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the fundamental problem on this website is that if a homeless person tried to talk to most of y’all you’d be scared out of your minds

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I just want to point out that the old alchemists used circles to try and understand nature enough to transmute lead into gold. These ended up being like the squared circle for the philosopher's stone.

This then led to inspiring things like Fullmetal Alchemist, where large circles were used to transmute objects.

Now, in a world moved well past Alchemy, we have successfully transmuted lead to gold using...

Checks notes

Wait that can't be right.

Checks several note pages in a panic

Using a bigass circle.

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Colors of Night l Louis Leroux

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Flappy Happy is a small Canadian business run by two autistic women. We ship all of our products from Vancouver Island, BC!

When it comes to getting fidgets in Canada, we've often noticed how difficult it is to get fidgets at reasonable prices. We aim to run our business while having the lowest profit margins we can to stay afloat.

We offer free shipping on Canadian shipments of orders of $70 CAD or more (and we have a lot of products, so it's not too hard to hit this amount! Especially if you combine orders with a friend). We also offer lettermail rates for applicable products (like our spinner rings). Our highest shipping charge is $15 CAD when shipping parcel, so know that once you hit that point, it won't go any higher.

When searching for fidget items, the vast majority are marketed towards children or the parents of children. We wanted to focus on adults that need fidgets. This partially comes from us wanting to say it’s okay to use fidgets (more than okay!), but also us wanting to include more discreet fidget items for those that may need or want them.

Some of our more discreet items include: fidget earrings, spinner rings, fidget necklaces and calm strips. A couple of our quiet items are marble mazes, and infinity yarn. We also aim to offer silicone chew necklaces in styles that are more discreet and stylish looking for adults who like to stim by chewing.

Our website is here!

We appreciate any help spreading the word!

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Free or Cheap General Language Resources Because idk I Just Wanna Help

All resources either have a free tier or have a low ($10 USD/month or less) subscription fee or a one time purchase option below $100 USD. All prices I give are in USD because I live in the US and this list was already hard to put together okay I'm not also doing conversions

I have given the links in text format because tumblr has a link limit. Copy and paste into your browser to look at them.

These are generalized. Not for your specific language.

LinQ, a website for reading: https://www.lingq.com/en/

You can click on words you don't know and get a definition and save a flashcard. They provide readings for all levels from beginner to advanced and you can upload your own texts and podcast or video transcripts and there's stuff uploaded by other users to browse through. The website also has some texts with audio included. You can also purchase books through the website. This is all included in the free tier. The paid tier allows you to save an unlimited number of flashcards and includes some forum and tutoring options. It's either $15 a month or $120 for a full year.

Languages available in full: Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian

Languages partially supported or with incomplete beginner courses: Afrikaans, Armenian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Traditional Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Georgian, Gujarati, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Khmer, Macedonian, Malay, Persian, Punjabi, Serbian, Slovenian, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Vietnamese

Migaku, a web extension and app: https://migaku.com/

Paid service at $10 a month. It has beginner courses and allows for dual language subtitles on things like netflix or youtube. It also allows users to save flashcards from subtitles or articles and sync flashcards between devices

Supported languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese

Storylearning Books: https://storylearning.com/books

These are short story, dialogue, or history books by Olly Richards written for beginner to intermediate learners that in my experience at least are written to not be boring for adults. Each chapter of a book includes a key vocabulary list and comprehension questions. Storylearning also has online courses available but they're too expensive for what you get in my opinion. The books are way cheaper, though depending on the language you may have more or less books to buy. The books are usually in the $15-$20 range new but they're often available at used bookstores both online and irl for much cheaper.

Books available in: Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Arabic (MSA), Brazillian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish, Turkish, Irish

Mango Languages, a pretty standard language app: https://mangolanguages.com/

This is actually a pretty pricey one at like $20 a month but the reason I bring it up is that a lot of people can get it free through their local library and it has a large selection of languages.

Languages supported: Armenian, Azerbaijani, Egyptian Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), Bengali, Cantonese, chaldean Aramaic. Cherokee, Mandarin, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, Dzongkha, English, Tagalog, Finnish, French (European and Canadian), German, Greek (modern, ancient, and kione), Hatian Creole, Hawaiian, Hebrew (modern and biblical), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latin, Malay, Malayalam, Norwegian, Farsi, Polish, Potawatomi, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Shanghainese, Slovak, Spanish (castillian and latin american), Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Tuvan, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Yiddish

Comprehensible Input Wiki, a website for finding language specific comprehensible input resources: https://comprehensibleinputwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

Comprehensible input is input in a language you understand the message of, not necessarily input you understand every word of. It's good for you to get a lot of it from day one. This website gathers resources like podcasts, kid's shows, youtube channels, books, etc. that are perfect for this sort of thing.

Languages currently on the website as I am writing this: American Sign Language, Arabic (MSA), Armenian, Basque, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian creole, Hakka, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Occitan, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian, Sanskrit, Sardinian, Serbo-Croatian, Sicilian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Toki Pona, Tunisian Arabic, Turkish, Ukranian, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yoruba, Zulu

Drops, a vocab app: https://languagedrops.com/

Drops teaches vocab through pictures and matching and spelling games, though you can also customize your settings to show translations and different alphabets or not. The free tier has ads and a daily time limit. The lifetime subscription is technically against my personal rule for this post because it's $160 but it often goes on sale for half off or $80. There's also a monthly or yearly payment option. At the paid tier you can practice for an unlimited time without ads and choose which types of vocabulary words you want to learn.

Supported Languages: Ainu, English (American and British), Arabic (MSA), Bosnian, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), Cantonese, Spanish, (Castilian and Mexican), Catalan, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galacian, German, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Maori, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Sanskrit for yoga, Serbian, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Yoruba

Anki, a general flashcard app: https://apps.ankiweb.net/

You can make your own flashcards on Anki or download flashcard packs that other users have made. It also allows for importing of audio and visual aids. It has a spaced repetition system that a lot of people swear by. Some companies like Refold also sell premade flashcard packs specifically for Anki. Free on desktop, I believe about a $20 one time purchase on iOS.

Muzzy In GondoLand (1986): https://archive.org/details/muzzy-in-gondoland-level-i-1986

No, really! The old Muzzy movies from the 80s made to teach kids foreign languages are fairly easy to find for free on archive.org or on youtube. The new Muzzy with workbooks and an app and whatnot requires a paid subscription to the BBC but the older ones are much easier to find. They're available in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Chinese, Korean, Esperanto, and Welsh.

Easy Languages, a connected group of Youtube channels: https://www.easy-languages.org/

Easy Language channels are channels where people interview speakers of the language on the street about everyday topics like dating, tourism, and shopping for example. They have dual language subtitles in their videos in the target language and English. Many of them also have series about useful phrases for beginners and intermediate podcasts. Most also have bonus worksheets and other learning materials on their patreons but the free content available is already a lot.

Current active channels: Arabic, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish

wordreference.com

A website that lets you look up words in another language. It's better than google translate. It has pronunciation in multiple dialects and in depth explanations that some other websites don't have.

Supported Languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Swedish, Icelandic, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic

edX, a website for taking college courses, often for free: https://www.edx.org/learn/language

I can't tell you precisely what's available because it changes year to year but they usually offer a wide variety of courses. You can also often get real college credit through these if that's something you're interested in. Programming languages are often mixed in with spoken or signed languages though so you may have to do some digging through the lists to fins what you want.

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Are you 🫵 pissed off about the Lilo and Stitch monstrosity remake? Do you want to know how you can actually make a difference in supporting the people and ecosystems of Hawaii?

Tourism is a big issue in Hawaii (which the remake got rid of the original's commentary on because it makes foreigners look bad). I'm not gonna promote it, BUT I know that realistically, thousands of people arrive here every single day by the airplane-ful. And the majority of them aren't educated on the socio-cultural and economic impacts of tourism. SO, I'm making this post in an effort to educate visitors. If you or someone you know is visiting or moving to Hawaii (whether by circumstances in or out of your control), here are some suggestions on how you can give back!

You can donate to the Hawaii Community Foundation, which has been instrumental in giving aid to the displaced community of Lahaina after the Maui wildfires in 2023. They also provide scholarships to students of under-represented communities.

If you're interested in visiting Kualoa Ranch, you can do their Mālama Experience where you get your hands dirty giving back to the ‘āina (land)!

There are other organizations you can join to volunteer with, too, like Kupu and Mālama Maunalua. Check them out; maybe you can help with a beach cleanup or plant native trees! These are both non-profit organizations that accept monetary donations.

Visit the Bishop Museum to learn about Hawaiian history and culture! They also have events focused on sustainability and conservation.

If you're visiting Hilo on the Big Island, go visit the Laulima Nature Center! They're a non-profit aimed at protecting Hawaii's native species, and they even have an online store that ships to the US mainland and internationally! (After I post this, I'm gonna head on over and get myself a manu o Kū pin ♡)

A few other tips I have:

DO: Respect the locals' homes. Several beaches and hiking trails have access points in residential areas. Please be mindful to keep your voices down when passing by, and park ONLY in designated parking areas.

DO: Wear reef-safe sunscreen! Sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate are banned in Hawaii because they are known to damage coral reefs.

DON'T: Approach wildlife, particularly honu (sea turtles) and 'īlio holo i ka uaua (Hawaiian monk seals). Stay at least 10 feet (3 meters) away from turtles and at least 50 feet (15 meters) away from monk seals. If you see someone harassing animals, report them to the statewide NOAA Marine Wildlife Hotline: (888) 256-9840. You can also contact the Hawaii State Department of Land and Natural Resources.

DON'T: Collect sand, rocks, or other natural items to bring home with you. This is to protect the ecosystems and also out of respect for Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians), who have cultural beliefs regarding lava rocks in particular. Taking lava rocks is extremely disrespectful.

DON'T: Litter! Please throw away your waste in proper trash cans. If you see a bin that says "ʻōpala," that's a trash can!

Many Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) are moving to the US mainland because the cost of living in Hawaii has been driven up so high (because of people moving here), they can't afford to live in their ancestral home. So, if you are going to visit or move to Hawaii, please:

- Make the effort to support local businesses, especially those owned by Native Hawaiians!

- Educate yourself and your loved ones about actual Hawaiian culture!

- Try Hawaiian food, like poi!

- Learn some Hawaiian words and don't be afraid to ask how to pronounce words correctly!

- Donate to a food bank!

- Watch films and read books written by Native Hawaiians!

My hope is that whoever sees this post will use it to educate themselves, their friends, and their families who are considering visiting.

My background is in sustainability and the environment, so that's what I know to suggest off the top of my head. If any Kānaka Maoli read this post and have suggestions to add, please do!

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Please do not let debt collectors play in your face.

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It’s so fascinating to me that we’ve only been breeding Komodo dragons in captivity for thirty years. In that time, our understanding of them has actually really revolutionized the way we understand the social lives and behaviors of lizards in general, and it’s mostly thanks to this lady right here, who was born 30 years ago on September 13, 1992.

Kraken was the first Komodo to be bred in captivity. She hatched out at GMU, but was raised at the National Zoo. Her parents were wild-caught dragons- there’s still WC dragons in the AZA today- and this one specific individual probably did more to revolutionize lizard care in professional settings than any other individual lizard throughout zoo history.

Until Kraken, social enrichment wasn’t a thing people thought about. It wasn’t something anybody felt was necessary for lizards, because they were just… lizards. Sure, some keepers would play with their favorites, but it wasn’t until the National Zoo started documenting what she was doing that anybody realized how much Komodo dragons like to play with us too.

Kraken’s not in that video, but she’s the one who inspired all of the social studies that have been done on captive Komodo dragons. When she was at the National Zoo, her keepers  started getting curious when, for no apparent reason, she kept gingerly stealing things from peoples’ pockets and tugging on their shoelaces. So they started giving her stuff- Frisbees, blankets, soda cans, anything she showed an interest in.

She played with them, just like a mammal might. The way play behavior is described in psychology is a given activity that’s voluntary, repeated, and conducted under “relatively benign” circumstances. Keeper staff found that her conduct during the study met all of these criteria. “Kraken,” they wrote, had clearly demonstrated “play-like behavior with objects and even with humans (tug-of-war).” Moreover, she “could discriminate between prey and nonprey” while showing “varying responses” with different items (rubber rings, shoes, etc.). (There’s an excellent book on Komodo dragons that has an entire chapter devoted to her.)

Kraken died several years ago, but her legacy continues today. There’s several of her descendants still in the AZA, and the intelligence and social needs she demonstrated led to the improvement of life for these guys- and other lizards. The Komodo dragon program has been an eye opener, not just for reptile conservation, but for understanding reptile intelligence and how this incredible clade of animals functions.

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yay my class schedule is set for next semester! boo it's gonna be so hard :(

does anyone have any resources they would recommend on Java or C/C++ Programming btw!! i want to get a head start on these before the classes roll around

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i miss science class bro. we dont put things under microscopes as much as we should

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Marian Ellis Rowan (1848-1922, Australian) ~ One hundred and fifty-eight medium- and small-sized moths, in seven columns. A wide range of families is represented, including the NOCTUIDAE, ARCTIIDAE, LASIOCAMPIDAE, LYMANTRIIDAE, GEOMETRIDAE, PYRALIDAE, SESIIDAE, etc. 

Watercolour with bodycolour on green paper

[Source: Christie’s]

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when talking about AI remember the different versions:

Analytical AI, is the one that can detect cancer and save lives

Generative AI is the one that steals art to make it worse, and gives you a wrong answer every time you google something

Weird Al is the one who got his ponysona to canonically have children with a pony from my little pony

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Generative AI has destroyed academia.

In the next few decades we’re going to have thousands of people who don’t really know anything, and can’t do any critical thinking.

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There's this sort of anthropomorphizing that inherently happens in language that really gets me sometimes. I'm still not over the terminology of "gravity assist," the technique where we launch satellites into the orbit of other planets so that we can build momentum via the astounding and literally astronomical strength of their gravitational forces, to "slingshot" them into the direction we need with a speed that we could never, ever, ever create ourselves. I mean, some of these slingshots easily get probes hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Wikipedia has a handy diagram of the Voyager 1 satellite doing such a thing.

"Gravity assist." "Slingshot." Of course, on a very basic and objective level, yes, we are taking advantage of forces generated by outside objects to specifically help in our goals. We're getting help from objects in the same way a river can power a mill. And of course we call it a "slingshot," because the motion is very similar (mentally at least; I can't be sure about the exact physics).

Plus, especially compared to the other sciences, the terminology for astrophysics is like, really straightforward. "Black hole?" Damn yeah it sure is. "Big bang?" It sure was. "Galactic cluster?" Buddy you're never gonna guess what this is. I think it's an effect of the fact that language is generally developed for life on earth and all the strange variances that happen on its surface, that applying it to something as alien and vast as space, general terms tend to suffice very well in a lot more places than, like... idk, botany.

But, like. "Gravity assist." I still can't get the notion out of my head that such language implies us receiving active help from our celestial neighbors. They come to our aid. We are working together. We are assisted. Jupiter and the other planets saw our little messengers coming from its pale blue molecular cousin, and we set up the physics just right, so that they could help us send them out to far stranger places than this, to tell us all about what they find out there.

We are assisted.

And there is no better way to illustrate my feelings on the matter than to just show you guys one of my favorite paintings, this 1973 NASA art by Rick Guidice to show the Pioneer probe doing this exact thing:

"... You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. ..."

Gravity assist.

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Scientists have just discovered some rocks at the bottom of the ocean can make oxygen... and they do it in complete darkness!

These aren’t magic stones, they’re polymetallic nodules, potato-sized metal lumps packed with manganese, cobalt, and nickel.

But here’s the twist; when seawater flows over their surfaces, they generate tiny electric currents that can split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. No sunlight, no photosynthesis, just deep-sea chemistry creating breathable gas in the pitch black.

This “dark oxygen” could explain how deep-sea creatures survive in low-oxygen zones far from the surface. What's even wilder is that if this can happen on Earth, it could be happening right now in the hidden oceans of Europa or Enceladus, two icy moons that scientists think might host alien life.

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Blind people gesture (and why that’s kind of a big deal)

People who are blind from birth will gesture when they speak. I always like pointing out this fact when I teach classes on gesture, because it gives us an an interesting perspective on how we learn and use gestures. Until now I’ve mostly cited a 1998 paper from Jana Iverson and Susan Goldin-Meadow that analysed the gestures and speech of young blind people. Not only do blind people gesture, but the frequency and types of gestures they use does not appear to differ greatly from how sighted people gesture. If people learn gesture without ever seeing a gesture (and, most likely, never being shown), then there must be something about learning a language that means you get gestures as a bonus.

Blind people will even gesture when talking to other blind people, and sighted people will gesture when speaking on the phone - so we know that people don’t only gesture when they speak to someone who can see their gestures.

Earlier this year a new paper came out that adds to this story. Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow looked at the gestures of blind speakers of Turkish and English, to see if the *way* they gestured was different to sighted speakers of those languages. Some of the sighted speakers were blindfolded and others left able to see their conversation partner.

Turkish and English were chosen, because it has already been established that speakers of those languages consistently gesture differently when talking about videos of items moving. English speakers will be more likely to show the manner (e.g. ‘rolling’ or bouncing’) and trajectory (e.g. ‘left to right’, ‘downwards’) together in one gesture, and Turkish speakers will show these features as two separate gestures. This reflects the fact that English ‘roll down’ is one verbal clause, while in Turkish the equivalent would be yuvarlanarak iniyor, which translates as two verbs ‘rolling descending’.

Since we know that blind people do gesture, Özçalışkan’s team wanted to figure out if they gestured like other speakers of their language. Did the blind Turkish speakers separate the manner and trajectory of their gestures like their verbs? Did English speakers combine them? Of course, the standard methodology of showing videos wouldn’t work with blind participants, so the researchers built three dimensional models of events for people to feel before they discussed them.

The results showed that blind Turkish speakers gesture like their sighted counterparts, and the same for English speakers. All Turkish speakers gestured significantly differently from all English speakers, regardless of sightedness. This means that these particular gestural patterns are something that’s deeply linked to the grammatical properties of a language, and not something that we learn from looking at other speakers.

References

Jana M. Iverson & Susan Goldin-Meadow. 1998. Why people gesture when they speak. Nature, 396(6708), 228-228.

Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow. 2016. Is Seeing Gesture Necessary to Gesture Like a Native Speaker? Psychological Science 27(5) 737–747.

Asli Ozyurek & Sotaro Kita. 1999. Expressing manner and path in English and Turkish: Differences in speech, gesture, and conceptualization. In Twenty-first Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 507-512). Erlbaum.