Ambulocetus @ambulocetus@social.cleverlibre.org

I just learned that there's a popular flavor in Australia called "musk", which I, in the US, had never heard of. (This is not a Twitter joke.)

This reminded me of learning about elderflower, which is apparently a popular flavor for things in the UK but which is just about unheard of in the US, and of the gooseberry, still endemic to Northern Europe I'm very popular, which was deliberately nigh-entirely eradicated from the US about a century ago; and about discovering how China and other places in Asia were just discovering the American cranberry before the pandemic hit; and of how most Americans have never had anything that is rose flavored, despite the popularity of rose flavored things across the entirety of mainland Asia.

Is there some list somewhere of interesting flavors popular to certain cultures and unknown in others? Something you could consult for giving international gifts, so you could know what a recipient might find novel and interesting?

I'm finding it a little hard to work today with this in my head.

Antarctic ice extent is now 6.4 standard deviations below the mean. That is, I'm reliably told, a one in 13 billion year event.

We're about to see a lot of shit hit a lot of fans. And we are far from ready.

Business as usual is over. Politics as usual is over. We need to be putting our effort into building systems that can help us survive what greed and power and wilful blindness have wrought.

#ClimateCrisis #Antarctica

Uh oh

#nature #photography #flowers #bees #silly #drawing #SillyScribbles #BloomScrolling

It's now TWO YEARS and 199 days since Donald Trump's Jan 6 terrorist attack. In any other first world country he'd already be charged. Instead Trump is running for President where he's spewing more lies to delegitimize our democracy. Long past time to Indict trump for Jan 6!

Following Twitter's lockdown of tweets, a lot of sites have seen their embedded timelines break.

If you're looking for a way to embed mastodon posts, I've just created a new project that lets you embed your timeline of toots.

🪶 It's lightweight (<2kb).
🙈 No tracking of any kind.
💅 Fully style-able with CSS
📦 One simple web component

Feature requests & contributions are welcome!

https://github.com/andy-blum/fed-embed

Breitbart and other fringe right sites have picked up the story of something they're describing as a "confidential DoD memo" outlining the special perks given to servicemembers who are trans.

Just... one small problem. It's not confidential, not a DoD memo, and they're lying abut the contents, too. #trans #news #propaganda #journalism

https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/misinfo-spreading-about-dod-memo-concerning-trans-servicemembers

Rocky Horror at 50.

https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/richard-obrien-rocky-horror-show-50th-anniversary-exclusive/

In Japanese #folklore uwabami is an enormous snake #yokai with shapeshifting powers believed to eat & drink vast amounts. One of its favourite foods is people & legend says it can swallow humans whole. This terrifying creature lives in remote locations where it sets up ambushes for any passing travellers. Uwabami are also said to be able to control the elements and cause natural disasters. Sometimes uwabami are worshipped as guardian deities.
@folklore
🎨1. Toyohara Kunichika
2. Utagawa Kunikazu

The street I grew up on (in the Seattle suburbs) is being renamed for the sci-fi writer Octavia E. Butler! And I helped to make it happen!

This is fabulously exciting.

#books #sciencefiction #OctaviaButler #Seattle

https://kuow.org/stories/lake-forest-park-names-street-after-sci-fi-author-octavia-e-butler?fbclid=IwAR3VRnPBgAJlDjrFC2e7OX2PKDl1FIM0I-5q5qrtzL5R9G-V5G-axfEj0Xg

Found this video in my "crap" folder. Can't remember why it exists, but it does, so make of it what you will

See also: https://youtu.be/WQO-aOdJLiw

@futurebird @CartyBoston

I don't really think it's branding that make capital-owned media promote capital-owned social-media and ignore social-media which can't be owned and has nobody to bribe to force people to see adverts.

It's just the capital protecting itself and closing the Overton window to avoid discussion of any other model than rich people owning everything.

Mastodon changing it's logo wouldn't do anything, but if they took venture-capital money and started running adverts they'd get loads of press.

This was very obviously a waste of my time, but I saw someone describe it as MySpaceX last night before I drifted off to sleep, and this got lodged in my head. Better to get these things out I think.

#Twitter #BirdSite #X #satire #spoof #rebrand #Musk

Dear media: Please do NOT quote people's X's since that provides free press to Elon Musk's X--a platform that welcomes and amplifies Neo-Nazis and other vile bigots. Instead quote posts from the platforms that don't profit off hate. Thanks!

With Twitter rebranding itself out of existence, millions of websites will have to update their "follow" and "share" buttons.

A perfect opportunity to finally add Mastodon or Fediverse buttons.

Journalists should be actively fleeing Twitter. It is only going to get worse.

Moving to another proprietary platform, with a waiting list, is not the best look.

The future of journalism is in smaller and more collaborative orgs. Embrace open source and co-creation.

To me, the phrase "christian nationalist" sounds like if somebody shit in your soup and you call it "fecal material." I prefer the more descriptive and accurate term "god nazi", and I recommend we all start using that instead.

In the U.S., recent estimates of bird deaths due to:

Cats = 2.4 billion bird deaths

Collisions from building glass = 600 million bird deaths

Land wind turbines = <200,000 bird deaths

Some politicians claim wind turbines “kill all the birds.”

But… they’re not really worried about birds. Rather, they prefer we stick with oil & gas over renewable #energy.

https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/ #climatechange