children have entered school worldwide, and 40 million more young people are completing secondary school.

2. We fed around a quarter of the world's kids at school

Around 480 million students are now getting fed at school, up from 319 million before the pandemic, and 104 countries have joined a global coalition to promote school meals, School feeding policies are now in place in 48 countries in Africa, and this year Nigeria announced plans to expand school meals to 20 million children by 2025, Kenya committed to expanding its program from two million to ten million children by the end of the decade, and Indonesia pledged to provide lunches to all 78 million of its students, in what will be the world's largest free school meals program.

1. Solar installations shattered all records

Global solar installations look set to reach an unprecedented 660GW in 2024, up 50% from 2023's previous record. The pace of deployment has become almost unfathomable - in 2010, it took a month to install a gigawatt, by 2016, a week, and in 2024, just 12 hours. Solar has become not just the cheapest form of new electricity in history, but the fastest-growing energy technology ever deployed, and the International Energy Agency said that the pace of deployment is now ahead of the trajectory required for net zero by 2050.  

2. Battery storage transformed the economics of renewables

Global battery storage capacity surged 76% in 2024, making investments in solar and wind energy much more attractive, and vice-versa. As with solar, the pace of change stunned even the most cynical observers. Price wars between the big Chinese manufacturers pushed battery costs to record lows, and global battery manufacturing capacity increased by 42%, setting the stage for future growth in both grid storage and electric vehicles - crucial for the clean flexibility required by a renewables-dominated electricity system. The world's first large-scale grid battery installation only went online seven years ago; by next year, global battery storage capacity will exceed that of pumped hydro.

1. Democracy proved remarkably resilient in a record year of elections

More than two billion people went to the polls this year, and democracy fared far better than most people expected, with solid voter turnout, limited election manipulation, and evidence of incumbent governments being tamed. It wasn't all good news, but Indonesia saw the world's biggest one day election, Indian voters rejected authoritarianism, South Korea's democratic institutions did the same, Bangladesh promised free and fair elections following a 'people's victory', Senegal, Sri Lanka and Botswana saw peaceful transfers of power to new leaders after decades of single party rule, and Syria saw the end of one of the world's most horrific authoritarian regimes.

2. Global leaders committed to ending violence against children

In early November, while the eyes of the world were on the US election, an event took place that may prove to be a far more consequential for humanity. Five countries pledged to end corporal punishment in all settings, two more pledged to end it in schools, and another 12, including Bangladesh and Nigeria, accepted recommendations earlier in the year to end corporal punishment of children in all settings. In total, in 2024 more than 100 countries made some kind of commitment to ending violence against children. Together, these countries are home to hundreds of millions of children, with the WHO calling the move a 'fundamental shift.'

73. Space exploration hit new milestones

NASA’s Europa Clipper began a 2.9 billion kilometre voyage to Jupiter to investigate a moon that may have conditions for life; astronomers identified an ice world with a possible atmosphere in the habitable zone; and the James Webb Telescope found the farthest known galaxy. Closer to Earth, China landed on the far side of the moon, the Polaris Dawn crew made a historic trip to orbit, and Starship moved closer to operational use – and maybe one day, to travel to Mars. 

74. Next-generation materials advanced

A mind-boggling year for material science. Artificial intelligence helped identify a solid-state electrolyte that could slash lithium use in batteries by 70%, and an Apple supplier announced a battery material that can deliver around 100 times better energy density. Researchers created an insulating synthetic sapphire material 1.25 nanometers thick, plus the world’s thinnest lens, just three atoms across. The world’s first functioning graphene-based semiconductor was unveiled (the long-awaited ‘wonder material’ may finally be coming of age!) and a team at Berkeley invented a fluffy yellow powder that could be a game changer for removing carbon from the atmosphere.

-via Fix The News, December 19, 2024

[krill-joy]

Rings my fucking bell, like a perennial fucking plague maiden:

Center harm, not disgust!

When in doubt (and when not in doubt, just swept by problems bigger than you and assured by someone that they know the answer, so don't think right now, just Do!), center harm.

Focus on what specific harm you're reducing with your actions. Make sure it's tangible and concrete. If your actions are minimizing hypothetical harm at the cost of real, tangible harm on others, 9 out 10 times you're on the wrong fucking side, being weaponized by propaganda.

If a conversation revolves around disgust as a driver for action, you're being radicalized. If a call to action depends on your emotional response, you're being manipulated. I'm sorry, this isn't the 90s anymore, social media has eroded the web of respectability of the pre internet society. The primary axis for misinformation to spread in this day and age is emotional response: half the things you believe are true and share as such are not based on fact, expert opinion or personal research. Social media has conditioned us (all of us! You and me and most dangerously of all, the idiots we put in power) that if something feels true, it probably is.

But do you know for sure it is? Do you think it's true because you have first hand experience or actual time spent on reputable sources learning it to be fact? Or just because it aligns with your worldview and it would be nice for you if it were true?

Are you taking action because you're angry and a group of fellow angry folk invited you to join them? Do you have a plan or is this just catharsis? Are you aware of the consequences of your actions or are you drunk on rage and focused only on the immediate future?

Center harm. Center specific actions and their consequences.

Discomfort is not harm. Disgust is not harm. Hypothetical paranoia is not harm.

The reactionary pipeline is real and your self-image as a progressive is not actually enough to save you from falling down the hole. Radicalization is not hinged on politics alone. Saying you're a leftist is worthless if your thought process and actions themselves are indistinguishable from qanon losers. Conspiratorial thought has literally no politics inherently, and your insistence it does is pure lack of critical thought on display.

Center harm, not feelings, not politics, not group think.

Center harm, and remember that individual actions cannot dismantle systemic structures on their own, so anyone who calls for individual action at the cost of community structures is not actually trying to change anything, and instead actively suppressing efforts to make anything better in any way.

[krill-joy]

PACIFIC RIM (2013) Shatterdome Ranger Roll Call

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when will we talk about the willful helplessness epidemic on here. So many people on this god forsaken website demand to have any and all things that exist outside their personal experiences directly, personally pre-chewed and spoonfed to them. And when you do, they'll then ask for you to swallow for them, too, because, you see, in THEIR experience..,

[krill-joy]

oh my god if helluva boss gives me this i am going to be so happy. read more because it includes spoilers for sinsmas

i really want millie to have an abortion! i want to see someone in a loving happy relationship be like "no, i don't want/am not ready for kids."

give me this vivzie! GIVE ME THIS.

[krill-joy]

[...] and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask.

-- The King in Yellow

I am obsessed with the idea of Rosie seeing an eldritch horror deer abomination crawling around in pain and madness and immediately going, "That's my son now." And then she proceeded to coax his mind back from the brink of insanity enough to fit back into a person suit named Alastor.

This is based off of the absolutely amazing fic, Anguish of the Marrow, by JayJBird94 on AO3 (and twitter).

[krill-joy]

"There is no recourse in the existing health care system, and we are offered no vehicle for change in mainstream politics. What happened on December 4 was unique in that it was an inversion of the violence which undergirds our heath finance model. The only possible rearrangement of health finance in America that can prevent this continual onslaught of death is a single-payer health care system like Medicare for All. Absent a political movement, this murder will become nothing but a memento mori — a meme around which distressingly online Zoomer dance clubs will throw occasional theme nights throughout the duration of Mangione’s trial, until we all forget about it and pay next year’s ever-higher premiums, angrier and poorer but submitting still to the extortion into which we have been born."

[krill-joy]

I debated if I wanted to post this touching but hard to watch video, Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton isn't a house hold name, she's not famous or well known. In 2018 she beat a long time Republican to become a member of Congress, she outlined in this speech many of the things she did in Congress, she was the first member of Congress to hang a trans flag outside her office, back in 2019.

in early 2023 she was diagnosed with Parkinson's, in September 2023 she got a new much worse diagnosis, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) which she describes as Parkinson's on steroids. PSP quickly made walking difficult, and hardest of all robbed her of her ability to speak. Since May of 2024 Congresswoman Wexton has used text to speak on a tablet to ask questions at committee hearings and make speeches like this one. There is no cure and it will only get worse from here.

Why am I sharing this? Two reasons, she didn't quit. So often we talk about politicians as cynical and evil. She was handed a death sentence, this illness will kill her, no one could have blamed her for resigning and leaving. But through many struggles she showed up to work, every day for the people who put their trust in her to represent them, voting, doing committee work, even as her voice failed her, even as she needed a wheelchair to get around the halls of Congress. Thats the other thing, there are good people working every day, all kinds of people, there is a member of Congress who needs an aid to speak. She talks about seeing Obama give a speech in a Park and deciding "yeah I can do that" And I hope whoever you are you remember there are people who want to make you proud in your government, yes there are bad people of course but when you believe there are no good guys? thats when the bad guys have truly won. And you, whoever you are, whatever you have going against you, you can be one of those people, at whatever level, government isn't done by some other group of people, its done by every day people who decide to go for it.

[krill-joy]

Hey. People in my inbox saying you relate with intersex experiences because you were put on hormones as a kid for a hormonal condition.

Perisex people aren't put on hormones as children for a hormonal condition. You are intersex. You've been told your intersex traits are a disorder and you have been deprived of your community. I encourage you to learn more about the intersex community and participate if you'd like to. This community saved me.

[krill-joy]

"This recipe requires a good quality homemade stock that's loaded with natural gelatin and flavor from beef or chicken bones and aromatic vegetables. Mass-market store-bought stocks and broths will not work here (they will make a very poor sauce)"

OK WELL I GUESS I WON'T BE MAKING YOUR RECIPE.

[krill-joy]

To understand where I'm coming from with the way I approach story meta, you have to know that once I was in an English class in college where we were analyzing Fall of the House of Usher and several students had analyzed it for themes of "incest".

The teacher, who was quite the hardass in general, went absolutely berserk, because there is no incest in the original text of the short story of Fall of the House of Usher, but it is a strong theme in some later film and tv adaptations, which has since sunk into the discourse around the short story and often gets retroactively applied. She was enraged because it meant students weren't doing their own analyzing of the text and were just reading other people's faulty analysis and basing their write-up on that.

I remember this being a lightbulb moment for me because I realized how often I'd also had a habit of filtering how I viewed a text through the lens of other people's discussion of it, rather than what was on the page itself (maybe not for this particular assignment, but in general). After that, I began to read texts a lot more closely, especially for fandom stuff, and would often challenge people in fandom to identify where their impressions of certain points came from since it wasn't in the text, especially for things like characterization when it comes to writing fanfic or just meta analysis in general.

The upside is, I think that one exchange vastly improved my ability to analyze a text and draw conclusions from it. The downside is, I have to suffer through all the Discourse of people who didn't have a similar revelation at some point 😬

[krill-joy]

Okey dokey!

Last song- Welcome to the Black Parade by MCR. i had my ipod on shuffle while i was driving back from picking up a duck to roast for christmas.

favorite color: dark green. super dark. like, looks black in some lights and green in others.

last book: so i'm currently reading Moby Dick as part of a book club where we read 20 chapters per month. i also just started rereading Anne Rice's The Witching Hour which I adore. The last book I finished was The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

last movie: i'm currently watching Pacific Rim for the first time in too long. What a film, holy fuck, love it. Last film I watched before that was The Manchurian Candidate (1962) which was so good. Love to see a film that forces you to love an unlikable protagonist.

last tv show: honestly i've been re-watching the office lately because i've been dealing with migraines and want something familiar and easy. otherwise, my boyfriend and i are working our way through the x-files for the first time.

sweet/savory/spicy: savory. i've been cooking with fermented black soybeans lately and love them in everything.

relationship status: been with my dude for nearly 13 years. i dig him.

current fixation: anguish of the marrow, though re-watching pacific rim is reigniting some big feelings.

looking forward to: roasting a duck!

not sure who to tag, obviously ignore if you don't want to do this stuff. @obstinatecondolement @niccage @fantabulisticity @suncaptor

Ten people i'd like to get to know better

Tagged by @jadechase

Last song: if we're talking Literally the last i listened to, it's Northshore by Tegan and Sara (gods it's so punchy and on the punkier end of what T&S can do, i LOVE IT) — but since i'm such a colossal music nerd and can't help myself, a few more recent favs: Sucker by Marcus King (from the Arcane OST, all of which fucking slaps), Little Sister Song by Kid Sistr, Hey Now by Kendrick Lamaar ft. dody6 (and the album GNX as a whole SO GOOD), the center's falling out by Poppy (going ballistic for all of Negative Spaces), Hëłlœ Kįttÿ by Alice Longyu Gao (FERAL), She Sells by Lucifungus, A Prømise / T.D.O.V. by The Hirs Collective....... ok i'll stop lmao 😅

Favourite colour: golden yellow! like daisies' noses, and sunflowers' ears, and bumble bees' butts, and early autumn leaves, and lazy morning sun 🌼💛 (used to be blood red and then soft pink and then olive green, all of which i def still have great fondness for)

Last book: well i'm a shit reader of actual books (plenty of fanfic tho) but i've been making a bit of an effort recently! been slowly making my way (makinmyway!) through What Doesn't Break by Cassandra Khaw (the Laudna origin story book, it's so good) and the works of Sylvia Plath (gods spare me i can really feel her 🪦)

Last Movie: okay so this one needs some explaining cause it's so not my typical kind of movie, but i was on a little journey. i was reminded of the existence of Kingdom of Heaven (2005) by a cutaway gag in CJ the X's latest video (LOVE CJ)— and i was suddenly shot back to being 13 years when my father took me to see it in theaters, cause it was by the director of Gladiator and he loved Gladiator (and didn't let mom and my sister know, thought it could be some kind of rated R manly bonding with me? LMAO yeah right) but then it was a slow ponderous criticism of the crusades, not perfect in its execution but thought provoking at the least, which was fascinating to me as a sheltered kid with a poorly stifled interest in world history.. and dad's only opinion was "it wasn't as good as gladiator" xD — so i rewatched the director's cut last week to reexamine. (that, and the crusades truly never ended let's be real, they just changed forms over the centuries. most recently the war on terror and all this evil imperialist bullshit. free palestine right fucking now)

Last tv-show: if Critical Role counts, i watch that religiously every week 🙌 but aside from that — most recently i have been catching up on My Hero Academia to get to that good good TogaChako ANGST. i am so very not normal about Toga Himiko and i NEED those recent developments (and inevitably read fixit fics and stuff)

Sweet/savoury/spicy: i am a slut for spicy all day every day bb 🔥 i'll put hot sauce on nearly everything unless my rampage is halted. but generally i'm not a picky eater and really appreciate them all!

Relationship status: SO, i am polyamorous and very happy with it! i have my sunflower girlfriend i met in our sweet home Imodna discord server, and we bonded heavily over naruto and videogames and yuri smut and all that jazz — as well as my queerplatonic slime partner who i met playing D&D together years ago and never let each other go since, memes and death metal every week. our little goblin pack plays league of legends all the time 😈 (feel free to message me if u wanna join up for some matches of the bad game! we don't criticize each other or stress over it much, it's a fun romp. honestly i been thinking about making a lil league server so any interest is welcome)

Current obsession: ARCANE. arcane arcane arcane EEEP. sweet mercy that show is an absolute masterpiece!!! i have watched S2 half a dozen times already and truly the brainrot will not give me ANY respite and i love it. i won't spoil anything here, GO WATCH IT 🙏 but to suffice my enthusiasm, the two fics that i am D e s p e r a t e l y awaiting each update on are an Ekko/Jinx canon-compliant gap-filler called Hope is a winged beast and a Jinx/Vi modern AU catfishing scenario called Hook, Line, Sinker which has me by the THROAT 💀

Looking forward to: seeing Poppy live in april!!! i'm such a huge fan of theirs, and like i said earlier their new stuff is the BANGINEST SHIT 🤘 and the tickets to go see them weren't too expensive for me to afford, so i jumped on a ticket soon as they dropped! SO EXCITED to see them tour Negative Spaces. (unrelated also looking forward to the downfall of american imperialism whenever the hell that is 👍)

Tagging (no pressure!)

@bebopfirefly @manualaton @elliesgaymachete @flafflewaffles @androidlapis @someoneiwasnt @lapisbitch @whoopseydaisy @heroinejinx @izmarvelous

[krill-joy]

If you see a post talking about problems related to a behavior you do (or problems related to not doing something) and your first and only reaction is to rant about how the post is insensitive to your very specific circumstances which make changing your behavior impossible, consider:

Not everything is about you and this might just be one of those things.

That is also the reaction of every person in the history of humanity who simply didn't want to change their behavior. Everyone has extenuating circumstances. The worst person you know has internally compelling reasons for their behavior. The challenges that you personally experience will always feel like a reasonable excuse for your behavior because they're the things you personally are experiencing. The consequences of some behaviors are mild enough that extenuating circumstances can excuse them (see #1). The consequences of others are bad enough that it is necessary, if one wants to live a decent life in this world, that you figure out a way to change regardless. It is your personal responsibility to figure out the difference between these and take the appropriate actions. Here's a hint: the more emotionally attached you are to your excuse, the more likely it is that it's excusing a behavior that needs to change.

Insisting that OP needs to provide explicit instructions for how to start or stop the behavior for someone in your very specific circumstances is unreasonable and probably annoying.