oh help Middle-Little bought me a doll wardrobe because I seemed sad that my older sister wound up..

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oh help Middle-Little bought me a doll wardrobe because I seemed sad that my older sister wound up with the one we’d shared and so all my doll things would have to go into a cardboard box

I was just being grumpy! My older sister’s husband does cabinetry for fun, I know he’d build his daughter a new wardrobe for her doll’s clothes (because older sister also got the doll table and chairs and every one of the doll beds, which I also don’t need, but, c’mon), but I have no woodworking husband or excuse for new doll furniture. So I grumbled about consigning all my treasures to cardboard boxes, but I didn’t really mean… well… now I have a knockoff-brand wooden closet thing for my doll clothes, and I should return it for credit and buy something more sensible but.

Maybe I won’t.

But I don’t want to be a Doll Person! Yikes. 

Well, now I have this thing, and I’m awful at returning stuff, so let’s not pretend I’ll actually do it…
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I don’t want to complain about the heat, it

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I don’t want to complain about the heat, it feels ungrateful to complain when so recently I was complaining about the cold. But I’m sort of. Confused, i guess. Has it always been like this, or didn’t there used to be a span of time between winter and summer where the temperatures were less extreme? or am I making that up?? wishful thinking maybe.

anyway it’s hot as fuckin’ balls at 10:45 pm. Maybe this is a year to bother installing the window unit air conditioner. We dont’ always bother, because it weighs 80 pounds and takes up the only window to the outside in the bedroom, and the cat yells so much we have to leave the door cracked, which is inefficient. But. 

I tried to write today. I can’t do it, it’s sort of nothing. Very annoying. 

I wrote some in the car ride on Monday, but it kept devolving into porn, and not even, like, useful porn. Bad porn. Gross porn. Implausible-at-best, and not the kind of thing that stands up to rereading. Alas; I let myself write it to kind of… prime the pump, in hopes that more useful material would be forthcoming, but it seems not to have worked. 

(What makes it so bad? Well, it really doesn’t even have characters in it. I try, but. No.)
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“The Cult of the Clitoris” Libel Trial

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today-in-wwi:

Maud Allan as Salomé in 1906.

May 29 1918, London–Since his election to Parliament, the former airplane manufacturer Noel Pemberton-Billing had turned his attention from air defense and air power to outlandish conspiracy theories.  He alleged that the Germans had a “Black Book” of “47,000 highly placed British perverts,” and that they were blackmailing them to “exterminate the manhood of Britain” by luring others into homosexual acts.  He accused Margot Asquith, wife of the former PM, of being entangled in the conspiracy as well, resulting in the sharing of state secrets with her supposed lesbian lover.  In May 1918, he published another article, “The Cult of the Clitoris;” this included an accusation that the actress Maud Allan, at the time appearing in a production of the Visions of Salomé (loosely based on Oscar Wilde’s Salome), was part of the conspiracy.

Allan sued Pemberton-Billing for libel, and the trial opened on May 29.  Pemberton-Billing represented himself.  The trial caused a media sensation, in no small part due to Pemberton-Billing’s over-the-top tactics.  His mistress alleged on the stand that the presiding judge was in the “Black Book” himself.  One of the witnesses on Pemberton-Billing’s behalf was Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, once Oscar Wilde’s lover, who had converted to Roman Catholicism and become a staunch critic of homosexuality.  Allan ultimately lost the case, and soon became entangled in charges that her dancing in the production violated British obscenity laws.  The case only helped Pemberton-Billing’s political fortunes; he would win re-election at the end of the year.

Today in 1917: UK Labour Leader Visits Russia

Today in 1916: German U-Boat Lays Fateful Mines Near the OrkneysToday in 1915: First German Minelaying Submarine Deployed
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jedihood: hux: this is general hux of the first order we will wipe your FILTH from the galaxy poe:..

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jedihood:

hux: this is general hux of the first order we will wipe your FILTH from the galaxy

poe: look if you reach him, tell him leia has an urgent message for him…

poe: we’ve updated our privacy poli
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Sometimes I get sort of artsy with product shots at work.

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Sometimes I get sort of artsy with product shots at work.
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SIEGE OF THE SEA DEVILS

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gallusrostromegalus:

bunjywunjy:

bunjywunjy:

hey everyone, happy friday and welcome back to another excellent episode of Weird Biology!

this week, we’re examining a charismatic and almost perfect oceanic killing machine! you might be picturing a shark, but you’re wrong. 

it’s the flamboyant, fantastic, and fucking ecological nightmare, the 

NAAAAAANTS INGONYAAAAMAA

Lionfish are a group of 12 species in the genus Pterois (tare-oh-eese), meaning “winged”. these fish are among the most striking and beautiful in the ocean! they’re also full of poison knives, but more on that later.

also called Dragonfish, Firefish, Turkeyfish, Tastyfish or PEZ DIABLO (Devilfish, or “underwater satan” if you use Google Translate), Lionfish are native to the Southern Pacific and Indian oceans. they are mostly found on coral reefs, where they can grow up to 17 inches long and reach about 3 pounds. 

3 pounds of pure whoopass.

small but mighty! SMALL BUT MIGHTY!

see, when it comes to sheer badass ability to survive anywhere, Lionfish are damn near perfect. most reef fish are specialized creatures with a fairly low set of tolerances. not Lionfish! for starters, they’re common in every level of the water column up to 1000 feet down. that’s impressive for a regular fish, let alone a reef specialist. they can also tolerate temperatures as low as 60 F, which again, fucking ridiculous. this fish could probably survive on the moon.

on top of that, their reproductive rate is insane. unlike many reef fish who follow a yearly cycle, Lionfish reproduce monthly. and every month a female Lionfish may lay- wait for it- 15,000 eggs. add in the fact that they have maybe three natural predators and it’s a wonder we aren’t knee deep in them right now.

good news! the Lionfish will submerge us before the oceans do!

Lionfish may look like delicate lacy parasols, but that bold coloration is actually Nature’s equivalent of wearing a bright orange hazard vest! but if we’re doing a direct comparison, in the Lionfish’s case it’s more like the equivalent of wearing a bright orange hazard vest while standing on the roof of a burned-out van, waving a submachine gun at traffic.

see, those lacy fins are are concealing dozens and dozens of long, razor-sharp spines venomous enough to incapacitate a human. any predator unwary enough to get a mouthful of the Lionfish’s poison shiv collection will experience immediate debilitating pain, paralysis, and almost certain death. (this venom isn’t strong enough to kill a healthy adult, but it really fucking sucks and can floor you for at least a day. do not touch.)

it’s time to play our favorite biology game, How Many Poison Knives Is This Animal Packing? if you guess wrong, you die.

Lionfish are voracious eating machines, in addition to being basically a floating wedding dress full of poison ice picks. they feed on fish, invertebrates, mollusks, and smaller Lionfish. these flamboyant cannibals feed by disorienting their prey with a jet of water, and then swallowing it headfirst like a Hardees breakfast sandwich.

and they’ll cram as many fish/shrimp/members of their own species into that ravenous maw as possible- a Lionfish’s stomach can expand to 30 times its original size on a binge! and in lean times, the Lionfish can slow its metabolism to a literal crawl. they can survive a three-month fast and lose only 10% of their body weight. jesus. 

can anything stop these frilly nightmares?

SPOILER ALERT: no.

the question is unfortunately relevant. in 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida and demolished a public aquarium. Florida had bigger things to worry about, so nobody noticed that six Lionfish had been tragically swept out to sea. in the complete absence of natural predators, those six Free-Willied Lionfish (plus many others released from the pet trade) have become MILLIONS. 

Lionfish have launched a hostile invasion of Carribean waters, and are now found from the Gulf Coast to North Carolina. this is a big fucking problem.

and that’s no joke.

apart from how dangerous they are, the Lionfish’s natural fish superiority allows it to easily outcompete meek and innocent native fish. this is putting stress on invaded reef ecosystems, and the problem is only getting worse as Lionfish continue to spread further north. Lionfish are even learning to tolerate mildly brackish water and have been found in estuaries four miles from the fucking ocean.

at this rate, we’re all going to wake up and find a Lionfish in our beds.

it’s their bed now. accept your inferiority before Earth’s true dominant species.

the fate of these oceans rests on the questionable shoulders of the Lionfish’s only (un)natural predator:

you.

the only current way to slow their spread is to just eat the absolute hell out of them. that’s right, Lionfish are edible. and not just that, they’re completely fucking delicious and heart-healthy! they’re called Tastyfish for a reason. and for all their prowess, Lionfish have yet to evolve a defense for projectile weapons. (that’s what happens when you put all your skill points into Melee, Lionfish.)

and remember: eating a Lionfish is taking part in the front lines of a battle for the future of your oceans. also, they’re just delicious.

so do your part, and eat up! 

WORLD IS A FUCK, 410,757,864,530

DEAD LIONFISH

–

thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series here.

if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee to support Weird Biology.

–

IMAGE SOURCES

img1- Pensecola News Journal img2- Oceanea.org img3- Wikipedia img4- Don Johnson img5- Hakai Magazine

img6- Florida Keys Treasures img7- CNN img8- dmagazine.com

two weeks later and look who’s on the cover of Smithsonian!

I got to have Lionfish when visiting relatives back east and IT’S NOT A JOKE THSES THINGS ARE AMAZING THEY’RE LIKE LOBSTER BUT MORE OF IT AND SOMEHOW JUCIER.

Apparently NOAA and the FDA are in a slapfight over this, because while NOAA is justifiably upset about lionfish destroying the Caribbean, the FDA would like to point out that lionfish are poisonous, and in some cases contain toxins that affect humans. So like… you won’t die but… they can’t in conscience recommend it. But the NOAA humbly submits that they’re delicious and also destroying the Carribbean so like… suck it up?

So far, none of the ciguatera cases confirmed in the U.S. has implicated lionfish, which makes some question the FDA’s caution.

“We have always known that all reef fish can have ciguatera fish poisoning,” said James Morris, a marine ecologist with the National Center for Coastal Ocean Science. “I was not surprised to hear that lionfish contain some toxin.”
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Oh I guess I did get in on the 4th wave of Pillowfort betas after all!So, I picked the same username

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Oh I guess I did get in on the 4th wave of Pillowfort betas after all!

So, I picked the same username over there as I have here, so there I am. The very first thing I did was make a test post, type up something considered into the editing window, almost post it, pause, and add a photo, because I saw that was a feature. 

And that errored out, and deleted everything in my posting box. 

(Tried again to put in a photo and it errored out again, so I guess that’s not a thing you can do yet!)

So, that’s the most auspicious start ever. I’ve gone through the beta community thread and haven’t seen that error listed so far, but like, just so you know: clearly, this is a platform in beta testing, so don’t compose directly into the text window, y’know? Anyway.

I watched everyone else’s “hey I’m on Pillowfort” posts scroll by and thought “i should like write those down or something” but I of course did not– would I paste it into notepad? write on a piece of paper? how the fuck do people pay attention to things? i have never mastered this– so I guess I’ll just go back and type random handles of people I think might be on there into the search bar. Let me know if you’re there! 
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