Sci-fi & horror author, UXD, software dev, composer/engraver, gamer, seamstress/tailor, nerd, etc; she/her. Aroace.

  • 12 Posts
  • 138 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • Yes exactly, thanks.

    And something many of them can’t understand is that ‘species’ is a very fluid thing. There are no clear boundaries, and it’s just a term we use to wrap our heads round things.

    Like with chickens and eggs, there was never a single point where an avian dinosaur gave birth to a bird – it’s not a clear delineation. Something mostly an avian theropod gave birth to something slightly more bird, and this happened over and over, with the slightly more accumulating for millions of years, and you finally get ‘bird’. But there’s no way to point at one generation and say ‘see, it’s now a bird’.

    The process is so gradual, you could never point at a thing and say This Is Where Speciation Happened. It doesn’t work that way. Just like you can’t point to a drop of water in the ocean and say This Is Where The Wave Started.


  • “Kind” is a meaningless word here.

    Humans (Sapiens) were a different species of Homo than Neanderthals (Neanderthalensis); both are in the genus Homo.
    Thus: Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis.

    This is exactly like lions (Leo) and tigers (Tigris) being different species, but in the same genus (Panthera).
    Thus: Panthera Leo and Panthera Tigris.

    And just like with lions and tigers, offspring are often either infertile or only fertile in one direction – IIRC, human/neanderthal couplings only produced fertile offspring if the human was female and the neanderthal male (we can see this in our own DNA).


  • My 18 month old son was having respiratory and stomach symptoms that seemed worse than a standard cold to me, but his doctors said not to worry, all kids have a bad cold sometimes. Even after apples came out exactly as they went in, points and all, and the top of his head had become sunken.

    I insisted on taking him to hospital despite being told I was overreacting, and they admitted him immediately without even asking our name. His blood was thick like pudding, and it took a while before they could even do tests, because they couldn’t take blood.

    It was rotavirus, and he was in intensive care for 2 weeks.
    It was one of the few times I’d decided I wasn’t listening to people telling me to be quiet, and I’m so glad I did. That was like 30 years ago.




  • There are reflecting pools/fountains near me that are this unnatural blue.

    Usually at the entrance to dive motels. They look like toilet water. Gross.

    That’s not how you want high-end water features to look. It’s how you hide w nasty shit goes on in there after hours (like at Mar a Lago), and the blue is meant to (badly) disguise it.
    I had a private pool, And I’ve maintained public water features (pools, Fountains, Ponds, Reflecting pools, Etc)

    You can smell this shade of blue – heavily over chlorinated and dirty. It tells you do not touch. It’s gross, and you’ll definitely catch something.