#authentic fossil

[showyoumyfavoriteobsession]

Very weird to me that you can get multiple authentic versions of the same art piece in Animal Crossing. I get the gameplay reason (you can get copies of pretty much everything else, for decoration or w/e) and I'm not one to quibble with video game logic, but it does make actually collecting all the pieces a little annoying

[fossilageminerals]

Albertosaurus Teeth | Authentic Dinosaur Fossils

Discover genuine Albertosaurus teeth, prized fossils for collectors and science lovers. These prehistoric relics provide insight into the ferocious carnivores of the Cretaceous period. Secure your authentic Albertosaurus tooth today and preserve a piece of Earth's ancient past. For more information visit: https://www.fossilageminerals.com/

[evan-collins90]

Amazon/Mayan-themed home theatre room - designed by Atlanta Home Theatre (early 2000s)

"Step into this theater and find yourself somewhere between the Great Andes and the plains of Patagonia deep in the Amazon jungle, home of the Mayan people. Set between the doorway of an abandoned temple and its altar of worship, this habitat is alive with the sounds of wild birds and animal calls heard beneath the waterfall. Step carefully through the plush tropics and gaze at the exquisite authentic markings made of yellow ocher, lime, hematite, charcoal, blood, and other pigments

Illustrating gods and relics ot that time. Notice a purple haze descending from the starry sky over the indigenous landscape of fossilized ferns and flowers planted directly into the theater's floor. Observe the tiny lights illuminating the stone pathway and the massive columns marking the entry. The Mayan god of light was carved with precision into the altar between two flickering torches. The god of water and the god of corn are seen holding a DVD and remote in their hands."

Description and scans from the book, 'Home Theatres and Electronic Houses' by CEDIA & Tina Skinner (2003)

[voskhodart]

13 | fossil

He swears it's an "authentic dragon hatchling skull" worth 200,000 gold, and honestly I don't know enough about dragons to question it.

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Actinopterygii - Osteoglossiformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Order: Osteoglossiformes

Common Name: no common name for the whole order

Families: 6 - Pantodontidae (“Freshwater Butterflyfish”), Osteoglossidae (“bonytongues” and “arowanas”), Arapaimidae (“arapaimas”), Notopteridae (“featherback knifefishes”), Gymnarchidae (“African Knifefish”), and Mormyridae (freshwater elephantfish”)

Anatomy: elongated body; toothed or bony tongues; long or absent dorsal and anal fins positioned near the caudal fin; large swim bladder enables them to breathe at the surface of the water; most are adapted for surface feeding

Diet: arthropods, fish, snails, frogs, lizards, snakes, mice, bats, and small birds

Habitat/Range: slightly acidic freshwater in South America, Africa, Australia, and Southern Asia

Evolved in: Late Jurassic

(source)

Propaganda under the cut:

Freshwater Butterflyfish (Pantodon buchholzi) (image 4) have very large pectoral fins. If enough speed is built up underwater, a butterflyfish can jump and glide a small distance above the surface to escape predators. It wiggles its pectoral fins as it glides, with the help of specialized, enlarged pectoral muscles.

Arowanas (genus Osteoglossum) can jump up to 2 m (6.6 ft) out of the water to pick their prey off of branches, tree trunks or foliage, which has earned them the local name "water monkeys". They are the largest fish in the world to catch most of their food out of water.

Male arowanas brood their young within their mouth, only fully releasing them when they are about 7 cm (2.8 in) long.

The endangered Asian Arowana (Scleropages formosus) (image 1) is also known as the “dragonfish”, due to its large metallic scales and long barbels giving it a resemblance to the Chinese dragon. The popularity of this beautiful, auspicious fish has had both positive and negative effects on their status as endangered species, as they are in high demand in the home aquarium trade. Legal pet Asian Arowanas must be bred in captivity on a fish farm for at least two generations, have a certificate of authenticity and a birth certificate, and an implanted microchip to identify the individual. There are over 150 CITES-registered Asian Arowana farms in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asia countries, producing Asian Arowana for commercial purposes. But the actual number of Asian Arowana farms in the world could be much higher than that, probably over 350, the majority of them unregistered.

The Arapaima (Arapaima gigas) (see gif above) is the largest truly freshwater fish, commonly measuring 200 cm (6.6 ft) with records of up to 450 cm (15 ft). Adults may weigh up to 200 kg (440 lb).

Arapaima parents have been observed using their mouths to dig holes in the substrate to create a nest for their eggs. The males will remain by the nest to protect their offspring for three to six months.

Arapaima are becoming increasingly rare in their native habitat of the Amazon and Tocantins-Araguaia river basins, but are invasive in Bolivia and Indonesia after purposeful and accidental releases.

A 13-million-year-old fossil of an Arapaima (or very similar species) has been found in Colombia, in the Villavieja Formation, which dates from the Miocene epoch.

The African Arowana (Heterotis niloticus) (actually a relative of arapaimas rather than arowanas) is the only Osteoglossiform to feed extensively on plankton.

Native to freshwater habitats in Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Laos, Macau, Thailand, and Vietnam, the Clown Featherback (Chitala ornata) (image 2) is considered one of the world’s most invasive species, as it often outgrows home aquariums and is then released into the “wild” outside its native range.

The Giant Featherback (Chitala lopis) was declared to be extinct in 2020, but a small surviving population was rediscovered on Java, Indonesia in 2023.

The African Knifefish (Gymnarchus niloticus) and freshwater elephantfishes (family Mormyridae) (image 3) are able to produce a steady but weak electric field, used for finding their prey, usually small invertebrates buried in muddy substrates.

The African Knifefish can swim equally well forwards or backwards, relying on its electric senses to “see” behind it.

Freshwater elephantfish are known to have a large brain size and unusually high intelligence.

The Medjed (likely a fish in the genus Mormyrus) was a kind of elephantfish sacred in the city Oxyrhynchus, in ancient Egyptian religion, as the fish that ate the penis of Osiris. Archaeologists have found fishes depicted as bronze figurines, mural paintings, or wooden coffins in the shape of fishes with downturned snouts, with horned sun-disc crowns like those of the goddess Hathor.

[aropride]

ok picture it with me. the super bowl is on the 11th -> taylor swift sings her little songs and then flies on her jet to see her new boytoy -> lots of discourse sparked by this but the topic dies within the week -> she keeps posting teasers for different songs -> swifties are creating insane conspiracy theories as per usual -> her album comes out on april 19th -> the songs are all pretty good, one or two flops, one or two masterpieces, the usual -> guilty as sin is about the overuse of her private jet, in which she promises to Do Better -> people are shocked by the genuine lyricism and clear authenticity of the song -> she says she will start start carpooling (jetpooling?) with other artists to cut down on fossil fuels -> a week or so passes and again the topic fades into irrelevancy as trisha paytas gives birth a few weeks early and king charles the third dies of a heart attack on the same day -> the date is april 29, 2024 -> swifties take to tiktok, posting their videos to the lyric "do you really wanna know where i was april 29th?" en masse -> swift announces she's going to see travis from football on her private jet -> several hours pass -> no updates -> we haven't heard from swift or kelce at all -> night falls, the moon casts light over the quiet ground -> crickets sing softly as the world waits with open eyes for news of taylor's safe and heartwarming landing -> speculation runs rampant, twitter is ablaze, and as the night goes on, rumors only grow -> morning dawns and rumors fly through new skies -> someone leaks to the news that all contact has been lost with taylor swift's jet -> mass chaos erupts -> the us coast guard sends out a search party -> the world waits with baited breath -> a day passes, two, three -> a week. a month. -> the world moves on, for the most part. the news keeps churning out stories. trisha paytas is pregnant again. -> two months. it's late june. 24 eras tour concerts have been cancelled. fans are devastated. time keeps moving -> the day is july 9th when the news is announced. off the coast of northern europe they're found not her body, but three simple items: her custom bracelet from kelce, a chip of metal the size of your palm from the wing of her jet, and a single strand of blond hair.

[intoxicatingimmediacy]

Daveed Diggs’ sci-fi rap trio Clipping: ‘We are at war all the time. It’s one of the great tricks of capitalism’

[...] Over Hutson and Snipes’s production, Diggs weaves blood-soaked horror stories about racial violence or fables of enslaved people in outer space. On their new album Dead Channel Sky, he raps with mechanical precision over warped rave music, creating a noirish cyberpunk world of hackers, clubgoers, future-soldiers and digital avatars.

Their music has earned them nominations for sci-fi’s highest honour, the Hugo awards, and it’s made all the more distinctive by Diggs’s decision to avoid using the first person in his lyrics. “In an art form that is so self-conscious, is it still rap music if we take that out?” he says on a video call alongside his bandmates. “We discovered pretty quickly that it is, but that it also opened possibilities.” His raps feel like cinema or musical theatre, narrating action and voicing dialogue with characters of – generally – ambiguous gender and race. “What we’ve found from fans is that, because we don’t have much to do with these characters ourselves, it has allowed people to put a lot of themselves into them, to come up with reasons why this stuff is happening, and make links between songs we didn’t think of.”

Implicit in this approach is a critique of mainstream hip-hop: Hutson argues that its “fiercely individualistic” bent, and obsession with authenticity, has bred conformity. “The constraints of what you’re allowed to talk about and who you’re allowed to be as a rapper are so narrow,” he says. “Nobody calls novelists inauthentic compared to memoirists – but in rap music that’s apparently the case.”

[...] Hutson says they’re using a classic sci-fi trope, “these colonialist, extractive, brutal wars on other planets”, and it makes a fitting analogy for life in the west today, where our comforts are reliant on fought-over resources. “We are at war all the time,” Diggs adds. “It’s one of the great tricks of capitalism and technology: to allow these things to happen in the name of capitalism, with us all participating in it but not feeling like we’re affected.”

[...] But there are less widely known touchstones, too. The track Code samples the 1996 Afrofuturist film The Last Angel of History, in which a character seeks truth by consulting “techno fossils”: interviews about Black culture with speakers including techno music pioneer Juan Atkins, sci-fi author Octavia Butler and Parliament-Funkadelic’s George Clinton. Snipes came across the film, and like Neuromancer, found it prescient. “A hundred years from now, people are going to be finding abandoned data centres and trying to power them up and find out what’s on there,” he grins. “It’s going to be like opening King Tut’s tomb.”

[...] But their latest cyberpunk theme has a particularly strong affinity with hip-hop, they say, with both forms flourishing in the 1980s. “The hacker and the hip-hop producer are both ‘hacking’ technology that wasn’t made to do what they’re doing with it,” Hutson says, referring in the latter case to turntablism and sampling. “They’re building a future out of the mass-produced garbage around them.” (The group’s friend Roy Christopher made this argument in his 2019 book Dead Precedents, exploring rap as “Black cyberpunk”.) Hutson sees those early days of hip-hop as very creatively liberated, and says the album’s different rapping styles attempt to “harken back to that time, when we didn’t really know what rap was yet. You could rap over fast stuff, slow stuff, laser sounds – all this other silliness.”

As well as hip-hop, cyberpunk is closely allied with rave music – think of the club scene in the Matrix, or Underworld, Orbital and the Prodigy on the Hackers soundtrack – and so Dead Channel Sky hops between dance sub-genres, including big-beat (Change the Channel), acid-house (Keep Pushing) and drum’n’bass (Dodger). But Hutson sees “a weird contradiction” here. “A rave is the most corporeal, embodied sense of joy,” he says. “It’s not about the connectivity of the internet – it’s about being in a warehouse with a bunch of people.”

This unsteady, contradictory relationship between the digital and the physical lies at the heart of Dead Channel Sky, where imagined realities prompt questions about our own: whether virtual realms of “pixelated wind” are any flimsier than ours. Diggs suggests: “If we are currently living in the apocalypse that the cyberpunk fiction of the 80s and 90s predicted, this is the music.”

[exeggcute]

interesting links roundup #9

>>> permalink <<<

reading

After Authenticity

Are overdoses down and why?

Asleep at the Wheel in the Headlight Brightness Wars

Chronic Pain Is a Hidden Epidemic. It’s Time for a Revolution.

A Day in the Life of a Prolific Voice Phishing Crew

The deep ocean photographer that captured a 'living fossil'

The Forgotten—and Incredibly Important—History of the Abortion Pill

From TED To PERNOCTATED, Scrabble’s Best Player Knows No Limits

Good-bye, Pamela Paul

How the Capybara Won My Heart—and Almost Everyone Else’s

The Impact of Jungle Music in 90s Video Game Development

It’s Safer in the Front: Taking the Offensive against Tyranny

The Leaning Tower of New York

Let’s talk about bird tongues

The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models replicate the mechanisms of a psychic’s con

Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024

The Next Drug Epidemic Is Blue Raspberry Flavored

NPR shopped for 96 items at Walmart to track how prices are really changing

On Development: The cloud is made of concrete

One election takeaway: voters hate temporary safety nets

People With Parents With Money

Real datacenter emissions are a dirty secret

The Secret History of Risotto

The Spectacular Burnout of a Solar Panel Salesman

Taking a closer look at AI’s supposed energy apocalypse

The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 1 (+ Part 2)

What Happened When America Emptied Its Youth Prisons

2,000-year-old wine and the uncanny immediacy of the past

tools/reference

How to Stop Hiccups

The Old Family Photos Project: Lessons in creating family photos that people want to keep

Simple Sabotage Field Manual

Three Hundred [Game] Mechanics

other

Bluesky 2024 Moderation Report

Guédelon

The Most Unwanted Song (YouTube)

Stimulation Clicker

sup

[vermiculated]

books, Q1 2025

It became very important to me to complete my local romance bookstore's bingo challenge. No other real excuses.

The Outskirter's Secret - Rosemary Kirstein Before I started this, I saw a comment that the romance had been inexpertly added, and I thought, Bel and Rowan have too beguiling a bond to convincingly date, there's so many overlapping loyalties and such honor to Rowan's self-possession and Bel's expertise. And then Rowan meets a guy with whom she shares easygoing intimacy and slowly, slowly, betrayal of the self for the possibility of the future? A guy?

The Language of Power - Rosemary Kirstein Why yes, some of book four made more sense after I read book three. Picking the wizard programming bombs and hand in glove sexual treachery was a nourishing throwback. I wish I had read these books two decades ago so I could re-read them now and say, dang that was as good as I remembered!

The Courtship of Princess Leia - Dave Wolverton SHE is the princess-general, HE is the prince-treasure, oh and HE is a third guy, a smuggler, regular type guy you know the drill, THEY could have gotten married and lived in fabulous plenty, real twist posed for the revanchists. One of the best things about tie-in novels is that a meaningful, but not broadly-applicable invention like the Witches of Dathomir will be created, and thereafter everyone either has to use the genius matriarchy who meld with another genius matriarchy or explain why the universe doesn't let witches appear in glorious raiment.

Tikka Chance on Me - Suleikha Snyder SHE is waitressing at her parents' restaurant, HE brings his motorcycle gang to dinner, THEY do convincingly have reasons not to meet in public, which is a difficult trick to pull off when writing about adults who can generally go places alone.

40-Love - Olivia Dade SHE is controlling, HE is controlling, THEY have an excruciating meet-cute. Unusually the first-half banter in this one reads as two people who enjoy telling jokes to one another as they glide over their certainty that if they unwind it, they can both get back to a point where they hadn't made any self-defining mistakes, that is: authentically.

Ravished - Amanda Quick SHE is an archaeologist who prioritizes her needs and interests (cool bones) over everything else, HE is not very good about expressing his feelings but he is going to need to learn if he wants to keep up with her. THEY get married to clear title to her plesiosaur fossil and also convince everyone else that despite their zesty sexual chemistry, they won't get bored of one another. Zany spin-up of a Beauty and the Beast premise, which despite slacking in the second half (no! stay angry at your father forever! sell his horses and hurt his feelings!) is consistently rescued by the dinosaurs.

Capturing the Silken Thief - Jeannie Lin SHE is an artist living hand to mouth, HE is a student doing the same, THEY find the missing erotic scroll together and perhaps … learn that there are greater forces than money? jk no there aren't, they still have a happy ending.

My Fair Concubine - Jeannie Lin SHE is a teagirl who needs to get away from her life & job situation, HE has an incredible offer, THEY cultivate her manners and her beauty in a series of enjoyable makeover montages. Interestingly, the Pygmalion premise is substantially complicated by tenuous diplomatic relations, ethical obligations, and the risk of financial catastrophe. Every book should have so many events and such a clear thematic arc, nonetheless complicated by love. AND she dresses as a boy so they can go to the theater.

An Illicit Temptation - Jeannie Lin SHE is a faux princess, HE is a temporary bodyguard, THEY share a night of passion on the steppes.

The Moon in the Palace - Weina Dai Randel SHE is Wu Zetian, HE is honestly I did not even care I was just waiting for him to die, which he signally failed to do because apparently that's in the sequel? The sequel? There is a good simile about the blackheads on the emperor's chin appearing as flies clustering around his mouth.

The Hidden Blade - Sherry Thomas SHE trains to be responsible for cultivating her chi and jumping up the sides of buildings, HE believes himself to be responsible for everything that happens in his vicinity and can't do that, THEY do not even meet on the page in this one, he only sees her from a distance, look up look up look up. Sherry Thomas is the BOMB. The alternating points-of-view pay off as devastatingly here as they do in Sarah Moss's Signs for Lost Children.

The Cowboy Christmas Glow-Up - Suzy Langevin SHE is a driven makeup executive, HE is is a driven cowboy, THEY are the spares from their exes' cozy Christmas romances, which is a great concept. We are creatures of the polis, beings of brick and stone, and we don't have cute jobs.

How to Find a Princess - Alyssa Cole SHE is a beleaguered people-pleaser, SHE is largely ignorant of the effects she has on others, THEY have sex on a lifeboat. My book club had a really insightful discussion about attachment styles.

My Beautiful Enemy - Sherry Thomas SHE is a spy, HE is a spy, THEY have to fight the Centipede who flies a black flag. Two former gifted kids who go for broke and realize their true potential: I found the sex passionate and the light backstabbing in Uzbekistan to be enormously gratifying. The interpersonal dynamics are intricate and while I would have enjoyed more politics, I can go re-read Wolf Hall on my own time.

Dark Season - Joanna Lowell SHE is, for complicated reasons, obliged to pretend to be psychic, HE must, for complicated reasons, pretend to have killed his ex, THEY nearly have sex al fresco. Ella's management of her epilepsy and Isisdore's total nightmare of any social situation provide them both with the important Gothic motivation to never reveal anything. This banged, the interlude where they recognize the self in the other and nearly have sex in the park was perhaps the highlight, but Lowell has a keen eye for shame and really makes hay of the panopticon of pain and parties.

Undead and Unwed - Mary Janice Davidson SHE is a vampire, HE is a vampire, THEY live in Burnsville. This aged not as well as I might have hoped.

Red Dragon - Thomas Harris My cousin's husband recommended this to me. The best scenes are all of Will Graham, alone with the dead, and passed through with insight that he does not wish to have and cannot reject. The diligence, of how to be a person in the world when the world is vast and uncaring, is as closely-observed as Zola looking up and down the stairs of a Parisian tenement. I did not care for the shift in perspective.

Never Trust a Dead Man - Vivian Vande Velde I established for the nineteenth time that I don't enjoy YA, so I tried a middle grade novel. Sure can do that!

Asterios Polyp - David Mazzucchelli SHE is Penelope, HE is Odysseus, THEY love one another. Hana observed at her mirror is a really masterful splash page. Always a delight to see an artist's wikipedia headshot and see that they're drawing people on the order of what they see in the mirror.

Trumpet - Jackie Kay SHE is a widow, HE is her dead husband, THEY loved one another. The unusually effective formal choice to break the isolation of grief with third-person observations from the doctor, registrar, and so on, breaking out of the forward chronology of the novel, elevated this.

Golden Kamuy vol 17 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry HE is a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, HE is a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, HE is a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, HE is a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, HE is a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, HE is a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, HE is a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, HE died in the Russo-Japanese War.

Golden Kamuy vol 18 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry SHE looks within herself to find the sustenance of her own truth. Asirpa has taken command of her father's vision in these chapters, and the dialectic is now, consistently, if his plan for the future is one that she will animate.

A Masc for Purim - Roz Alexander SHE is getting back out there and organizing her synagogue's Purim masquerade, SHE broke her heart and shows back up, THEY have sex on a desk.

The Astronaut and the Star - Jen Comfort SHE is driven, unfriendly, and deeply lonely, HE is learning how to be an astronaut from her and keeps fantasizing about her breasts, THEY have sex on a solar panel.

Justice League United vol 1 - Jeff Lemire et al In this one, they're Canadian! I enjoyed an Adam Strange appearance that's not about how he ruins everything for his disastrous love and divided loyalty. LOOKING AT YOU, TOM AND PATRICK.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender The unusual premise -- that lemon cake does taste like sadness -- developed into a much stranger theory of the punishments of self-knowledge: perfect self-awareness is a trap. It's only ever a trap. Schone seele is not a compliment.

Ladder of Years - Anne Tyler SHE is extremely unappreciated by her family and lights out from, yes, Baltimore, to build her own life. One day I will read an Anne Tyler novel under circumstances other than "it's available in ebook, and it's 12:15 am," I only have five or six of them left.

The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford I thought I would read some nonfiction. I used to volunteer for a group that started in the wake of this book, so like Mount Fuji, either you're looking at it or you're standing on it.

Ever Faithful - Karen Barnett SHE is getting ready for college, earning a little money housekeeping and teaching Civilian Conservation Corps high school classes at Yellowstone, HE is in the CCC and can't read, THEY don't make that much of this, yet. I have read this twist one hundred times and I will read it again.

The Juniper Tree - Barbara Comyns SHE is a fairytale stepmother; HE is a fairytale father, THEY are basically irrelevant as a duo. Is it true that the better class of fairytale retellings obliterate the narrative to tell a more complicated version of a different story?

A Simple Heart - Gustave Flaubert trans. Charlotte Mandrell Blows the doors off, this translation eddied around the original like a stream over a rocky riverbed, and the locus amoenus of the altar with the parrot looking down is superb.

Golden Kamuy vol 19 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry HE dies. While the series is about coalescing groups of rivals who share a goal, the first two hundred chapters moved the characters into social configurations so that they were broadly in agreement with their comrades. With Kiroranke's death, the various disagreements deepen and darken.

Cold Hand in Mine - Robert Aickman Mostly spooky rather than effective, like a canal-obsessed Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. "The Clock Watcher" was genuinely ugly, and there's some vivid nastiness throughout. Thanks to @mimaveil and @getlouder for the rec, this one dripped with vitriol.

A Dangerous Kind of Lady - Mia Vincy SHE feels thwarted and ignored, HE is responsible for some of that, THEY fix up a fake engagement. Oh are there real feelings involved? Is this gonna be the time that there aren't real feelings involved.

The Body in the Garden - Katherine Schellman SHE solves crime, HE tags along, THEY see a head roll. I wandered around my house objecting that she, a lady of means in Regency England, only has three servants in her house, -- and he has none at all! -- and I got so annoyed by this that I got to thinking about hiring fairs and patterns of modern employment, and then this book ended, more or less without my notice.

The Skin of Dreams - Raymond Queneau trans. Chris Clarke The word-making, in this novel about film-making, is absolutely on target. Really enjoyed the puns.

The Truth about Leo - Katie MacAlister SHE is self-serving, HE is inconsequential, THEY could have but did not have sex in the garden where she finds him without his memory. I did look up the 1807 Bombardment of Copenhagen, which serves as the background to these intensely unsympathetic characters, and thus I learned something about our world.

Loving a Lost Lord - Mary Jo Putney SHE needs a convenient excuse, HE has recently developed amnesia as a result of an industrial accident, THEY learn to love one another. This book set up appealing stakes -- she's a basically honest person who tells a huge lie! he believes he's living a lie by not regularly revealing his inmost self to strangers -- which it then carefully and comprehensively set to smolder until they collapsed.

Golden Kamuy vol 20 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry HE is very handsome.

Golden Kamuy vol 21 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry Asirpa's changing motivations, loyalty to bravery to honor and then back to loyalty, reach a novelistic pitch. The drama hinges on her willingness to do the right thing, and the extent to her understanding changes while her circumstance … also do, but in consistent ways, and so the change she wants really has to be within herself, it cannot be motivated by a useful outcome.

Golden Kamuy vol 22 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry I, shuddering, begin to suspect that Asirpa and Sugimoto's relationship may evolve from "lone wolf and cub."

Golden Kamuy vol 23 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry So too Botaro, so I am instantly relieved, as any time a concern is directly addressed in a work of hundreds of chapters, it is certain it will not be so easily resolved.

When the Sea Came Alive - Garrett Graff Your pal and mine Garrett has a very good ear for the quoteable and the lyrical. Exceptional coverage of pre-invasion, especially Exercise Tiger. I would have liked to read more about Juno.

The Phoenix Bride - Natasha Siegel SHE is grief-struck and not particularly seeking a way out of her depression, HE is too, THEY find a way out together. While I was personally hoping for more mouseskin beauty-marks and dresses so big a woman has to walk sideways when she goes through a door, I understand that the power of love is broadly more interesting. The telescope which enables the menage to go forward is an inspired bit of place-setting.

Bitter Spirits - Jenn Bennett SHE is actually a real psychic who can for-real talk to the dead, HE is a bootlegger who feels guilty about his dead, THEY fuck in a fancy hotel. That's what I like to see in a romance! Novel location & time period as well. I did enjoy, after Dark Season and the classic Unnatural Vice, that psychic abilities are real and true and this averts exactly zero of the forthcoming incidents.

Tycoon - Joanna Shupe SHE is a fix, HE is having problems, THEY have sex on a train, I am under the impression this bit is still funny.

The Crying Sisters - Mabel Seeley SHE gets stuck with his nonsense, HE has rather a lot of it, THEY have no idea how they have endangered themselves. Not as sparkling as The Listening House, but you have to go on vacation somewhere.

Golden Kamuy vol 24 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry They meet Jack the Ripper.

Golden Kamuy vol 25 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry As comics about Jack the Ripper go, I would say that this one addresses the "true" in "true crime" more honestly than the big dog, From Hell. There's no really tasteful coverage of murders so lurid they're effectively tropes for "something cosmically horrible happened here," and to endorse one theory or another about a murderer is only so interesting, and here, at least, it is surrounded by characters standing for other principles.

Golden Kamuy vol 26 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry One of the parts of comics I enjoy most are schematics. Each volume begins with a recap, of course, and it is in these chapters that the specific ordering of who is standing where when becomes extraordinarily significant. Good maps.

Henry Henry - Allan Bratton HE is rich and troubled, HE is his boyfriend, HE is his cousin, HE is his father. Less reactionary St Aubyn, and tender in a diligent and quiet way, ultimately, as Hal simmers down the reactivity and improves (he could hardly get worse.) The most beautiful exchange in this book is Edward's revelation to Hal that, yes Richard was unkind, Henry is pitiable, and you cannot allow the dead to control you. Otherwise hot and mean. I enjoyed it hugely, vg.

Silence in the Library - Katharine Schellman SHE is a wealthy amateur detective; for a moment I thought HE was going to be a new character, the handsomest veteran of the late wars, instead HE is the same love interest from the previous book, a regular-handsome veteran of the late wars. Creepier about vulnerability than the first book in the series; the solution to the mystery is not well hidden, and like Richard Austin Freeman, the mechanics of how to talk to withholding witnesses and build usable evidence draw you on.

The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris This was published in August 1988 and James Ellroy’s The Big Nowhere came out the next month, so due to the forward chronology of time, neither of these guys read the other guy’s book and thought: this would be great if Poor Doomed Danny Upshaw had a GAL PAL//man that wolverine was boss I wonder if it could retire and do word-finds. If you were not a particularly fast reader you could have spent all fall of '88 reading about the horrors of misogyny.

Fugitive Harbor - Cassie Miles SHE is a historian-architect-lighthouse keeper’s house restorer who is oppressed by small town mistrust and disfavor, HE stands wrongly accused of the death of his business partner, THEY go on a date to the total firetrap lighthouse and get to second base by the flaming light of the setting sun. 3/3 amnesia books, he doesn’t really even HAVE amnesia. In conclusion, a beloved fanfiction trope best left to fanfiction.

Hither Page - Cat Sebastian HE is a spy who is tiring without knowing of the skulking life yet does not have the capacity to explain that this is all he is and all he has ever seen for him, HE is a country doctor who agrees to help solve a murder due to what he believes is a personal weakness, THEY have a surprisingly warm and inventive discussion of their scars when they strip down. There is absolutely no ground for my fan theory that Leo is a secret German yet I cherish it.

The Missing Page - Cat Sebastian HE is still a spy who has less taste for the work than George Smiley ever did, HE is called for a reading of his grandfather’s will, THEY have to solve the question presented. Again zero evidence for, mounting evidence against my fan theory that Leo was born in Germany, sure, what am I some type of pushover.

Death at the Manor - Katharine Schellman SHE is investigating a suspicious death at a haunted house, HE is the new guy, THEY have a very-poorly concealed affair. The Gothic trimmings (hidden staircases, secret bequests) make this more successful than the previous entries in the series.

The Witness for the Dead - Katherine Addison HE is a beleaguered psychic facing severe interpersonal setbacks and suffering from the belief that he deserves the opprobrium he’s received, HE is a composer-librettist-manager whose opera company is just riven through by secrets, THEY provide solace to one another in a time of great trial. The ghosts (real live ghosts) are blinkered and frustrating, so too the clients: the interpretation of “what if Philip Marlowe got so low” is not altogether that dissimilar from anything Raymond Chandler wrote.

Green for Danger - Christianna Brand Like walking a French formal garden where the hedges are built of the introduction to the suspects, a premise embedded with clues, and interesting information about a world that vanished slightly later in the year this was published. I found this cute picture of a dog while I was looking up medical organization in the British Army.

The Kobayashi Maru - Julia Ecklar A choice framing device — Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty are all about to die in the silence of space, so they talk through their apparent failures in the no-win situation— for extensive backstory. Chekov’s FPS approach to command is an early work of video game thought, and Sulu’s solution to the titular problem has compelling thematic resonance as he grieves his great-grandfather’s death.

The Strangler Vine - MJ Carter Alex Wyndham read the audiobook and I got through two chapters before bagging that and reading it, but the part of this book which I most enjoyed was how he might be reading it to me. Bro kills at audiobooks, I’m sorry he hasn’t been on tv since HBO’s Rome, he kills at audiobooks.

Shutter - Ramona Emerson I’ll never grow weary of the device that while an investigator (in this, a crime scene photographer) can talk to the dead, the dead are not very reliable tellers of their own, or anyone’s, truths. In this, Rita has even less institutional support than Celehar in Witness for the Dead, and perseveres doggedly, even getting shot at one point and faking her death. I thought the reveal of the evil plan was less interesting than it could be so, in a partially-supported conclusion: she heard it from the dead. hey that guy could be dead.

Solomon’s Crown - Natasha Siegel HE is King of France, HE is Duke of Aquitaine, THEY never do have sex al fresco or in front of all of the mirrors at Poitiers, nevertheless I enjoyed this prequel to some of the events of The Lion in Winter. Anthony Hopkins Week, week three. Anthony Hopkins Month.

Death of Jezebel - Christianna Brand Almost pure form, except for the part I found most interesting. The romantic entanglements and double-crosses are very much enlivened by the participation of refugees from what is now Malaysia: many of the Crime Classics feature detective who served in France, very few are about the closed world of civilians who lived in the suddenly-former colonies. What if The Honorable Schoolboy had solved the crime instead of being about everything else in the world.

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen - KJ Charles HE is suddenly elevated to baronet and in figuring out what he wants to do with all his days lights upon continuing his father’s studies in nature, HE is the head of the smugglers around these parts and has to determine what he wants for himself, THEY have sex on a rotten log. Real return to form for Kimberly Jennifer, I enjoyed this much more having read the sequel and seen where many of the suggestions here develop into full-blown notions in the next book.

Golden Kamuy vol 27 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry Oh THATS the Golden Kamuy??

Golden Kamuy vol 28 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry Glad that Sugimoto was always like this. You wonder, in a story about colonialism, if the main character who had to get there on a boat, is recapitulating a desire for an undiminished world where he’s a moral arbiter. No he’s always been like this.

Golden Kamuy vol 29 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry Star forts forever

Golden Kamuy vol 30 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry No wait. COMBINED ARMS FOREVER.

Golden Kamuy vol 31 - Satoru Noda trans. John Werry Consistently the best part of this series have been the splash pages of scenery. I have loved marveling upon them. A great recommendation by @tautline-hitch thank you!

All the White Spaces - Ally Wilkes What if RF Scott had command of the Elephant Island boats, and also grief was a monster that wanted to kill kill kill. Do you think Roland Huntford has watched The Terror.

[uk-fossils]

Fossil Reptile Coprolite – Upper Triassic – Aust Cliff, Westbury Formation, Bristol UK

Fossil Reptile Coprolite in Matrix – Upper Triassic – Aust Cliff, Westbury Formation, Bristol, UK

This authentic specimen is a fossilised reptile coprolite, preserved in situ within a matrix from the iconic fish, reptile and coprolite bed at Aust Cliff, Bristol. The bed belongs to the Westbury Formation, part of the Penarth Group, and dates back to the Upper Triassic period, approximately 205–210 million years ago.

Scientific and Geological Context:

Location: Aust Cliff, Bristol, UK

Formation: Westbury Formation

Group: Penarth Group

Geological Period: Upper Triassic

Depositional Environment: Anoxic, low-energy estuarine/coastal lagoon – ideal for fossil preservation

Lithology: Laminated dark mudstones with concentrated fossil bone, tooth, and coprolite deposits

Palaeoecology: A rich snapshot of Upper Triassic coastal life, including reptiles, fishes, and their trace fossils

Fossil Significance & Morphology:

Coprolites are trace fossils that provide invaluable information about the diets and digestive processes of ancient organisms. This specimen is likely from a carnivorous reptile, evidenced by embedded bone or scale fragments.

Morphology Features:

Elongated, rounded coprolite with clear concentric growth or digestive textures

Possible inclusions of crushed bone or fish remains visible

Notable Value: Such coprolites are used in scientific studies to reconstruct Triassic food webs, and specimens from Aust Cliff are among the best-preserved from the UK

Specimen Details:

Discovered by: Our own field team – Alister and Alison – on 07 April 2025

Cleaned, prepped and treated by: Alison

Scale Reference: 1cm cube shown in photo; see image gallery for full size and detail

Authenticity Guaranteed: Comes with our Certificate of Authenticity – all our fossils are 100% genuine

Actual Specimen: What you see is exactly what you’ll receive – no substitutes

Ideal For:

Collectors of trace fossils, educators, palaeontology enthusiasts, and those interested in the dietary history of reptiles in the Late Triassic ecosystems. A fascinating and tangible link to prehistoric life, ideal for display or educational use.

[transparentfossil]

Winged Male Ant Caught in Spider Webbing, Aradid Flat Bug in Authentic Dominican Amber Fossil

[fossilageminerals]

Collection of Authentic Meteorites for Sale Online

Discover our collection of authentic meteorites for sale online. These celestial relics offer a glimpse into the mysteries of space and time. Each meteorite is carefully sourced and verified for authenticity, making it a unique addition to any collection. For more information visit our website: https://fossilageminerals.com/

[paleoforest]

Various Udanoceratops

I started drawing 'em on October 30. I had to draw something Halloween, and found this dinosaur. This early ceratopsian is a giant leptoceratopsid. Its large jaws fragments strikes imagination - skull looks like Jack O Lantern in flesh

These folks are striped with bright heads because they're huge and conspicuous. The feather coat from sparse bristles has been transformed into a mane along the spine because it looks much more authentic and even realistic. The rest of shagginess - on jaw and paws - is the transition form between the scales and (proto)feather. Many have a lower beak down the chin - this depicted not only in reconstructions, but I also noticed it in fossils of P. hellenikorhinus. It plays role of a lips and even beard (just like upper), and having a light color adds volume and old age at the same time.

For experiment i drew em in frontal. There is no picture/diagram on Internet where fossils can be viewed from other angles except profile. Anyway, I gave everyone binocular vision, because that’s basic thing for (small) Neoceratopsia. I use some 3D references and Protoceratops anatomy.

I drew these Udanoceratops earlier, and here they have slight frills that aren't wider than jugal/zygomatic/cheek horns.

[paranormal-peri]

Do they have any other magical creatures?

They might have some magical artifacts, or fossil remains of legendary creatures they are so-so about the authenticity, but nothing as full proof as a real living fairy. This is a huge step. Peri is by FAR the most valuable thing they have.

… and will lead to big things for their “unaccredited” research facility :)

[probablyasocialecologist]

Ecosocialist degrowth does not have a purely quantitative conception of degrowth as a reduction in production and consumption. It proposes qualitative distinctions. Some productions—for example, fossil energies, pesticides, nuclear submarines, and advertising—should not be merely reduced, but suppressed. Others, such as private cars, meat, and airplanes, should be substantially reduced. Still others, such as organic food, public means of transport, and carbon neutral housing, should be developed. The issue is not “excessive consumption” in the abstract, but the prevalent mode of consumption, based as it is on conspicuous acquisition, massive waste, mercantile alienation, obsessive accumulation of goods, and the compulsive purchase of pseudo-novelties imposed by “fashion.” One must put an end to the monstrous waste of resources by capitalism based on the production, on a large scale, of useless and harmful products: the armaments industry is a good example, but a great part of the “goods” produced in capitalism, with their inbuilt obsolescence, have no other usefulness but to generate profit for large corporations. A new society would orient production toward the satisfaction of authentic needs, beginning with those which could be described as “biblical”—water, food, clothing, and housing—but including also the basic services: health care, education, transport, and culture.

Michael Löwy, Nine Theses on Ecosocialist Degrowth

[estavionpira]

There's a pretty big market for authentic amber fossils to be sold as souvenirs and stuff like that, so I started my own business selling custom amber accessories. Lot of business from gift shops, and they just want mosquitos, stuff they can claim is thousands of years old, yknow? Yeah. Tree sap's pretty expensive with the tariffs, but because I'm bulk-buying insects to encase, I can actually mark myself down as a farm for tax purposes, so that covers a lot of it. Had a few weird orders so far, can't say much for customer confidentiality, but it's- yeah, they got me to sign an NDA, what about it? Anyway, can't say who it is, but there's this one customer who's paying me to seal one of every animal species in amber. Started out with the easy ones - bugs, farm animals, local wildlife, but it's pretty difficult to get a hold of new stuff by now. Animal import laws and all that. Plus the cops have been breathing down my neck since I tried to get a hold of homo sapiens. Haven't been able to pin anything on me, but I've had to lay low. Anyway. How's your yarn shop been going?