#Diversify and Dominate

[steffisblogs]

Everything You Need to Know About Investing

Investing is a vast and intricate world, filled with opportunities, pitfalls, and a plethora of information. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, there's always something new to learn. Let's dive into the essentials of investing and how you can navigate this financial journey with confidence.

The Foundations of Investing

Before diving deep into the strategies and nuances, it's crucial to understand the basics. Investing is essentially allocating resources, usually money, with the expectation of generating an income or profit. But where do you start?

1. Understanding Your Goals

Every investor has a unique set of objectives. Some might be saving for retirement, while others could be aiming to buy a home or fund their children's education. Knowing your goals will help you tailor your investment strategy accordingly.

2. Risk and Return

There's a fundamental principle in investing: the higher the potential return, the higher the risk. It's essential to assess your risk tolerance and align it with your investment choices. For a deeper dive into risk management, check out Investment Pitfalls Unveiled: How to Avoid Costly Mistakes.

3. Diversification

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Diversifying your investments across different asset classes can help mitigate risk. This strategy is beautifully explained in The Comprehensive Guide to Index Funds: A Powerful Tool for Diversification and Long-term Growth.

The World of E-commerce and Investing

E-commerce has revolutionized the way we shop and invest. With the rise of online platforms, investing has become more accessible than ever. Here's how the e-commerce landscape intertwines with the world of investing:

Retail Trends: The retail industry is ever-evolving, with new trends emerging regularly. For instance, the new retail trends in Qatar offer a comprehensive insight into the changing dynamics of the market.

Online Safety: As online transactions become more prevalent, it's crucial to ensure safety. Learn how to shop online safely to protect your investments and personal information.

The Magic of Customer Experience: In the world of e-commerce, customer experience is king. Dive into the enchanting e-commerce world and discover how it impacts investment decisions.

Cryptocurrency: The New Frontier

The rise of digital currencies, especially Bitcoin, has added a new dimension to investing. With its decentralized nature and potential for high returns, many are drawn to this digital gold. Explore the empowering world of Bitcoin banking and how it's reshaping the financial landscape.

Time: The Investor's Best Friend

Time is a crucial factor in investing. The power of compounding, where your investments earn returns on returns, can lead to exponential growth over time. Delve into the concept of compounding demystified to harness its potential.

In Conclusion

Investing is a journey, filled with learning, growth, and occasional setbacks. But with the right knowledge, tools, and mindset, it can lead to financial freedom and prosperity. As you embark on this journey, remember to stay informed, make informed decisions, and always keep your goals in sight.

For more insights, tips, and comprehensive guides on various topics, explore the vast collection of articles on Steffi's Blogs. Happy investing!

Note: Always consult with a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

[azathot69]

TAG GAME - List 10 of your favorite characters from different fandoms

Tagged by @getwetdryboy

1. Koishi Komeiji (Touhou Project)

2. Don Quixote (Limbus Company)

3. Peacock (Skullgirls)

4. Angela (Lobotomy Corp)

5. Scott Howl (Monster Prom)

6. Throne Angius (Octopath Traveler)

7. Tracy Wright (Ace Attorney)

8. Wakan Tanka (TAS)

9. Neopolitan (RWBY)

10. Rosalina (Mario)

11. YOU (real life)

Tagging

@dubious-nachos @touhou-memories @bekbekah92

[zvaigzdelasas]

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has extended an offer to the US, proposing exclusive access to its critical minerals and infrastructure projects, reported Bloomberg.

In return, the DRC is seeking security assistance to combat a rebellion that is allegedly supported by Rwanda.

In a direct appeal, Congo has requested an urgent meeting between President Felix Tshisekedi and US President Donald Trump.

The proposed pact is expected to grant US companies privileged access to minerals essential for the global energy transition.

The request, conveyed in a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, underscores the DRC’s pressing need for support as it contends with internal conflict.

Congo’s mining sector, a significant source of copper, is currently dominated by Chinese companies.

A partnership with the US will enable Congo to diversify its economic alliances and reduce China’s influence.

The proposal includes operational control for US companies, “exclusive” extraction and export rights, participation in a deep-water port project and the creation of a joint strategic mineral stockpile.

In exchange for these economic opportunities, the US would provide military training, equipment, and direct security assistance including access to military bases to protect strategic resources.

The French investigative outlet Africa Intelligence reported that DRC President Félix Tshisekedi dispatched figures within his inner circle and mining industry officials to the United States and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to discuss strategic mineral partnership agreements in exchange for bilateral military assistance in late February.[1] Africa Intelligence reported that the DRC floated an arrangement with the UAE for a copper and cobalt mining site in the Lualaba province in the southeastern DRC’s Katanga region, but China currently dominates mining in this region and additional details of the proposal remain undisclosed.[2] Tshisekedi had publicly offered the United States and the European Union (EU) “a stake in his country’s vast mineral wealth” and said that the Trump administration could benefit from “a stream of strategic minerals from Congo” in an interview with The New York Times on February 22.[3][...]

The DRC’s proposal mirrors the US-Ukraine critical minerals deal that trades access and investment in Ukraine’s mineral industry for potential US security guarantees.[6] The French magazine Jeune Afrique quoted a “senior American diplomat” who speculated that Tshisekedi drew inspiration for the deal after seeing US interest in Ukrainian minerals.[7] The DRC’s proposal for the Banana port resembles a prior DRC-UAE agreement in 2021, when the UAE-based logistics company DP World acquired 70 percent ownership of the Banana port in exchange for a $1 billion investment in the DRC and the delivery of 30 armored vehicles for the Congolese army.[8]

5 Mar 25

[bogleech]

In your general appreciation of nature, I am curious about your take on this - do you believe nature has reached "peak complexity"?

There was a time without flying animals. There was a time without land animals. There was a time without vertebrates, without segmented exoskeletons, without fur, without feathers, without complex social structures, without eyes. There was a time without plants, or any kind of photosythesis. There was a time without multicellular life.

But at this point, do you feel nature on planet Earth has evolved all "milestones" there are (and from now on, all additional complexity will have come from civilization, one way or another)?

I mean in terms of potential, assuming for a moment "nature" of some kind still exist during the next billion years or so.

Yes or No would be enough (lol), but of course spec evo ideas would be even cooler!

Nah I think there's absolutely infinite things nature could evolve some day that we can't even imagine. You really never know. Like it's 100% biochemically possible for something to "breathe fire;" there just has to be a sequence of mutations and the right competition to gradually make it happen, possibly starting with something that sprays boiling hot compounds like a bombardier beetle. I could also imagine a whole class of animals evolving like the modular people from All Tomorrows, because we already have Siphonophores. It's just a matter of something evolving to be a colony that can also come apart and keep functioning. I'm also obviously obsessed with the concept of a creature that weaponizes its own little symbiotic bugs, since I've used that a million times. Like maybe millions of years from now, a descendant of sloths will have upgraded from being full of moths to being full of tiny wasps? And then what if that's so effective they actually start diversifying like crazy and there's a whole era dominated by mammaloid wasp nest beasts ranging from grazers merely cleaned and guarded by their insects to predators who hunt with their assistance. Plant/animal physical symbiosis is also another thing that's not really taken off outside a few insects. Why shouldn't a plant some day decide it likes growing on some kind of animal's body? It's not a plant, but lichens grow on a species of weevil. It's so rare there aren't even photos, but I swear I saw video of one on BBC when I was a kid:

What if a moss adapts just to the shell of some big reptile and eventually the reptile starts to derive sustenance from it too?? Over time what if this evolves into basically real life Bulbasaurs, where the animal part can be sustained off sunlight? It'd just have to slow its animal metablism way, waaay down to meet the plant halfway. Maybe it hibernates for years and years at a time or spends decades developing like a cicada and then it emerges in pure mating mode, using up all the food it conserved as its flower finally blooms. I know most of my examples are now elaborations on something that's kind of almost already begun happening somewhere but you get the idea. Furthermore you never know if all life as we know it will die out one day while there's still a couple billion years left of the planet's physical existence. Then a whole new line of life could evolve that we can't conceive of at all, from the ground up. Like crystalline mineral trees that start talking to each other with laser light. Or maybe only bacteria are left but for some reason bacteria develop what they need to start sticking together and building a new kind of multicellular organism. What the heck would an equivalent to "animals" look like if the ancestor was a bacterium????? Holy fuck I'm mad I won't see it. Fuming and seething actually. This is the worst thing ever. Why am I doomed to die on regular animal planet with google bots and disney remakes. I wanna see salmonella animal planet. It's not fair.

[bubobubosibericus]

also can we take a moment to note the magnitude 9.6 midlife crisis being made evident by that user's blog handle??

ignoring the big red TERF marker for a second, can anyone really answer no to any of these questions?

[cepheustarot]

Your future relationships dynamic

Attention! This reading is for entertainment purposes only. This tarot reading does not give a 100% guarantee that all the described situations will occur or being ultimate truth. You build your own life and destiny and only you know yourself best.

✧ Masterlist ✧ Paid readings

Pick a pile. Choose one or more pictures. Trust your intuition.

Pile 1: Your future relationship will start quickly, you will immediately feel a connection to each other, you will feel like you are attracted to each other. You will get very close in a short time, and your relationship will also develop rapidly. At the same time, there will be a lot of romance in your relationship and a lot of actions, the first steps from another person. Your future partner is a very romantic, passionate person, to some extent they even tend to romanticize and idealize everything around them, they can be called aesthetes. They are the kind of people who get their way and since you have attracted their attention, they will never leave you alone until they get your attention. Every meeting with you will be very romantic, they will do everything to win your heart, they can give you gifts, often make compliments, flirt, make subtle hints and everything like that. Such a relationship will be filled with romance, love and pleasant feelings, but in order to preserve them in the future, you will need to make some efforts. You may also want to diversify your relationship, because habitual actions on the part of another person can get very boring and will resemble a routine rather than a pleasant pastime with a person.

Pile 2: There will be a lot of flirting, subtle hints in your relationship, both from your side and from the other person. But it is unlikely that there will be a serious relationship between you, rather it resembles a quick romance or a short affair. At the initial stage, you can observe mutual interest in each other, the desire to get to know each other better, get closer, you will also have a desire for physical intimacy, frequent hugs, touches, you will be held for a long time by the hand and all that sort of thing. There will be a strong passion between you, strong feelings, but they will arise only if one of you can adapt to the other, it is a long and hard work that requires time and patience. You may have stagnation, you may encounter resistance on the other hand, with misunderstanding, a person may avoid some topic, act passively, but if you can find a way out of stagnation, then in the future your relationship will be filled with passionate feelings again, harmony and pleasant emotions from communication will prevail in them again and meetings with this person.

Pile 3: There will be plenty and even excess in your relationship, your partner will do everything to make you happy and feel good in a relationship with him. You can say they are ready to fulfill your every wish, because they are very much in love with you and want to be with you, to become a worthy partner for you. Your lover also corresponds to your level, they have everything they need, all the resources and opportunities to win you, and they very persistently want to win you, make you their own. On their part, you can feel strong dominance, authoritativeness, and at times they can behave like a possessor, can be self-centered. They will definitely not be idle, they are the ones who take the initiative and take the first steps. They are also open to everything new, not afraid to experiment and can agree to any of your suggestions. As for conflicts and disputes with them, they cannot be called strongly conflicted, they are the kind of people who quickly calm down and return to their original calm state. Your relationship has a high chance of creating a lasting and lasting union filled with strong love and happy moments.

Thank you for reading! I will be glad of any feedback 💕

[mostlysignssomeportents]

FCC strikes a blow against prison profiteering

TOMORROW NIGHT (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

Here's a tip for policymakers hoping to improve the lives of the most Americans with the least effort: help prisoners.

After all, America is the most prolific imprisoner of its own people of any country in world history. We lock up more people than Stalin, than Mao, more than Botha, de Klerk or any other Apartheid-era South African president. And it's not just America's vast army of the incarcerated who are afflicted by our passion for imprisonment: their families and friends suffer, too.

That familial suffering isn't merely the constant pain of life without a loved one, either. America's prison profiteers treat prisoners' families as ATMs who can be made to pay and pay and pay.

This may seem like a losing strategy. After all, prison sentences are strongly correlated with poverty, and even if your family wasn't desperate before the state kidnapped one of its number and locked them behind bars, that loved one's legal defense and the loss of their income is a reliable predictor of downward social mobility.

Decent people don't view poor people as a source of riches. But for a certain kind of depraved sadist, the poor are an irresistible target. Sure, poor people don't have much money, but what they lack even more is protection under the law ("conservativism consists of the principle that there is an in-group whom the law protects but does not bind, and an out-group whom the law binds but does not protect" -Wilhoit). You can enjoy total impunity as you torment poor people, make them so miserable and afraid for their lives and safety that they will find some money, somewhere, and give it to you.

Mexican cartels understand this. They do a brisk trade in kidnapping asylum seekers whom the US has illegally forced to wait in Mexico to have their claims processed. The families of refugees – either in their home countries or in the USA – are typically badly off but they understand that Mexico will not lift a finger to protect a kidnapped refugee, and so when the kidnappers threaten the most grisly tortures as a means of extracting ransom, those desperate family members do whatever it takes to scrape up the blood-money.

What's more, the families of asylum seekers are not much better off than their kidnapped loved ones when it comes to seeking official protection. Family members who stayed behind in human rights hellholes like Bukele's El Salvador can't get their government to lodge official complaints with the Mexican ambassador, and family members who made it to the USA are in no position to get their Congressjerk to intercede with ICE or the Mexican consulate. This gives Mexico's crime syndicates total latitude to kidnap, torture, and grow rich by targeting the poorest, most desperate people in the world.

The private contractors that supply services to America's prisons are basically Mexican refugee-kidnappers with pretensions and shares listed on the NYSE. After decades of consolidation, the prison contracting sector has shrunk to two gigantic companies: Securus and Viapath (formerly Global Tellink). These private-equity backed behemoths dominate their sector, and have diversified, providing all kinds of services, from prison cafeteria meals to commissary, the prison stores where prisoners can buy food and other items.

If you're following closely, this is one of those places where the hair on the back of your neck starts to rise. These companies make money when prisoners buy food from the commissary, and they're also in charge of the quality of the food in the mess hall. If the food in the mess hall is adequate and nutritious, there's no reason to buy food from the commissary.

This is what economists call a "moral hazard." You can think of it as the reason that prison ramen costs 300% more than ramen in the free world:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/20/captive-market/#locked-in

(Not just ramen: in America's sweltering prisons, an 8" fan costs $40, and the price of water went up in Texas prisons by 50% during last summer's heatwave.)

It's actually worse than that: if you get sick from eating bad prison food, the same company that poisoned you gets paid to operate the infirmary where you're treated:

https://theappeal.org/massachusetts-prisons-wellpath-dentures-teeth/

Now, the scam of abusing prisoners to extract desperate pennies from their families is hardly new. There's written records of this stretching back to the middle ages. Nor is this pattern a unique one: making an unavoidable situation as miserable as possible and then upcharging people who have the ability to pay to get free of the torture is basically how the airlines work. Making coach as miserable as possible isn't merely about shaving pennies by shaving inches off your legroom: it's a way to "incentivize" anyone who can afford it to pay for an upgrade to business-class. The worse coach is, the more people you can convince to dip into their savings or fight with their boss to move classes. The torments visited upon everyone else in coach are economically valuable to the airlines: their groans and miseries translate directly into windfall profits, by convincing better-off passengers to pay not to have the same thing done to them.

Of course, with rare exceptions (flying to get an organ transplant, say) plane tickets are typically discretionary. Housing, on the other hand, is a human right and a prerequisite for human thriving. The worse things are for tenants, the more debt and privation people will endure to become home-owners, so it follows that making renters worse off makes homeowners richer:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

For Securus and Viapath, the path to profitability is to lobby for mandatory, long prison sentences and then make things inside the prison as miserable as possible. Any prisoner whose family can find the funds can escape the worst of it, and all the prisoners who can't afford it serve the economically important function of showing the prisoners whose families can afford it how bad things will be if they don't pay.

If you're thinking that prisoners might pay Securus, Viapath and their competitors out of their own prison earnings, forget it. These companies have decided that the can make more by pocketing the difference between the vast sums paid by third parties for prisoners' labor and the pennies the prisoners get from their work. Remember, the 13th Amendment specifically allows for the enslavement of incarcerated people! Six states ban paying prisoners at all. North Carolina caps prisoners' wages at one dollar per day. The national average prison wage is $0.52/hour. Prisoners' labor produces $11b/year in goods and services:

https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2024/0324bowman.html

Forced labor and extortion are a long and dishonorable tradition in incarceration, but this century saw the introduction of a novel, exciting way of extracting wealth from prisoners and their families. It started when private telcos took over prison telephones and raised the price of a prison phone call. These phone companies found willing collaborators in local jail and prison systems: all they had to do was offer to split the take with the jailers.

With the advent of the internet, things got far worse. Digitalization meant that prisons could replace the library, adult educations, commissary accounts, letter-mail, parcels, in-person visits and phone calls with a single tablet. These cheaply made tablets were offered for free to prisoners, who lost access to everything from their kids' handmade birthday cards to in-person visits with those kids.

In their place, prisoners' families had to pay huge premiums to have their letters scanned so that prisoners could pay (again) to view those scans on their tablets. Instead of in-person visits, prisoners families had to pay $3-10/minute for a janky, postage-stamp sized video. Perversely, jails and prisons replaced their in-person visitation rooms with rooms filled with shitty tablets where family members could sit and videoconference with their incarcerated loved ones who were just a few feet away:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Capitalists hate capitalism. The capital classes are on a relentless search for markets with captive customers and no competitors. The prison-tech industry was catnip for private equity funds, who bought and "rolled" up prison contractors, concentrating the sector into a duopoly of debt-laden companies whose ability to pay off their leveraged buyouts was contingent on their ability to terrorize prisoners' families into paying for their overpriced, low-quality products and services.

One particularly awful consequence of these rollups was the way that prisoners could lose access to their data when their prison's service-provider was merged with a rival. When that happened, the IT systems would be consolidated, with the frequent outcome that all prisoners' data was lost. Imagine working for two weeks to pay for a song or a book, or a scan of your child's handmade Father's Day card, only to have the file deleted in an IT merger. Now imagine that you're stuck inside for another 20 years.

This is a subject I've followed off and on for years. It's such a perfect bit of end-stage capitalist cruelty, combining mass incarceration with monopolies. Even if you're not imprisoned, this story is haunting, because on the one hand, America keeps thinking of new reasons to put more people behind bars, and on the other hand, every technological nightmare we dream up for prisoners eventually works its way out to the rest of us in a process I call the "shitty technology adoption curve." As William Gibson says, "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed" – but the future sure pools up thick and dystopian around America's prisoners:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

My background interest in the subject got sharper a few years ago when I started working on The Bezzle, my 2023 high-tech crime thriller about prison-tech grifters:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

One of the things that was on my mind when I got to work on that book was the 2017 court-case that killed the FCC's rules limit interstate prison-call gouging. The FCC could have won that case, but Trump's FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, dropped it:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/prisoners-lose-again-as-court-wipes-out-inmate-calling-price-caps/

With that bad precedent on the books, the only hope prisoners had for relief from the FCC was for Congress to enact legislation specifically granting the agency the power to regulate prison telephony. Incredibly, Congress did just that, with Biden signing the "Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act" in early 2023:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1541/text

With the new law in place, it fell to the FCC use those newfound powers. Compared to agencies like the FTC and the NLRB, Biden's FCC has been relatively weak, thanks in large part to the Biden administration's refusal to defend its FCC nomination for Gigi Sohn, a brilliant and accomplished telecoms expert. You can tell that Sohn would have been a brilliant FCC commissioner because of the way that America's telco monopolists and their allies in the senate (mostly Republicans, but some Democrats, too) went on an all-out offensive against her, using the fact that she is gay to smear her and ultimately defeat her nomination:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

But even without Sohn, the FCC has managed to do something genuinely great for America's army of the imprisoned. This week, the FCC voted in price-caps on prison calls, so that call rates will drop from $11.35 for 15 minutes to just $0.90. Both interstate and intrastate calls will be capped at $0.06-0.12/minute, with a phased rollout starting in January:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/fcc-closes-final-loopholes-that-keep-prison-phone-prices-exorbitantly-high/

It's hard to imagine a policy that will get more bang for a regulator's buck than this one. Not only does this represent a huge savings for prisoners and their families, those savings are even larger in proportion to their desperate, meager finances.

It shows you how important a competent, qualified regulator is. When it comes to political differences between Republicans and Democrats, regulatory competence is a grossly underrated trait. Trump's FCC Chair Ajit Pai handed out tens of billions of dollars in public money to monopoly carriers to improve telephone networks in underserved areas, but did so without first making accurate maps to tell him where the carriers should invest. As a result, that money was devoured by executive bonuses and publicly financed dividends and millions of Americans entered the pandemic lockdowns with broadband that couldn't support work-from-home or Zoom school. When Biden's FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel took over, one of her first official acts was to commission a national study and survey of broadband quality. Republicans howled in outrage:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/10/digital-redlining/#stop-confusing-the-issue-with-relevant-facts

The telecoms sector has been a rent-seeking, monopolizing monster since the days of Samuel Morse:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/18/the-bell-system/#were-the-phone-company-we-dont-have-to-care

Combine telecoms and prisons, and you get a kind of supermonster, the meth-gator of American neofeudalism:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-police-warn-locals-not-flush-drugs-fear-meth-gators-n1030291

The sector is dirty beyond words, and it corrupts everything it touches – bribing prison officials to throw out all the books in the prison library and replace them with DRM-locked, high-priced ebooks that prisoners must toil for weeks to afford, and that vanish from their devices whenever a prison-tech company merges with a rival:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

The Biden presidency has been fatally marred by the president's avid support of genocide, and nothing will change that. But for millions of Americans, the Biden administration's policies on telecoms, monopoly, and corporate crime have been a source of profound, lasting improvements.

It's not just presidents who can make this difference. Millions of America's prisoners are rotting in state and county jails, and as California has shown, state governments have broad latitude to kick out prison profiteers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/08/captive-audience/#good-at-their-jobs

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/19/martha-wright-reed/#capitalists-hate-capitalism

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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[spinji]

Characters With White Hair Have Mutated Quirks

Right what it says on the tin. I have a theory that white hair is a sign of a quirk mutation i.e. someone with a quirk completely unrelated to the hereditary genes they should have gotten their quirk from. This is not the same as a merged quirk, where the power from the child is unique but comes from combining both of the child's hereditary genes. Those quirks can come with their own issues but they aren't completely out of left field given who the parents are.

Eri

This one is self explanatory. It's outright stated that Eri's rewind quirk is unnatural; it's where we're first introduced to the concept of mutated quirks. And her hair has always been naturally white.

All For One and Yoichi

It's established by the narrative that All For One and Yoichi are the first two babies born with what would be considered a quirk by modern standards. Most notably though, both are completely different from spike-like growths their mother had.

Now, because this hasn't been animated yet, it's unclear if their mother has white hair herself or just lightly colored hair but either one doesn't debunk this idea in itself. If her hair is different then both twins have a clear mutation, and if it's the same then her growths could be its own mutation. The series does explicitly mention that their mother was exhibiting a premature quirk an entire two years before quirks as we know them were discovered so clearly there was something different about her.

Shoji

This one is also clearly stated as being a mutation, and it makes sense. Shoji's environment growing up was so hostile to heteromorphic quirks to such a degree that he was violently beat and chased out of his village. If his parents had similar quirks, or any kind of physical mutation for that matter, I doubt they would have survived long enough for Mezo to be born.

The Todoroki-Himura family

This one is the hardest to justify because it's not just one case, it's at least six. Geten, Rei, Touya, Fuyumi, Natsu, and Shoto all have 50% or more white hair. It's very clearly a genetic trait here.

But Rei's genetics specifically are already questionable.

It's stated by Geten that the Himura's have a history of marrying within the family. While details are minimal, if this cycle of incest has been going on for several generations at this point, it's possible that the very ice quirk Enji sought out was a mutation due to the Himura's unstable genetics. It's not a particularly odd or destructive quirk like other, confirmed, mutations, but it is surprisingly dominant and pervasive.

All four Todoroki children have some aspect of this ice quirk, suggesting that the hair color and the quirk are linked.

Touya is also one of the only people in the series born to be unsuited for his quirk. While concepts like the Quirk Doomsday Theory apply more broadly, that theory defines quirks too powerful for the body they host, not a body so genetically twisted that they inherently can't use their ability. Touya's hair also changes in hue over time in a way very unnatural to any other character in the series, as if Rei's genetics are spreading like a virus.

While marrying Enji instead of one of her cousins did diversify the genetic pool of the kids to a degree I still am willing to believe there is some significant damage to their genetic line from all of the Himura's inbreeding and the clearest sign of that is in the ice quirk.

Shigaraki

This one is an interesting case because Tomura's hair actually changes with the appearance of "his" quirk. Keep in mind for this part that the desaturated light blue that Tomura is typically depicted with is an error on the part of the early anime staff since the only color images of Tomura at the time had blue lighting. From the start it was intended to be white. Note that he's already being drawn with white hair in the hideout raid arc.

Up to this point, everyone with a mutated quirk has been born with white hair but Tenko wasn't. His hair turned from black to white after his decay manifested. Keep in mind though, decay was not his original quirk.

While we don't know what the initial quirk was (I personally choose to believe it was float or airwalk) he was born with one naturally before All For One took it and replaced it with Decay. Decay is also a copied and modified version of Overhaul, which we know ISN'T a mutation quirk.

Essentially, All For One artificially mutated Overhaul, and the resulting quirk caused the same physical changes that natural mutations do. The quirk itself is the source of the mutation, so passing on a mutated quirk causes the same physical changes as being born with one.

What about AFO/OFA?

Obviously both All For One (the quirk) and One For All's original form have the ability to pass quirks to others and we've seen over a dozen different people take quirks from both of these processes and not see any changes to their hair pigment.

While being given a quirk you weren't intended to hold is unnatural it's also not technically mutagenic. Giving and taking quirks is a natural process for both AFO and OFA so while the creations of these quirks were a mutation, their intended use is not.

One For All specifically stocks and absorbs the quirks from the users. It latches onto the quirks that are already there or takes up that place where a quirk would have been in the cases of All Might and Midoriya. All For One meanwhile is playing with pre-established quirks. Unless the quirk itself is carrying a mutated strain of DNA, it wouldn't affect the one being given said quirk.

There are holes in this, namely that ED6 shows Eri's mother with her hair style/texture but at the same time anime-orginal additions are difficult to weigh since we don't know if something that insignificant got author approval. It could also be a matter of all mutants have white hair but not all white haired characters are mutants. Either way I don't think this was an intended pattern by Horikoshi, just an interesting way to spin it.

[souryogurt64]

I feel like a big part of tumblr’s issue with riot grrrl is that they heard a rumor a band did something problematic once (probably in like 1995 fifteen years before they were born… fucking hello- also incorrect information, they were always anti racist and not transphobic) so they go “WOW this whole movement is awful and I’m so progressive and sexy and interesting for not listening to them!” While secretly they’re like “oh thank god, now I don’t have to listen to women bands and diversify my music at all” and they’re in the top .005% of Fall Out Boy Spotify listeners because you’ll get people who will defend men with their dying breath over talented women who couldn’t tackle the entire problems inherent in a subculture that got away from them/too big in the 90’s. Which is also the reason why I’m submitting this anonymously lmao

Yeah, people are able to extend the "a different time" understanding and apply nuance to their own interest in movements like punk, classic rock, emo, hardcore, etc but the same people actively work to bully riot grrrl fans out of their online spaces. I think people hear the word "girl" and immediately have an emotional reaction to it regardless of context, and also are not able to comprehend that riot grrrl was not a hivemind just like how the dead kennedys and the sex pistols both identified as punk but had different beliefs which is something people can comprehend because theyre men lol

I mean I think people are just misogynistic and uncomfortable with feminism and women in general lol which is why you will have Fall Out Boy fans accuse you of a being a bigot and get aggressive if you gently point out that the hardcore scene FOB came from had a lot of issues with abortion, homophobia, and the idealization of fascism.

But it's always the same people who scribble Lynz out of photos, tell people to delete photos of Cobra Starship that have in them Victoria, create elaborate rules as to why Bebe and Hayley aren't allowed in fanfiction, start arguments and accuse you of a bigot if you point out that this is weird as a cultural phenomenon especially if the people doing most of this are usually guys who post about misandry being a real problem in the world lol. And these people also get really aggressive if you ever point out Gerard is also friends with Jimmy Urine, not just Lynz, and Pete has done a lot of very bad things lol. And half of bandom stans Brand New and like has brand new tattoos or whatever which is fine I guess, but not when you're acting like this lol

I also had a GIANT MASSIVE HUGE brain blast last night which was that I think Tumblr Bandom ™ has become increasing more virulently misogynistic and guy dominated than it was 12 years ago because 12 years ago MCR and FOB were making like pop music and teenage pop fangirls were a large portion of the fandom, but now the primary sources of content are SMFS, Thursday, and LS Dunes, and while not certainly being super out there, I think it draws a different crowd than Danger Days and Save Rock and Roll lol.

Like people always argue with you in bad faith when you post about a band guy being sexist and one time I made a vent post about how i like get catcalled if i dress femininely/revealing on the train vs wearing a sweater and jeans (very real thing that happens even though you can get catcalled either way) and someone started arguing with me on anon like "why would that happen, thats not real, youre crazy" and it was like. for all its cringe and flaws this NEVER would have happened in 2013 "i love cats pizza feminism and fall out boy" tumblr lol

Also, I'm not even like a big riot grrrl fan I just interviewed a lot of very small local bands when I was younger (like over 100 i think) and half the time without fail they would have meltdowns about riot grrrl fully unprompted like "im a girl but my bassist is a boy this isnt fair im not problematic either" and it was like okay, are you offended by this for legitimate reasons or did you hear girls were mean to boys and that's bad on Twitter and believed it without realizing that guys were often in "riot grrrl" bands because riot grrrl was a genre and not a gender

[itsabouttimex2]

For fun how about rating Wukong ship from lmk and give your opinion why?

SWK Ship Ratings

(Scores rank from -10 at the lowest, and 10 at the highest)

Shadowpeach

Name Rating: 5/10. Basic, but rolls off the tongue. Started the trend of Sun Wukong having extremely basic ship names- more on that below.

Canon Rating: 0/10. Whatever they had in the past, Macaque simply treats Wukong far too awfully to really justify the two of them ever getting together. Even the attempts at reconciliation feel more like extremely forced ship baiting, given how it goes from one of the two being marginally kinder to the other than usual, then immediately dropping it for more sniping. (Past!Shadowpeach receives 5/10.)

Fanon Rating: -10/10. I’ve spoken at length about this, but fans love to distort Wukong into a drooling abuser so stupid he can’t breath through his nose, usually while turning Macaque into a Possession Sue who only serves to be the author’s simpering self-insert who is the most perfect little baby of all time who has never ever done anything wrong at all even once. If there is an attempt to be “nuanced” or “unbiased” it manifest as “Sun Wukong “killed” (re: defended himself against) Macaque so he’s worse.” It’s an awful, extremely pervasive dynamic that rots any fandom enjoyment I could have had for this couple.

Personal Enjoyment: 6/10. Getting to write Macaque as the legitimately awful person that he is takes off the edge of seeing constant “uwu sadboi” Macaque content. Still, I rarely touch anyone else’s Shadowpeach content because of this.

Peachlotus

Name Rating: 2/10. As you’ll see, most ship names involving Sun Wukong are, uh… extremely lazy. Just one of the other character’s traits with “peach” slapped before/after it. Fandom really dropped the ball with most of these. This one is especially clunky, at least on my tongue.

(See, Macaque gets stuff like Lunartides, Inkypages, Shadowpeach, etc- all very cool.. We need to diversify the nouns is what I’m saying. Coulda been something like “GingerRoot” cause orange fur + plant boy. “FlowerBuds” for the platonic name for peaches + lotuses. Do you guys see what I’m saying. It can’t just be raw peaches all the way down.)

Canon Rating: 2/10. Ne Zha also doesn’t treat Wukong too kindly, interacting with him mostly through insults and physical attacks. He does seem to have some understanding of the king, though, which gives him a slight boost over Macaque.

Fanon Rating: 1/10. It barely exists, and what little does exist is essentially just “Ne Zha is mad at Wukong over what the fuck ever, so they’re fighting” and little more. There’s a lot of potential for bonding over immortality and awful pasts or being commandeered by domineering authority figures, which I wish was used more often.

Personal Enjoyment: 2/10. I don’t see the dynamic, personally. Again, Ne Zha’s only interactions with him are only ever vitriolic or exasperated in nature, which doesn’t leave stable footing for a relationship to stand. Maybe I’ll make a chatbot for them one day and see if I come around to it.

“Freepeaches”

Name Rating: -5/10. This shit is exactly what I’m talking about with the lazily slapping “peach” onto whatever and going on. “Free” has no meaning between Wukong and Tang- it’s just a holdover from a more popular ship. Tang only mooches food from Pigsy. That’s one of the biggest elements of their dynamic. Sure, Tang likes free stuff (food, rides, physical labor), but when does he ever get that from Wukong? It just makes no sense.

AND IF IT HAD TO HAVE THE FRUIT, TANGYPEACHES WAS RIGHT THERE

Canon Rating: 6/10. Tang literally drew himself and the Monkey King together inside a heart. He adores Wukong, thought maybe not for who he truly is- and the two don’t any interaction in terms of Tang realizing his autistic parasocial special interest idol is a lonely old sage who misses his friends, which cripples what was a pretty cute dynamic. I think Tang coming down from his hero worship and being just a genuine friend to SWK would be cute, definitely.

Fanon Rating: 9/10. Pretty enjoyable! Freepeaches is one of the few dynamics where Sun Wukong isn’t constantly turned into a punching bag/villain to be beaten around for the amusement of the audience, and the two are often portrayed as legitimately healthy together- I especially enjoy how Tang is portrayed as needing to move past his hero worship for the two to have a healthy relationship. It’s cute.

Personal Enjoyment: 6/10. Never addressing the resemblance to Sanzang or having them interact in regards to this while the circlet is back on Wukong’s head feels like a massively missed opportunity, honestly. I think Sun Wukong’s personal feelings have been left to the wayside for far too long in canon, and getting to a point where almost every fucking character represses their feelings is lazy and boring.

Peachbuns

Name Rating: 4/10. Again. Just “peach” slapped onto an adjective or noun. It’s frustratingly boring. This one sounds delicious and both components are related to food at least, which fits Pigsy’s background… but it also sounds like something a horny dude would ask for pics of in your DMs.

Canon Rating: 1/10. Pigsy isn’t willing to take any of Wukong’s shit, so he serves as a pretty great “bullshit barrier” that provides a legitimately strict opposing force to Wukong, but there’s little else to even their relationship out. He’s never kind or supportive or worried- if the two interact, it’s always through the lens of “Pigsy is mad/suspicious”. There’s never any real bonding or growth between them at all.

Fanon Rating: 4/10. This ship barely exists, and when it does it’s Sun Wukong being lectured through life by a big strong man- not a dynamic I’m a fan of. However, it is surprisingly kind to Wukong in terms of empathizing with his struggles. Again, I wish there was less of “Pigsy teaches Wukong basic life skills” because it falls right back into the revolting fanon that is “SWK is a big dumb fuck who can’t read or cook or take care of himself without a husband to wipe his ass.”

Personal Enjoyment: 2/10. I just don’t click with it. Pigsy doesn’t like Wukong, doesn’t trust him, and doesn’t interact with him outside of that.

Moonstone

Name Rating: 10/10. This is what I like! Moonstone is not only a very real (and very beautiful) mineral, but it ties to both of them equally! You don’t see Wukong’s status as a stone-born demon be referenced often, so this is a refreshing change of pace from the constant “peach” names.

Canon Rating: 7/10. Chang’e is a lovely woman who is simultaneously not be willing put up with Sun Wukong’s bullshit while still legitimately respecting and admiring him. It makes for a nice duality in their relationship that most of his dynamics don’t provide.

Fanon Rating: 10/10. The working dynamic is so fucking good to start with that I’ve never once seen fanon drop the ball. Never. This ship is always so fucking sweet and honest with Chang’e calling out Wukong for his bullshit while never pushing it to the “Shit on Sun Wukong Show” levels that the fandom loves so much- she takes no shit, but does no harm. She’s supportive and acknowledges his traumas and fears. Wukong does his best for her. Moonstone shippers get an A+ and extra recess time.

Personal Enjoyment: 7/10. I just… I really like this one, dammit. There’s not a lot to go off of, but seeing fanworks that do not primarily treat SWK like living trash/baby the hell out of him is nice.

Lionpeach

Name Rating: 3/10. Again. Very boring and generic. I’ve seen Fuzzypeach which is a little cuter, at least. Still, it’s all the same “peach”+noun format.

Canon Rating: 3/10. The devotion Azure bears to Sun Wukong seems like it would bear a higher marking, but it’s shallow and flimsy. Azure never understood Wukong, never wanted what was best for him, never cared about his safety or happiness. Azure projects his beliefs and wants onto the people around him, blinding the big fella to shortcomings on their parts, and is delusional enough to never look inwards. Still, I can legitimately see

Fanon Rating: 0/10. It’s just smut. That’s it. When it isn’t it’s just “Ooooh! Azure is jealous of Macaque! Tee-hee, sorry Azure!” and that’s it. I’ve never actually seen any non-sexual, Azure-focused Lionpeach.

Personal Enjoyment: 5/10. It’s a fun enough dynamic to explore, especially with how unhealthy it is. I’ll probably make a bot of this too one day. Maybe a “yandere dads” type. Or a mutual Primal Moon bot.

Celestialchaos

Name Rating: 10/10. Another not peach-based name is a win in my book!

Canon Rating: 6/10. Xiangliu is civil enough to Wukong (about as much as everyone else), but the mention of them having once been friends is what got my attention. Shrouded past + + potential reincarnation shenanigans + decently civil behavior = a very happy writer. It’s so little but it makes my brain itch.

Fanon Rating: 0/10. It doesn’t even exist babes ;( I’m scrounging for water in the lonely plains of a desert y’all. I’m a lonely little cactus and Celestialchaos is my annual three-inch rain.

Personal Enjoyment: 10/10. C’mon now. You all were expecting this. I love this ship. I’ve already made four chatbots. I love Xiangliu as a wild little freak who desperately tries to push Wukong away from other people and sad lonely Wukong finding refuge in a freaky toxic snake. Especially I like the idea of Xiangliu pitting himself against Macaque and going after Sun Wukong just to cause a little trouble, only to actually catch feelings and start pursuing him in earnest. I like “I want you at your worst so I can prove that I still love you even then” Xiangliu and “You love me at all?” Wukong.

I really like this ship.

End Result

(Scores ranging from -40 to +40)

Shadowpeach= 1/40

(Past!Shadowpeach would around 20)

Lotuspeach= 7/40

Freepeaches= 16/40

Peachbuns= 11/40

Moonstone= 34/40

Lionpeach= 11/40

Celestialchaos= 26/40

[tribbetherium]

The Middle Therocene: 35 million years post-establishment

Searet Relationships: Marine Fearrets of the Middle Therocene

As the Great Lakes of Nodera opened up to the seas, the aquatic hamsters of the large landlocked water would find a new frontier accessible to them: the oceans. First would come the tailless pondrats, expanding into the seas and becoming even more specialized to water to become the bayvers, a diverse clade including herbivores, omnivores and carnivores in their ranks. But they would find an ocean already contested by a now-dominant clade that reigned unchallenged in the absence of vertebrate competition in marine ecological niches: the shrarks. Growing to immense sizes for an arthropod, with the biggest being the two-meter long megaprawns of open seas, and armed with powerful 'biting' pincers, they patrolled the shallow coasts, reefs and open seas as the apex predators of their time. Originally hunting only other shrish species, many of which grew quite big at sizes of a meter or more, the bayvers found themselves quickly added to the menu: and thus, in these early days, remained semiaquatic and pinniped-like to escape onto the shores out of reach of the marine hunters, most restricted to bouncing and wiggling on their bellies on land, and some, the more basal wavewaddlers, retaining the ability to clumsily walk using their fused rear flippers: ties to the land being a constraint that had restricted their diversity for the past few million years.

But another species from the lakes had spread out from the seas in this time, and would eventually turn the tide in the favor of the hamsters. The lake searet, an ambush predator related to the carnohams, that fed on aquatic and terrestrial prey alike, found the Centralic Ocean a very welcome place to expand, and soon spread throughout the inner coasts of Ecatoria, Nodera, Westerna and Easaterra. In the past ten million years these had diversified, diverging into a wide array of species occupying varied niches.

Propelled by enlarged, webbed hind feet and tails adapted for steering, the searets were well-suited for maneuvering and foraging in the water. Their powerful jaws, in particular, made them superbly built for tackling hard-shelled prey: a useful adaptation that prevented them from competing with the other main marine hamster lineage of the time, the bayvers, which fed on smaller shrish, bottom-dwelling crustaceans, and even marine plants.

Brown coastal rodders (Lutromyocricetus vulgaris) are among the most basal of the species, and the most widespread. They have a preference toward hard-shelled prey too tough for bayvers to crack, such as slow-moving armored shrish. The bayvers, faster in the water, were pursuit hunters of shrish that specialized on speed and shoaling to evade predators, while rodders, more suited for maneuveravility, dexterity and stealth than speed, preferred those that were more heavily defended but were slower and easier to catch.

Some species, such as the dappled rockasheller (Duroclastemys circulupunctus), would even rely on beyond just their physical limitations, and augment their diet with the help of primitive tools as well. Using stones or bits of coral as blunt hammers, they break open the shells of bivalves, large snails, and heavily-armored lobster-like shrish as well, in order to access the nutritious meat within. This is primarily an instinctive, rather than learned, behavior: young rockashellers will often carry around small stones and use them to hit hard objects as an act of play, completely oblivious of the reason of this behavior and gradually learn to use this behavior for feeding through experience and imitation of older members of their species.

Marine searets, as a whole, are far more independent of land than bayvers are, and can in fact spend their whole lives at sea: feeding, sleeping, mating, grooming and bearing their young all while floating at the surface of the water, gathering in family groups of a dozen or two for safety. Fiercely protective of their packmates, they, instead of timidly fleeing from danger like bayvers do, instead mob and attack any predatory shrarks that threaten them, and occasionally even successfully killing their assailants: setting the stage for a complete overhaul of the dynamics of the ocean biomes as a whole.

Over time, this defensive mobbing behavior turned into active predation in some of the larger species, with shrarks, and other large shrish, no longer being seen as enemies or competitors, but as prey. The largest searet species of this time, the goliath searet (Titanolutromys goliah) can reach lengths of over eight feet from snout to tail and weigh about two hundred kilograms: making them formidable predators of the open seas, and the first hamsters to fill the niche. Goliath searets are powerful swimmers, so much so that they basically never come to land willingly, and, while big enough to prey upon bayvers, rarely do so unless desperate, as bayvers are too fast and evasive for their liking while they are much slower ambush hunters. Instead, their preferred prey of choice are the giant armored meter-long shrish abundant in the shallows, including filter-feeding, grazing and predatory members of their clade. At their size, they are large enough to tackle shrarks on their own, and now live by themselves or in mated pairs, as well as their offspring which stay with their parents for about two years before becoming fully independent.

Rather than becoming yet an additional danger to pose a significant threat in the water, if anything, the presence of the searets actually was a net benefit to the bayvers, as their rampant hunting of predatory shrarks in the shallows gradually forced the deadly arthropods further out to sea: and reduced the predator densities of the tropical coastal reefs that did prey on the bayvers regularly, to make a relatively safer sea for the marine pondrats to press onward into, and finally diversify. At long last, the monopoly of the seas by the shrish has been challenged by the hamsters: and in the eons to come, the searets' impact on the ocean ecology will have lasting effects felt even millions of years later as they, and the bayvers, attain remarkable proportions only creatures with internal skeletons could ever hope to achieve.

-------

[madjazzed]

Intro to Alternian Biology: respiratory pigments

Like the blood of most species on Earth and Alternia, trolls' blood derives its color from metalloproteins used to transport oxygen. Unlike most species on Earth and Alternia, troll blood contains multiple types of oxygen-transport proteins--five in total.

HEMERYTHRIN is the primary oxygen-transport protein in the blood of seadwelling trolls, and is also present in significant concentrations in purplebloods. It is violet-pink when oxygenated. Much Alternian sea life uses hemerythrin as its sole or primary oxygen transport protein, as do many Earth marine invertebrates.

HEMOCYANIN is the primary oxygen-transport protein of landdwelling highbloods (blue and purple) and present in significant concentrations down to olive. It is dark blue when oxygenated. Hemocyanin is also found in the blood of many Earth mollusks and arthropods.

CHLOROCRUORIN is present in very small quantities across the hemospectrum, and in high concentrations in greenbloods; it was the primary blood pigment in limebloods, which are now extinct. Chlorocruorin is a dichromatic compound which appears light green in dilute solutions, including normal blood, and red when highly concentrated; an uncommon mutation causing extreme overproduction of chlorocruorin thus results in bright red blood. On Earth, chlorocruorin is mostly found in worms.

COBOGLOBIN is an important oxygen-transport protein in low and midblood trolls and is most highly concentrated in goldbloods, the only caste for which it is primary, with significant concentrations occurring in every hemotype from rust to teal. It is yellow-orange in color when deoxygenated. Coboglobin is the only Alternian blood protein that does not occur in Earth biology.

HEMOGLOBIN is the primary oxygen-transport protein in rustblooded trolls. The highest concentrations occur in burgundy bloods, and it is present in significant quantities in all blood castes up to olive. Fuschiabloods also have hemoglobin in relatively small but still significant quantities, notably more than in any of the other high blood castes. It is dark red when oxygenated. Nearly all Earth vertebrate species rely on hemoglobin for oxygen transport.

Additional notes:

The gray color of trolls' skin comes from black eumelanin and blue-gray carotenoproteins in the skin cells, the concentration of which increases with age. The yellow color of trolls' irises comes from yellow carotenoproteins. These are present in most troll tissues, but their color is usually masked by the darker skin pigments or the more vivid blood pigments. They do, however, contribute to the color of yellow blood, the only hemotype dominated by a transport protein which is colorless when oxygenated.

High concentrations of chlorocruorin are correlated with conciliatory impulses. Sopor slime is a highly oxygenated fluid containing significant concentrations of chlorocruorin, which give it its green color and are believed by many to contribute to its dampening effect on sleep rage and daymares, though the mechanism is not known. No surviving castes have as much as 50% chlorocruorin, while the now-extinct lime bloods had just over. Trolls with the rare cherry red mutation, however, have over 90% chlorocruorin, twice as concentrated as any other surviving caste.

It has been theorized that the cherry red mutation is a throwback to a now-extinct subspecies of troll which relied solely on chlorocrourin for oxygen transport. There were many subspecies in Alternia's evolutionary past, some more successful and widespread than others. In prehistory it is thought that none used more than one oxygen transport protein, as is typical in most planetary ecologies including Earth's. However, early hybrids benefited from the adaptive advantages of diversifying oxygen transport, and the mixing of subspecies through kleptogenetic reproductive strategies eventually resulted in the distribution of diverse respiratory pigments seen in the modern hemospectrum.

[bestanimal]

Round 2 - Mollusca - Bivalvia

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Bivalvia is a class of molluscs whose bodies are enclosed by a pair of half-shells called valves, though some bivalves, like the Naked Clam (Chlamydoconcha orcutti) (image 2) have secondarily lost their shells. Bivalves have no head and no radula. Their gills have evolved into ctenidia, specialised organs for feeding and breathing. Bivalvia includes the clades Heteroconchia, Palaeoheterodonta, Protobranchia, Pteriomorphia, and animals commonly known as clams, oysters, cockles, mussels, and scallops.

Bivalves live in marine and freshwater environments. Most are filter feeders that bury themselves in sediment, lie on their side on the seafloor, or attach themselves to rocks or other hard surfaces. Some bivalves, such as scallops and file shells, can swim (see gif below). Shipworms bore into wood, clay, or stone and live inside these substances. Bivalve shells are composed of two calcareous valves joined along one edge by a flexible ligament that, usually in conjunction with interlocking "teeth" on each of the valves, forms the hinge, allowing the animal to open and close its shell. The animal secrets its shell from lobes on its mantle. They have a foot located at the front of their shell and two siphons in the back, which inhale and expell water. The shipworms, of the family Teredinidae, have elongated bodies but tiny, reduced shell valves, which function as scraping organs that permit the animal to dig tunnels through wood. Bivalves have sensory organs located on the margins of their mantle, usually mechanoreceptors or chemoreceptors, sometimes on short tentacles. All bivalves have light-sensitive cells that can detect a shadow falling over the animal, some have simple eyes on the margin of the mantle, and scallops have complex eyes with a lens, a two-layered retina, and a concave mirror. Most bivalves are filter feeders, using their gills to capture particles of food such as phytoplankton from the water. Protobranchs feed in a different way, scraping detritus from the seabed with mucus-covered tentacles. A few bivalves, such as the Granular Poromya (Poromya granulata), are carnivorous, eating larger prey like small crustaceans, though they will also scavenge. It does this though its inhalant siphon which is modified into a cowl-shaped organ, sucking in prey, and then inverting to bring the prey within reach of the mouth.

Most bivalves have separate sexes, though some are hermaphroditic. Fertilization is external in most species. Spawning may take place continually or be triggered by environmental factors such as day length, water temperature, or the presence of sperm in the water. Eggs hatch into free-swimming, planktonic trochophore larvae. These later develop into veliger larvae which settle on the seabed and undergo metamorphosis into adults. In some species, such as those in the genus Lasaea, females draw sperm in through their inhalant siphons and fertilize their eggs inside their bodies. These species then brood the young inside their mantle cavity, eventually releasing them into the water column as veliger or glochidia larvae or as crawl-away juveniles. The juveniles of freshwater bivalves will attach themselves parasitically to the gills or fins of a fish host. After several weeks they drop off their host, undergo metamorphosis and develop into adults on the substrate.

Bivalves first appear in the fossil record in the Early Cambrian. Possible early bivalves include Pojetaia and Fordilla, though these are probably stem-bivalves. True Cambrian bivalves may include Camya, Arhouriella, and Buluniella. Bivalves began to diversify during the Early Ordovician. By the Early Silurian, gills were adapting for filter-feeding, and during the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, siphons first appeared along with the newly developed muscular foot. At this point Brachiopods were still the most dominant filter-feeders in the ocean, but the Permian–Triassic extinction event hit both brachiopods and bivalves hard, but resulted in bivalves becoming the more common filter-feeders by the Triassic Period.

(source)

Propaganda under the cut:

Bivalves have long been a part of the diet of coastal and riparian human populations. Oysters were cultured in ponds by the Romans, and mariculture has more recently become an important source of bivalves for food.

Pearl Oysters (the common name of two very different saltwater and freshwater families) are the most common source of natural pearls.

Some of the species in the freshwater mussel family Unionidae (commonly known as Pocketbook Mussels) have evolved an unusual reproductive strategy. The female's mantle protrudes from the shell and develops into an imitation small fish, complete with fish-like markings and false eyes. This decoy moves in the current and attracts the attention of real fish. When fish approach for a closer look the mussel releases huge numbers of larvae from its gills, dousing the inquisitive fish with its tiny, parasitic young. These glochidia larvae are drawn into the fish's gills, where they attach and trigger a tissue response that forms a small cyst around each larva. The larvae feed on the tissue of the fish within the cysts. After a few weeks they release themselves from the cysts and fall to the stream bed as juvenile molluscs.

One genus, Entovalva, are parasitic as adults, being found only in the esophagus of sea cucumbers. They attach themselves via byssal threads to the host's throat, filter-feeding from the sediment sucked in by the sea cucumber. (This does not hurt the sea cucumber.)

The largest bivalve is the Giant Clam (Tridacna gigas) which can weigh over 200 kilograms (440 lb), measure as much as 120 cm (3.11 ft) across, and have an average lifespan in the wild of more than 100 years.

The shells of bivalves are used in craftwork, and the manufacture of jewellery and buttons.

As filter-feeders, bivalves are natural water filters. A single 5.08 cm (2 inch) clam can filter up to 10-12 gallons of seawater a day. They can even filter microplastics out of polluted water.

When they live in polluted waters, bivalves have a tendency to accumulate substances such as heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants in their tissues. This is because they ingest the chemicals as they feed but their enzyme systems are not capable of metabolising them and as a result, the levels build up. This may be a health hazard for the molluscs themselves, and is one for humans who eat them. It also has advantages in that bivalves can be used in monitoring the presence and quantity of pollutants in their environment.

The farming of bivalves is more ecologically-friendly than the farming of chordates as, rather than create waste, bivalves like mussels and oysters actually clean the water.

Scallops have beautiful eyes:

(source)

[astroxrion]

In honor of the Gemini New Moon

Let’s break down Gemini in the houses ♊️💜🤍💜🤍

Gemini in the 1st House

You are the embodiment of multiplicity. Your identity never stays still and you're not supposed to. You lead with your mind, with quick shifts and a curious edge that turns heads even when you try to downplay it. Talk is your weapon. Wit is your armor. You reinvent yourself through ideas. Stop trying to settle into one version of self. You are the storm. Own it.

Gemini in the 2nd House

Your value comes from your intellect and adaptability. You monetize what you know and who you know. But you've got to stop overthinking your worth. Speak what you know and charge for it. Write it down. Sell the thought. Your stability will never look boring. It looks like diversified income and brilliant movement.

Gemini in the 3rd House

This is your throne. You are born to communicate, teach, question, and provoke. Your mind runs faster than most can keep up with. You don't just talk—you stimulate. Use your voice to lead. Become the source everyone turns to. Just stop spreading your energy thin. Direct that mental firepower and dominate.

Gemini in the 4th House

Home is mental stimulation. You need to talk to feel safe. You grew up absorbing everyone's thoughts. Now it's time to unlearn the need to mirror everyone. Root yourself in your own logic. Your sanctuary must feed your mind. Build a home where your inner dialogue can finally settle and expand.

Gemini in the 5th House

You flirt with words. You play through expression. Your creativity is meant to be loud, quirky, unpredictable. Stop second-guessing your ideas. Turn your humor and chaos into gold. Performance is not a mask for you—it is truth. You shine when you say what no one else will. Be loud. Be undeniable.

Gemini in the 6th House

You do not function on autopilot. You need variety in your routines or you rot. Your power is in systems that let your mind breathe. You can outthink most people at work but only if you stop doubting your instincts. Do the research. Get it right. Then teach others how to do it better.

Gemini in the 7th House

Your relationships must stimulate you mentally or they will bore you to death. You attract clever lovers, but you also run from anything that feels too emotionally still. You're not flaky, you're just wired to evolve. Communicate or collapse. Build partnerships on mental chemistry. Anything less is a lie.

Gemini in the 8th House

You dissect the dark. Your mind is wired to understand secrets, taboos, power games. You read between the silences and call it out. You need transformation through thought. Sexuality is mental for you. Intimacy is mental. Learn how to trust your own brain before you try to merge with anyone else.

Gemini in the 9th House

You are meant to teach the world. You are a philosopher disguised as a casual thinker. You ask dangerous questions. You make others rethink their entire lives. Learn everything and then rip it apart. Publish. Speak. Preach. You are the messenger who refuses to follow one truth. Keep pushing the boundary.

Gemini in the 10th House

You become known for your voice. For your mind. For the way you shift the collective through information. The world will not ignore you if you speak clearly and without apology. Get visible. Get sharp. Make your reputation out of your words. Fame comes when you say what the rest fear to think.

Gemini in the 11th House

You gather minds. Your network will take you further than anything else. You are the one who sparks ideas in others. You can lead a digital revolution if you stop hiding. Say what the group needs to hear before they even know they need it. Be the voice of the collective future.

Gemini in the 12th House

You think in other realms. You speak for what others cannot name. Your mind lives behind the veil. You must write. You must speak. Even if your thoughts terrify you. The world needs your poetic logic. Channel it. Dream it. Communicate the invisible. You were born to translate spirit into sound.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Tech disrupted disruption

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/08/permanent-overlords/#republicans-want-to-defund-the-police

Before "disruption" turned into a punchline, it was a genuinely exciting idea. Using technology, we could connect people to one another and allow them to collaborate, share, and cooperate to make great things happen.

It's easy (and valid) to dismiss the "disruption" of Uber, which "disrupted" taxis and transit by losing $31b worth of Saudi royal money in a bid to collapse the world's rival transportation system, while quietly promising its investors that it would someday have pricing power as a monopoly, and would attain profit through price-gouging and wage-theft.

Uber's disruption story was wreathed in bullshit: lies about the "independence" of its drivers, about the imminence of self-driving taxis, about the impact that replacing buses and subways with millions of circling, empty cars would have on traffic congestion. There were and are plenty of problems with traditional taxis and transit, but Uber magnified these problems, under cover of "disrupting" them away.

But there are other feats of high-tech disruption that were and are genuinely transformative – Wikipedia, GNU/Linux, RSS, and more. These disruptive technologies altered the balance of power between powerful institutions and the businesses, communities and individuals they dominated, in ways that have proven both beneficial and durable.

When we speak of commercial disruption today, we usually mean a tech company disrupting a non-tech company. Tinder disrupts singles bars. Netflix disrupts Blockbuster. Airbnb disrupts Marriott.

But the history of "disruption" features far more examples of tech companies disrupting other tech companies: DEC disrupts IBM. Netscape disrupts Microsoft. Google disrupts Yahoo. Nokia disrupts Kodak, sure – but then Apple disrupts Nokia. It's only natural that the businesses most vulnerable to digital disruption are other digital businesses.

And yet…disruption is nowhere to be seen when it comes to the tech sector itself. Five giant companies have been running the show for more than a decade. A couple of these companies (Apple, Microsoft) are Gen-Xers, having been born in the 70s, then there's a couple of Millennials (Amazon, Google), and that one Gen-Z kid (Facebook). Big Tech shows no sign of being disrupted, despite the continuous enshittification of their core products and services. How can this be? Has Big Tech disrupted disruption itself?

That's the contention of "Coopting Disruption," a new paper from two law profs: Mark Lemley (Stanford) and Matthew Wansley (Yeshiva U):

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4713845

The paper opens with a review of the literature on disruption. Big companies have some major advantages: they've got people and infrastructure they can leverage to bring new products to market more cheaply than startups. They've got existing relationships with suppliers, distributors and customers. People trust them.

Diversified, monopolistic companies are also able to capture "involuntary spillovers": when Google spends money on AI for image recognition, it can improve Google Photos, YouTube, Android, Search, Maps and many other products. A startup with just one product can't capitalize on these spillovers in the same way, so it doesn't have the same incentives to spend big on R&D.

Finally, big companies have access to cheap money. They get better credit terms from lenders, they can float bonds, they can tap the public markets, or just spend their own profits on R&D. They can also afford to take a long view, because they're not tied to VCs whose funds turn over every 5-10 years. Big companies get cheap money, play a long game, pay less to innovate and get more out of innovation.

But those advantages are swamped by the disadvantages of incumbency, all the various curses of bigness. Take Arrow's "replacement effect": new companies that compete with incumbents drive down the incumbents' prices and tempt their customers away. But an incumbent that buys a disruptive new company can just shut it down, and whittle down its ideas to "sustaining innovation" (small improvements to existing products), killing "disruptive innovation" (major changes that make the existing products obsolete).

Arrow's Replacement Effect also comes into play before a new product even exists. An incumbent that allows a rival to do R&D that would eventually disrupt its product is at risk; but if the incumbent buys this pre-product, R&D-heavy startup, it can turn the research to sustaining innovation and defund any disruptive innovation.

Arrow asks us to look at the innovation question from the point of view of the company as a whole. Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma" looks at the motivations of individual decision-makers in large, successful companies. These individuals don't want to disrupt their own business, because that will render some part of their own company obsolete (perhaps their own division!). They also don't want to radically change their customers' businesses, because those customers would also face negative effects from disruption.

A startup, by contrast, has no existing successful divisions and no giant customers to safeguard. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain from disruption. Where a large company has no way for individual employees to initiate major changes in corporate strategy, a startup has fewer hops between employees and management. What's more, a startup that rewards an employee's good idea with a stock-grant ties that employee's future finances to the outcome of that idea – while a giant corporation's stock bonuses are only incidentally tied to the ideas of any individual worker.

Big companies are where good ideas go to die. If a big company passes on its employees' cool, disruptive ideas, that's the end of the story for that idea. But even if 100 VCs pass on a startup's cool idea and only one VC funds it, the startup still gets to pursue that idea. In startup land, a good idea gets lots of chances – in a big company, it only gets one.

Given how innately disruptable tech companies are, given how hard it is for big companies to innovate, and given how little innovation we've gotten from Big Tech, how is it that the tech giants haven't been disrupted?

The authors propose a four-step program for the would-be Tech Baron hoping to defend their turf from disruption.

First, gather information about startups that might develop disruptive technologies and steer them away from competing with you, by investing in them or partnering with them.

Second, cut off any would-be competitor's supply of resources they need to develop a disruptive product that challenges your own.

Third, convince the government to pass regulations that big, established companies can comply with but that are business-killing challenges for small competitors.

Finally, buy up any company that resists your steering, succeeds despite your resource war, and escapes the compliance moats of regulation that favors incumbents.

Then: kill those companies.

The authors proceed to show that all four tactics are in play today. Big Tech companies operate their own VC funds, which means they get a look at every promising company in the field, even if they don't want to invest in them. Big Tech companies are also awash in money and their "rival" VCs know it, and so financial VCs and Big Tech collude to fund potential disruptors and then sell them to Big Tech companies as "aqui-hires" that see the disruption neutralized.

On resources, the authors focus on data, and how companies like Facebook have explicit policies of only permitting companies they don't see as potential disruptors to access Facebook data. They reproduce internal Facebook strategy memos that divide potential platform users into "existing competitors, possible future competitors, [or] developers that we have alignment with on business models." These categories allow Facebook to decide which companies are capable of developing disruptive products and which ones aren't. For example, Amazon – which doesn't compete with Facebook – is allowed to access FB data to target shoppers. But Messageme, a startup, was cut off from Facebook as soon as management perceived them as a future rival. Ironically – but unsurprisingly – Facebook spins these policies as pro-privacy, not anti-competitive.

These data policies cast a long shadow. They don't just block existing companies from accessing the data they need to pursue disruptive offerings – they also "send a message" to would-be founders and investors, letting them know that if they try to disrupt a tech giant, they will have their market oxygen cut off before they can draw breath. The only way to build a product that challenges Facebook is as Facebook's partner, under Facebook's direction, with Facebook's veto.

Next, regulation. Starting in 2019, Facebook started publishing full-page newspaper ads calling for regulation. Someone ghost-wrote a Washington Post op-ed under Zuckerberg's byline, arguing the case for more tech regulation. Google, Apple, OpenAI other tech giants have all (selectively) lobbied in favor of many regulations. These rules covered a lot of ground, but they all share a characteristic: complying with them requires huge amounts of money – money that giant tech companies can spare, but potential disruptors lack.

Finally, there's predatory acquisitions. Mark Zuckerberg, working without the benefit of a ghost writer (or in-house counsel to review his statements for actionable intent) has repeatedly confessed to buying companies like Instagram to ensure that they never grow to be competitors. As he told one colleague, "I remember your internal post about how Instagram was our threat and not Google+. You were basically right. The thing about startups though is you can often acquire them.”

All the tech giants are acquisition factories. Every successful Google product, almost without exception, is a product they bought from someone else. By contrast, Google's own internal products typically crash and burn, from G+ to Reader to Google Videos. Apple, meanwhile, buys 90 companies per year – Tim Apple brings home a new company for his shareholders more often than you bring home a bag of groceries for your family. All the Big Tech companies' AI offerings are acquisitions, and Apple has bought more AI companies than any of them.

Big Tech claims to be innovating, but it's really just operationalizing. Any company that threatens to disrupt a tech giant is bought, its products stripped of any really innovative features, and the residue is added to existing products as a "sustaining innovation" – a dot-release feature that has all the innovative disruption of rounding the corners on a new mobile phone.

The authors present three case-studies of tech companies using this four-point strategy to forestall disruption in AI, VR and self-driving cars. I'm not excited about any of these three categories, but it's clear that the tech giants are worried about them, and the authors make a devastating case for these disruptions being disrupted by Big Tech.

What do to about it? If we like (some) disruption, and if Big Tech is enshittifying at speed without facing dethroning-by-disruption, how do we get the dynamism and innovation that gave us the best of tech?

The authors make four suggestions.

First, revive the authorities under existing antitrust law to ban executives from Big Tech companies from serving on the boards of startups. More broadly, kill interlocking boards altogether. Remember, these powers already exist in the lawbooks, so accomplishing this goal means a change in enforcement priorities, not a new act of Congress or rulemaking. What's more, interlocking boards between competing companies are illegal per se, meaning there's no expensive, difficult fact-finding needed to demonstrate that two companies are breaking the law by sharing directors.

Next: create a nondiscrimination policy that requires the largest tech companies that share data with some unaffiliated companies to offer data on the same terms to other companies, except when they are direct competitors. They argue that this rule will keep tech giants from choking off disruptive technologies that make them obsolete (rather than competing with them).

On the subject of regulation and compliance moats, they have less concrete advice. They counsel lawmakers to greet tech giants' demands to be regulated with suspicion, to proceed with caution when they do regulate, and to shape regulation so that it doesn't limit market entry, by keeping in mind the disproportionate burdens regulations put on established giants and small new companies. This is all good advice, but it's more a set of principles than any kind of specific practice, test or procedure.

Finally, they call for increased scrutiny of mergers, including mergers between very large companies and small startups. They argue that existing law (Sec 2 of the Sherman Act and Sec 7 of the Clayton Act) both empower enforcers to block these acquisitions. They admit that the case-law on this is poor, but that just means that enforcers need to start making new case-law.

I like all of these suggestions! We're certainly enjoying a more activist set of regulators, who are more interested in Big Tech, than we've seen in generations.

But they are grossly under-resourced even without giving them additional duties. As Matt Stoller points out, "the DOJ's Antitrust Division has fewer people enforcing anti-monopoly laws in a $24 trillion economy than the Smithsonian Museum has security guards."

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/congressional-republicans-to-defund

What's more, Republicans are trying to slash their budgets even further. The American conservative movement has finally located a police force they're eager to defund: the corporate police who defend us all from predatory monopolies.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[reddest-flower]

Cuba broke through its colonial domination into freedom. From the mountains of the Sierra Maestra and from the cities came the torrential power of the people against the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. ‘The revolution is made in the midst of danger’, said Fidel Castro as he led his band of peasant-soldiers from the hills into the cities. They had triumphed against remarkable odds. Quickly, the revolutionaries passed a series of decrees – just as the Soviets had – to draw the key classes to their side. To draw in the urban Cubans, the revolutionaries cut rents by half – sending a strong signal to the bourgeoisie that they had a different class outlook. Then, the revolutionaries took on the United States, whose government held a monopoly over services to the island. Telephone and electrical companies – all American – were told to reduce their rates immediately. Then, on May 17, 1959, the Cuban government passed its agrarian reform – the keystone of the revolutionary process. Land holdings would be restricted so that no large landowners could dominate the landscape and so that the US sugar industry could not strangle the hopes of the island. The most radical part of the reform was not the land ceiling itself, but the logic that agrarian reform would transform the stagnation of the Cuban economy and its dependence upon the United States. The law clearly stated that, from a socialist standpoint,

«The agrarian reform has two principal objectives: (a) to facilitate the planting or the extension of new crops with the view of furnishing raw materials to industry, satisfying the food requirements of the nation, increasing the export of agricultural products and, reciprocally, the import of foreign products which are essential to use; (b) to develop the interior market (family, domestic) by raising the purchasing power of the rural population. In other words, increase the national demand in order to develop the industries atrophied by an overly restrained consumption, or in order to create those which, for lack of customers, were never able to get started among us.»

The revolutionaries wanted to diversify their sugarcane island, produce food security for their people, remove people from desperation, increase the ability of people to consume a range of goods and engineer a people-centred rather than an export-centred economy. Long before Castro announced his commitment to communism, the regime had already developed a carefully thought out socialist platform.

The United States of America, having overthrown the radical nationalist government in Guatemala in 1954, was eager to repeat the task in Cuba in 1959. An embargo came swiftly, as did every form of humiliation possible against the Cuban people. The Cuban economy was structured around dependency to Washington, with the sugar bought by the US firms and with the island turned into a playground for American tourists. Now, the US decided to squeeze this little island, only ninety miles from the US shoreline. Gunboats were readied, a failed invasion tried in April 1961 at the Bay of Pigs. Cuba was vulnerable but also protected by the deep roots of its revolution. But would this protection be sufficient? Could Cuba, alone, be able to survive the onslaught from the United States?

On February 5, 1960, a leader in the USSR and an Old Bolshevik – Anastas Mikoyan – came to Havana to join Fidel Castro at the opening of a Soviet scientific, cultural and technical exhibition. A week later, Mikoyan and Castro signed an agreement for the USSR to buy Cuban sugar at the world market price (in dollars) and provide credits for the Cubans to buy Russian goods. The USSR would subsequently buy almost all the Cuban sugar harvest, even as the Russian consumer market could very well have been supplied by beet sugar from within the USSR. Prices fluctuated, but, on balance, the Cubans were able to find a regular buyer to take over from the United States. The Russians also provided over a $100 million in credits toward the construction of Cuba’s chemical industry as well as trained Cuban technical and scientific workers in the USSR. Diversification of Cuba’s economy remained on the cards, although it became clear that it would not be an easy task. In August 1963, Castro announced that diversification, as well as industrialization, would be postponed. Cuba needed to concentrate on its sugarcane harvest to earn the means to survive the embargo.

On February 24, 1965, Che Guevara addressed the Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers, Algeria. He had come to talk about the economic problems for a revolution in a post-colonial country. Overthrowing the former colonizer was not enough, Che said, since ‘a real break’ is needed from imperialism for the new state to actually flourish and not remain in dependency. How could the post-colonial state survive a hostile economic climate? Who would buy its goods – mainly primary, unprocessed goods – at a fair price, and who would lend it capital at fair terms to develop? Capitalist banks and countries would not provide the post-colonial state, particularly a socialist state, with the means to break out of the trap of underdevelopment. Banks would lend money to a post-colonial state at rates higher than it would lend to a colonial power. Expensive money would only put the post-colonial state into further difficulty, as it would find it hard to service its debt and see its debt multiply out of hand. To prevent this situation, Che argued, the ‘socialist countries must help pay for the development of countries now starting out on the road to liberation’. Trade between socialist countries must not take place based on the law of value of capitalism, but through the creation of fraternal prices. ‘The real task’, Che said, ‘consists of setting prices that will permit development. A great shift in ideas will be involved in changing the order of international relations. Foreign trade should not determine policy, but should, on the contrary, be subordinated to a fraternal policy toward the peoples.’

China, in 1960, offered Cuba credit of $60 million without interest and without a timeline for repayment. This was an enviable loan. But the scale was much smaller than the Soviet assistance. By 1964, the USSR had provided Cuba with economic assistance valued at over $600 million, while the Eastern European countries offered several hundred million more in aid and assistance. The USSR had also trained over 3,000 Cubans in agronomy and agricultural mechanization as well as 900 Cubans as engineers and technicians. Che recognized the value of the Soviet ‘fraternal policy’ both in terms of the training and in the prices offered. ‘Clearly, we could not ask the Socialist world to buy this quantity of sugar at this price based on economic motives’, he had said in 1961, ‘because really there is no reason in world commerce for this purchase and it was simply a political gesture’.

Red Star Over the Third World, Vijay Prashad, 2019