maybeabutterflymaybeafrog

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

Hey.

I haven’t been on here in awhile, haven’t interacted in longer. I’m not doing super great.

I’m graduating high school in 4 weeks, and once that happens I’m moving out of my house. I feel like the bad things happening are already implied by that statement so I won’t go into detail.

If anyone has funds to spare I would greatly appreciate anything you can give. I’ve saved enough to move, but once I move out I won’t have money for college supplies. The program I’m going into requires $300 for books and $200 for knives and other supplies. So the amount of money I’m asking for is $500.

Tl:dr: I am a poor, soon to be college student. Please donate to my Venmo (@chamomiley), I really want to take these classes and I am not getting any financial help from my family. If you can’t donate please reblog.

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

Today I learned things in my wildlife class that have such strong implications for aquarium fish husbandry. (I’m so glad I am in the program I’m in as opposed to something like general biology or aquaculture, it’s giving me a different perspective that I don’t think I would have gotten elsewhere.)

Most notably, that animals show an instinctual preference for the natural habitats they are adapted to. Which means, as I’ve been pushing for awhile now, that we should be striving to keep our fish in aquariums as close to their natural habitat as possible.

This preference is seen in animals that have never experienced the habitat their species derives from and in animals several generations removed from the wild. A lot of the fish we keep are very little removed from the wild, but even domesticated species aren’t quite domestic in the same sense as livestock and other pets. When I get a chance I’m going to look for fish specific research on the subject, but I would expect this to be true for all fish we keep, “domestic” or not.

I talked to my professor about it a little after class. She’s a bird and mammal kind of person, so she couldn’t really give definitive fish specific insight, but she came to the same conclusions I had when I brought it up. If given the option (where possible - given the nature of water, optional water parameters are not really something we can test), fish would be extremely likely to show a strong instinctual preference for the conditions their species is adapted to. A fish born from parents kept in inappropriate water conditions doesn’t become magically adapted to them, if it were possible to later give the young the choice they would still show that instinctual preference for what they are naturally adapted to.

So basically - if your fish could pick, they’d want to live in conditions as close to their wild relatives’ as possible - in all respects. Water parameters, presence or lack of tannins, plant presence/density, light level, everything.

So that’s what we should aim to provide, as best we can.

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

GUYS the 80s are back!!!!

Star Wars, high waisted jeans, over sized sweaters, flannels, horrible republican government, conflict with Russia, the ever impending threat of Nuclear Anihilation, scrunchies,

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

At first glance, this may seem like trivial stupidity. Our nation’s press secretary uses a government account to gripe about a product. It might be something more suited for a personal twitter and not an official mouthpiece. Beyond that, disparaging a corporation as a high ranking government employee crosses a few ethical lines. Not just metaphorically. There are written guidelines in place saying this is a no-no. 

But people will say, “It’s the Trump White House… what’s new?”

Then there is the domestic stupidity. Why was her 2 year old son alone talking to an Echo? How does he know how to use it? Why were parental controls not on? Why is the ability to auto-order items activated? Does a child that young even have the capacity to idolize Batman? What forms of Batman media is she showing this kid? Even the Animated Series is a bit dark for that age. Why didn’t she just cancel the order and get a refund? Amazon makes that process quite painless, and if you do it soon enough, the item won’t even ship. 

It seems like she could have just read her manual, turned on a few options to prevent this from happening again, and all is good. There is no need to nag a company for something that is mostly your own fault. Especially when your position and method of complaint could actually hurt sales. It was even covered on Fox News afterwards, doing more damage. 

I found this all frustrating, but compared to some of her other sins, I mostly felt “meh” about it. I was about to roll my eyes and file the memory of this story in my brain’s trash bin… but there was something bugging me and I couldn’t let it go quite yet. 

Is this even possible? 

Can a 2 year old yell “Batman!” at an Alexa device and order a toy? I headed to the google and found that several tech blogs have already tried to figure this out. First of all, you must address Alexa first. You’d have to say, “Alexa… BATMAN BATMAN BATMAN!” Would a 2 year old know this? Let’s say he did address Alexa properly. What does the device do when you yell Batman at it? Apparently, a whole-lotta-nothin. You basically confuse the cyberlady contained in your Echo.

The tech blogs then tried thinking like a 2 year old. Are there any phrases he could have uttered that would order a Batman toy? They tried “Give me Batman!” and “I want Batman!” It wasn’t until they said, “Alexa, order Batman!” that they had any success. However, Alexa will then ask you directly if you want to order Batman and you have to say yes. This is looking to be one smart 2 year old. 

It was at this point that I put on my tin foil conspiracy hat. Because this seems like some epic bullshit. 

Trump very much dislikes Amazon and a Mr. Jeff Bezos (who recently became the world’s richest person). He has tweeted numerous complaints about Amazon in the past. He said they didn’t pay taxes (hah, that’s ironic!). He claimed they were a tax shelter. And he argued they screwed the US Postal Service. Honestly, it all sounds like jealous ranting to me. I’m pretty sure Trump believes he should be the richest man in the world. He is a Very Stable Genius™ after all. Why has his unmatched intelligence and epic business know-how not gotten him every bit of wealth on the planet? Why does the moon not have a Trump logo on it?

Is it possible that Mrs. Huckabee Sanders manufactured this anecdote to please her Lord & Master? Maybe there is some truth in this story and she molded the events so she could shit on Amazon. Could Trump have directly asked her to do something to piss off Jeff Bezos because he was just announced the richest man? Is “my 2 year old” Trump’s secret service code name? Or is she secretly a huge Batman fan and needed to give her husband an excuse for why she spent 80 bucks on a figurine? 

I don’t know what to make of this. I will probably never learn the true story. Much like JFK, this mystery of epic proportions will never be solved to everyone’s satisfaction. This Batman figure will be stored away next to JFK’s missing brain and the Ark of the Covenant. Perhaps in 80 years they will declassify the documents of Operation Dark Knight Echoes and we will finally learn the truth. 

For now, I’m going to take off my tin foil hat and continue with my original plan. Roll my eyes and try to unremember this nonsense.  

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

Cat doesn’t know what to do with the butterfly that flew on its paw.

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

Someone else on tumblr pointed out that PASSENGERS might have been a more meaningful movie if it was about just THE ONE person dealing with being alone on the ship for the rest of their life.  And if, to cope, they go through and make it a point to learn everything they can about all of the other people on the ship.

And I just keep thinking about this idea.

There are 4999 other people on that ship and what if the protagonist spent the remainder of their life (and they do live their full life) learning about each of them.

They took an interest in their hobbies so that they could have some sort of connection to them.

As their sanity flexed in an effort to cope, they could have had these really involved imaginary conversations with the crew about their interests. And by the end of their natural life they will have known everything they could have ever known about these other 4999 people.

…

AND THEN THE REST OF THEM WAKE UP. And they have some 90 odd years of security footage of this one crew member talking to each of them in turn. And it goes far beyond ‘I have figured out how to cook that one dish you were struggling with’ or ‘I have read THE SILMARILLION at your suggestion and Jesus Christ I have thoughts about it.’

They actually start making connections between all of the crew.

Like ‘You like bugs! You should totally talk to Cindy! She’s an entomologist!’

Or ‘Did you know that you and Said’s grandfathers were both in the same infantry?’

Or ‘You and Jamie are both avid bee keepers and I think you need to meet.’

Or ‘I know you’re really struggling with this, but Aneesha said she went the exact same thing and I think talking to her can help.’

And because all of these crew members are watching the videos that have been individually addressed to them (Because why not? They’re colonizing.  There’s not a lot yet available by way of entertainment) they sort of start talking to each other at the Protagonist’s suggestion.  And within a year they are THE MOST unified interconnected colony of any of the colonies because this one crew member broke the ice for them a lifetime ago.

Several of them are engaged.

Two are about to have children named after the Protagonist.

…

AND BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE NOW they notice when one week a crew member isn’t out and about and no one can get in touch with them.  So finally somebody goes to check and they find them huddled in a ball and mourning.

Because Protagonist is dead.

And the other people are like: ‘Yes. We know.  This is literally the first thing we knew about them.’

But Mourner is like: ‘You don’t understand. I got to the end.’

And then everyone realizes that the mourner has basically been BURNING through all of the videos Protagonist has addressed to them and got to the last one they made to them before they died. And Protagonist left a final message for each of them.

Suddenly everyone’s having a real frank conversation with themselves about how fast they’re going through their videos and if they’re prepared to keep going at that rate and get to the end, or if they should put it off indefinitely.

And one by one, in time, each of them realizes they can’t put it off.  Not only are they invested in the end, but they care enough about Protagonist to really acknowledge their death.

Each crew member does this at their own pace.  It becomes a rite of passage of sorts. And Protagonist is given some sort of proper memorial so the colonists all have a place to go when their time comes to grieve.

…

BUT BEFORE EVERYONE GETS TO THE END, someone has started noticing how Protagonist treated the robots on the ship over the years. And surprise, surprise, Protagonist named all the robots too and treated them like individuals depending on their quirks.  So now someone has finally solved the mystery of why droid 808 insists on being called ‘Bob,’ and why 239 knows ASL, and why the auxiliary robots are so salty about nobody ever being able to tell them apart.

Not only that, but security logs shows that the robots were about 19% more efficient when Protagonist was alive than they are now.  And THE VERY SECOND the rest of the crew starts observing the same habits Protagonist used in treating these robots ALL OF THAT EFFICIENCY COMES RIGHT BACK.

Because they missed Protagonist too.

…

And things settle.  Everyone thinks they’ve reached the end of Protagonist’s surprises.

…

THEN THEY ARE FINALLY ABLE TO START TRANSPORTATION BETWEEN THEMSELVES AND THE OTHER COLONIES.

And a visiting party shows up.

The visitors are surprised to see HOW WELL everyone on this colony is getting along, because, wow, people are civil where they come from but GODDAMN.

And one of these visiting members is really excited to see their sibling. 

And ‘Oh, that’s so nice!  Who is it?’

And then the visiting member says a name every single person on this colony knows.

The colonists have to tell them what happened to their sibling, Protagonist.

But they also HAVE to tell the sibling what knowing Protagonist MEANT to them. And what Protagonist knowing THEM, meant to them.

And it’s sad.

The colony pretty much wholesale adopts Protagonist’s sibling as a part of their family because they don’t know what else they can do to fill that void.  But just in case, they give the Protagonist’s sibling THE ENTIRETY of Protagonist’s security footage.  Because there is 90 years of it and that way they can carry their sibling with them for the rest of their life even if only in video.

And then the colonists think:

‘This. This was the end of Protagonist’s story. And this was a good a proper way to observe it.’

…

AND THEN ONE DAY A SHIP SHOWS UP THAT IS NOT LIKE ANY SHIP THE COLONISTS HAVE EVER SEEN.

And the people driving it aren’t human.

They speak English and passable French.  They can chicken scratch Urdu, Mandarin, and Swahili.

Everyone is stunned and wants to know ‘why…?’ and ‘how…?’

And the aliens are just, like, ‘Oh. Protagonist.  We ran into them while you were in space. They told us you’d be settling here and asked that we check up on you whenever we were rolling by this quadrant next.’

‘They were really nice. Taught us English. Gave us the files on a couple of your other popular languages as well just to be safe. How’s the colonizing going anyway?’

And everyone thinks back to THAT ONE MONTH of security footage where Protagonist was NIGH IMPOSSIBLE to find.  And when they finally did come back to their normal routine they were really quiet and thoughtful for about a week before really getting back to themselves.

The linguists all suddenly remember that IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THAT REALLY WEIRD MONTH, Protagonist had a new coded language saved to their personal affects and was very insistent that they LEARN IT.  ‘FOR REASONS.’

And very quietly, the entire colony makes peace with the fact that Protagonist established a very successful first contact while they were all asleep.

Because of course they did.

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

i like to think of star wars set on earth in the 70s. 

just some twink from arizona, a tiny anarchist, and a drug dealer in an old van with his russian buddy who doesn’t speak any english riding shotgun with a crossbow… demolishing the american government 

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

Y E A H

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

A man who has traveled to 217 countries in the world on visiting Iran 

http://highlife.ba.com/articles/lessons-learned-from-travelling-to-217-countries/

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

Hand-colored tintype portrait of three unidentified African American women, c. 1856.

Source: Harvard Library.

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

I work at Walmart. This week we had to let three associates go because over the course of our last two quarters our losses due to theft more than doubled, and we need to cut costs in the departments these associates worked in. All three of these associates have children; two of them are single parents. If you make a habit of shoplifting from stores because “the company makes billions every year so they can handle a few hundred dollars in losses,” think about that, and think about the lives you’re ruining. We lose our jobs when you do what you do. Don’t pretend it doesn’t affect us.

[maybeabutterflymaybeafrog]

What’s it doing??? Making himself tall?? And now having babies???