#on a family tree website from 2007

[musubi-sama]

Amazing Grace

This isn't edited, it's hardly coherent. But this is 2.7k words on what happened 17 years ago as I experienced it and how it's the weight I still carry today.

4/16/2007

TW: School shooting, video links of a poem reading and a piece of music.

Snow. It was snowing. In Spring. How weird is it, that of all the days, that this Monday when the flowers are trying to bloom and the trees are spreading their wings, that it is snowing. What a beautiful sight to see. My quiet campus blanketed in the serenity of a late and fluffy snow.

Grabbing my laptop and stuffing it into my bag, opting for a heavier coat this morning. Slipping my phone into your pocket as you make your way out of your dorm suite and off to your advanced freshman chemistry class. Stepping outside and taking in a deep breath, the chilly air feels good in your lungs.

Mornings are always bustling, but you don’t notice that it’s calmer on this morning. You miss the hushed whispers and skittering students and staff getting back to their dorms and offices at 9:30 am. Instead, you pull out your cell phone and call home.

“Can you BELIEVE that it’s snowing today? Oh, there was an alert sent in email saying there was a police call to a dorm, but it was handled. Yeah I’m safe. But this snow, it’s April! How crazy!” your mother requests you call your father just to check in. He would be worried otherwise.

“Hey dad, yeah there was a police alert about something in one of the dorms, but they said it was handled. SNOW ohmygosh it’s SNOWING!!”

The budding bushes are covered in ice. The walkways and staircases were slick and uneasy. Better be careful crossing the drillfield, don’t want to slip and fall!

Hey, why are there flashing blue lights back there in the academic buildings? Why is there a cop SUV in front of Buruss Hall and why is that cop pulling out a shockingly large gun?

Don’t pay it any mind. This is a big school, a school with a full police department because any number of things can go wrong or they’re training or…

Why is it so quiet over here? You know classes aren’t typically over for another 10 minutes, but it should be busier this time of day.

Hm, the lecture hall is mostly empty. Where is everyone? Is that an email? Is class cancel-no that’s the professor walking in right now. At least class isn’t canceled, it sure would be frustrating to cancel a 10:10 am class at 10 am.

Oh, there is an email.

ACTIVE SHOOTER SITUATION. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY

Wait, when did that arrive? 9:50 am.

What the fuck did you see walking to class? What the fuck was that. Is that why the lights were flashing?

Fortunately one of your classmates was several steps ahead of you and already pressing your professor for answers. No one knew what the questions were other than if we were safe. Your professor was the department chair, surely he had a better line to finding an answer than waiting for another email to arrive?

You figure that we can distract ourselves with frivolous viral videos in the meantime blasted on the hall’s projectors.

But who cares about oh my gawd shoes and being kind to Brittney when the emails start to arrive about how there are dead students in the dorms and in the lecture buildings. Please let us out. Please let us run to our dorms and our apartments and to our families both found and blood.

Finally, we receive the “all clear” email and we rush back to our rooms.

Buildings are locked, suite doors typically left open to foster community are shut and locked.

Stumbling into your room, no one is home. But you have a message from your roommate that she is with her boyfriend and they are leaving soon for her home. You check your other messages. Your instant messenger is blown up from every contact asking if you’re safe. Oh good, everyone is safe. You even logged into that Facebook website to check on friends. Wait. What did they say? Who?? Oh no, and an email from your Band Director.

Gutted. Your head sinks to your desk, you’re slumped over in pain. He was mere weeks from graduation. 3 degrees. Honors for all. A light, a bright smile, a comforting hand. He just complimented your socks at the blood drive in….that dorm. Just a few weeks ago. What happened. Why is Stack dead.

One of your friends in the next suite comes over, you share an embrace, shoulders and arms as tissues.

“We should get food. Come with me?”

You drag yourself and a few other friends in the neighboring suite with you down the stairs to the closest dining hall. The award-winning food is bland, you’re not hungry. You all sit in relative silence trying to figure out what to say, who to look at, how to process. Returning back to your dorm, you friend invites you to his suite. You sit on the couch with others, your upperclassmen friends, all from band. All with stories extolling how wonderful Stack was. You agree to leave your computers alone and step away from your email for a few hours. You watch TV, do anything to distract yourselves. You think someone might even be having sex in the next room.

By dinner time someone brings by food they picked up off campus and everyone picks at it. At this point people have come and gone all day, with some saying their farewells as they choose to go back home until school opens up again.

Checking your email again, you see a long list of updates adjusting the death toll. The names of known victims. The gunman. Why does the number keep going up? Is it really over 20? What happened. You read a heartfelt email from your band director. You let yourself go, crying in your dark dorm room under your lofted bed. Tomorrow there will be a service for the community to gather. Those still on campus are suggested to attend in uniform and to stick together, there is comfort in the group.

Sleep is fitful that night.

Waking up, you have a missed call from home. “I heard classes are canceled. Do you want to come home?” offers your mother.

“Um, hold on. Let me check my email,” you climb down off your bed and open your laptop. Another name you recognize pops up in your email. “Please I want to go home. Erin died.”

She was your very first roommate. You moved out of her room before Spring semester because your friend had a spot open up in her suite and it was nicer accommodations. You didn’t really get to say goodbye to her. She was a good person. Energetic, smart, made friends everywhere.

“Your father and I are on our way, NOW.”

Unzipping the bag containing your marching uniform, you put it on with the same reverence as always, the comfort of knowing you are part of a larger group. One that is sharing the burden of this trauma. 330+ shoulders to cry on.

You make your way, linked in arms and hands with your friends as you head to the service. Extra security, the President of the United States is joining to make a statement. If you’re honest with yourself, you don’t care that he is here. What a load of good it is after the fact.

Groups of students in shared apparel holding each other, chants of school cheers ringing out in solidarity. You get swept up in the fervor. It’s never felt this intense, and you’ve been on the football field when it really counts.

Nikki Giovanni reads a poem and it strikes every one of your hearts with passion. The entire gymnasium silent, save for sniffling and crying.

We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail. We will prevail. We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech.

And then, all at once. She finishes and an eruption of gratitude. Shouts, and cheers. In that moment, we start to heal.

LET'S GO HOKIES *clap clap clapclapclap*

Eventually you leave and depart back to your dorms. You need to tidy up and pack, your parents will be here soon. One of your friends joins you in your room for company. It’s comforting to not be alone.

Your parents give you the tightest embrace you’ve ever felt. And they whisk you home. You’ve sent off emails to concerned former teachers and others, setting up time to meet with them over the coming week.

But otherwise you just want to sit at home and sleep in your childhood bed.

The rest of the week passes by. You visit your high school to chat with some of your old teachers and you’re reminded why they were your favorite educators. They care, they listened, they gave you space.

During the week while classes were canceled, you begin to receive updates on how the rest of the semester will play out. Ultimately you are able to take a step back from your studies and attend lectures as you feel you can handle. It’s a nice gesture. You won’t come out of this semester with the best grades, but you won’t have to worry about failing because you’re too distracted.

Returning to school is surreal. There’s a bustle and buzz of activity - with 25,000 students there always is a constant hum of people. Last week excluded. But there’s a tingle at the back of your neck. Your brain jolting into alert as soon as your parents turn onto campus. Would this happen again? Could this happen again? All of your friends stick together as the semester plays out. You spend time with them next to the volleyball courts (you’re far too clumsy to get any enjoyment out of playing), playing video games in the dorms, and just avoiding the hard stuff. You can make it this last month, one day at a time. Besides, you have plans this summer! You’re taking a road trip to Canada, leaving the country for the first time ever!

Summer, everyone departs to seek the comfort of their families and bury themselves in summer jobs and internships. And maybe that’s a good time to seek professional help? You’d rather just spend time with your fiancée, particularly in his bed and at night. That trip to Canada was refreshing and just what you needed to get your head out of the dark and stormy clouds.

Ah but your mother wants you to come home at night. So that’s how you end up in therapy, for a suspected PTSD diagnosis manifesting in your desire, as an 18 year old who is 4.5 years into dating her boyfriend/fiancée, to spend alone time in bed together. You play along because you are a people pleaser, but you do make your opinions known to the therapist. She invites your parents into your third session where you have a charged discussion. And the ultimate guidance the therapist suggests? That you are not acting out, or in an unusual manner. You sigh in relief, immediately making plans for that night.

When you returned to school in the fall, a class of victims had graduated and freshman joined a shell-shocked and scared community. One that is healing by holding on to each other, by remembering those lost. And ready to embrace the hope of the new class.

But you are forever changed. You and your Marching Virginians. You return and pass your auditions and receive a new piece of music, “Amazing Grace.” Arranged specifically for the ensemble, specifically for April 16, 2007. In the peak of the song lives a set of chords to represent the 32 lives lost. The dissonance is uncomfortable, painful, harsh. The first time you played it, you cried. We all did. But the resolution, it is warm, it is the breath after holding it in. The deep inhale you take when the tears start to fall and you let your emotions out. It is a hard piece of music, but it is a necessary piece of music.

The band took it to several dedications and remembrance events that year. They played it less and less as the years went on. It’s a special piece, reserved for those moments taken to hold space for that day. But every time, the audience gives reverence and somehow make it to the end with a stiff upper lip. After exiting the performance space, there is comfort for those who are caught in emotions.

The semesters come and they go. It gets easier, but you aren’t the same person anymore. You keep telling yourself you have it handled, the therapist at home said you don’t have PTSD. So then why are you triggered with an uncomfortable regularity? You need to get into therapy.

Oh, good for you, finally scheduling an appointment to see the school therapist. Ah, but it takes three triage visits before you can start to talk to him about anything. Momentum, farewell. You don’t open up about what is swarming in your brain. The bad thoughts, the scary ones, the tragic ones. You’re sure it’ll work itself out eventually. You famously have a bad memory, so surely you’ll just forget the worst of it?

Four years at Virginia Tech completed. But do you have a degree now? Ha, funny. You never managed to pull together enough credits to graduate so you get the participation trophy of random class credits you can take home with you and apply to some other school and attempt to get that piece of paper you came here to achieve.

Four more years later you finally have a degree. Even better, it’s one you’re proud of. Time to put college behind you and start the next step of life. Get out of the East Coast and leave it all behind. Fresh start in California, you can finally get married and live with your fiancée.

Another April comes and goes. And like every year, you run away for the day to escape your demons. It works less and less each year. At least the alcohol dulls the cries.

And 17 years later, you’re still carrying that weight. You dread April. You can’t listen to any version of Amazing Grace without falling apart. You can’t watch any scenes in a movie or video game with a candlelight vigil or similar scene. You dread the days you have to explain this to your daughter and why you are terrified of how she may want to attend school in the US.

And 17 years later, you can’t stop telling people this tragic story and shrugging it off like it wasn’t the single most defining moment of your entire fucking life and you were only 18.

It’s fucked up. And nothing has fucking changed.

[head-post]

South Korean Han Kang wins 2024 Nobel prize for Literature

South Korean writer Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday. The Nobel committee called her work “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” the prize’s website said.

Nobel Committee Chairman Anders Olsson praised Han’s “physical empathy for the vulnerable, often female lives” of her characters.

Nobel Week takes place in Stockholm and Oslo in October 7-14. Prizes have already been awarded in Physiology and Medicine, Physics and Chemistry.

Han Kang is the first South Korean author and the 18th woman to be honoured with the award. The size of this year’s cash prize is 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million).

Kang was born in 1970 in Gwangju before moving to Seoul with her family. In the 1990s, the journal Literature and Society began publishing her poetry, and in 1995 she published her first collection of short stories.

The Nobel Committee called her 2007 novel The Vegetarian, about a woman who refuses to eat meat, a breakthrough in Han Kang’s career. The book consists of three parts, The Vegetarian, Mongolian Mark and Flaming Trees. In 2016, the writer was awarded the Booker Prize for it.

In 2018, Han Kang became a participant in an interesting endeavour called Future Library. The initiator of the project, Scottish artist Katie Paterson, selected Han Kan’s novel To a Favourite Son for an anthology of 100 texts. The collection will not be published until 90 years from now, in 2114. Until then, the manuscripts will remain in an unpublished and unread form in a library in Oslo, Norway.

In 2023, Norwegian novelist, poet and playwright Jung Fosse won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been given since 1901. According to Alfred Nobel’s will, it should be awarded to the author “who has produced the most significant work of idealistic literature.”

Read more HERE

[aiweirdness]

A big neural net reviews a smaller neural net's recipes

I’ve used various neural networks to generate recipes, to varying degrees of success. My earliest recipes were generated with char-rnn, which had to learn everything - spelling, punctuation, words - entirely from scratch. Its recipes were terrible (Swamp Peef and Cheese, anyone? Or Chocolate Chicken Chicken Cake?). Later when I started using GPT-2, I was using a neural net that had already seen a lot of recipes online during internet pre-training, and its recipes looked a lot more realistic (although not entirely realistic - there was that recipe for Black Forest Cake that suggested pouring the batter into a toaster, or the jello recipe that starts with “remove all internal rinds”).

GPT-3, an even more powerful text-generating neural net, has seen so many recipes during its internet pre-training that its recipes are boringly plausible. Bake its Black Forest Cake recipe and you’d probably actually get cake at the end, even if it’s not the best cake in the world. Its recipes aren’t funny at a glance, which is why I haven’t posted any of them - until internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch suggested that, rather than have GPT-3 generate its own recipes, I have it rate char-rnn’s recipes. Readers, it worked.

I prompted GPT-3 with two example recipes from allrecipes, each followed by 3 of their human-written reviews. Then, for the third recipe I inserted one of char-rnn’s recipes:

Chocolate Chocolate Cake

1 cup sugar 1/4 cup butter 1 cup margarine 1 cup cocoa 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup margarine 1/2 cup pecans, chopped 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg yolk 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup chopped pecans 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup cocoa 1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, salt, and salt in a large bowl. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils and stiff peaks form. Add milk and cook until mixture is completely melted. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Spread in batter. Sprinkle with pecans.

Yield: 1 servings

And then I let GPT-3 add reviews. Would it mention the excessive lakes of vanilla? The complete lack of flour? The foolhardy reliance on the heroic efforts of a single egg yolk to hold things together?

oxtailsandturnovers Rating: 5 stars 03/04/2007 delicious chocolate recipe!!! and the perfect balance between cocoa and chocolate. and they sure were LONGNECKS! big time rave here. lazy w birthdays w friends and family, try this recipe for something chocolate sweet the ppl will talk about over and over.

AKEMIYUNA Rating: 5 stars appraisal 12/03/2008 Excellent for the kids Halloween party. Everyone got so thrilled by seeing something new on Chocolate in sponge. He even likes nuts separately but it will taste good..

BYOMFYABF Rating: 2 stars 10/01/2008 I could only give it a 2 as I had to make changes to it due to ingredients I had. First, I used Dove Dark Chocolate cocoa instead of Hershey's, no nuts, and the mashed bananas and caramel topping were a must. I did use coffee instead of the hot water, and dark margarine instead of regular, therefore I could not use light whipped cream, but I made homemade whipped cream. It had WAY too much flour in it, but i guess it could have been me measuring heavier than I should have. I also only used 2 cups of flour. it was my first bundt cake, so it was huge!!!

Here’s another batch of reviews, this time of a more chaotic char-rnn recipe:

Simple Soup Alaborate Soup Pie

6 each chopped white perserves; ** (optional but ring) 1/2 cup chopped fresh marjoram 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1/3 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion 1/4 cup onion (chopped) 1/2 teaspoon garlic; minced 2 small carrots 6 can dry white wine 1 tabasco sauce 1 tablespoon sugar 1/2 cup flour, whipped topping 2 tablespoon chili powder

Marinate: Serves 4. Whip and short under boiling. Add the sliced mushrooms and peppers and stir to coat. Stir the sugar and carrots. In large bowl, beat the egg to make a 1 1/2 tablespoons of the flour. Add shanks and stir it well. Spoon into a frying pan before serving.

Recipe By : DonajehLi Koubmanda

Yield: 8 servings

JEFFREY97389 Rating: 2 stars 03/03/2006 Even though everyone said this was great, I thought it was just 'OK!' The perserves gave a strange flavor to the sauce.

MATTJANDTRACER Rating: 2 stars 01/02/2009 This recipe sounded good. When it came out it tasted a bit like a casserole and not a stew. I used venison instead of deer and pork. I liked the way it turned out, but it wasnt very French.

Hammy Rating: 5 stars The g iving this as a gift as it takes about 10 less minutes but using American cheese and not blended with parsley flakes, lime-flavored gelatin, which is my husband's favorite dish from SuperValu. Just happens to be the creamy sauce. Don't worry about a pie crust.

In fact, the more chaotic the char-rnn recipe, the more chaotic the reviews tend to be, as if GPT-3 has picked up on the chaos and is trying to somehow produce reviews that could plausibly be written by whatever weird humans are visiting this mangled recipe website.

Geilded Peanuts & Crabmeat Basil

3 beef, boneless chops, or thyme, 1 lamber and flince of fresh diced in diagonal 1 parsley 2 large leeks (for garnish) 3/4 teaspoon sesame oil, seeded and peeled 1 any jeans'l-tortilla 1 pepper or cinnamon 1/4 cup baesly pinto beans. (Crushed and thawed; minced fine you recipe) 1 tomato base 1 fat in the last 5 inch plates 1 garlic clove; crushed 1/4 cup dijon mustard

In a large bowl set aside. Remove the sides from the heat and saute with a fork and cover and cook on Low for 6 to 6 hours.

Yield: 6 servings

Morales Rating: 0 stars 03/30/2008 I had high expectations for this recipe, but it was an outright flop. I don't know if the measurements were somehow incorrect or what, but I ended up with a watery mess that certainly wasn't crab salad. My girlfriend, who is a new chef liked it fine, but I really wish that the recipe didn't claim that it made six servings when it really made enough for one, if that's what we were going to call it.

Carole Rating: 5 stars Glorious sobs! This recipe will be delicious for a minumum of 1½ Hours to maximum 2½ hours Time to bring lots of fresh sized potatoes in the house or grow in the age may become quite famous

Amanda Rating: 3 stars 11/13/2009 My friend is having a birthday party and will celebrate with Camping. She's in charge of the dishes and wanted to serve food at the campfire. I'll 10th grade, my easy information for her party. It will not sound strange anyway test this task with a note to work rationally.What to take trees, portable tables for chairs, the main meal, food. I personally love the taste of it but has anyone seen a shepherd (wasn't any spices), oysters. It is sufficient

It does kind of make sense that GPT-3’s recipe reviews aren’t directly complaining about the utter weirdness of char-rnn’s recipes. Probably very few of the recipe reviews in GPT-3’s training data involved baffled complaints about nonexistent or repeated ingredients, or apocalyptic levels of recipe failure. So GPT-3 has learned that even the critical reviews tend to fall within a certain sentiment range. It’s interesting that it tries to emulate char-rnn’s primitive neural net glitchiness - I’ve noticed before that GPT-3 seems to be capable of pretending to be a much simpler neural net.

Subscribers get bonus content: After generating a few reviews, GPT-3 would sometimes go on to generate new recipes (such as “BBQ Cheeseburger Salad” which contains lime jello, whipped topping, and sliced black beans). It may have been deliberately trying to make them terrible to fit in with char-rnn’s recipes.

Speaking of AI-generated recipes: there are some absolute disasters in my book on AI, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s - Boulder Bookstore

[love-bokumono-fics]

Throwback Thursday

The Oldest Fics!

As a fandom, we're in the midst of celebrating our 25 year anniversary since the release of the first game, and I thought there couldn't be a better week to showcase some of the oldest fics in the fandom. Because where there is a fandom, there will be fanfiction, and I wonder if there are any stories out there that someone wrote 25 years ago.

Now, I am a bit limited, because I'm looking at AO3, and the oldest fics are indeed older than the website, however, thanks to the ability to back date, people can put an accurate date on their fics!

Do you have an old fic? Maybe one you never put on AO3 or didn't back date to the original posting year? We'd love to see them! have you been reading harvest moon fic since the early days of the internet and still have some saved away somewhere? Share them if you can!

Perfect - by Aeiouna; Completed, 1/1, <1k; Published June 2007

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/F

Fandoms: Back To Nature, Friends of Mineral Town

Relationship: Claire/Popuri

Characters: Popuri, Claire

Additional Tags: Drabble

I Wonder Why - by runawynd; Completed, 1/1, 1.1k; Published February 2010

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Categories: F/M, Gen

Fandom: Animal Parade

Relationships: Jin - Relationship, Lead Female Character; Characters: Jin, Irene, Lead Female Character - Characer

Additional Tags: Unrequited Love, Romance, Hopeful Ending

Summary: For any Jin fangirls, put yourself in these first-person shoes. Imagine you come to the island a bit earlier than expected... Back when Jin had his rumored girlfriend.

How Low Can You Go? ~Harvest Moon Mix - by runawynd; Completed, 1/1, 5k; Published April 2010

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: M/M

Fandom: Animal Parade

Characters: Jin, Julius, Luke, Calvin, Owen, Toby, Bo, Perry, Ignus, Gale, Chase

Additional Tags: Red Herring - Freeform, Boys' Love, Humor, Suggestive Themes

Summary: Misleading fanficlets; all of which contain the lovely male characters of Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility / Harvest Moon Animal Parade. Can you guess what's REALLY happening before the ending spells it out?

Curry Rice - by melongumi; Completed, 1/1 , <1k; Published July 2010

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: Harvest Moon DS Cute

Relationship: Jill/Skye; Characters: Jill, Skye

Additional Tags: Romance, Family, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Blanket Statement in my profile

Summary: Drabble. How did Skye become a Phantom Thief, anyway? Jill always thought it was to keep from admitting he needed help.

And There Was Peace - by Chyrstis; WIP, 10/?, 11k; Published September 2010

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: Harvest Moon DS Cute

Relationship: Jill/Marlin; Characters: Jill, Marlin

Additional Tags: Friendship/Love

Summary: Jo's time in Forget-Me-Not Valley is far from dull, but she wouldn't have it any other way. A series of drabbles focusing on moments taken from Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life.

Bazaar Happenings in Zephyr Town - by Blizzarin; Completed, 1/1, <1k; Published January 2011

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Gen

Fandom: Grand Bazaar

Relationship: Freya/Jack; Characters: Freya, Dirk, Joan, Jack

Additional Tags: Comedy, Grand Bazaar, Zephyr Town, One Shot

Chickens, Weeds, and Kisses - by orphan_account; Completed, 1/1, 1.9k; Published September 2011

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: Friends of Mineral Town

Relationship: Jack/Popuri; Characters: Jack, Popuri, Kai, Rick, Lillia

Additional Tags: Romance, Humor, Short, Fluff

Summary: Rick and Kai get in a fight, while Jack sneaks away with Popuri in the background.

Beginning Of Our Lives - by BridgetMcKennitt; Completed, 1/1, 1.2k; Published October 2011

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/F

Fandom: A Wonderful Life

Relationship: Celia/Nami

Additional Tags: Courtship

Summary: Out of everyone in Forget-Me-Not Valley, Nami always found Celia the most interesting.

On the Pier in Harmonica Town - by skarlatha; Completed, 1/1, 2k; Published May 2012

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: M/M

Fandom: Animal Parade

Relationship: Chase/Toby; Characters: Chase, Toby, Maya

Summary: Chase hasn't given Maya any encouragement in this weird little crush she has on him, but that hasn't stopped her from acting like a jealous weirdo and pushing him into the ocean. Toby seems to always be there to rescue him.

Find Yourself - by Usami-chan (MeilinLuo13); Completed, 1/1, 2k; Published May 2012

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Island of Happiness

Relationship: Vaughn/Sabrina; Characters: Vaughn, Sabrina, Chelsea, Denny

Additional Tags: Songfic, Video Game Tag

Summary: ''Cause sometimes when you lose your way, it's really just as well. Because you find yourself.'

[conradscrime]

LaVena Johnson: Murder or Suicide?

May 22, 2021

LaVena Lynn Johnson was born on July 27, 1985 in Florissant, Missouri to Dr. John Johnson who was a service veteran and Linda Johnson. LaVena was one of five children, so to help out her family she decided to join the Army to pay her own way through college. LaVena was an E3 Private First Class in the United States Army. 

LaVena was an honour student who enlisted in the Army after graduating from Hazelwood Central High School. She was deployed to Iraq and was stationed in Balad. She had only been there for 8 weeks before she died. 

LaVena was found dead in her tent on July 19, 2005, 8 days before her birthday and the autopsy report and photos showed that she had suffered from a broken nose, a black eye, loose teeth and burns from a chemical on her genitals. There was a gunshot wound and the Department of Defense officially ruled her death as a suicide. 

Two days later, a soldier came to the Johnson’s home to tell them that their daughter was dead. When he told them it was suicide the Johnson’s were immediately suspicious. They had just talked on the phone with LaVena 2 days earlier, and she had told them about her future plans, how she was getting a new job on the Army base and how she would be home for Christmas and to not decorate the tree without her because that was her favourite thing to do during the holidays. 

Investigators believed LaVena had shot herself in the mouth with her M-16 rifle. They thought maybe she was depressed over a recent breakup but John did not believe that for a second. 

John was very suspicious by this ruling when he saw his daughter’s body in the funeral home so he decided to further look into this. The Army actually refused to release information about LaVena’s death, however they eventually did under the Freedom of Information Act after Representative William Lacy Clay, Jr. raised questions. 

It is believed that the chemical burns on LaVena’s genitals were used to destroy DNA evidence of her being raped, and the gunshot wound is inconsistent with a suicide. There were also bloody footprints outside of LaVena’s living quarters, showing that someone had been there. Also the shot wound was too small to be made by a M-16 rifle as this is a huge rifle and her arms would’ve been too short to shoot herself at that angle. The bullet that killed LaVena was never found.

In February 2007 a KMOV news report covered LaVena’s death, gaining attention and a petition was made to the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee with 37, 319 supporters. There was an official website made for LaVena Johnson to prompt the Army to start a new investigation into her death.

In June 2008 a spokesman from the House Armed Services Committee said that they were looking into LaVena’s death but were not committing to a formal investigation. Christopher Grey, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Criminal Investigative Command for the Army said that the case is closed according to them.

In July 2008 a black activist group named Color of Change started another online petition calling on Henry Waxman, who was chair of the House Oversight Committee, to conduct a hearing into LaVena’s death and the Army’s handling of not only her case, but other similar cases.

In 2010 a documentary about LaVena’s family’s struggle to get justice for her was made and directed by Joan Brooker. It was titled “LaVena Johnson: The Silent Truth.”

On July 19, 2011, 6 years to the date that LaVena died, some students in the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute (CCIRI) selected LaVena’s case to focus on and they reconstructed the crime scene which got worldwide attention. 

One of the students said the case of LaVena was “gut-wrenching” and that usually the group would only focus on a case for a year, but they ended up looking into LaVena’s case for 3 years. The CCIRI did not agree with the Army’s findings of suicide, though they also did not dispute it. A student, Sheryl McCollum said that the Army did have poor communication but she did not disagree with their conclusion.

If LaVena was murdered, the person responsible has never been found. Many believe the Army is covering up her death. 

[thebleedingwoodland]

My The Sims 1,2,3,4 gameplay, stories, characters with pictures and very long post. 

❖ The Sims 1

I played The Sims 1 since 2000. Played because my sibling played it, and laughing how funny Sims characters when making sleeping and throwing tantrum sound. I wasn’t interested in the Sims at the time. “I play The Sims only for decorating house” at that time. I like nature and decorating my first house with many plant pots and nature theme. I played The Sims in very goofy way, trapped all Sims and killed them in fire, swimming pool, and dying with red bars. Making pet dog poo a lot, making my all my 8 Sims in household creating dirty plates and flies. Making carpool traffic jam.... 

The Sims 1 was hard game at that time, it was hard to maintain friend relationship with NPCs. I was surprised there were many options for greetings, kissings, and NPC brings chocolate box. Travelled around community lots buying souvenirs and pet collars. Sims must pay for renting fishing rod. There was racoon destroying trashcan. 

I like The Sims Superstars EP the most, the gameplay is very addictive and challenging. I like spending time on building and decorating, while listening to TS1 music. 

----------------------------

❖ The Sims 2 

TS2 since 2004, That was the epitome of emo years. I was happy there was addition of Teen stage, new and relatable at that time. I like to play premade Sims. My favorite is Frat Brothers and Sorority (University household),  Started to become CC addicted after got introduced to ModTheSims. I dressed my male Sims in black clothing, black sunglasses like Good Charlotte, Men In Black, The Matrix. I dressed my female Sims in goth/punk/emo/scene fashion like frontwoman of Evanescene band & Avril Lavigne. I decorated my houses with dark grunge decoration. Because dark/emo/punk/grunge were trending at that time on MTS, TSR, and many CC websites. I remember I visited internet cafe in 2007 only to see and download The Sims CC.  My gameplay is both experimental (boolprop testingcheatsenabled true) and realistic. 

I was surprised too because there my Sims able to have minigames such as scoring party and presenting to get into private school. So many crazy bizarre things introduced in TS2: Money tree, fake money machine, Calling Sims from the death, Cowplant, Imaginary Bunny friend, baby cheat (boolprop testingcheatsneabled true), and so on. 

Two teens love each other living in the same household (Both teens’ parents living in the same house), rival gangs, very very poor family of father and child daughter with black cat, international spy befriend with alien living in Downtown apartment, a teen living alone in house after his parents and sister died. I was addicted to play Open For Business EP. Played DeLarosa for her flower shop and my custom Sims for selling cars with big profit, opening clubs, selling clothes, food, toys. 

Started to become CC creator in year 2011. My first CC I submitted to MTS was restaurant in 2010, but was rejected because it was too boxy. My first CC is Brighten Up Damask Wallpapers. I created my first clothing in year 2008 (but didn’t publish it) in BodyShop: Swapping clothes texture in MS Paint. (Sadly I didn’t backup the screenshots. My pictures on MTS are gone.)

This is my first TS2 Music Video playing Frat Bothers - with background song of Sum 41. (Embarrassing to look by now) 

Sims 2 Frat Brothers - So Not A College Life

Sims 2 Frat Brothers - Weird Moments (no cheat)

----------------------------

❖ The Sims 3 

TS3 since 2009. I was angry when I played pirated version of TS3 at year 2009, how could EA released such lagging game that my Sims so hard to move? Very long loading time, bugging. Many animations are recycled from TS2 and still too cartoon / distorted. But I was amazed with the open world and better gameplay (working, school have options), diagonal object placement, up and down placing lamp and painting on wall, able to purchase property. Expecting game towards realism but why clothing is free (no more buying clothes) and food is purchased directly from fridge? Taxi is free, grilling hotdog on community lot is free, collecting trash from trash pile gets money... so easy to earn money from this game. 

After there were so many CC and especially Dear Lord Master Controller by Twallan appeared, I gave it a try, that gave me many satisfaction due to how real creating face in TS3, no more same face syndrome like in TS2, I can sculpt faces like what I imagined with CC sliders, without depending on custom skin illusion. I created many Sim characters with many races from around the world, until I purchased TS3 and all Expansion Packs on Steam.

 My first Sim in TS3 is Hideki Joon (I created in year 2009) with default TS3 face template, leather jacket and EA hair. He lives in cheapest house in swamp. He is so poor so he eats on the bathtub. I was amazed when Hideki was able to visit other houses and having table picnic at park with NPC Sims. When playing 19-year-old Ridwan Chandra (2009 in-story) testing my poses, I realized I coincidentally created my re-imagined first Sim, Hideki Joon. 

I started played ts3 in 2011. A Chinese Indonesian household: sister, brother, father. Mother was dead in Shang Simla. My Sims travel to the country of ancestors in Shang Simla, but I was disappointed with Shang Simla. The portrayal of China is very very wrong by EA, the icon of China is wrong (Japanese Torii Gate), fortune cookies is American, which doesn’t make sense. “American Chinatown” stereotype, not China.  

A Polish-American criminal named Colby Davis and his daughter Aveline Higgins, female teen version of Jason Bourne. 

A French-American man named Evrard Rochenoire. He travelled to Champs Les Sims having local girlfriend there. Has adventure exploring museums and avoiding fire trap. In my actual story, he is investigating the mysterious disappearance of his parents. He lives with grandmother, saying his parents died to airplane crash, but after the grandmother died, Evrard found the clue that his grandmother lied about his parents’ death, therefore, he travelled to France, country of his parents’ birthplace to find out the clue. 

2011 vs 2014 makeover: 

British family, brother sister and living with parents (I know it’s not accurate because in Western countries, young adults must live in other houses, not together with parents) in Bridgeport. The brother and sister like to have adventure in Al Simhara, exploring the tombs, getting coins and treasures. 

Parody of Harold and Kumar. Nicholas (from Hong Kong) and Darshan (from India) in 2013. Nicholas is hot-tempered, popular at university, a bit dumb sometimes, and Darshan is laidback and bad at fashion sense, but Darshan is actually very smart at academic. Darshan used to hate a Dutch descent girl, Janice, because she annoyed him a lot on purpose. In the end, Darshan and Janice are dating with relationship like Batman and Catwoman. 

More pictures: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Entered ModTheSims contest in 2013 - Cultural Diversity. 

I posted for Indonesian (Jaipong dance in Kartini Day) and Zambia (Makishi dance) entry. I lost both images, unfortunately. 

And these are my entry for 2014.  

Created Jiang Weiyuan (from China) in 2013. His character is very depressing. He has trauma with his teenagehood, bad relationship with his parents, bullied at school, not really good at doing anything, he thought. Tried to commit suicide but failed. He got tattoo without his parents knowing. He hurts inside. He was forced to accept a girl who wants to be his girlfriend but actually he doesn’t love her much, because he is too nice and afraid to break her heart.  

 Then action stories of Jiang Weiyuan in 2014. He and his university friends travelled to Hawaii but suddenly they woke up in random island, forcing them to play kill each other like Battle Royale to survive. (Used to be posted on MTS but I deleted it, I changed the plot). They trap, betray, lie, and kill each other, to get box of bananas as prize. If they run out of food, they kill others and being cannibal. That’s what inspired me to create name The Bleeding Woodland. 

Created a vampire character, Zhou Chenghuan was born in 2014. The created his female companion, (not sister, friend, girlfriend) but still in the same family, which is his 表妹 (younger female cousin from maternal line), Huang Li-Yang. I didn’t know which nationality he is, but then I decided to give him and her citizenship as Taiwanese, so I changed the romanization of his name, Chou Ch’eng-Huan. 

Originally he is a vampire, but then I tried to re-imagine him as normal human as magician, it suits him perfectly. While Huang Li-Yang becomes his assistant, still likes to wear goth fashion. 

I published more CC and mods in ModTheSims, had been in secret group, created makeovers for members’ Sims, but unfortunately there was a drama that made me quit. I moved my CC to my own blogspot because of disappointment toward MTS. Then joined Simblr. I posted funny gameplay pictures of Ridwan Chandra because I was stressed in real life. I didn’t think of aesthetic, just posted random funny unedited pictures to entertain me and then mass creating posting CC in hurry (didn’t have time to edit). Sadly, there were trolls, rude, non-understandable American English slangs starting to flood my Simblr, I started to think about aesthetic (dark) which is my actual style and posted in Indonesian and Chinese languages, to prevent getting mistaken as American / Westerner.    

----------------------------

❖ The Sims 4 

Played TS4 since 2014. Not much to tell because it’s boring, haha. No cars = boring. Weird seeing Sims transport automatically to loading screen when used to have cars in TS2 & TS3. I played for trying new gameplay and actions. Was amazed because of teens having same height as adults and able to “Messing Around” (WooHoo? I mean rubbing each other with clothes on?) without mod. Able to create gigantic object. I have a lot of fun playing TS4 Island Living, Cats and Dogs, Vampires, and Jungle Adventures. Depiction of dogs and vampires are much better in TS4 in my opinion. My newest Sim, Fadli Susanto (native Indonesian).

[heavyarethecrowns]

Are we detecting signs that the Middleton family don’t know how to behave? - Dec 2010

A half-baked brother, some seamy connections, and high social ambitions may not be what we need  in a Royal princess. The Slog investigates.

If like me you loathe all the Royalty obsession and emotional bollocks that goes with the media/Windsors relationship, I beg you not to turn away from this article. Although I am a Royalist, I don’t think much to a Royal family which sets an awful example, and I regret the way in which the Windsors have listened to foolish advice about democratising the way they work. (I may be one of the few people who watched the movie The Queen, and agreed with pretty much everything Prince Philip’s character said.)

Much of the Royal family’s horribilis of late stems from unsuitable marriages to commoners. I don’t see this as a coincidence. I view it rather as giving in to yet another lazy assumption in contemporary life: that because people have led a monied life, they necessarily understand the duty and discretion that is required of joining the family of the Head of State. In my experience, the diametric opposite is often the case.

I’m bound to report that one can’t help feeling – after digging around a bit – that there might be something ever so grubby about Kate Middleton’s family, and its attitude to teaming up with royalty.

As long ago as 2008, Kate sorry Katherine’s brother James was quick to use Hello! as a conduit for his cake-making company, while stressing his connection to the House of Windsor. I understand Her Majesty was less than amused about this. Indeed, there are those who would suggest that James was absent when the feck was being handed out. He is a University dropout once photographed by an Aussie gossip magazine urinating against somebody’s fence while apparently tipsy. He also did a stint selling with Forestry For Life, an unregulated investment company flogging things which – some truculent clients allege – it didn’t own. To be more precise, the company sold a carbon credits/rain-forest land scheme to about 50 clients, taking in at least £1.25 million; the problem was, the credits weren’t up and running, and the company allegedly didn’t own the land specified.

The company is now the subject of an FSA investigation, and faces dissolution by Companies House because of failure to file legally-required documents. When The Slog rang them yesterday, however, FFL sounded open for business. Boss Matt Ames was there – but sadly, too involved in meetings to come to the phone. Although the company’s website has been ‘under development’ since the FSA investigations began, it used to boast that the Board was ‘headed by Sir Rodney Walker’ – a well known and largely respected sports entrepreneur. But Sir Rodney emphatically told The Slog “I am not the Chairman, although I was approached”.

The Slog spoke today to the FSA’s Chris Hamilton, who confirmed that “Active investigations into Forestry For Life are ongoing….although we understand that Mr Middleton is no longer associated with the company”. Some time back, the enthusiastic writ-issuing legal firm Carter-Ruck told the media that James Middleton’s association with FFL was short-term and that he was ‘not formally employed’ by the company. His informal employment did, however, stretch to working on FFL’s exhibition stand at a recent eco-event:

James Middleton (r) working in an informal capacity for FSA-investigated Forestry for Life

Pippa Middeton gave her first media interview just a fortnight before the announcement of her sister’s engagement, which one suspects she knew was imminent. She used much of the encounter to remorselessly plug the family business of selling party accessories. Says a friend of the Middletons, “Michael and Carole have hugely ambitious plans for Party Pieces. They see the engagement and their daughter’s new status as a giant step on that road”. They also see Pippa as the natural successor to take the business on into the next generation: the younger daughter has already launched an internet magazine spin-off.

“The Royal family is very keen to ensure that the wedding is not seen as a business opportunity for the Middletons and their associates,” a courtier allegedly told the Telegraph’s Mandrake last month. But that is a nonsense: the Royal wedding is going to be one big national Party – they are bound to benefit.

Both Ms Middleton and her parents have already shown they’re not exactly squeaky clean when it comes to plugs for the family business Party Pieces. Speaking as ‘Kate [not Katherine] from Party pieces’, the future Princess offered tips for hosting perfect parties on PP’s website as late as March this year. The post was removed the following day, but doing it in the first place shows an appalling lack of judgement.

Katherine’s parents Michael and Carole Middleton represent new money. They founded Party Pieces in 1987, and it has turned them into millionaires. Before that, Carole was an air stewardess, and Michael a pilot. Carole’s Dad was a lorry driver, and her mum a shop assistant….indeed, that side of the family are variously described as clerks, labourers and joiners going back some 150 years: Edward Thomas Glassborough, for example, was born in Shoreditch – but in 1881 he was residing at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in Holloway Prison.

Interestingly, there is a John Ward (great great great great grandfather) in the Middleton family tree, born in 1838, and listed as a hatter. My lot were indeed costumiers at the time, but as I recall the family head was called Felix. Later we went into bedsteads, and later still on the buses. My point here is that I’m not being an insufferable snob about the Middletons: I’m merely pointing out that, like me, they don’t seem to know the ropes about being royal.

Talking of Carole, for instance, one of William’s Eton set described her in 2007 as  “pushy, rather twee and incredibly middle class”. She made a major gaffe early on in the relationship when, during Prince William’s passing-out parade at Sandhurst, Mrs Middleton chewed gum incessantly while with the Royal party. Perhaps it is a urban myth, but the Middleton matriarch is reported to have told her daughter to study at St Andrews “so you can meet Prince William”.

I value what the Royal Family ought to stand for –  if only because the French are insanely jealous of us for having one. The last thing the Windsors need right now is more Sarah Ferguson and Prince Edward vulgarity. I can’t help thinking that the ghastliness of money-obsession needs to be kept out of Buckingham Palace for good and all. And in that sense – as my very ordinary mother used to say – they should stick to marrying those who know how to behave.

There’s nothing remotely wrong with making money and creating employment – I’m all for it. But there are few sights less edifiying than watching people climbing the north face of social demography in a bid to plant their flag among the highest in the land. Joining the high-ups demands a strong sense of the behavioural duty that goes with that state: to be Number One is a goal the same as any other, but looking after Number One is not the way to grace the position…and be admired in it. Kate Middleton still has a lot to learn before she can be Princess Katherine.

[starcentral]

OCTOBER 2021: SCM0008

GREG BAIN - The Mulberry Tree

Greg Bain releases his self-penned original, The Mulberry Tree. This laid back bush ballad successfully transports the listener to a simpler time, when their own Mulberry Tree was an integral part of family life.

Greg fondly recalls and recounts many of the childhood memories we all have in common, or at least those of us who had a Mulberry Tree in our own backyards.

Since winning the Australian Bush Balladeers Star Quest in 2007, Greg has released five successful albums on the LBS Music label, under the direction of award winning producer Lindsay Butler OAM.

The Mulberry Tree is the first single from Greg's forthcoming album but is also proudly included on The LBS Country Collection - Volume 26.

Greg's Website: https://sites.google.com/view/gregbain/home

[chride]

I have a folder on my computer titled “Hyperfiction/IF ideas” with some of the best of @oneterabyteofkilobyteage​ that I’ve found so far, let me know which one you’d like to see me make into an interactive fiction:

1) Ladies of Oakdale - a Picture Tribute to the Ladies of As the World Turns. Of course, I would for research need to watch all of As the World Turns, the CBS tv soap that was on air for 54 years from 1956 to 2010.

2) Sandy’s Genealogy and Pandora’s Box Home Page - The tragic story of Sandy and her genealogy addiction. What secrets lie lurking in Sandy’s family tree, and how will the world cope with the disease, misery and chaos released?

3) Life’s Journey - No frames ahead / Frames ahead - Under the starlit swirling purple of the galaxy, journey into life itself. Where does it lead? No frames ahead. Or perhaps, frames ahead after all...

4) Morphologic Similarities - ENTER the exciting world of co-occurrence patterns. Who is he? Who is morphologically similar?

5) In Loving Memory of Melody - A tragedy, RIP Sillyboo. Let’s call them the Crazy Celly Catz, though, so as not to create poor taste abbreviations.

6) MIRACLE of Zam zam whatever - A praying tree, an exploding sky and the zam zam water walk into a website. Holy non-canonical mischief ensues.

7) The Most Beautiful Musical Stamp in 2007 - This puzzle adventure with time-travel tones is of current interest for philatelists who know their violinists.

8) The Long Hair’s Surf Page - You dream of glassy monsters, with jackin walls of water, in exotic. I do too. Chill~

9) ULTRAFLAVORSGIRL’S personal site - What made Ultraflavorsgirl so most infamous? If you have to ask, get out!!! posers like u r not welco

10) All About Alan - In a particularly technical corner of bohemia, we find Poppinet. Who lived in the Zone? And what is it that Alan actually does recommend?

Intriguing, right? Downright fascinating. Leave a carrier pigeon with your pick and I may start uncovering the truth...

[craftedincarhartt]

Shop Small with these Women Owned Businesses

It's that time of year again, when we're all looking to support the small businesses our communities hold dear. Purchasing goods and services from the pillars of your favorite neighborhood is the best way to show your support.

Below you'll find a list of 15 Women Owned Small Businesses. If you shop online this holiday season, don't forget these incredibly hard working folks.

1.) Messner Bee Farm

Rachael Messner of Messner Bee Farm in Kansas City spun her hobby into a flourishing business. Her operations began as a 900 square foot urban farm. Over years of never giving up despite what different seasons showered upon her, Rachael and her family now live on a full-fledged bee farm. You can even stop by for a tour if you'd like to know more about where your honey comes from.  

“Honeybees pollinate over one-third of all the fruits and vegetables we eat. Of course they also make honey! The best way people can help bees is by minimizing their use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, and supporting other organizations that do the same. Buy local honey, support your local beekeeper.” –Rachael Messner

Shop some of Rachael's products here. Read more about Rachael's story here.

2.) Woodward Throwbacks

Bo Shepherd and her partner Kyle started Woodward Throwbacks in 2013 as a means to repurpose much of the discarded lumber and abandoned antiques that plagued Detroit's streets. Their shop has moved from location to location, each time scaling up and offering even more goods and services.  

I started re-purposing found wood back in college but it became a serious hobby once I met Kyle. We used to bike around the city exploring different neighborhoods and during our excursions we noticed an abundance of wood from illegal dumping sites. We combined our love for the city and the idea that taking materials found in the street would also help clean our neighborhoods." -Bo Shepherd

Through their website you can shop salvaged doors, custom made and reclaimed furniture, and handmade goods. Read more about Bo's story here.

3.) Seattle Urban Farm Co.

Hilary Dahl is co-owner of Seattle Urban Farm Co. and host of the Encyclopedia Botanica podcast. The podcasts are quick lessons in farming, each one is easy to access—you can listen to them online and read the highlights.

Seattle Urban Farm Co. offers many services, and they differ from customer to customer. Their knowledgeable team can plan, build, and maintain the urban farm you always wanted but never thought you could personally manage—perfect for those of us who may not have a green thumb, but love the idea of homegrown tomatoes.

If you are an aspiring farmer or gardener, browse the different webinars Seattle Urban Farm Co has to offer on their website, ranging from soil health to harvesting techniques. These online lessons are a great gift (for yourself or loved ones).

Read more about Hilary's story here.

4.) Homestead Wisconsin

Brit McCoy is a woman of many talents. She’s a full time farmer, runs her own flower business, and works at her family's business, The Wood Cycle. Making strides in her career alongside her family is the most challenging and most fulfilling part of the job

Brit majored in Landscape Architecture at Iowa State University. Upon returning to Wisconsin, she and her husband Matt founded their own farm, first selling their ethically raised meat, eventually expanding their reach.

“My business started just like my father’s, to make our hobby our career. I started raising livestock as soon as I could afford to feed them." -Brit McCoy

You can order a box of their fine grass-fed beef and lamb here. Read more about Brit's story here.

5.) Blue Marble Ice Cream

Ten years ago, Jennie Dundas and Alexis Gallivan, opened Blue Marble Ice Cream in Brooklyn. Their products are entirely organic, made from only high quality ingredients, and absolutely no hormones, antibiotics, harmful pesticides or artificial additives. Manufacturing in New York with ethical and sustainable practices is crucial to this woman-run company.

“Nobody can really be sad eating ice cream, can they?” -Susan Jo, Ice Cream Chef

Ship Blue Marble Ice Cream straight to your front door here.

6.) Sustainable Crafted Wooden Goods by Alexandra Climent

Meet woodworker Alexandra Climent. She operates out of her own shop in Brooklyn. Her passion for the extraordinary wood she found in the jungle lead her to teach herself the trade.

All of the products Alexandra makes are set apart from other wooden goods. She sustainably sources her materials from the jungle, befriending locals and working with each regions’ governments along the way. The wood she harvests and brings back to her shop is ancient, packed tightly over years and years.

“The wood I use is some of the most dense in the world. When you put it in the water it sinks and termites can’t even penetrate it. It’s like working with steel, and it breaks pretty much any blade.” -Alexandra Climent

Shop Alexandra's one-of-a-kind creations here. Read more about Alexandra here.

7.) Sculptures by Amber Jean

From giant sculptures made from entire trees to carvings that fit in your hand, the interplay between humans and nature is the driving force behind Amber’s work. She put herself through college, finding work in the great outdoors that fueled her passion for earth and art.

Amber helped build the Continental Divide Trail, was part of the first all female crew at the Forest Service in Bozeman, fought forest fires in West Yellowstone, and was the first female wilderness ranger based out of the West Yellowstone District.

Amber was the first woman to carve in the country of Bhutan for the Prime Minister. She's created many large scale works that have earned her great recognition in the art community. And she even gave a Ted Talk about her work.

"I never wasted energy grumbling at, whining about or looking for prejudices. I just got to work, stayed curious, made lots of mistakes, and kept after it.” –Amber Jean

Shop Amber's sculptures here.

8.) Circa Ceramics

Nancy Witt and her husband Andy have been making their wares in the Chicago neighborhood of Ravenswood since 2001. Their signature style is iconic in the windy city, with their Chicago flag items constantly flying off the shelves.

Browse their online shop here. See behind the scenes into their studio here.

9.) Greta de Parry Design

Greta is a classically trained woodworker and sculptor in the Chicago area. She's been designing and making furniture since 2007. Her collection consists of clean lines and minimalist touches.  

Shop Greta's furniture here. Read more about her story here.

10.) The Little Flower Soap Co.

Michigan florist, Holly Rutt, started making soaps as a hobby. Combining her love for nature and interest in healing plant extractions and essential oils, she and her husband created a line of body care products. After realizing how much steam her side gig was gaining, Holly decided to devote the majority of her time to The Little Flower Soap Co.



“The maker movement is in full swing there has never been a better time to start your own small business. If you think your life would be better as your own boss in a creative field than get started and stick with it.” —Holly Rutt

Shop Holly's body care products here. Read more about Holly's story here.

11.) The Elk Coffee Shop

This charming coffee shop in the West Village of New York is owned by Claire Chan. Five years ago, she took over the space, renovated, and reopened with her grand vision in mind.

“I feel so proud of the all women-run businesses I see popping up, especially right now. At a time where women’s rights and female empowerment is more relevant than ever, it is important to express your ideas and exercise your values so that others will be encouraged to do the same. There’s strength in numbers, and it feels amazing to surround yourself with like-minded and strong women!” -Claire Chan

If you're in NYC, you can order The Elk's offerings straight to your door here. Read more about The Elk here.

12.) Amaltheia Dairy Farm

Amaltheia Dairy Farm in Montana is a family run operation.

“We have had our farm for over 20 years. We love the Bozeman area and our goats get to enjoy beautiful scenery and seasons we have here. It’s beautiful every day. The best thing about what we do is to provide nutritious, delicious organic goat cheeses, pork, and vegetables to people. Those people appreciate being able to get great food and are thankful. It is a symbiotic relationship.

We have been making cheese for 17 years, certified organic for 12 years. We are sustainable farmers and try to utilize all of our resources and byproducts responsibly. We use the whey from the cheese to feed organic hogs and compost and use all of our manure for fields and gardens." -Co Owner, Sue Brown

Ship some some of the famous Amaltheia Dairy Farm goat cheese straight to your front door here. Read more about the family here.

13.) Pewabic Pottery

Pewabic Pottery in Detroit was founded in 1903 by Mary Chase Perry Stratton. Her ceramics were nationally renowned, landing her a spot in the Michigan’s Women Hall of Fame. Mary went on to win several awards and established the ceramics department at the University of Michigan. The touch she had on Michigan and the arts and crafts community will always be remembered. The shop is still operating to this day and is now a National Historic Landmark.

Shop some of their trademark Pewabic blue pieces here.

14.) Live Edge Detroit

In 2016, Jenny, her brother Joe, and her dad Mike founded Live Edge. They now salvage the trees that Mike’s company removes. Once the wood has been cut and taken back to their warehouse, the crew mills them into new usable material.

“Our vision for Live Edge Detroit was to develop a branch of Mike’s Tree Surgeons, Inc. that focused on salvaging our local resources and making them available for the community to enjoy for many more years to come. Our long term goals are to uphold that initial vision and to see it bloom into a more sustainable and profitable branch of the family business. We aren’t planning to take over the world, but we want to make a difference within the community, and we feel that starts right here in our own backyard.” -Jenny Barger

Shop Live Edge's offerings here. Read more about the family business here.

15.) Five Marys Farms

A few years ago, Mary and her husband Brian were high-powered Silicon Valley lawyers/entrepreneurs who traded it all away to live the Carhartt way of life. Armed with a strong work ethic and the fearlessness to ask lots of questions, the couple and their four daughters who all share the first name of Mary – but who go by their middle name to keep things “simple” – have proudly become a fully-functioning ranch that sells its meats all over the country.

“I am so proud of the life we get to give our girls living and working together on the ranch,” Mary beams when talking about being the mother of four young farm girls. “I don’t think I gave my girls enough credit before we moved here,” she continues, “I made their lunches and filled their water bottles and did all of their laundry, not really expecting them to do too much. By necessity, when we moved to the ranch the girls had to step up to the plate and start helping more, and they are so much more capable because of it.”

Shop Five Mary's here. Read more about this amazing family here.

[bohemianrhapsody86]

200 Things About Me (originally 200 Things You Can Put In My Ask)

I got this off of @rami-malek-trash - don’t know who the original poster was, sorry if it’s you. I’m bored and cramping and no one usually sends me asks anyway, so I’m just going to answer all of these myself 

200: My crush’s name is: Drew (Now boyfriend, but he was my middle school crush) 199: I was born in: 1986 198: I am really: cool 197: My cellphone company is: T-Mobile 196: My eye color is: green 195: My shoe size is: 9.5/10 194: My ring size is: 9/10 193: My height is: 5′6″ 192: I am allergic to: Nothing 191: My 1st car was: 2001 PT Cruiser 190: My 1st job was: Server at a local pizzeria 189: Last book you read: Startalk: Everything You Ever Need to Know About Space Travel, Sci-Fi, the Human Race, the Universe, and Beyond by Neil DeGrasse Tyson 188: My bed is: Not very comfortable. I need a new mattress, but I need a job first.  187: My pet: A siamese cat named Chico. 186: My best friend: Amanda  185: My favorite shampoo is: I like using Aussie 2-in-1, I also like using Shimmer Lights occasionally so I can keep my gray hairs nice and shiny.  184: Xbox or ps3: PS3 183: Piggy banks are: Cool. I have one that counts my change lol 182: In my pockets: Nothing because they hate putting usable pockets in women’s pants.  181: On my calendar: I marked where I started my period yesterday, and my boyfriends 32nd birthday is next Tuesday.  180: Marriage is: Something I want everyone to have the option for if they want it. 179: Spongebob can: use his imagination 178: My mom: is amazing! 177: The last three songs I bought were? Cool and Sucker by The Jonas Brothers, Don’t really buy many singles, just albums if I’m interested and their cheap.  176: Last YouTube video watched: Brooke Candy - Paper or Plastic 175: How many cousins do you have? Too many to remember 174: Do you have any siblings? Yes, an older brother and older half-sister. 173: Are your parents divorced? Yes, they divorced back in 1999 172: Are you taller than your mom? Yes. We used to be the same height, but gravity has taken a hold of her and squashed her down.  171: Do you play an instrument? I used to play the trombone in middle school, but that was 20 years ago. I’m sure if I ever got my hands on one again, I might remember a scale or two.  170: What did you do yesterday? Went around town job hunting and then bought a maxi dress at a local craft store.  [ I Believe In ] 169: Love at first sight:Yes 168: Luck: Yes 167: Fate: Yes 166: Yourself: Sometimes 165: Aliens: Yes 164: Heaven: Yes and No 163: Hell: We live there now. 162: God: No 161: Horoscopes: Yes 160: Soul mates: Yes 159: Ghosts: Yes 158: Gay Marriage: Yes 157: War: No 156: Orbs: Yes/No 155: Magic: Yes [ This or That ] 154: Hugs or Kisses: Kisses 153: Drunk or High: High  152: Phone or Online: Online 151: Red heads or Black haired: Black haired 150: Blondes or Brunettes: Brunette 149: Hot or cold: Cold 148: Summer or winter: Winter 147: Autumn or Spring: Autumn 146: Chocolate or vanilla:Chocolate 145: Night or Day: Night 144: Oranges or Apples: Apples 143: Curly or Straight hair: Curly 142: McDonalds or Burger King: McDonalds 141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: Milk Chocolate 140: Mac or PC: PC 139: Flip flops or high heals: Flip Flops 138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: Sweet and Poor 137: Coke or Pepsi: Always been a Pepsi girl 136: Hillary or Obama: Obama 135: Burried or cremated: Cremated and turned into a tree or my ashes made into a vinyl 134: Singing or Dancing: Singing 133: Coach or Chanel: Neither 132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: Katherine McPhee 131: Small town or Big city: Small Town 130: Wal-Mart or Target: Target 129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: Ben Stiller 128: Manicure or Pedicure: Mani 127: East Coast or West Coast: East Coast - never been to the West Coast 126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Birthday because it sometimes falls on Thanksgiving.  125: Chocolate or Flowers: Chocolate 124: Disney or Six Flags: Disney 123: Yankees or Red Sox: Neither, Cubbies til the day I die.  [ Here’s What I Think About ] 122: War: Pointless 121: George Bush: Better than the asshat in office now. 120: Gay Marriage: If I can get married to my boyfriend, the my friend Jerry should be able to get married to his boyfriend, Josh.  119: The presidential election: I hate that orange buffoon.  118: Abortion: I’m pro-choice.  117: MySpace: Always had trouble figuring out my Top 8 and what background I wanted to use.  116: Reality TV: Only thing I really watch are cooking competitions. Those are the only ones that matter. Not a fan of the Kardashians or the Bachelor/ette bullcrap.  115: Parents: My mom is amazing, my ‘dad’ was never really there.  114: Back stabbers: Asshats 113: Ebay: Hardly use it.  112: Facebook: Good to stay in touch with people you want to/some of the groups on there are awesome.  111: Work: Don’t have a job as of yet. *keeps fingers crossed I hear back from someone soon* 110: My Neighbors: Loud AF and nasty. I live in an apartment and the neighbors upstairs have so many kids and animals up there it’s ridiculous. I wish they’d leave.  109: Gas Prices: Ridiculous, but not as bad as I’ve seen it before.  108: Designer Clothes: Meh, not my style unless I find something in my size at Goodwill.  107: College: Been there, done that. Not really for me. Never graduated.  106: Sports: I like watching them, mainly baseball and basketball. The NFL can go fuck themselves.  105: My family: Love my blood relatives and my chosen family.  104: The future: It’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.  [ Last time I ] 103: Hugged someone: last night when my boyfriend came over and brought me my phone charger.  102: Last time you ate: An hour ago. 101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: At my bestie’s baby shower.  100: Cried in front of someone: Sometime last week 99: Went to a movie theater: When Endgame came out 98: Took a vacation: 2010 97: Swam in a pool: A few summers ago 96: Changed a diaper: 2007? 95: Got my nails done: 2007? 94: Went to a wedding: 1999 93: Broke a bone: Never *keeps fingers crossed* 92: Got a peircing: 2012? 91: Broke the law: I probably broke the speed limit yesterday at some point.  90: Texted: about 2am this morning.  [ MISC ] 89: Who makes you laugh the most: My bestie Amanda and boyfriend Drew 88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: my cat. 87: The last movie I saw: Ant-Man  86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: getting a job 85: The thing im not looking forward to: Interviewing for a job 84: People call me: loyal 83: The most difficult thing to do is: finding a job 82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: Yep, 77 in a 55. 81: My zodiac sign is: Sun - Sagittarius, Moon - Leo

80: The first person i talked to today was: If you count texting my boyfriend at 2am, then him.  79: First time you had a crush: Sometime in Elemetary School.  78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: my mom 77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: yesterday 76: Right now I am talking to: myself 75: What are you going to do when you grow up: I have no clue 74: I have/will get a job: soon 73: Tomorrow: Never Comes 72: Today: Is the day 71: Next Summer: Not here 70: Next Weekend: I have no clue 69: I have these pets: 12 year old 17 lb cat named Striper.  68: The worst sound in the world: My cat hacking up a hairball.  67: The person that makes me cry the most is: myself 66: People that make you happy: my mom, brother, sister-in-law, boyfriend, best friend. 65: Last time I cried: sometime last week 64: My friends are: amazing 63: My computer is: pretty cool and loaded up with Sims stuff.  62: My School: I don’t go to school anymore.  61: My Car: gets me there.  60: I lose all respect for people who: disrespect me or my loved one.  59: The movie I cried at was: Endgame 58: Your hair color is: salt & pepper 57: TV shows you watch: Legends of Tomorrow, Worst Cooks in America, Any cooking show really.  56: Favorite web site: Tumblr 55: Your dream vacation: Somewhere away from my town 54: The worst pain I was ever in was: when I had that ovarian cyst. 53: How do you like your steak cooked: medium 52: My room is: messy 51: My favorite celebrity is: too many to list  50: Where would you like to be: in bed 49: Do you want children: nope 48: Ever been in love: yes 47: Who’s your best friend: Amanda 46: More guy friends or girl friends: About the same.  45: One thing that makes you feel great is: music 44: One person that you wish you could see right now: my grandma 43: Do you have a 5 year plan: I don’t even have a 5 minute plan 42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: Kinda, not really 41: Have you pre-named your children: Nope 40: Last person I got mad at: The Dump, but that’s a daily thing.  39: I would like to move to: out of the US 38: I wish I was a professional: crocheter/crafter [ My Favorites ] 37: Candy: Butterfinger Cups 36: Vehicle: Don’t really have one 35: President: Barack Obama 34: State visited: Pennsylvania 33: Cellphone provider: Always been with T-Mobile 32: Athlete: Anthony Rizzo 31: Actor: Tom Hanks 30: Actress: Sandra Bullock 29: Singer: Freddie Mercury 28: Band: Queen 27: Clothing store: Lane Bryant 26: Grocery store: Aldi 25: TV show: Don’t really have one 24: Movie: Too many to count 23: Website: This black hole of a site 22: Animal: Cat 21: Theme park: Don’t really have one. I did enjoy Six Flags over Georgia when I went back in 2002. Dollywood is always fun but it’s been even longer than that since I’ve been there.  20: Holiday: Halloween 19: Sport to watch: Baseball 18: Sport to play: Nothing.  17: Magazine: Entertainment Weekly 16: Book: Harry Potter 15: Day of the week: Thursday 14: Beach: Virginia Beach 13: Concert attended: Jonas Brothers in VA Beach 12: Thing to cook: bacon 11: Food: bacon 10: Restaurant: Hmmm....don’t know that one.  9: Radio station: Classic Hits 102.7...hardly any commercials and they tell you the artist and song title after every song. 70s, 80s, and 90s songs.  8: Yankee candle scent: Don’t have one 7: Perfume: The scented oils from a local curiosity shop have some of my fave scents.  6: Flower: Iris 5: Color: Blue 4: Talk show host: Jimmy Fallon 3: Comedian: I’ve got several 2: Dog breed: Corgi 1: Did you answer all these truthfully? Yes.    

[thegrandimago]

Thomas Crowther wants to restore the planet, but first he needs to know how many trees, fungi, worms and microbes live on it.

Thomas Crowther bursts barefoot from his office into the corridor, sweating through his faded T-shirt and grinning with exhilaration. It’s a warm July day and he has just finished telling NBC News that Earth could sustain another 1.2 trillion trees, which would absorb 200 gigatonnes of carbon, and that the next thing to do is to “stop talking and start planting”. His claim, based on figures published that day in Science, comes from the latest in a string of high-profile ecology papers from his laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) that have drawn the attention of the world’s media — and Crowther is loving it. Publicity, he believes, will get him closer to his goal, and his goal is nothing less than restoring the planet.

At 33, Crowther has risen from struggling student to steward of a 30-strong team with a multimillion-euro grant that should keep his lab going for 13 years — rare stability in a world of short funding cycles. His hallmark is to amass thousands of individual observations and weave them into large-scale conclusions: he and his colleagues have counted the world’s trees (3 trillion) and its most abundant animals, nematode worms (0.4 sextillion), and have mapped global tree-root fungi. Invasive species are next.

Crowther’s maps are bouncing onto the pages of leading science journals — five so far this year in Science and Nature alone — and he has just won the British Ecological Society’s Founder’s Prize. His fans say he is part of a new wave in ecological research, using machine learning on vast, scattered data sets to tease out broad patterns about the state of the planet. His critics think he is trampling on nuance and oversimplifying — sometimes dangerously so.

“He’s a bit of a disrupter,” says Mark Bradford, a soils and ecosystem ecologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. “He’s the Uber of the field.”

Big ecology

It was a chance conversation after football practice that compelled Crowther to start counting. In 2012, having completed his degree and doctorate at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, he arrived at Yale to begin a postdoc in Bradford’s lab. After an evening kickabout, a master’s student who had worked for a tree-planting organization told Crowther that although scientists had counted trees in hundreds of thousands of spots around the globe, nobody knew how many trees there were in total. What’s more, although scientists scoffed at the usefulness to science of deriving such a number, the funders of tree restoration projects were keen to find out, to provide a quantitative basis for their work.

Satellite imagery was supplying the best estimates at the time — but satellites couldn’t tell what was going on beneath the canopy. Crowther, encouraged by Bradford, decided to look for ground data from actual tree counts “where somebody has been standing on the ground, counting the number of trees, measuring how big they are and telling us what species they are — the simplest thing ever”.

The data might be simple to collect on the ground — but persuading scientists to share their work with him seemed at first impossible.

“When I started, every professor at Yale said, ‘This is ridiculous, you can’t do this … no one will ever share data,’” he says. “And when I started they definitely didn’t want to — no one wants to give all their hard-earned data to some stupid postdoc who’s just starting up.”

But he gradually cajoled more scientists into complying, until eventually he had amassed data covering about 430,000 hectares — an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. With his colleague Henry Glick, a data scientist, he examined the satellite imagery for these hectares and used machine learning to make millions of comparisons between the two data sets — ground and satellite — to find repeatable correlations that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. The duo used the satellite imagery to extrapolate how many trees lived in areas that lacked good ground inventories. For example, data from forests in Canada and northern Europe were used to revise estimates of the number of trees in remote parts of Russia. This led to the first global model of tree density and the figure of three trillion trees. The team published the map in 2015.

Although the error margin for the estimate ranged between one trillion and ten trillion, the figure of three trillion trees caught the public imagination. The “Billion Tree Campaign”, a reforestation initiative launched by the United Nations in 2007, was upped to a trillion, and Crowther’s database lives on as the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative. It now includes 1.2 million forest plots.

The work is still a point of pride for Crowther. “That will be one of the biggest contributions I will have made to science,” he says. He pauses for a thoughtful second, then jumps to his feet with a slap of his yellow flip-flops. He jogs down some stairs to his desk in the corner of a large shared office, and clicks the mouse to reveal more than 200 global maps, each of a different physiological or chemical characteristic of the planet, ranging from solar radiation to the biomass of soil bacteria and from urban development to the whereabouts of root fungi.

The lab’s hallmark maps are created from perhaps a million separate pieces of ground data that have been interrogated with machine learning to understand how they are connected to existing global data from sources such as satellites and ground sampling. That requires knowledge not just from ecology but also from remote sensing and data science. “You need, like, five different experts along that process,” says Crowther — which is one of the reasons he has shunned the separate office offered to him by ETH Zurich and is instead crammed into the same room with the group manager, the theoretical ecologist, the microbiologist and the remote-sensing and data analyst who make up his senior science team.

Daniel Maynard, the theoretical ecologist, says that Crowther has created an unusually flat team structure, and has deliberately selected scientists who fill gaps in his own expertise. “Tom’s not an expert in any of the things we do. He’d be the first to say ‘I know nothing,’” Maynard says. “Though he knows a lot more than he’s letting on.”

In the new work, led by Jean-François Bastin, the team used satellite data on tree cover, and aligned them with maps of ecosystem characteristics, giving a model of which environments support how many trees. Subtracting existing forest, urban areas and agricultural land, they arrived at a figure for how much of the world could in theory be reforested (see ‘Big pictures’).

Growing ambition

Crowther speaks with a rapid and earnest eloquence that makes it hard to believe him when he says that he couldn’t string together even a simple presentation until a few years ago. At school in the Welsh seaside town of Prestatyn, he bumped around at the bottom of the class. He poured his energy into sport instead, playing tennis for his country and winning the Welsh Junior National Championships twice. After scraping into Cardiff University, he was disruptive until his tutor, Hefin Jones, struck a chord by suggesting that ecology could be played like tennis — it was fun, competitive and had an end goal. Crowther regards it as an epiphany: he remained, and completed a PhD in wood-rot fungi. Jones then ushered him towards the postdoc at Bradford’s lab.

The tree counting he did there, plus a further high-profile paper predicting a dramatic loss of carbon from soils in the Arctic, attracted the attention of a private Dutch foundation, DOB Ecology in Veessen. Founded by one of the country’s richest families, it funds projects to protect and restore threatened ecosystems and enable people to live in them sustainably.

The courtship took two years, “and about 100 interviews”, says Crowther, during which he was encouraged to inflate his ambitions to match the pocket and vision of his funders. They wouldn’t take him seriously, he says, until he had sketched out his vision to 2030: to paint a picture of Earth’s ecology in quantitative terms. (Now, he says, his mission is to go “beyond the realm of science” — to start a global movement.)

DOB Ecology also insisted that he budget for 4 non-scientists among the original 14 positions it funded. Between them, the non-scientists liaise with environmental organizations, cultivate the massive networks of scientists needed for sourcing data, maintain a slick website and manage Crowther’s time. He has since added a Head of Art and Culture; one of her first planned projects is an installation at the Vatican in Italy, to encourage people to consider the beauty of nature. “Science without communication is nothing,” Crowther says impetuously. “It’s not even a thing — it’s just papers in people’s drawers.”

Aside from this emphasis on outreach, his interdisciplinary focus and a target to complete 13 major projects in 13 years (of which 9 are done), he is free from direction from his funders, he says.

“Very few people of that age get the chance to build something so big so quickly, and he has taken the chance and run with it,” says Peter Reich, a forest ecologist at the University of Minnesota in St Paul.

As Crowther races off to talk trees to the news network Al Jazeera, his team is hard at work doing the mechanistic studies that take up a lot of their time. In the basement, a couple of master’s students are clamping the reluctant leaves of saplings to measure oxygen and carbon dioxide flow. A loudspeaker plays recorded traffic noise to soil fungi to test an offbeat theory of Crowther’s that sound makes them grow faster (so far, he’s right). Next door, the worktops are crowded with clusters of chopped tree parts. In the office that Crowther rejected in favour of a desk in the communal room, four staff hurl themselves around a ping-pong table, playing “the smashing game” — a chaotic version that incorporates walls, ceiling and floor. It is one of several that Crowther invented and prescribes are played daily to break up the mental effort, forge bonds and keep life fun.

To reduce the unknowns, Crowther was looking for “any quantitative information on any component of the soil community that we could find”. Nematodes — which specialists have scrutinized in thousands of soil samples around the world — were an excellent candidate. “It’s a phenomenal amount of work,” says Bradford of this sampling by soil ecologists, “and it doesn’t normally translate to high-profile manuscripts.”

Crowther’s convening powers may be his central talent, says Bradford. There are other teams applying artificial intelligence and remote sensing to ecology, but Crowther “is pulling together really large empirical data sets” Bradford says. “To me, that’s a really valuable resource just on its own.”

Once the disparate data had been assembled, the lab’s data scientist, Devin Routh, fed them into 250 different machine-learning models that were looking for links between numbers of nematodes and 79 parameters from the lab’s base maps of soil quality, climate and vegetation. They discovered three principal predictors of nematode numbers: soil sandiness, carbon quantity and acidity.

From that, the team was able to predict the number of nematodes worldwide: 4.4 × 1020, ranging in density from less than 100 to more than 2,300 per 100 grams of soil. And, in contrast to plants and other animals, they are more abundant at higher latitudes, locking up the huge carbon stocks of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions.

But the real significance of the work, says Crowther, is that, in nematodes, the researchers have found a powerful new predictor of soil activity around the world and hence an idea of where climate change will have most impact.

The team has since repeated the mapping exercise with tree-root fungi, publishing the first global map of their whereabouts and quantities in May this year. On the basis of this work, Crowther went on to suggest that rising temperatures will cause fungal species that release carbon to the atmosphere to spread, and those that store carbon to diminish.

These two global patterns — of fungi and nematodes — are just the start of Crowther’s ambition to help transform ecology into a big-picture discipline that can sharpen up climate models, reveal how the planet is responding to climate change, and demonstrate how to restore it.

But some of the leaps Crowther makes are too much for other modellers. Charles Koven, a leading modeller of soil-carbon processes at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, objects to Crowther’s prediction about how fungus distributions will change under a warming climate.

“I would argue you don’t want to make those kinds of extrapolations into the future for the reason that it’s not just the climate that’s changing — a lot of things are changing, particularly the CO2 concentrations,” he says.

Koven points out that Crowther Lab models are statistical — they find links but don’t tell you if these are causative or correlative. But he welcomes the fungus map because it will help him test his models of cause and effect.

There’s also the question of whether the messages Crowther and his prolific communications engine are broadcasting are sufficiently nuanced. Hartmann’s colleague Susan Trumbore, an Earth-systems scientist, says that there is another, more sombre message to be found in the maps that come with the tree-restoration paper — that the risk of tree loss among intact forests around the world dwarfs what could be achieved through planting. This has not been publicized.

Two months on, Crowther is chastened by the furore his paper created among scientists who thought its message might encourage the public to relax about curbing carbon emissions as long as they planted enough trees. “We certainly did our communications a little bit wrong, and we’ve learned from that,” he says. “I want to be extremely clear that cutting greenhouse-gas emissions is absolutely essential if we are going to have any chance to stop climate change.”

Although critics such as Williams think that Crowther’s messaging needed more refinement before its release, others think that there are benefits from stirring up discussion outside academia. “We need the Crowthers who are out there pushing the limits and giving us big numbers and big potential that will help excite people,” says Robin Chazdon, who studies tropical-forest regeneration and restoration at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. But at the same time, she says, “we need to have local solutions and stakeholder engagement and decision-making on what trees go where.”

Over lunch on the roof terrace, it’s seven minutes until Crowther talks to the BBC. “I would like to make it clear that we are really excited by the detail,” he says suddenly. “The point is, I don’t believe it’s science until you’ve put it in that context: I can say ‘that bird is flying weirdly’ — that’s not science; that’s what most of ecology is at the moment. It’s natural history.”

But now is the time for Big Ecology, he says, with the pressing need to understand where carbon is and how ecosystems process and respond to it. “I think the biggest criticism we always get is ‘this is going to be a huge undertaking, we probably can’t achieve all of this’,” he says. “I think that’s extremely dangerous because that’s the kind of thinking that has got us in this mess.”

[jessamygriffin]

The Legend

Dear @youcantdothatpod

Hello, Hockey Coven, it is I, one of the two responsible for the Pierre-Édouard Bellemare DreamBoat Manifesto of old, penning this under my normal Tumblr journal instead of the hockey one for no good reason, and I come to you, with respect, and with full knowledge of certain coven members love of Russian players (though this one is not a Siberian) to ask for either a history lesson or dream boat nomination for my guy - for having an interesting life, to say the least. He is my favorite Russian player. Yes, possibly even over Ovi. 

And yet he never made the NHL.

Oh. My. GOD. some listeners must be thinking at this point. Why even BOTHER with this guy??? he’s not in the fucking NHL!

(And can I just say, in this case, we must never be the Bettmans of the hockey world, who was bloated with hubris thinking to bring hockey like a Messiah to the unenlightened Asian continent a few years back [ha ha fuck off, they’ve had hockey here as long as the NHL has existed? I live in Japan btw] and we must not think that the NHL is the end-all-be-all of hockey aspiration. It wasn’t. It isn’t. Times were different. There wasn’t even a KHL at the time our story begins.)

I bring him to your attention because he is THE BEST.

His story begins in the Siberian IHL, passing a pretty tough try-out as a kid to start playing for the Red Army team, CSKA Moscow.

I feel like I ought not throw in all his info here? Maybe just a few highlights? And some comments. Ok who am I kidding it will get long.

Here: Vladislav Tretiak.

Vladislav Aleksandrovich Tretiak, goalie, current president of the IIHFR.

He won a lot of shit. I’ll just link the Wiki here - it’s a list.

He looks kinda like Spock, but in the best red-blooded ways, not that I would ever judge anyone for wanting to get freaky with a green-blooded half-alien. His goalie training looks a lot like cossack dance.

(MUTE THIS VIDEO THO)

There’s some other worse quality vids of him doing similar and playing with his son, so. There’s that. Skip ahead to the tennis ball part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrfOsCVakvs

He started hockey kinda late, at age 11.

And Canadian hockeys LOVED him. *See below pic of jersey swap with Wayne Gretzky for proof.

Really, you gasp. Say it ain’t so! Impossible!!!

Truth.

How did the so-called hockey world (which of course was based in NA according to old boring hockey men) discover this Dumbo-eared wunderkind? The 1972 Summit Series.

(Yes, he grew his hair out and covered the mudflaps, and it was MUCH BETTER, sorry Vladdy.)

‘Ho hum,’ said the Canadians, ‘Russia thinks they are good at hockey, how ‘bout we have the Summit Series and quash their pretensions? That gold medal in Sapporo? a FLUKE. Ha ha, look at their goalie, this will be a cakewalk, he let in EIGHT GOALS in this game we just saw, oh well, let’s go have a beer and light up a dart, eh, boys? Eight games, pfft. We’ll sweep them.’

Joke was on them - Vladdy or Vladik was gettiing married the next day and weirdly? Couldn’t concentrate.

Summit Series ended up with one tie, 3 Russian wins and 4 Canadian, with the Canadians playing their dirty rough style, and the Russians their smooth, machine-cog style. That series was a gongshow of biased refereeing, Russian goal judges not turning on goals lights, and teams leaving the bench to have Canadian or Russian tantrums. Actual ankle-breaking occured.

Canadians had two goalies. Russian had one. He was 20. My boy. He KILLED it. And to say the Canadians were pretty horned about about this alien cheekboned man-child after expected a blow-out? MASSIVE understatement, HUGELY horny. As they should have been. Ken Dryden LOVED him. Jacques Plante himself, maybe feeling sorry for the kid, came and talked to him before the tournament started and let him know how different players would try to score. ‘A big help,’ Vladdy said. ‘I don’t know why he did that.’  LOTS of players were in awe. Canada was turned upside, Toronto became Tijuana and nothing was ever the same. The Interest in Russian Players was, officially, a Thing. (Kharlamov was a big part of the interest but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

The horniness was, in fact, so uncontainable that several NHL teams expressed an interest, and one team was bold enough to draft him in 1983, when he was the ripe age of 31, which at the time was not TOTALLY hockey-old for goalies and players like it is now. Yes, the Habs. Consider that 3 years later rookie Patrick Roy backstopped the Canadiens to several Stanley Cups, and imagine what they could have been even earlier, with Tretiak. HOooooO.  Serge Savard hit up Moscow four times during the winter of ‘84 to try and secure his release.

Russian wouldn’t let him go, of course. Tretiak was a only lieutenant-colonel in the Soviet army, and not playing the high level hockey he had previously, and thusly COULD be replaced in the system. Soviet officials ultimately vetoed a transfer. “Oooh his dad was a major, how can we let this son of a distinguished man go and play HOCKEY, it’s a disGRACE!” Or at least that’s what we were told. Okay, Jan.

He quit playing at age 32. Thirty fucking two!!!  He’d done his 4th Olympics in a row by this point in 1984, and had the honour of carrying the flag for his nation, though he said it was probably because no one else had done 4 Olympics in a row. He wanted to spend more time with his family, and asked Tikhonov, coach of the national team and CSKA to let him have, ya know. Quality family time. (You’ll remember this douche from previous Russia Hockey Stories.) Tikhonov said, no, you live at the compound like everyone else for 11 months of the year. Ah ha ha.

Roll back a few years, for a grudge. Tretiak, if you’ll recall from the Miracle on Ice, was pulled from the game against the Americans by ol’ Tikky after letting in ONE (1) goal in the first period. All the Russians knew, but would never say until much much later, what a massive mistake that was - and you know the Miracle story anyway. Tretiak said himself it was a mistake, and he wouldn’t have lost the game. 

So, all things considered, in spite of having loads of playing life left in those kicky legs, Tretiak noped out and retired, for the reason of  being denied time with his family. And not getting to go abroad to play, which was probably a bitter pill and so quitting while he was still useful was a good Fuck You to the officials who used him up like a tissue playing hockey for his team and country. And of course, he was exhausted. At age 32.  "I'd played fifteen years with the Army Club and the National Team without a break. Backup goalies came and went, as did three generations of forwards and defensemen, but through four Olympic Games, all the important ones with the professionals, all the World Championships, all the Izvestia tournaments, it was I who played in the net."

Frankly, he should have just defected like others did later. Sent his family to watch him in a tournament and done a Sound-of-Music-esque Von Tretiak escape out the Zamboni exit, over the mountains and far away.

He would have been the first if he had. One of the most famous players in Russia, leaving for a career in the corrupt West. I’m glad he at least thought about it a little, even if it never happened. God, that would have been great. I’m glad that the NHL were able to pull their xenophobic heads from their asses enough to know greatness, and to want that brilliance shining on their teams.

But really, in the end, the man done him dirty. “In spite of aggressive discussions with Soviet authorities, Canadiens' general manager Serge Savard was unable to secure Tretiak's release for Montreal. "I would have loved to play in the Forum," Tretiak admits. "I was hoping to one day play in the NHL. I would have liked to do it even for just one season. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. I regret not having the chance." “

Still, the NHL and hockey in NA didn’t forget him. There were laurels left to be given.

He was the first Russian to be inducted into the HHoF, and the first to be entered without ever having played in the NHL.

Was he done with hockey? Heck no. Remember when I said Canadians loved him? It may have been mentioned a time or five.

In 1988, hockey royalty got married - Wayne Gretzky and Janet Jones. Befitting royalty, her dress cost $40,000, and gifts filled three rooms of the hotel. Notably, amongst them was a gold swan from a certain Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak. Why??? Swans are good luck, said Vladdy. They mate for life. And lo, the couple is still together.

In 1990, Mike Keenan hired him to be a goalie coach for the Blackhawks, and was (again) so turned on by his mastery that he suggested the 38 year could still play in the NHL? Vladik laughed and said no, but coaching was the next best thing. He worked with the best - Belfour, Hasek, Thibault, and you’ll be shocked that loads of tendies wear his #20 in tribute. He runs - or ran? website not updated in a while - the most challenging goalie school in NA in Toronto in summers.

He worked with the ‘Hawks until 2007, and then went on to be a pillar in Russian hockey leadership. Coach. Etc.

He wrote a book, which was really what got me into Russian hockey - it was wild to me at the time when I read it in high school some (Cough cough) years ago, so alien. But it’s chock full of the stories you love. His first coach Tarasov, wanted him because he was ‘tall’ (6′ is tall in Russia???) and had ‘huge hands’ and reminded him of Jacques Plante. The book’s pretty frank about hockey history and the role ‘Miracle on Ice’ played into a kind of American propaganda, which is refreshing. He was politely horrified by seeing Canadian players smoking. His training was bonkers, and included tree-climbing at speed. The Russian team was always trying new stuff, and one time decided on sports psychology, which a teammate helpfully volunteered Vladik for, ‘He’s the most important player, he’s the last defence, work with him!’ (since no one else wanted to). The positive thinking mantras seemed to work as at the next practice they were amazed by his clean play and kicks. But lol, no, next game he got blown out, and was probably glad to send the sports shrink on the way.

And he was crushed  when his teammate, Valeri Kharlamov, with whom he played so long, died at the young age of 33 in a car accident. But Kharlamov is a guy for another section of Hockey Histories.

So. This dream boat.

Ok. I know y’all prefer a defection story, and I think some listeners also? But. Here’s the thing. It’s sexy and romantic but also traumatic as fuck to ditch your country, your life in that political climate, to play the game. And dangerous,  shit man. 1983. U.S.S.R.!!! People still got disappeared! It was fine to treat players like garbage and lock them up for months in a compound and not let them see family! And I sometimes get the feeling that people consider the NHL the pinnacle, like, what a fool is Tretiak? who wouldn’t throw away everything to play NHL hockey? But that’s like, Bettman thinking, that the NHL is the best and perfect when we all know it’s fucking garbage, I know the current KHL has issues, SO MANY it would be a three hour podcast to talk about! So there’s no high ground, really. And in the end, Vladislav Tretiak made a choice that did good by himself, going on to a successful post-hockey career and the upper echelons of Russian hockey, and did well by his family, and of course, being patriotic is sexy, as anyone screeching at their team during the current World Cup of hockey knows. It’s okay that he stayed there. It’s fucking sexy NOT to defect, sometimes. Dude was a champion either way, his life is not a tragedy or lesser for not having played in the NHL and I really want people to know that. 

"For me, it was all, and all of it is with me forever."

Yes, there is life and hockey beyond the NHL. 

And it’s beautiful.

[joebidensanonymous]

Things you might not know about Joe Biden

As he was growing up, his family went through tough times: his father had trouble finding steady work, so the family had to move back in with Joe’s grandparents. 

His father used to say “Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up”. Joe has kept these words in mind, and in his speeches. 

He was a popular kid, but got into a few fights, especially if he was teased for his stutter, which he struggled to conquer by reciting over and over in front of a mirror.

In high school, Joe led a perennially losing team to an undefeated season.

He met his first wife Neilia Hunter during a spring break trip. “I fell ass over tin cup in love — at first sight”.

Although he found law school to be "the biggest bore in the world", and was ranked as one of the worst students in his class, he graduated from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968.

In 1972, Biden's campaign had virtually no money and was given no chance of winning against longtime political figure Senator James Caleb  Boggs. Yet, he was elected to the Senate, and became the sixth-youngest senator in American history.

A month after Joe Biden won the race, as they were out shopping for a Christmas tree, his wife Neilia and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car crash that left Joe alone with his two boys, Beau and Hunter. 

He considered resigning to take care of his sons but ultimately decided to hold on to his Senate seat. He was sworn in at one son's bedside in the hospital.

To come home every day from Washington and be there for his sons, Biden commuted by Amtrak train for 3 hours each day. He knew every conductor on the train.

In the 1990s, Joe Biden wrote the Violence Against Women Act. It set the national agenda on criminalizing domestic violence. Biden has said, "I consider the Violence Against Women Act the single most significant legislation that I've crafted during my 35-year tenure in the Senate."

Biden was also a long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Although he was often at odds with Republicans as well as members of his own party, he received bipartisan praise for his foreign policies.

During the presidential campaign, Obama’s team referred to these blunders as "Joe bombs".

Biden's elder son, Beau, became Delaware Attorney General and an Army Judge Advocate who served in Iraq. In 2015, Beau died at the age of 46 from brain cancer.

Joe Biden is known for speaking his mind. During a debate, he made fun of Republican presidential candidate, Rudolph W. Giuliani, by cracking that “there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.”

Biden was banned from communion by his own Catholic Diocese for supporting abortion rights.

The U.S. Secret Service codename given to Biden is "Celtic", referencing his Irish roots.

Sources:

Elisabeth Bumiller, “Biden Campaigning With Ease After Hardships”, New York Times, December 14, 2007

Brian Naylor, “Biden's Road to Senate Took Tragic Turn”, NPR, October 8, 2007

John M. Broder, “Father’s Tough Life an Inspiration for Biden”, New York Times, october 23, 2008

"Domestic Violence", Biden senate website, archived on August 22, 2008

Paul Richter and Noam N. Levey, “On foreign policy, he's willing to go his own way”, Los Angeles Times, August 24, 2008

Noam N. Levey, “Biden's regular Joe side”, Los Angeles Times, August 24, 2008

[thepoison-theapple]

The Edmonton and Area Land Trust (EALT)

This week on the blog we have the absolute pleasure of introducing you to an admirable woman who has committed her life to protecting wildlife habitats in Edmonton and the surrounding areas. Her name is Meghan Jacklin and in her position as Conservation Coordinator at the Edmonton and Area Land Trust (EALT), she spends her days actively protecting nature for both wildlife and people alike.

Meghan’s dedication and sense of responsibility to protect nature stems from her early exposure to nature, fostered through family canoeing and camping trips, as well as an early affinity for wolves. She acquired a degree from the University of Alberta in Conservation Biology, and upon graduation, she spent several years as a biologist studying birds. Now, however, she is working with EALT to protect all wildlife in Edmonton and surrounding areas.

Meghan and friend on a canoe trip at 2 years old.

The Edmonton and Area Land Trust is a unique organization for it is a conservation charity with the purpose of protecting nature for both wildlife and people, forever. The concept of a Land Trust is central to the effectiveness of the organization and is essential in ensuring that nature may permanently thrive. A land trust is an organization that protects land either through direct ownership or by partnering with landowners, with the goal of permanently protecting that land. EALT operates by either owning the land themselves, or by issuing conservation easements to land titles retained by their original owners. Conservation easements are crucial as they restrict development from occurring on the land even if it is sold to a new owner. Often, conservation easements are sought by landowners who are concerned with the wellbeing of natural areas after the owners themselves are gone -— conservation easements work to ensure that protection of the land will continue after the landowner is no longer personally there to ensure the conservation. To facilitate protecting the land, landowners may partner with EALT to ensure the permanent conservation of that land and the dependent wildlife. 

However, land donation and conservation easement are only part of EALT’s responsibilities. As a result of the constant changes to the manner in which land is used in Edmonton and the surrounding areas, as well as human impact as a whole, EALT actively manages this natural land to maximize the wellbeing of the wildlife. For example, across all of the designated land trusts, EALT consistently removes invasive weeds and fences, while also installing artificial habitats for birds and bats, which act as substitutes for their natural habitats to ensure they are able to continuously thrive. Additionally, EALT is involved with various projects in specific areas, including planting trees in areas which were previously subject to invasive and destructive human action.

Invasive fence removed by volunteers. 

The work of EALT is crucial because as the population of Edmonton and surrounding areas continues to grow at an alarmingly dramatic rate, wildlife and their natural habitats are increasingly threatened. EALT actively works to protect the wildlife that, figuratively and literally, live in the backyards of the people of Edmonton and surrounding areas. These natural habitats have been protected by the restriction on development and activities in these areas, limiting access only to the public who wish to walk the land, birdwatch, or take photographs. Access to the locations of these protected areas, as well as directions on how to navigate them, may be found here on EALT’s website.

Projection of the growth of Edmonton and surrounding municipalities in 1951, 2007, and 2057.

EALT lands. 

There are numerous ways in which individuals may get involved with EALT’s various initiatives. With an ever-growing amount of land to protect, EALT is in constant need of assistance from volunteers. Access to information on volunteering with EALT may be found here. Moreover, as EALT does not receive any government funding, and relies wholly on grants, donations, and endowment funds, donations are always welcomed and greatly appreciated -— every little bit helps to preserve the natural habitats in Edmonton and the surrounding areas. Information on how to donate may be accessed here. Finally, awareness may be raised through engagement on any of EALT’s social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin.

EALT volunteers. 

Thank you for you interest in the Edmonton and Area Land Trust!

[patreontoken]

African forest elephants

STATUS: Critically Endangered

HEIGHT: 8-10 feet

WEIGHT: 2-5 tons

HABITATS: dense tropical forests

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The African forest elephant is a distant cousin of the African savanna elephant. They live in West and Central Africa's lush rainforests. Traditional counting methods such as eye identification are impossible due to their affinity for deep woodland environment. Dung counts—an analysis of the density and distribution of feces on the ground—are commonly used to estimate their population.

African forest elephants are smaller than the other African elephant species, African savanna elephants. Their tusks are straighter and point downward, and their ears are more oval-shaped (the tusks of savanna elephants curve outwards). The size and shape of the skull and skeleton are also different. Forest elephants also reproduce at a slower pace than savanna elephants, thus they cannot recover from population decreases as quickly. Gabon and the Republic of Congo are their last strongholds, with lesser concentrations in other African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea) and west African countries (Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, and Ghana).

African woodland elephants forage on leaves, grasses, seeds, fruit, and tree bark in family groups of up to 20 members. Forest elephants have an important role in propagating many tree species, particularly the seeds of huge trees with high carbon content, because their diet is dominated by fruit. As a result, they are known as the "forest mega-gardener." They gather at mineral-rich waterholes and mineral licks throughout the forest to augment their diet with minerals.

WHY THEY MATTER

Forest elephants live in deep woods and are necessary for the germination of many rain forest trees. After passing through the elephant's digestive tract, the seeds of these trees germinate.Due to the conversion of forests for agriculture, livestock husbandry, and human infrastructure, both African elephant species are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation. As a result, conflict between humans and elephants has escalated.The most urgent threat to African woodland elephants is ivory poaching. Between 2002 and 2011, their populations fell by 62 percent, and their geographic range shrank by 30 percent. As a result of this deteriorating tendency, the IUCN designated the African forest elephant Critically Endangered in 2021.

FRAGMENTATION AND HABITAT LOSS

As human populations rise, land is converted for agriculture, settlements, and development, African elephants have less space to roam than ever before. The range of elephants shrank from three million square miles in 1979 to little over one million square miles in 2007. Commercial logging, biofuel plantations, and extractive industries such as logging and mining not only degrade habitat, but also provide poachers with access to distant elephant woods. Poverty, military conflict, and civil conflict displacement all contribute to habitat loss and fragmentation. All of these factors confine elephants to smaller islands within protected areas, limiting their freedom to move.

HUMAN-ELEPHANT CONFLICT

People and elephants are increasingly coming into contact with each other as habitats shrink and human populations grow. Damage to crops and settlements can become prevalent where farms border elephant habitat or straddle elephant migration pathways. This frequently results in elephants losing battles. People may be trampled while trying to preserve their livelihoods, and game guards frequently shoot "problem" elephants, resulting in death on both sides.

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Patreon Token — Patronize of Animals and Environment

Get to know the Patreon Token

The Patreon Token is a cryptocurrency created by three pet-friendly crypto fans to create support for the animal welfare and conservation organizations they love, anytime, anywhere. The Patreon Token was created on December 01, 2021. It is made of 88 million pieces and each cryptocurrency can be divided into 8 decimal places.

Our goal

Our team will distribute a minimum of 80 million PTRN tokens to various aid organizations. This means that we want to send 8,000 tokens for free to at least 10,000 animal welfare and conservation organizations, which can be sold to generate revenue. The remaining 8 million tokens will be used to develop to our project. The most important thing for us is that all animal welfare and conservation organizations on the planet can be easily and instantly supported by everyone, wherever they live or stay in the world.