Why do humans find predators cute?
Hey! I resemble this remark! 😓
Ah cool, just wanted to make sure I read about the thing you were talking about as the 12th covers some other topics too. It was an interesting story how that all came about, thanks for encouraging me to look it up!
Is this in reference to the 12th Amendment or something else?
The more I learn about Andrew Jackson, the more I see why Trump chose his photo to hang up, and the more I see we haven't learned much as a country in 200 years. 😑
My most downvoted posts here were agreeing with Hillary Clinton in an interview where she said in a personal interview, not a campaign event, that left wing voters need to "get over it" (infighting during election season) and support then-candidate Biden because we only get 2 choices and if we don't we'll end up stuck with another Trump term.
Apple butter is an underrated condiment. I used to eat it on pancakes instead of syrup as a kid, and I put it in oatmeal and such as an adult. I don't have it often nowadays, but there's a place that produces it and other fruit butters nearby, and there's occasionally some other brands in stores and roadside shops.
For those that haven't had it, I guess imagine baked apples or an apple dumpling but reduced down so it is super concentrated into something spreadable.
Beat me to it! I was going to say at least a couple basic meals that you really enjoy. It can be fancy, or it can be some dorm quality things that fill you with nostalgia, as long as prepping it and eating it makes you happy.
We need to eat, and we need to feel satisfaction from something we have done ourselves, so do both at once.
Very nice! I'm into whatever info you have to share! Always down to learn more about other cultures.
If you ever assemble anything to read, I'd love to hear about some of what you've learned about owls or the Nahuatl in general. You've had to have put in a lot of hard work and I'm sure you've connected a ton of great random bits of history and culture.
I wasn't going to say anything here, because I've been trying to self promote less now that we're a big enough group, but that so many upvoted this without any kind of promoting felt really nice.
Especially from someone like you who has stuck around a long time now without even being super interested in the subject matter tells me I'm doing something right.
I have a hard time thinking I ever accomplish much of anything important, but a number of you have said some really nice things the last week or so and it's meant a lot to me. I try my best to show that appreciation back, and I hope I do that.
And I'll always argue that even though I provide most of the posts, it wouldn't be a fun place without all of you that do come and comment or just keep the place active and a generally good place to be. It encourages me to keep giving it my best efforts even if I'm not typically a super social person. You're a really great group and I feel fortunate you share your time with me.
PS. Chicuahtli forever!
I'm not the most up to date on what all one should know, but it's rapidly rising on my list of need to knows. I only ever hear blips about it from MSM and it always gets played like oh some more birds died today or this is why eggs got expensive. At the most bad I've noticed it get reported is when it hurts business by wiping out giant portions of large poultry farms. I don't even think all these dead geese would make local news.
We do have a good test run of what happens without scavengers. This is just the first link that came up, but India near killed off their entire vulture population a few years back and it killed over half a million people from disease and such.
I was reading the posts from one of my local animal rescues last night about how they're dealing with hundreds of dead snow geese that are testing positive for avian flu. They were begging for more money, PPE, and medicine to euthanize the ones not dead yet and crematory fees for dealing with the hundreds of contaminated bodies. That state and fed don't seem to be pulling their weight in this, and they're nervous about using the same equipment and vehicles they have for their healthy animals for so much bird flu. The photos and videos they showed were devastating.
Meanwhile, comments section was filled up asking how they know it's bird flu, that bird flu is a gov conspiracy (US or China, both were covered) or this is what the mystery drones were gassing us with, and something about a "fog you could taste" (???) that was to blame for this.
If other animals like vultures get to the dead geese first, it just spreads the flu more, and if people try to dispose of the geese themselves, it can spread to their cats or birds at home.
People will just complain about the price of eggs as we lose so many animals, and potentially people.
I was excited to see these guys at the National Aviary, but looking through my photostack, I see I didn't even bother to take a picture. Up in the tree, it just looked like a black pigeon. 😐
The colors are an effect of refraction, so seeing them in a canopy takes that away. If you go scrolling pics of them, you'll see they're almost all really sunny photos.
This photo represents what I remember seeing:
They're still cool though!
It's used to it! Whoooooo!!!
I did a behind the scenes tour at a facility and got to go in the hippo paddock. It looked like what they'd have to hold animals at Jurassic Park. All kinds of mechanized 4 inch steel bars and gates to keep them separated from each other and the works in confinement.
They showed me the command to get them to open their mouths and we got to toss them some food. Those mouths and teeth are even wilder up close!
Hippos are one of my fav animals, and I think they are the true king of beasts. So of course I reached out to touch its snout. It felt like the world's largest strawberry. Smooth and leather, and the dimples for the hairs felt like where the seeds are. So sturdy, yet gentle at the same time. A real amazing experience.
Truly underrated animals by most people.
Somewhat related story, but I'll share it to put a win for the little guy somewhere in these comments.
When I was in my late teens I worked in the deli of a large supermarket chain. We had a hot food section with reheated frozen crap that was always dried out and gross, and a pizza oven to cook school cafeteria quality pizzas. Needless to say, no one bought anything.
Right next to that was the deli section where I worked evenings. We had the fancy Boarshead stuff, including a bunch of fancy Italian meats. Nobody bought that stuff either cuz we're not redneck here, but city people kind of treat us like we are, and nobody knew what soppresetta and that kind of thing was.
All this stuff would just sit until it got thrown out from not being sold. I would take bits of it all on its way to the trash, and I started making calzones with the pizza dough and the nice deli meats and ringing myself up for the price of like a quarter pound of meat, which was fair to me and the store. I made them for myself at first, and then some other people in the department.
The one day I made a few and gave samples out to some of my regular customers and of course they liked them because they were made with care and attention and better ingredients than any of the store stuff. I started making them in nights I was in and putting them in the hot bar and they sold decent.
One day the manager came back and cried it wasn't in the plan-o-gram and blah blah and I had to knock it off.
Maybe a week later, they came back to me again and asked how I had been pricing them and I said I was basically just charging the weight of the deli meat and they tweaked the price a little and I kept making them, as people had been ticked when I said I wasn't allowed to make them anymore.
I left not too long after, and I can't say it was due to me or anything, but now all of those sites around here make little calzones and have them in the deli section as a grab and go item to cook at home.
It wasn't enough to teach me everything I needed to know about how companies treat people that go above, but it definitely contributed to my education about work vs reward. But I'm glad I won that one. I liked saving food from the trash, and I liked seeing people enjoy something that was my idea and made purely by me and my skill. I guess I learned some things about myself as well.
Americans are exhausted by political news. TV ratings and a new AP-NORC poll show they’re tuning out
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I added RFK to my list as I work in pharma so I can't stand his nonsense, and I had to go back and add Elon as well, because they call him either equally as much and I was wondering why I was still seeing that dumbass in my feed.
Originally I was worried about missing out on important info. Listening to some people talk about it in one of my podcasts, they mentioned they were tired of seeing people say Trump will do this or that, they only care about hearing about what people are going to do about the dumb stuff he says and does.
That struck me, as firstly, he normally doesn't do the majority of stuff he says, and secondly, if he does actually do anything of significance, I'll see it on AP or NPR. If I don't see it that way, that means nobody is fighting to stop it anyway.
I know everything these clowns do is going to be bad or stupid, I don't need to constantly be told that because I already know. I want to hear the names of who is going to do something about it, or I don't want to hear about them at all in my Lemmy feed, which is supposed to be fun or educational for me.
Other news that is less engaging can deliver the bad news when it needs to, but if I control my feed here, I'm going to make it less frustrating. Reading about these jerks the last few years has done any good.
The picture I took from the overlook this spring at Fallingwater.
I went on a whim, as I like architecture, but I'm not super into it, but this house was amazing.
We just lost my fiance's mom 2 weeks ago. They're a very close, very big family and their mom was a true matriarch. She also didn't leave any plans for any of the complex situations she's left behind, so her and her sisters have been stuck in all this legal and business drama instead of being able to grieve, and they just lost their dad at the end of last year.
We just got engaged this summer and she was already heartbroken her dad wouldn't be there, and now she suddenly has no parents when she would talk to them every day. I'm not a big people person, but both her parents were really good to her and they all loved each other very much, and I feel really crushed this holiday season, so I can't begin to feel what they all must be feeling.
You have my sympathy. It stinks. I liked her parents more than most of my own family, and I'm sad I won't have anyone but my brother anymore to have good family time with.
I'm sure you had a really great mom, and I hope you get a proper chance to find the closure you need eventually and get to remember all the positive things again. I hope this was helpful, I feel I'm not great expressing emotional things, as I'm not used to feeling that close to many people, so please take this as my deepest sympathy and caring.
I saw comments about tight woven cotton being flame resistant. It sounds like it helps deprive oxygen from the flame. Any frays and stray thready bits lose that protection.
Textiles are surprisingly interesting!
I know wool is. That may be what you are thinking of.
I found a fiber burn test with wool, cotton, bamboo, and acrylic fibers. The wool singes but doesn't burn up completely while the others do. I can't speak to whatever she says in the video as my speakers don't seem to be working now.
Wool would be extra beneficial for homeless as well as it retains most of its insulating properties when wet and stays cleaner with less washing than other fabrics.
They are the end results of millions of years of evolution prioritizing speed, strength, and stealth.
They are simply elegant and have to be strongly assertive to survive.
They have a spark of danger while we're not living in competition with them, or for most of us, we're not in any danger from them.
They share a number of qualities of things most humans would be attracted to aesthetically.
They're the pro athletes of the animal world.
If you picked an animal to come back as if you were reincarnated, would you want to be a rabbit or a cow when you could be an eagle or a shark?
Most aren't killing for fun (looking at you, house cats!), they're just doing what is required of them to survive. It's a brutal world for all wild animals, from the single celled to a whale. A predator is no worse than anything else trying to make it to the next tomorrow.