If The HBO Max Shitshow Teaches Us Anything At All, It Should Be That When It Comes To Streaming Media,

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

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Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

Resources #2: Automatic Generators

Generators are awesome. It requires no thinking on the part of the author (except for the actual writing), and for names and prompts, they’re absolute gold. Here’s some of my favorites I’ve found and put to use.

Names:

Fantasy Name Generators: Dozens and dozens of every fantasy generator you can possibly think of. Behind The Name: A good, plain, name generator. Place Name Generator: Names for places. Like towns or streets. Fake Name Generator: More detailed than the rest, it includes height, weight, name, address, and more. Nymblr: Can save/block names, and switch between male, female, or both. City and Town Names Place Names: Includes ‘real’ and ‘nonsense’. Elizabethan Place Name Generator

Characters:

Character Profile Generator: Includes odds and ends that includes personality, back story, etc. Quick Character Generator: Has name, age, birthday, religious view, notable traits, and more. Appearance Generator: Can be simple or detailed, and the options male, female, or intersex. Motive Generator: Personality Generator Character Traits Everyday Problem Generator

Plot:

Plot Generator Random Plot Generator: Includes options for 1 to 6 things that can be added, left out, or changed without interfering with the rest of the plot. Fairytale Plot Generator Horror Plot Generator Random Adventure Generator Make Your Character Suffer First Line Generator Random Dialogue Generator Another First Line Generator Story Starting Sentences

Titles:

Story Title Generator Title Generator Random Title Generator Title Generator: This one gives you a title and a series name.

Other:

Anagrams Monster Generator Subjects To Write About Random Word Generator

While I wholly support media piracy and absolutely think it is something you should do, there is one essential step you should take before heading to your preferred torrenting site:

CHECK IF YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY HAS IT.

Not only is it safe, legal, and far less likely to fill your computer with malware, but you are actively supporting an organization whose entire ethos is free access to information.

You don’t necessarily even need to go in-person! Many libraries have their entire catalogue available to browse online, some will deliver right to your door, and most libraries have digital catalogues as well through sites like Libby.

And lots of modern public libraries are SO MUCH MORE than just an archive of books. Safe injection sites, makerspaces, tool libraries, aquaponic gardens, recording studios, and so much more (or less depending on the library system) are available FOR FREE through your local public library.

Libraries are the socialist ideal in praxis in a lot of ways. Most are unionized, they’re a public service that ACTS LIKE IT, and they’re almost completely free to use.

TLDR: Piracy’s good, libraries are better

Yknow the thing where red pandas just lay down on a branch and let their legs hang and they’re just like vibing

Phew. This one took, uh… a bit longer than expected due to other projects both irl and art-wise, but it’s finally here. The long-awaited domestic animal infographic! Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough space to cover every single domestic animal (I’m so sorry, reindeer and koi, my beloveds) but I tried to include as many of the “major ones” as possible.

I made this chart in response to a lot of the misunderstandings I hear concerning domestic animals, so I hope it’s helpful!

Further information I didn’t have any room to add or expand on:

🐈 “Breed” and “species” are not synonyms! Breeds are specific to domesticated animals. A Bengal Tiger is a species of tiger. A Siamese is a breed of domestic cat.

🐀 Different colors are also not what makes a breed. A breed is determined by having genetics that are unique to that breed. So a “bluenose pitbull” is not a different breed from a “rednose pitbull”, but an American Pitbull Terrier is a different breed from an American Bully! Animals that have been domesticated for longer tend to have more seperate breeds as these differing genetics have had time to develop.

🐕 It takes hundreds of generations for an animal to become domesticated. While the “domesticated fox experiment” had interesting results, there were not enough generations involved for the foxes to become truly domesticated and their differences from wild foxes were more due to epigenetics (heritable traits that do not change the DNA sequence but rather activate or deactivate parts of it; owed to the specific circumstances of its parents’ behavior and environment.)

🐎 Wild animals that are raised in human care are not domesticated, but they can be considered “tamed.” This means that they still have all their wild instincts, but are less inclined to attack or be frightened of humans. A wild animal that lives in the wild but near human settlements and is less afraid of humans is considered “habituated.” Tamed and habituated animals are not any less dangerous than wild animals, and should still be treated with the same respect. Foxes, otters, raccoons, servals, caracals, bush babies, opossums, owls, monkeys, alligators, and other wild animals can be tamed or habituated, but they have not undergone hundreds of generations of domestication, so they are not domesticated animals.

🐄 Also, as seen above, these animals have all been domesticated for a reason, be it food, transport, pest control, or otherwise, at a time when less practical options existed. There is no benefit to domesticating other species in the modern day, so if you’ve got a hankering for keeping a wild animal as a pet, instead try to find the domestic equivalent of that wild animal! There are several dog breeds that look and behave like wolves or foxes, pigeons and chickens can make great pet birds and have hundreds of colorful fancy breeds, rats can be just as intelligent and social as a small monkey (and less expensive and dangerous to boot,) and ferrets are pretty darn close to minks and otters! There’s no need to keep a wolf in a house when our ancestors have already spent 20,000+ years to make them house-compatible.

🐖 This was stated in the infographic, but I feel like I must again reiterate that domestic animals do not belong in the wild, and often become invasive when feral. Their genetics have been specifically altered in such a way that they depend on humans for optimal health. We are their habitat. This is why you only really see feral pigeons in cities, and feral cats around settlements. They are specifically adapted to live with humans, so they stay even when unwanted. However, this does not mean they should live in a way that doesn’t put their health and comfort as a top priority! If we are their world, it is our duty to make it as good as possible. Please research any pet you get before bringing them home!

Why do the signs of autism get missed in so many children? Do you need a formal diagnosis to access support? What happens when you grow up? This comic and these topics were covered by these amazing autistic creators & posted with their explicit permission: Schnumn: Twitter RB6K: Twitter

reblog if you made it this far somehow

I hate that I’m always trying to find cool biology themed stuff to wear but all the “nature inspired” clothing companies just have like two crossed arrows or a minimalistic mountain on a sweatshirt. Fucking lame, that’s barely even nature-adjacent. Put the life cycle of a salamander on a jacket, put hyena skeleton patterns on leggings, put a damn field guide of birds of prey on a peacoat and THEN you can have my money. Do NOT give me a shirt with a leaf on it that says “stay wild” or some bullshit I would much prefer clothing that broadcasts to everyone around me how many teeth an adult Jaguar has or how some pitcher plants can catch and digest rats.