New foil prints of this piece are added in my shop! ✨💓☺️

https://artofmaquenda.etsy.com/listing/1784264055

I find it so funny, in light of TikTok’s imminent American demise, that even now they aren’t considering moving to tumblr. The last two social media refugee crises (Twitter -> X and whatever happened with Reddit) prompted a wave of wide-eyed new baffled tumblr users to flood this app and yet last I heard all of the tiktokers are flooding en-masse a Chinese social media app. That is entirely in Mandarin. Instead of moving to tumblr.

Like. People are learning mandarin to join this social media site. I’m not joking. There are tutorials going around to show people who don’t speak Mandarin how to sign up for this app. They’re all talking about how they’d rather learn a new language than join instagram reels and it is not a thought in ANYONE’S mind that tumblr is also potentially an option

To be clear im not mad about this. I’d rather see a generation of people learn a new language and engage in cross cultural connections than have a wave of tiktokers flood this app but I still think this whole thing is very funny

no because that is quite literally what is happening on Red Book right now like. All of the Chinese users went “hey why are there suddenly a gazillion Americans on here?” to which the Americans went “they’re banning TikTok and we’re moving out of spite” and the Chinese were like “oh cool send us pictures of your cats and help us with English homework and we’ll send you pictures of our cats and help you learn Mandarin” and as far as I can tell everyone is having a genuinely very nice time together.

Correct. But also a lot of people on tiktok are from tumblr so like...going back isn't necessary. But the biggest reason is that tumblr isn't a video site with an algorithm that doesn't suck. Two different niches, yknow?

usamericans downloading little red book enough for the app to hit #1 in app stores after news of tiktok getting banned is one of the FUNNIEST things. i do be enjoying the memes

also #2 in canada. Genuinely hilarious. glad to know bitches ain't falling for that "security breach" shit. If anything ur data's probably safer with china than with usa, esp if u're a westerner. Genuinely

Oh yeah, no one on tt believed that security shit for a second. They know it's really happening bc American social media companies can't compete so they're pressuring the politicians they bought, and because tiktok is really good at information spreading. It's literally one of the best ways to get news these days. So the giving of data to China vis a vis a Chinese app is 100% intentional, meant to send a message to the govt, and deeply funny to tiktok users too. Like honestly? I think tumblr would have liked tiktok if they'd gotten over the fact that there are ads. And really, most ads on tiktok are for small businesses and artists.

christmas eve what about christmas adam

happy christmas adam to all men’s rights activists

Please stop pestering us with things like this. This has nothing to do with men fighting for their rights. Eve is short for ‘evening’. Please don’t turn activism into a joke. Thanks.

Someone isn’t having a good christmas adam

Christmas Adam: December 23rd. Comes before Christmas Eve and is generally unsatisfying.

Happy Christmas Adam everyone

"have you learned how to drive yet" i have the spirit of friendship in my heart. the joy of lifes little things in my soul. the whimsy of magic. the beautiful enjoyment of nature. the answer is no though

If you're American you probably like...should. just so you don't end up stranded at home or needing to get somewhere and are unable to do so...

Mary said, "Now…who in the world thought this carpet was a good idea in this hotel. We are staying at the Ameristar in Kansas City. When the elevator door opened we seriously thought it was a crime scene."

Jokes aside, who thought that was a nice carpet design? Even in another colour, I can't imagine that looking nice.

INHALE

“The donation is meant to attract ‘talented and diverse’ students, who otherwise might not have the opportunity to pursue a medical education, the school said in the release. ‘It will enable generations of healthcare leaders who will advance the boundaries of research and care, free from the burden of crushing loan indebtedness.’l

medical doctors aren't drowning under student debt. you could prevent 200k malaria deaths with this.

the lady who gave the money worked at the institution for like seventy years so she probably just likes the place

how the fuck did she become a billionaire from that

But yeah this is anti-effective altruism, can't think of a class less deserving of a handout than the professional rent extractors that are US doctors.

My wife graduated from here a few years ago and still has about $200,000 of debt. It would be nice not to have that! But we also have a household income in the top 1% so I can’t say that this philanthropy is especially well targeted. Also see a lot of articles talking about how this school is in the Bronx and kind of implying that it is either educating people from the Bronx or educating people who then stay in the Bronx but… that’s really not true. Medical schools are a national market, people apply to schools all over the country and go to the one that offers the best opportunity, and then they go to wherever they match for residency. Essentially none of her classmates practice in the Bronx. Seems like this will make the school much more selective going forward and retroactively make her degree more prestigious, so I guess that is cool?

I am too in-the-know to even notice that Bronx angle, you are totally right - some people might think that the school like "teaches Bronx residents" but it doesn't at all, there is no institution more selective at scale than med schools. Its just elite money going to elite money.

Which is no fault of an individual doctor of course, if your wife could get that tuition rebate that would be great for her!

Is this thing on?

Medical school debt is actually a significant problem in the American healthcare system. Are doctors as drowning in debt as low-wage service workers with MFAs? No. But the average cost of med school is over $200,000, and that debt absolutely shapes every financial decision doctors make, from specializations (there’s not a lot of money in pediatrics or emergency medicine, and one of the reasons we have way more dermatologists and plastic surgeons than we really need is that they make bank), to what patients and insurances they accept (I’ve heard from doctors that one reason why they won’t accept Medicaid patients is that, at least pre-ACA, reimbursement rates didn’t cover their med school debt let alone the other costs), to how much they charge per procedure, to how many procedures and of what type they do, to where they choose to practice (guess one reason why rural hospitals are closing?), because that fixed cost has to be covered no matter what.

So yes, it’s absolutely a good thing that a bunch of doctors who are at least going to start their careers working in a high-poverty neighborhood are going to make these decisions without that debt hanging over their heads. How about we base our political position on this on what’s going to make a systemic difference, rather than just our personal ressentiment, because supposedly that’s something we care about.

You are 100% correct. One of the reasons we don't have enough drs in under served areas and in lower wage fields (like family medicine and general practice) is because they can't pay off their med school debt. It's actually a fairly significant contributer to the Dr shortage in the US. And that's a problem that will continue to get worse.

Posted for the beauty and eloquence of this comment:

i have a question for uhhhhh idk maybe anthropologists?

something that fills me with wonder beyond words are realistic models of ancient humans and our relatives. I’m well and truly obsessed.

i recently had the great pleasure of seeing perhaps my favorite neanderthal model of all, “neanderthal father and child” by kennis & kennis:

however, what always confuses and even disappoints me on even the most beautiful reconstructions I’ve seen, including this one, is the matted hair.

the hair is almost always matted. not tangled, as perhaps might happen to a child in a day of play, but truly “would have to cut it and start fresh” matted. the kind of matting that takes months of neglect to develop.

this troubles me because we of course know that matting poses health risks. to name a few—insect infestations, scalp sores which can become infected, and even mold growth.

Keeping hair clean and untangled isn’t just an aesthetic choice or luxury, it’s a medical necessity.

it’s for this reason that grooming practices feature so heavily in the social bonding of so many animals today. not just in primates, but in birds, cats, and more.

so it’s difficult for me to imagine that Neanderthals and indeed early humans would have walked around with matted hair, or to imagine at least matting would be the norm.

around the world, regardless of hair texture and ethnic heritage, humans of countless cultures use various braiding techniques as protective styles, to this day.

And we know that Neanderthals could twist cord. And of course that humans have been braiding hair for thousands of years.

so I again, I cannot imagine that our ancestors and relatives would have been walking around with their hair matted to the scalp.

even without protective styles, surely finger combing and detangling would have been common practice?

Am I missing something here? It seems like this is just an oversight & even stereotype that has become commonplace in this specific genre of scientific art. seems like a very reductive idea of the “dirty caveman” which has made its way into even modern scientific models.

Thank G-d, I'm so glad this bothers somebody other than me.

I feel like there's some sort of "well, they're more primitive than us, so they didn't take care of themselves as well" which happens on a subconscious level with art like this. Like it's not a scientific statement but an artistic one, a sort of visual shorthand for "these are primitive people, these Neanderthals. They're from a long long time ago and weren't really people yet."

That both does a disservice to the science behind the art and betrays a bias that also isn't terribly scientific.

Hey, I have an undergrad degree in anth and a masters in bio archaeology (since you asked for relevant skills/knowledge ). The source of that habit is, indeed, the artists themselves. We don't really have a lot of genetic information about hair texture of Neanderthals (information about a person's phenotype is generally difficult to obtain from their genotype.), so it's artist interpretation. I imagine that it's based somewhat in the idea that Europeans were dirty until colonization (which wasn't true, because people don't actually enjoy being dirty and every society had ways of cleaning.), or possibly the idea that a lack of shampoo or other detergents ment that they weren't clean. Kennis & Kennis do produce basically the best reconstructions out there, but they're artists not scientists. And there are quite a few of their sculptures where I'd consider the hair more unkempt than matted (like Cheddar Man.), but that example is matted and it's very well known. There are also ones where the hair is pulled back and not unkempt (Neolithic woman Lisar, for example, has her hair tied up in a bit of leather.). Anyway, the basis of that decision is artistic not scientific. Like even if you knew what texture hair someone had, you'd have no idea how they wore it unless you had cultural examples, and we don't for Neanderthals. It's kind of similar to how they depict them with facial hair and even tho they were presumably capable of growing it, we don't know if they would have chosen to do that or not. Anyway, I think they're just going off the assumption that they didn't have hair brushes and filling in the gaps with artistic license.

But I also would like to push back on the idea that it's used as shorthand for the idea that they "weren't really people yet". The work of these artists is very popular even among scientists specifically because of the depictions of them as people who had emotions rather than as objects of study. Scientists are aware that Neanderthals really weren't that far off from humans and were sophisticated, and so we like things that show that rather than portraying them as dumb, lifeless cave-dwellers. The way Kennis & Kennis choose to depict Neanderthals and other ancient hominins gives them more life and emotion than any other reconstructions out there. It makes them more like people, not less, and despite their flaws are far better than any previous reconstructions.

It’s so frustrating to see the post about chronic fatigue and dysautonomia regarding my struggle with long Covid going around, with extremely bitter and presumptuous tags like “lol! welcome to being disabled! you didnt care about us before!”

I really get the sentiment there. The bitterness. The rage that able-bodied people didn’t listen to you until they were disabled themselves. After they threw you under the bus during the pandemic and didn’t care what happened to you until they were you. The emotional conflict between welcoming newly disabled people into the fight  for accessible and equitable care and the resentment that they never fought for you.

Do you know how I understand that?

Because I was already disabled before covid! I have had a physical and a developmental disability since birth.

I’ve gotten some extremely nasty comments on my post about how Covid has further disabled me, from members of the very community I have belong to since the day I was born. It’s so disheartening. It costs you literally nothing to not presume to know a person’s three decades of health history.

Idk. Again, I understand the bitterness, because I’ve experienced it myself. But it’s misplaced, and some of y’all are extremely quick to judge and mean-hearted!!

and even if I weren’t previously disabled. How do you go about assuming that I didn’t care about disabled people or the pandemic?

As a disabled person, of course I have complicated feelings about the way the world finally cares about us, now that previously able-bodied people are experiencing what we’ve experienced our whole lives.

But I am also thrilled beyond words that one result of this nightmare is that people are finally paying attention. Research into treatment for our disabilities is finally getting the funding that just four years ago seemed impossible.

And yes. I’m sure there are people who broke lockdown. Who didn’t mask. Who didn’t care. Who considered it survival of the fittest. And now they’re complaining about living the lives we’ve been living for years. That sucks.

But do you know who else is newly disabled as a result of Covid infections? Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people belonging to some of the most vulnerable communities in the world. People in homeless shelters. Refugee camps. People making poverty wages as cashiers who didn’t get the privilege of working from home. Healthcare workers. Teachers, who are so often thrown under the bus in our country.

The data started coming in as early as summer 2020 that Black and Latino communities were being disproportionately affected by the pandemic. 

They do not deserve our anger! They were just as abandoned as us!

the usa shouldn’t be the political and economic focal point of the entire fucking planet, actually

I just learned that my medication is out of stock COUNTRYWIDE because America is restricting how much ADHD medication Australia is allowed to make... and they're just flat out ignoring Australia's request to meet to negotiate more.

America's Federal Trade Commission is taking public comments on this exact situation right now.

If you've been affected by the actions of US-based regulation in regards to accessing your ADHD medication, please submit a comment! Even if you're outside of the United States. The fact this has such far-reaching consequences is something that needs to be known!

You have until April 15th, 2024 to submit a comment. Please make your voice heard!

Yeah, there's Vyvanse shortages all over the place here, too. They SAY it's to curtail illegal usage, but all it does is hurt ppl with ADHD. Like we have this problem with all our stimulant meds, but it seems to be worst with that one. But that's what happens when your patent laws for drugs are really, really stupid. >.<

Unrestrained summer fun

how can ppl say cats are heartless tbh

I once stayed at a game reserve in South Africa, and they had three cheetahs – two males and one female. The boys stuck together (they were brothers), but female cheetahs are solitary, save for when they are raising cubs. Which is hard work for cheetahs, because they don’t/can’t den, she’s working constantly to protect/move her cubs, as well as feeding both them and herself.

Now, these cheetahs ARE in a private reserve, but they’re still essentially wild. But they are more or less accustomed to the presence of people. And this cheetah, Ketswiri, got very badly injured in her leg one time, which usually would be fatal to a cheetah. The staff at the reserve helped her. Another time, she was starving, and they provided her a fresh antelope carcass. And she remembered this, because the science officer was telling us how one time he was watching Ketswiri and her cubs, and she wandered over and dumped all her cubs at his feet, and walked off. Like “watch my kids, I need some me time.” And he was panicking like COME BACK I CAN’T BABYSIT YOUR KIDS WTF

Half of the comments are about cats giving birth on top of or next to their owners and I’m not crying at all

it’s so funny though because domesticated cats are aggressively social in raising their young so basically op’s cat was like bitch these are your kids too, where tf you think you’re going???

Pigeon attempts to court falcon

For all those in the notes - peregrine falcons hunt by dive-bombing their prey; this falcon however is currently stationary and cannot dive-bomb much of anything. In this moment, the pigeon is safe. The falcon however may not recover from the embarrassment.

I can't tell if that's a giant pigeon or a tiny falcon

Tiny falcon

@todaysbird

[pigeon:] Sex sex sex sex sex sex sex sex

[falcon:] I will never live this down. Never. Never. Oh fuck there's somebody with a camera. Shit shit shit shit.

[pigeon:] ...OOOOOH BAYBAY! [bob bob weave weave]

[falcon:] ...Just kill me now. :/

I really think Rasputin lucked out, in that being remembered by history as some species of giant unkillable sex wizard is something most of us can only fruitlessly aspire to.

He didn’t luck out, he worked hard for that rep

he really didn’t though

he was just kind of a garden-variety creep, but the rumor mill did all the work for him and now he’s a banger disco song

to be fair, neither could Rasputin. Alexei very much continued to have haemophilia.

isn’t the current theory that he seemed to heal faster and have more spoons when Rasputin was around because Rasputin wouldn’t let the doctors give him aspirin, a blood thinner?

Ra Ra Rasputin Russia’s wellness scamming fiend

Fun fact: the conspirator who’d been made responsible for preparing the poison for Rasputin, Stanislaus de Lazovert, was a medical intern who’d studied under the exact same doctor who kept trying to treat Tsarevich Alexei’s hemophilia with aspirin.

Like, I feel like this should be taken into account when evaluating reports of Rasputin’s miraculous immunity to poison.

Did the guy who shot him also study under that doctor?

No, Felix Yusupov was just a useless nerd who thought he knew how murder worked because he’d read a book.

Based on the available historical evidence, the most likely sequence of events is as follows:

Pretty much everything else about Rasputin’s miraculous invincibility is invented whole cloth, much of it by Yusupov himself in order to build himself up in his own published memoirs.

(As icing on the incompetently poisoned cake, elements of Yusupov’s memoirs were later incorporated into the 1932 film Rasputin and the Empress, which led to Yusupov suing MGM Studios for libel because the film strongly implies that Rasputin was fucking Yusupov’s wife. The precedent set by that lawsuit is the reason those “similarities to any real person living or dead are coincidental” disclaimers exist.)

That last fact took me off at the knees.

history and fiction spend a lot of time helping each other be strange.

history and fiction

spend a lot of time helping

each other be strange.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

“Oh you had a plague? Come back to us when you had a World War, brand new unconventional weapons, and a new international order.”

I apologize.

insert that YOU chihuahua post where theyre being pinned down i cant for the life of me find it

This one?

Oh, Charles. The hubris. Honey. You had to know this was a possibility. Why would you tempt Apollo like that.

I love how we don’t even need Apollo to be captioned, it’s just “he’s holding a dodgeball and looks Greek statue, of COURSE it’s Apollo delivering the gift of prophecy unto unsuspecting tumblr users”

On the topic of English people being shitheads towards Welsh people - This fucking dude today on AITA

Yeah pretty sure we’re all hoping for a divorce on this one lol

how did this fucker say it’s “not as bad as it sounds” and then somehow end up being even worse than it sounds by the fourth sentence

That’s what we call growth.

I think the part about “I still feel like I’m right even though I know I’m wrong” bit is a really important and easily overlooked part of growth. That almost always happens in cases like this: that you’re rationally convinced that something you’ve always taken for granted is actually an injustice, but your feelings are still the feelings that have been shaped by your life up to this point. That doesn’t make you a bad person, and it doesn’t mean you’re some kind of natural-born bigot or that you are incapable of improving. Keep sitting with those feelings, and with the realities that led you to be persuaded, and keep an open mind as you explore, and they will come into alignment over time.