spherical-academy

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Gay men on Mussolini’s 'gay island' San Domino

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YouTube is implementing an AI policy that tracks your watch history and determines your age with it. The only way to be able to continue watching the videos you want on YouTube if you've been falsley flagged as a minor by their AI is to give YouTube your government ID. This is being implemented in the US right now. It is essential to rage against this and put YouTube in the fucking ground if they continue with it—that may be the only way to make them backtrack. But damn isn't that hard to do when responding to this announcement with a polite but negative comment flags you for violating community guidelines and bans you from even posting it?

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Burning coal does indeed produce smoke BUT it also produces heat! When water is heated it evaporates and turns into steam which can be used to power mechanical or electrical devices.

depressed steampunk guy: like nothing makes me happy anymore i feel like my fantastical flying contraption just ran out of coal

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hey bro can i ask you a question that will reveal a deep and fundamental gap in my knowledge of the world

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Also preserved in our archive

Just cleaning the air makes ~33% of absences disappear. "There's nothing we can do," though, right? Just gotta punish more parents for their kids getting sick with preventable illness because we wanna pretend it's 2019 again.

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I feel like one of the major ways sex ed failed me was the utter lack of discussion about vaginal discharge. Around 13 I started just… leaking fluids. It was on a set schedule, every day after lunch there’d be an uncomfortable wetness down the front of my underwear.

It was awful. Every movement was wet and cold unpleasantness in my pants. I’d go stuff toilet paper into my underwear and it would pill up and stick to my damp skin. That went on for a year.

I finally discovered panty liners and started wearing them daily, but with the unconscious fear that the overall juiciness of my pussy was unnatural.

I’d read people saying that cotton underwear would dissipate moisture and stop it from being a problem but no amount of natural fibers could evaporate what my crotch was producing. Since that wasn’t enough for me I worried I was abnormal.

I didn’t like wearing panty liners every day. It felt sweaty and wasteful but the alternative was to be wet and miserable. I still worried about it. But when I finally asked a doctor they just asked if it was more than my usual discharge. I said, no, it’s always been this way. They shrugged and assured me that meant my body was behaving reliably. Also if your discharge discolors your underwear that’s also normal cause of chemistry reasons

That reassurance didn’t come until my 20’s.

Finally a few years ago I discovered cloth liners. They’re reusable and clip into the crotch of underwear. I was ecstatic to finally have a non disposable option. I love them. Although the mainstream ones have polyester wings and I’m very excited to try the new all cotton ones I just got off Etsy. I think they were originally intended as light period protection but were robust enough for me.

So if you’ve ever worried about how wet your pussy is: it’s normal. It’s self cleaning, it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. You should worry when the amount changes and if you’re like me check out cloth liners, they’re excellent.

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Classical Pieces You've Probably Heard but Might Not Remember the Name

William Tell Overture- Rossini (Most famous part at 8:45, but why not listen to the whole thing?) I’m adding hints, at least to the ones I recognized culturally. This one is “go, horsey, go!”

Also Sprach Zarathustra- Strauss Slow, dramatic entry scene, IN SPAAACE.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik- Mozart People running out of a fancy wedding or something. Also known as DUN, dun DUN, dun DUN dun DUN dun DUUUUN.

Symphony 94, Mvt. 2 “Surprise Symphony”- Haydn ?

Toccata and Fugue in d Minor-Bach Halloween organ!

Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2- Chopin Picture a tiny old woman playing piano in a sunlit room with lots of flower vases, about the spill the tragic secrets of her past to some timid young visitor.

Rondo alla Turca- Mozart the babysitter from The Incredibles: “Time for some COGNITIVE ENRICHMENT!”

Sinfonie de Fanfares: Rondeau- Jean-Joseph Mouret Royalty is coming. Or someone is getting married. Or royalty is getting married. Also the PBS Masterpieces theme.

The Four Seasons: Spring- Vivaldi (I just linked to the whole thing because it’s great) Again, someone is getting married, but this one is strings instead and a lot less frumpy.

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring- Bach That one that amateur guitarists love where the notes are all up and down but all the same length. Also used in movie weddings.

O Fortuna (from Carmina Burana)- Carl Orff SONG OF DOOM. Also song of “baby on fire!” in The Incredibles.

Funeral March- Chopin ?

Orpheus in the Underworld: Infernal Galop (A.K.A. Can Can)- Offenbach Well, “aka can-can” says it all.

Pomp and Circumstance (You probably graduated to this)- Elgar Oh yes, Baaaa dun dun dun duun duuuuun… Also if you were a bandie you had to play it for 3 years before graduating to it.

Gayane: Sabre Dance- Aram Khachaturian Comically hectic productivity, a circus clown juggling while standing on a ball, or perhaps a rapidly-approaching termite infestation. Could go any way, really.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Wedding March- Mendelssohn The song movies play right AFTER they both say “I do.”

Carmen: Les Toreadors- Bizet I can’t be the only one who remembers when ‘Hey Arnold’ did this. “Bullfights and swordfights, rolling in manuuure!”

The Ride of the Valkyries- Wagner Good song for a naval battle I guess? I can only think of the mini golf course I went to as a kid with the creepy castle on Hole 18 that played this.

Für Elise- Beethoven That one every amateur piano player loves to play because the beginning is just E and E-flat over and over. Also ballet and piano recital scenes in movies.

Dance of the Hours- Ponchielli Hello mudda, hello fadda, here I am at, Camp Granada…

Rigotello: La Donna e Mobile- Verdi More than a few sophisticated movie villains (or snobby good guys) have this playing on a Victrola. Also, tell me you don’t picture Pavaroti no matter who’s actually singing.

Night on Bald Mountain- Mussorgsky ?

Romeo and Juliet: Love Theme- Tchaikovsky More movie-love, usually building up to admitting they live each other.

Entry of the Gladiators- Julius Fucik I have one word for you: CIRCUS.

Lakmé: Flower Duet- Delibes OMG ALIAS. Nadia’s spy  backstory in Film Noir!

Peer Gynt: In the Hall of the Mountain King- Greig Mischievous Tiptoeing in Movies song. Also something growing out of control, slowly at first and then quickly, and (comically) exploding.

Rodeo: Hoedown- Copland The title says it all tbh.

Peer Gynt: Morning Mood- Greig Sunrise/waking up Movie Song du jour.

New World Symphony Mov. [2][4]- Dvorak Well now I’m thinking of “An American Tail” and I’m crying…

Ave Maria (You knew this, but did you know that it was by Schubert?) Nothing to add. I’m not a music snob, really, but if you didn’t know this, YOU SHOULD.

Canon in D- Pachelbel This is the one that the pretty Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas song comes from. :-)

Add others if you want! Have fun!

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If you are currently unaware of what's going on in Florida:

As recently as June 2025, the Trump administration began construction for a concentration camp dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" in the heart of the Florida Everglades. It is made up of tents and thousands of beds inside cages, under the sweltering Florida heat.

The Trump administration have praised how isolated this environment is, claiming that the "dangerous wildlife" and "unforgiving terrain" will keep kidnapped people inside. According to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, if "people get out, there's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons." They are thrilled about the abuse and potential death of real people.

The amount of pride they have for a literal concentration camp is sinister. Florida republicans are even selling merch and establishing mascots.

They started detaining people last week, and they are treating them like “rats in an experiment.”

There are protests happening in and around the area. If you can, I would encourage you to show up for your community at one of these protests in South Florida. With that being said, the concentration camp is located adjacent to sacred Miccosukee and Seminole land. Please be mindful of the space.

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Whenever the history of video game consoles comes up on this blog, folks tend to be surprised by remarks like describing the PS2 as "sixth generation" – like, if the PS2 was already six generations deep, what the fuck did the other five look like? The idea that home video game consoles have been around since the early 1970s is unexpected to many, and I 100% encourage anybody with an interest in the medium to read up on those early consoles, not only because knowing your history is handy, but because they were often pretty fantastic aesthetically. Like, look at this thing:

This is a Magnavox Odyssey from 1972. I love the juxtaposition of sterile white plastic, faux leather texture, and artificial wood grain – it's like it can't decide whether it wants to be a Star Trek prop or a footrest. However, I personally regard 1977's Coleco Telstar Arcade as the pinnacle of the form, because... well:

Like, this is it, folks. This is what peak performance looks like.

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Answer: Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in what later became Germany. Its been called many things between Einstein's birth and now, but that's a lesson (or several) for another time

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Tips for providing image descriptions!

"In recent years, there has been a rush on the internet to supply image descriptions and to call out those who don’t. This may be an example of community accountability at work, but it’s striking to observe that those doing the most fierce calling out or correcting are sighted people. Such efforts are largely self-defeating. I cannot count the times I’ve stopped reading a video transcript because it started with a dense word picture. Even if a description is short and well done, I often wish there were no description at all. Get to the point, already! How ironic that striving after access can actually create a barrier. When I pointed this out during one of my seminars, a participant made us all laugh by doing a parody: “Mary is wearing a green, blue, and red striped shirt; every fourth stripe also has a purple dot the size of a pea in it, and there are forty-seven stripes—”

“You’re killing me,” I said. “I can’t take any more of that!”

Now serious, she said it was clear to her that none of that stuff about Mary’s clothes mattered, at least if her clothes weren’t the point. What mattered most about the image was that Mary was holding her diploma and smiling. “But,” she wondered, “do I say, Mary has a huge smile on her face as she shows her diploma or Mary has an exuberant smile or showing her teeth in a smile and her eyes are crinkled at the edges?”

It’s simple. Mary has a huge smile on her face is the best one. It’s the don’t-second-guess-yourself option."

--Against Access, by John Lee Clark, a DeafBlind educator

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Answer: hydrogen peroxide, a chemical commonly used to bleach hair

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Answer: Morocco

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Vocab lesson

Bawl: to cry very hard

I see this one misspelled as "ball" frequently which may lead to confusion since to be "balling" is also an established phrase

--Professor Fini

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Answer: Maria "Marie" Skłodowska-Curie (link to Wikipedia)

Bonus facts:

Her daughter Irene also won a Nobel Prize (Chemistry)

Marie-Anne Libert was one of the first female plant pathologists: someone who studies diseases in plants!

Ada Lovelace is considered to be one of the founders of computer science