#the vast majority of his birds hang around where the food and the safety is

[garaksapprentice]

Yep. Humans Do A Breeding Program at domestic animals to get the characteristics they want - finer fleece, bigger cocoons, quieter temperaments, etc - and when they are raised humanely, the tradeoff for the animals is that they 1) have a better life than their wild counterparts by almost all measures; 2) spread their species much further than they would have by themselves; 3) have one bad day.

There's a very good argument out there that humans didn't domesticate corn - corn domesticated humans. I think that argument can be easily extended to most of our domesticated livestock, especially when you consider that factory farming is less than a hundred years old.

I think it's a common misconception that domesticating animals is somewhat like enslaving them. It really is more of a symbiotic relationship. No wild animal would have willingly put up with early humans if they didn't get something out of it. Wolves wouldn't have stayed with us and become dogs if they weren't getting food and safety out of it. Many large herbivores that are now domesticated could and would have easily trampled their early human captors or broken their enclosures open if they didn't have a reason to stay. Sometimes individual animals still do if we don't give them what they need.

The animals that have stayed with us for thousands of years have evolved to cooperate with us better. Dogs have additional facial muscles around their eyes that wolves lack in order to mimic human facial expressions. Sheep grow their wool perpetually while their wild counterparts don't because a bigger fleece means they're more likely to be allowed to breed and be kept around. Domestic dairy cows produce much more milk than wild bovine species and domestic hens lay more eggs. Do you know how energy costly producing eggs or milk is for an animal? It's pretty intense! They wouldn't be able to do that if we hadn't given them the food and safety from predators and the elements to.

And we really need to show these animals respect and gratitude for what they give us by taking excellent care of them. They gave up a lot to be with us, often including the means to take care of themselves in the wild. That's a huge reason why I'm not against using animal products, but I hate factory farming. They are still living, breathing creatures with needs and feelings. They deserve a comfortable life and, when the time comes, a humane death.

[borderlandscast]

the vault hunters go to ikea

takes place during the epilogue. this took a while because i have no idea how normal people behave when going to ikea.

after nanosounds ordered that deep clean crew, arsenal and his wonderful volunteers (i.e., any surviving bandit who didn’t want their stuff thrown out) made a list of everything that could be kept and not kept. they marie kondoed the frigate from top to bottom.

bandit construction is mostly dumpster diving, improvisation, fixing or stealing things from one another. so the vast majority of furniture within the frigate is junk and isn’t space-faring quality (that is, won’t hold together if it accidentally smashes into a wall during ascent or if someone takes a good swing at it).

fun fact: the only objects in vast quantity deemed to pass this test are the bunk beds within the common, shared troop quarters. however, all the mattresses and sheets had to be stripped down and carted off to be deep cleaned as well before anyone felt remotely comfortable using them. in fact, almost all of the mattresses and sheets were donated to the bandits staying behind. after the cleaning, of course.

runner-up objects are lockers, chests and storage containers. for obvious reasons, arsenal let his own troops claim what’s what but they had to do it in a non-violent way or else it goes to him or worse, parvis’ bandits.

when the frigate finally left pandora, the frigate was in short supply of multiple bits and pieces, almost all of them cosmetic. people slept on the floor, in cots or shared beds, even making cardboard box forts.

before undergoing repairs at the planet hecatoncheires, all spacekea furniture was able to be stored in vox’s digistruct system and popped back into place, no big deal. the captains also made another cleaning mandatory so that the repair crews couldn’t be impeded by anyone’s giant stash of snacks kept in a ceiling high locker.

anyway, arsenal gave everyone a thousand dollars (sponsored by sipsco.) and told them to ‘go nuts’ when they finally docked at spacekea. they’d dock for a week or so, and then leave. after that, future visits would have to be by special request.

spacekea is one of the joint markets that’s one of the only places in the galaxy that megacorporations share. all of them manufacture and sell some sort of commodity, not always furniture. for example, jakobs may produce the majority of generators but they also produce the widest range of wooden furniture. maliwan produces the ‘friendliest’ sourced tea and spices. tediore has the monopoly on one dollar items.

everybody bought a new mattress. and sheets, plus sheet covers. there’s a lot of neat designs (all of them owned by one company or other).

arsenal refused to buy a new couch, but he did buy two extendable children’s beds for his kraggons. having two kraggons trying to hog the same space on his bed is exhausting. hence, the beds.

the other reason why the frigate had to make a stop at spacekea is because some of the stuff being sold fills a particular niche called ‘holds plenty, good for tiny spaces’, given that the frigate is big but not exactly spacious in certain places.

martyn (who’s also the safety officer) had to veto a lot of the trophy and wall shelves since they post a safety hazard. he didn’t say no to paintings, holo frames or wall hangings though.

without a doubt, almost the whole frigate’s passengers ate at the cafeteria, every single day. and stocked up in bulk on the snacks and frozen food. this was one of the first stops they made, and everybody loves food that’s not pandoran. in fact, some of the bandits who’d been born on pandora and never left were trying to find their feet via food. they got hooked, very fast.

the frigate’s passengers all became very recognisable, very quickly. everybody has to wear a name tag identifying what ship they’re from for deliveries, troubleshooting, etc. it also meant that parvis’ literacy classes shot up in attendance a week beforehand.

the whole place is divided into multiple sections. first is the docks, which is divided up by ship size and function. thanks to daltos claiming the registration for the blackrock, the frigate enjoyed a cushy space close to the entrance. not many military ships dock at spacekea, so. and they got free parking due to the length of their stay.

sherlock had to give an orientation about spacekea. it‘s one of his best presentations, and his favourite. it was mostly about etiquette, since more than half the crew have never interacted with civilians before (with threats, murder and bloodshed not counting).

the docks are linked to the cafeteria, warehouses, display rooms, hotels and the market. instead of it all being laid out in one direction, the designers went with a much more helpful design: a four way, multi-leveled behemoth of interlocking buildings.

hotels are there to help people who flew smaller ships who intend on staying awhile, or families on vacation, or anybody who wants a bed to sleep in for a day. hotels are divided into classes, which range from five star to one star, even down to rentable capsules.

after the hotels (mostly arranged on the outside perimeter), people enter via main hallway. from here, omnidirectional lifts, elevators, escalators, turbolifts (only for express, staff or richer clientale) can take people to where they want to go.

the cafeteria serves up a massive menu that’s uniform to every spacekea. the menu boasts that there’s always something for someone. the hot dogs, soft serve, meatballs and desserts, to name a few, proved especially popular with the blackrock’s crew. rythian enjoyed the dairy free soft serve.

the display rooms are dioramas that are filled with sample living spaces designed to inspire ideas from those passing through the hallways. they all come with holographic clipboards, a catalogue and a pen. the pens are all chained to the clipboards to discourage theft.

how it works in theory is that if there’s a piece someone fancies, they jot down the item number, price, quantity and name so that they can pick it up at the warehouse or the market.

in reality, sherlock had to lead groups and track every single one of these clipboards since not every bandit could write legibly or in a decipherable manner. he’s never been so well-acquainted before with so many bandits until this moment. don’t worry, minty, hollie sparkles, parvis, ravs, daltos and arsenal helped him out, in shifts.

you can go into the dioramas and display rooms. this the crew did, in varying ways.

rythian wanted a king size bed since he’s tall. and he’s tired of having to make himself fit. also, ravs is buying for him. he also bought the highest grade book storage unit available, and a miniature hammock for junior.

ravs spent an hour testing the display bar, fermenting and barrel rooms, and had five different salespeople attending to him at once, owing to his manners and charming personality. he ended up buying a deluxe suite, and wrangled a fitting service for free since he’s buying so much in one go. he also bought a spacesaving bird loft/avairy for the pigeons and quails.

lalna and xephos spent three days alone in the tech section, pressure testing the hardware and systems in that area. people kept mistaking them for salespeople and customer service. they eventually got paid by spacekea because of their EFFICIENCY. both turned down offers of employment.

honeydew and nilesy performed an impressive interpretative dance within the kitchen and cat rooms. both are no pushovers when it comes to cooking and cat care, and nilesy has about fifty cats to house and entertain. nilesy also brought along lyndon (his own diamond kitten) to test items, and had to have honeydew with him to fend off people who wanted to interact with the kitten.

minty almost got kicked out because people thought thought she was a part of the displays since she kept putting her feet up on the desks. she found a desk she liked, and even bought the display one since she ‘felt a connection with it’, which didn’t impress sherlock when he had to sort it all out.

honeydew also took his gardening team on a serious quest to maintain the grass room and hydroponics (i.e., veggie patch). this took four days to complete from start to finish, involving picking out new turf, chairs, trees, benches, fences, pots and seedlings. the grass room looks like a proper grass room now, and not just a lone field of grass with a sad looking tree in the middle.

lomadia bought a small bed for her still to hatch egg. it was doll-sized, and a lot of people gave her strange looks for buying a bed specially for it, until she pulled out the incubator capsule to prove that she was serious about it.

zylus bought a chef grade bread machine. this daltos tried to prevent since he had deja vu about too much dough being made, and which zylus rebuffed. his premonition proved correct since the crew ended up eating bread for whole two weeks, and didn’t even mind.

daltos bought a portable, handheld hologram kit intended for engineering projects. it’s the one he carries around with him in the epilogue, used for tracking a ship’s condition and status. vox sends him stuff through it. he also secretly uses it to watch movies and a n i m e.

since parvis is staying with will, he tried to buy a water bed to replace his own shoddy bed/cot. will couldn’t stand all the wobbling and sloshing, and had to convince parvis to buy a different bed. parvis bought a fancy bed with hangings and velvet trim. will facepalmed. will also bought a handcrafted tie rack. parvis made fun of him. will bought five more just to own it.

saberial strongarmed panda into buying a lot more organisational stuff since their ship and room is obnoxious to hang out in, given their habit of leaving stuff lying about. panda sticks to organisation for about a month and then goes back to their own haphazard system.

hatfilms act out wine or cheese within the display rooms, which leads to security being called on them twice, one casting call by an agency and many applauds by passerbys. all of them end up in an advertisement, and get a buttload of free goods, mostly food.

lalnable kits out his medical office with an adjustable standing desk. lalna also buys one to be a copycat. lalna also buys one of those stuffed toy sharks. lalnable hates it because it’s so obtrusive to see.

sherlock buys a whole kit of stationary, shelves, boards and office goods. he spends the next month slowly integrating them into the offices. he’s the happiest he’s ever been. bandits dub him the best nerd.

nanosounds decides to renovate the home office in her mother’s place as a sign that she’s a good daughter, but decks the wallpaper and carpet in varying hues of purple. her mother is secretly thrilled by her independence and modern thinking.

teep just buys one of the best mattresses available, and nothing else. this drives all their friends nuts, who then spent the whole trip trying to convince teep to splurge. teep eventually buys...one black coffee from the cafeteria.

[montemoutdoorgear1]

Coexisting While Camping: Living Harmoniously with Bugs, Bears and Other Critters

Wildlife encounters are always a possibility anytime you explore the great outdoors. You’ll see birds, bugs and other common critters on virtually every hike, and if you spend enough time trekking through forests, fields and deserts, you’ll surely encounter more spectacular animals too.

Such encounters usually end as quickly as they begin – most wild animals are inclined to avoid people whenever possible. But, unpleasant interactions can happen from time to time, and you’ll be wise to take whatever steps you can to keep wild animals at a safe distance. Failing that, you’ll want to be able to diffuse any tension that arises before the situation takes a turn for the worse.

There are a number of different things you can do to reduce the chances of a negative encounter, and we’ve listed some of the most effective and important below. Because you’ll need to take different steps to avoid problems with different kinds of animals, we’ve broken down the recommendations into several different critter categories.

Bears

Bears may be some of the most frightening animals to encounter on the trail, but they don’t cross paths with humans as commonly as is often supposed. And of this relatively small number of interactions, only a handful will progress to an actual physical confrontation. Most bears will move off at the sight of people.

To limit encounters and stay safe, try to incorporate the following tips:

Never feed bears or allow them to access your food. Bears that begin to associate people with food often become nuisance bears in a very short time. Such bears often become dangerous, and they’ll frequently need to be euthanized in the name of safety. Just make sure you keep your food in a bear canister or hang it high from a tree or a set of bear

Make noise while hiking. Surprise encounters can startle bears, which can cause them to react violently. But if you simply make noise while walking, anbey unseen bears will usually get out of your way. Just sing or talk while you walk (some authorities recommend against whistling, which bears may mistake for the sounds of prey). Alternatively, some hikers like to hang jangling keys from their belt or attach some other type of noisemaker to their pack.

Travel with plenty of friends. Simply put, bears are less likely to get rowdy when they cross paths with large hiking parties than they are one or two people. Additionally, by hiking with a group of friends, you’ll be easier to hear and smell, thereby making it easier for local bears to get out of your way.

Bring bear spray when traveling through areas where they’re common. Bear spray usually provides an effective way to end an encounter, and it will do so without causing the bear (or any bystanders) significant harm. Bear spray is essentially pepper spray on steroids, so it’ll burn the bears eyes and nose for a while, but he’ll recover soon enough.

Canines

You can encounter any number of canines while trekking through the wilderness, including coyotes, wolves, foxes and even feral dogs. Because of their size and powerful jaws, some may represent a potential danger. Note that wild canines are among the most common rabies carriers in some locations. This is especially true of foxes and coyotes.

To avoid or diffuse situations with wild or feral canines, try to employ the following strategies:

Never attempt to feed wild canines – including feral dogs. Doing so will not only encourage them to hang around and increase the chances of an unpleasant incident, it will make them associate all people with easy meals.

Keep your dog leashed or tethered at all times. While it’s true that large dogs may keep smaller canines away from your campsite, some dogs may instead draw the attention of coyotes, wolves or feral dogs. It’s also important to ensure your dog’s vaccinations – particularly his rabies vaccination – are up to date.

If you find yourself face-to-face with an aggressive canine, maintain eye contact and try to make yourself look as big as possible. You can also yell loudly, stomp the ground and swing something over your head. If an attack occurs, fight back vigorously and use anything you have at your disposal, such as rocks, trekking poles or big sticks, to fend off the animal.

Bees and Wasps

Bees and wasps are pretty familiar to hikers and campers, as they live right alongside us in the cities and suburbs we call home. But, it is still wise to use caution – especially if you or any member of your party is allergic to their stings. In fact, bees and wasps probably cause more problems for campers than any other animals you’re likely to encounter.

Keep unpleasant bee- and wasp-related encounters to a minimum by following the tips below:

Always check the nearby trees for signs of bees or wasps before selecting a campsite. Simply avoiding areas with active nests will help eliminate most unpleasant encounters with bees and wasps. Be sure to observe large hollows in the trunk or branches for emerging bugs, and also scan the outer branches for hanging nests.

Understand that some wasps nest in the ground, rather than the trees. Just try to keep an eye out for flying wasp-like insects that appear to head into and out of a single spot near the ground repeatedly.

Clean up spills and uneaten food immediately. Many bees and wasps will visit picnic tables and other places in which humans eat. Sugary drinks and small bits of protein are typically the most problematic substances, so take the time to clean up spills and messes promptly to avoid attracting bees and wasps unnecessarily.

Rodents

Rodents – including rats, mice, chipmunks, squirrels and other buck-toothed mammals – are unlikely to initiate an outright attack unless cornered or provoked, but they can ruin your food and spread germs over your belongings. Some diseases carried by rodents are serious, so you’ll want to limit interactions with them as much as is possible.

Help limit the problems caused by rodents by employing the following tips:

Don’t feed the squirrels and chipmunks near camp. Although they may be cute, and those accustomed to humans may be bold enough to eat from your hand, fed critters will often wear out their welcome.

Generally speaking, the more exposed a campsite, the fewer rodents it will harbor. If the idea of rodents scurrying around your campsite all night long bothers you, select a sun-bathed, exposed habitat, which will generally have fewer rodents than shaded forests.

Pack out all of your trash. You don’t want to make the rodent problem worse for the next campers to use the site, so don’t leave any rodent-attracting trash behind. Most trash is pretty light, and it is easy to haul back to the trailhead by tying a garbage back to the back of your pack.

Spiders, Ants and Other Assorted Creepy Crawlies

Spiders, ants and other critters rarely present a significant danger, but some can inflict a venomous bite or sting, they shouldn’t be regarded as completely harmless either. Besides, even the bravest hikers and campers probably won’t keep their composure easily once they notice a scorpion, centipede or spider crawling up their leg.

You’ll never be able to avoid these types of animals entirely, but it’s best to limit the direct interaction you have with them. You can do so by implementing to following practices:

Consider sweeping away the debris and leaf litter around your campsite to help discourage bugs from hanging around your tent or the fire circle. Just use a flexible stick as a broom – you don’t need the ground to be immaculate, you just want to move the stuff bugs like to live in.

Always knock your boots out before putting them on your feet. Your boots can provide insects and arachnids with a cozy place to hang out, so you’ll always want to verify that your shoes are not occupied before sticking your feet inside. You don’t want to hike all the way back to the trailhead while enduring a spider-bitten toe.

Try to avoid contact with shrubs and bushes, where bugs often lurk. You’ll surely come into contact with plants from time to time during the average camping trip but do your best to limit such exposure. You could brush up against a variety of bugs while doing so, but ticks are particularly problematic in this respect.

Reptiles

In warm habitats, reptiles are often far more numerous than most hikers would suspect. Because they require less food than mammals or birds of the same size, reptiles sometimes outnumber their warm-blooded counterparts by a 10:1 ratio. However, this illustrates the degree to which most reptiles are willing to go to avoid encounters with bipedal, pack-wearing predators.

And while a few snakes, lizards and crocodilians may be dangerous, the vast majority of reptiles are completely harmless, and no cause for concern. But, it is relatively easy to avoid most encounters with reptiles in the first place by employing the following tactics:

Watch where you place your hands and feet. The majority of unprovoked bites by venomous snakes occur when someone unwittingly steps or leans on them. This also means you should avoid walking through high grass or dense vegetation whenever snakes are a concern.

Never try to kill a snake. The vast majority of people who are bitten by venomous snakes suffer their wound because they were trying to catch or kill it. Just leave snakes alone and they’ll likely return the favor. Venom is a precious resource, and they’d rather not waste it biting something they can’t eat.

Don’t be careless during the winter. Most snakes and other reptiles become dormant in the winter, but they may emerge from their hibernacula and bask in the sun on unseasonably warm days. Pay special attention to small exposed, rocky areas, in which reptiles often like to bask.

Wildlife encounters are rarely dangerous, and they’re usually cause for celebration and photographs. However, it is important to avoid potentially dangerous animals whenever possible. Just follow the tips above and you’ll be well on your way to coexisting peacefully with the creatures of the wild.

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