A Laboratory For Star Formation

a collection of motivational insights regarding content creation and creative hobbies

and of course the classic

Blyth's Tragopan. Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)

via

Western queer radicals: Here's how Israel's gay-friendly image is used to cover oppression of queer Palestinians.

Israeli queer radicals: Agreed! They also erase how we in Israel don't really have the same equality as in the West, or the systemic racism faced by queer Arabs within the Israeli LGBT community. We should work in solidarity to improve queer lives everywhere, here's a bunch of Israeli orgs that you can work with to pressure our government. We can end pinkwashing together!

Western queer radicals: Actually the best way to ensure queer liberation in Palestine is to promote Islamist terrorism.

the long tailed silky-flycatcher is a thrush-sized passerine bird found only in the mountains of costa rica and western panama. females are duller in coloration than males and lack the signature long tail feathers. this species primarily feeds on insects, as their name suggests, but also takes fruit, with a preference for mistletoe. these birds lay only two eggs in a clutch, which are placed in a delicate nest made of lichen.

About 7,000 years ago, a vast lake spread hundreds of square kilometers across north-central Africa. Known to scientists as Lake Mega Chad, it covered more than 400,000 square kilometers (150,000 square miles) at its peak, making it slightly larger than the Caspian Sea, the biggest lake on Earth today. 

Chicago Business District, 1898.

I don’t know if I can contain my “The Muppet Christmas Carol has better costume design than most Oscar-nominated period dramas” rant until after Thanksgiving you guys, I have…so many Thoughts

I'm puzzled as to some of my recent followers. Why am I, a queer secular Israeli, getting followed by an anti-Israel account and by a socially conservative Christian nationalist? Are these hate follows?

Every person is inherently bad because they [are tainted by Original Sin / have privilege and benefit from colonization]. Some people are good, however, because [they became Christian / are oppressed minorities], and these people cannot do any wrong. The problem is the remaining people, who are [minorities and Jews / oppressors and capitalists and Jews], who cause all the problems in the world. But the [Democrats and Zionists / Democrats and Zionists and Republicans] have a vested interest keeping them in power. We should ally with [Russia / Russia and Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthis] to take down the true enemy, [immigrants and Arabs and Jews / America and Jews]. Once we kill all the bad people, the [Rapture / Glorious Revolution] will come, and everything will be better.

The Late Rodentocene: 20 million years post-establishment

Quick Before The Hamyenas Come: The Hamyenas

As larger and more specialized forms become more common in the Late Rodentocene, the diversity of predators has also become more populous. On most other continents, the ferrats become the dominant carnivores, but on the continent of Ecatoria, a different predator reigns supreme: the hamyenas.

Descended from the hammibals of the Middle Rodentocene, the hamyenas are the top predators of the continent, and have expanded into a great diversity to take full advantage of the wide array of biomes on the continent. Some smaller species such as the dwarf hamyena (Microcutamys minimus) thrive in the Great Ecatorian Desert, while others, such as the black bear-sized greater plains hamyena (Crocutacricetus magnus) make a living on the continent's open grassland, preying upon the large grazing jerryboas and hamtelopes that are abuntant in these regions.

Some hamyenas, however, have begun to diverge away from the stocky, short-limbed bodyplan, and taken on different carnivore niches available in Ecatoria: some, such as the maned biteyeena (Barognathomys shenzii) has developed a powerful jaw for cracking apart bones, often scavenging the leftovers of other hamyena species and chewing apart carcasses to get at the bits of meat inaccessible to other carnivores. Others, such as the fox-sized prairie zingo (Cynocricetus canioides) specialize on smaller prey, and thus have developed a much-more slender build, adapted for running and making fast turns in pursuit of its agile and elusive prey.

Like all rodents, the hamyenas lack canines: however, they compensate for the lack of these trademark killing tools with the help of highly-specialized jaws and teeth. The upper incisors, which grow continually as typical of rodent teeth, merge together into a single stabbing point that is kept well-ground and sharp by the whetstone-like lower incisors, which grind against the fused upper 'fang' and keep it in deadly shape.

Hamyenas are typically solitary ambush hunters, pouncing on their prey after stalking them at close range. Their jaws, which can open extremely wide up to an angle of 90 degrees, allows them to get their jaws over the necks of their victims and puncture the carotid arteries: once sufficient damage is done the prey quickly bleeds to death, making a safer and more efficient kill for the predator as opposed to a suffocating bite to the neck, which risks injury to them as the prey struggles for a prolonged period of time.

The larger species of zingoes, however, have discovered a new tactic of hunting: cooperation. Multiple individuals, usually a mated pair and their adult offspring, work together to take down larger prey, especially the browsing forest hamtelopes of the continent. These species are less agressive toward their own kind compared to other hamyenas, and adults stay and hunt with their parents and siblings until they eventually depart the pack to find new mates and territories of their own.

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