#four roads cross

[hiddenschools]

Wait, when does that happen? A Craft Sequence timeline

Being published out of chronological order has confused the hell out of many Craft Sequence readers, myself included. So I went through the series and figured out an approximate timeline and all the main characters ages YOU'RE WELCOME.

...and then I found an official version in the inside cover of the German translation but shhh mine's better

[neurowinter]

Still occasionally think about a scene in the fantasy novel Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone where two characters are discussing why anyone would want to live in LA.

[willowcrowned]

they should let me write Aquaman 3: White House Visit where Joe Biden is forced by virtue of international diplomacy to shake Aquaman's hand

[elpsycongruent]

once again finding myself deeply tempted to hurl dog shit at cars that ignore stop signs

[kurtbrussels]

i emailed my citys public works office asking for them to extend the crosswalk timers on campus and.. they did.. wow..

complaining works

[llumimoon]

(me sitting here seething) ITS FINE its fine ITS FINE . I'LL GET MY LICENSE SOON ITS FINE

[lordpopuko]

didnt buy /a lot/ in japan but i did buy every d gray man thing i saw in sight. i was so lucky to be there at the same time as the beautiful lenalee sq rise cover 😭😭 never considered myself luckier JSJSJSJ found some manga acrylic stands in the official jump shop and the lavi nendoroid in a used merch store (UNOPENED???) 🥹 <3333333 lived my best life fr

[sulevinen]

goddamnit i forgot to buy ice cream

[hiddenschools]

How does one discourage antisocial behaviour among formerly human beings for whom life imprisonment is a brief inconvenience, if not an undefined term, and the death penalty a slap on the wrist? The answers ranged from grotesque to merely inhumane, but all shared a theoretical foundation: you don't let the dead go free.

Four Roads Cross, Max Gladstone

[champ-wiggle]

'She is so old': One-eyed wolf in Yellowstone defies odds by having 10th litter of pups in 11 years

By Patrick Pester, published June 3, 2024

Wolf 907F recently gave birth to her 10th litter of pups, which researchers say is likely a Yellowstone National Park record.

Wolf 907F walking past a trail camera in Yellowstone National Park. (Image credit: Yellowstone Wolf and Cougar Project)

The alpha female of a Yellowstone gray-wolf pack has defied the odds by having a 10th litter of pups at the age of 11.

The one-eyed wolf elder, named Wolf 907F, gave birth to her latest litter last month, the Cowboy State Daily reported. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) have an average life span of three to four years, so it's rare for them to reach 11, let alone have pups at that age.

Wolf 907F has given birth to pups every year for a decade straight since she became sexually mature, which Kira Cassidy, a research associate at the Yellowstone Wolf Project, said is likely a record for the wolves of Yellowstone National Park.

At age 11, Yellowstone’s Wolf 907F has lived more than twice a wild wolf’s average life expectancy. In this photo from April, she was pregnant with a litter of pups that she’s since given birth to. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

"Every day, I expect that she might die just because she is so elderly, but I've been thinking that for the last few years, and she keeps going," Cassidy told Live Science.

Cassidy has calculated that only about 1 in 250 wolves in Yellowstone make it to their 11th birthday, with just six recorded examples since wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995. The oldest of all of these great elders lived to 12.5 years, according to the National Park Service.

Wolf 907F lies in the snow in Yellowstone in 2015. (Image credit: Kira Cassidy/NPS)

Wolf 907F is the oldest wolf to have lived her whole life in the park's Northern Range, where there is more prey but also more competition from other wolves. Wolves rarely die of old age in the wild, and in Yellowstone National Park, the biggest threat is other wolves.

"In a protected place like Yellowstone, their number-one cause of death is when two packs fight with each other," Cassidy said. "That accounts for about half of the mortality."

One of Yellowstone's oldest wolves, Wolf 907F is pictured here with her pack last year. She's the gray collared wolf on the lower left. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

Wolf 907F is the alpha female of the Junction Butte pack, which has between 10 and 35 members at any given time. Cassidy noted that this is a large pack — the average wolf pack size is about 12 individuals — and that reduces the risk of being killed in territorial fights. Wolf 907F's experience also gives her pack an edge.

"Packs that have elderly wolves are much more successful in those pack-versus-pack conflicts because of the accumulated knowledge and the experience that they bring to that really stressful situation," Cassidy said.

Wolf 907F has likely boosted her pack's survival chances outside of battle, too. Cassidy noted that the Junction Butte pack rarely leaves Yellowstone's border and that Wolf 907F is "savvy" when it comes to things like crossing roads and avoiding humans.

Wolf 907F, Yellowstone's aging matriarch at 11 years old, only has one eye. She's the fourth wolf to pass by this trail cam. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

What makes Wolf 907F even more impressive is that she does all of this with only one functioning eye. Researchers aren't sure what happened, but her left eye has been small and sunken since before she turned 4. "You would never know [when] watching her," Cassidy said.

Like other elders, Wolf 907F takes a back seat in hunts now that she's older, and she spends most of her day hanging around with the pack's pups. Cassidy and her colleagues have counted three pups in her current litter, which is smaller than the average litter size of four to five but not surprising. A 2012 study of Yellowstone wolves published in the Journal of Animal Ecology found that litter size declines with age.

"The fact that 907 is still having pups is amazing, and her litter being small is expected given that she is so old," Cassidy said.

A few of Wolf 907F's offspring now lead packs of their own, but most of her pups never reach adulthood due to the perilous nature of being a wolf. However, Wolf 907F and the others in the park don't seem to live like death is on their mind.

"They are happy to be with their family going from day to day," Cassidy said. "Even if they have injuries or are missing an eye or something really stressful is going on in their life, they move through that stress and go back to seemingly really enjoying their life."

At age 11, Yellowstone's Wolf 907F - the gray wolf in the center of this photo from 2020- has lived more than double the typical lifespan of wolves in the wild. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

[wanderingandfound]

Absolutely wild that when I'm looking at taking a train from one major city to another in the US it'll take over 51 hours, but if I drive it would be 18 hours (without stops). I was thinking about taking a train for a vacation but like. There's leisurely and then there's that.

[local-magpie]

losing my fucking mind what do you MEAN one of the busiest intersections in downtown cleveland is closed for A FUCKING MOVIE? i dont CARE if its fucking superman, who the fuck authorized this shit??? this is right outside my fucking home its a pain in the fucking ass for me just to get in and out, i have shit to do. what the fuck

[ice-devourer]

what damn entity is keeping me alive and why is it effective??? hello???

(ps. currently aight, just really weirded out abt how im still alive, guess im a cockroach like dazai T — T)

[clueless1995]

literally blogging at you from Outside wowee

[vargamornight]

lucid dreaming is so funny to me because i've been capable of it for so long that at this point every time i'm like "oh i'm dreaming" i literally just give myself the ability to fly and then zonk out again. opt out of lucidity. cause otherwise the dream is no fun

[sayruq]

Three days ago, the Israeli military dropped flyers ordering displaced people and residents of Rafah to leave. In the orders where people were told to move out of Rafah, the military said it was “about to operate with force against the terror organisations in the area”. A UN estimate says there are 1.2 million people sheltering in dire conditions in Rafah, Gaza's southern city. The "full-blown famine" that has taken hold in the north of Gaza has spread to the south, Cindy McCain, the head of the World Food Programme, confirmed over the weekend. There are roughly 200 Palestinians that are being forcibly displaced from Rafah every hour, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) said on Wednesday. During an online press briefing, medical doctors and humanitarian aid workers reporting from the ground in Gaza spoke about the impossible feat of moving people from Rafah, as people are ridden by famine plus a collapsed transportation and healthcare system. "There are children and elderly that are so starved that they can barely walk. These people cannot just relocate to another area, to so-called 'safe zones'. It is not possible," Alexandra Saieh, head of humanitarian policy from Save the Children, said. Several aid workers have expressed that there is no "safe" area in the Gaza Strip for people to relocate to. "The concept of safe zones is a lie," Helena Marchal, from Medecins du Monde, said. Aid workers also reiterated the difficulty of getting aid both into Gaza and then distributing it. Both the Rafah and the Kerem Shalom crossings, through which most aid reached the besieged Strip, have closed since Sunday evening. Roads across Gaza are largely destroyed or blocked by people sheltering, contributing to the difficulty of movement of both goods and people. Only a very limited number of routes, especially between the north and south, are available for humanitarian use, Jeremy Konyndyk, from Refugees International, explained. Another issue is overcrowding. "In Deir al-Balah and the Mawasi area on the outskirts of the Rafah and Khan Younis governorates, there is barely any space. There are tents everywhere, on the beach, on the sidewalks, the streets, the graveyards, the courtyards of the hospitals, in the courtyards of the schools," Ghada Alhaddad, from Oxfam International, said. Saieh explained that it took her team six weeks and four failed attempts to move a couple of hundred food parcels from Rafah to the north of Gaza. "One litre of fuel cost $40 yesterday," according to Ranchal. Fuel enters through the Rafah crossing. If the fuel is cut off, the aid operation collapses," Konyndyk said.