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so we have a conversational safeword in my group of friends and it’s great, idk why more people don’t do this. whenever someone wants a subject to be dropped immediately no questions asked we just say “spleen” and we stop immediately and it’s a really good way to avoid crossing the line between teasing friends and genuinely upsetting them by accident, or stopping debates from turning into actual arguments

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the amount of cunt they served was astronomical

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Little beaver taking a little sip

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really wanted to draw miss piggy all of a sudden so i did. also kermit's there i guess

[image description: a lineless drawing of miss piggy and kermit from the muppets. kermit is wearing a hawaiian shirt and applying sunscreen to himself, and miss piggy is wearing a red swimsuit and saying "to me, beach body is about having the most body on the beach... which i certainly do!" end id]

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i miss film gold... drools...

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embroidery from peacockandpinecones my friends and I have been losing our minds over all morning.

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LEARN.

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me.

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アンデスネコ Andean Mountain Cat

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Illustration by Sophie Lucido Johnson

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I hate it when I talk wistfully about the ancient world and then people are like “you wouldn’t survive back then” yeah obviously I would die immediately but do you think achilles would be able to survive in the modern world if he had to send one polite email? no

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"For the first time in 500 years, the European beaver has been seen in Portugal, a moment that one nonprofit has called “one of the most significant steps in the aquatic rewilding of Portuguese rivers.”

As GNN has reported in the case of the UK, there is no animal other than humans capable of engineering its natural environment at the same scale as the beaver, and it’s clearly this trait which has Portuguese ecologists jumping for joy.

Extinct in the small Iberian country since the 15th century, this large rodent has recently been reintroduced and restored in various parts of Portugal’s large neighbor. Gradually, signs began to appear that the beaver (Castor fibre) was progressively inching closer to Portugal, until recent camera trap footage confirmed the animal’s presence in the country.

“We’ve been on the lookout for this breakthrough for a few years now, and now we’re thrilled to confirm its return. The beaver is a natural ally in restoring the health of our rivers and wetlands and has a fundamental role to play in our river ecosystems,” says Pedro Prata, Team Leader at Rewilding Portugal.

Through its constant activity building dams, beavers transform landscapes into watery paradises for small fish, amphibians, invertebrates, insects, and birds. Their damning of rivers diverts water flow in various different directions, cuts channels for floodwater, and creates ponds and wetlands.

“We’re talking about a species that provides ecological services that no modern equipment can replicate with the same efficiency and scale, without costs and bureaucracy that can never be overcome. The beaver improves water quality, creates refuges for other species and helps us fight phenomena such as drought and fires,” emphasizes Prata.

Portugal suffers from both drought and wildfires, which the beaver’s impact can help prevent through the increased water retention in dryland soil, while the wetter lands beaver dams create act as natural fire breaks.

Beavers don’t only live in the forest, they will happily transform a desert river as well.

Rewilding Portugal, in an article celebrating the animal’s return, detailed how they have long since anticipated this arrival, and informed the relevant ecological authorities to prepare for the disruptive effects which beavers bring hand in hand with the positive ones.

France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland have all had to cope with the occasional dam-bursting flood, or an agriculturalist complaining about their riverside plantations being damaged, or someone getting their trees gnawed down. They cope with it in different ways, which Rewilding Portugal say is a worthwhile accommodation for the benefits the beavers bring.

Previously, GNN reported that Rewilding Portugal have reintroduced European wood bison into the Greater Côa Valley ecosystem. As the beaver does in water, the bison does on land: engineering the landscape into a biodiverse and resilient patchwork of micro-ecologies."

-via Good News Network, June 18, 2025

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(batman: bride of the demon)

TIM NO

tim

no

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Reasons why computer problems seem to mysteriously vanish as soon as a technician shows up:

You were spacing out and skipping a step somewhere without realising it, and you can’t reproduce it when you try to demonstrate it because now you’re paying attention to what you’re doing

It’s an intermittent electrical connection fault that’s being aggravated by movement/vibrations in your desk; you need to check your cables

The act of explaining the problem to someone caused you to figure out what you were doing wrong

The real cause of the problem was somewhere upstream of your terminal device – for example, at the network service provider – and it got fixed at the source while you were waiting

Your computer is in a location with poor airflow and is overheating; waiting for the technician to arrive gave it a chance to cool off

Despite all appearances to the contrary, modern computers actually have very good fault recovery, and most minor problems will sort themselves out on their own if you give it a minute

Magic

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Apparently there's an evolutionary theory that the reason why Africa has so much wild big-ass megafauna while the big-ass megafauna on all the other continents went extinct is because they evolved right beside humans, and knew us well enough to not get hunted into extinction.

So while everything from giant koalas to giant sloths barely had the time to think "what the fuck is that" before getting pierced by a spear and getting their bone marrow gently fed to babies and the toothless elderly, Africa had elephants who had all the time in the world to learn to tell apart human languages and teach the next generations of their herd which human sounds mean that this tribe won't hurt you, but humans who make this kind of sounds are a danger. And hippos learned to conclude "I think I'll fuck up this two-legged weird shit on sight."

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"backstage at a live event" is perhaps my favourite human collective emotion ive ever experienced. From running through the creepy empty school hallways before a theatre show, to the staff only breakroom at a convention or event where youre running a stall, to the bridal suite getting ready before your bestie walks down the isle.

Theres a little wall between the guys who are 'in on it' with you, whatever it is, and your audience or customers or guests or just all those people who are *not* in on it. Youve got a wallkie talkie, or a backstage pass, or an exhibitor badge, and youve never felt more alive