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"Waa why aren't fandoms fun anymore" because you keep policing people's headcanons, make fun of cosplayers,make fun of selfshipers, make fun of beginner artists and just make fun of people for having fun 😐

i hate that concerns about urban gardening/foraging safety is often met with "What are you, a cop?" scorn. I believe it's a suspicion of anything that hinders the punk/anti-system urgency to jump in immediately and do whatever feels right.

Safety, ethics, and sustainability are all a part of urban gardening and foraging. I'm sorry that means you need to do homework before you can do anything, I know that sounds lame. But life is complicated.

I know anti-intellectualism is viewed as activist these days, but like, surely you don't want to literally eat lead, right?

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

GET. AI. OUT. OF. FANDOM. Stop making headcanons with it, stop making fanfic with it, stop making fanart with it. If I see one more "asking chatgpt *blank* about *character/characters in a fandom* I'm going to lose my goddamn mind. Use your own fucking brain, stop asking AI to do everything. You could even ask other real people what they think. Just. Stop. Using. AI. In. Creative. Spaces.

International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia

17 May

This reminds me of something I found out a while ago researching fast fashion for a school project- Sweat shops still exist in the US and they often hire undocumented immigrants so they can't report the working conditions to anyone out of fear of being deported. Incase anyone needed even more examples of this.

(TW: Human trafficking is mentioned in the second article)

This shirt came to me in a vision

euronews

Indian city uses smartwatches to track impact of deadly heat

Cities like Ahmedabad have always had hot summers, but now they're nearing the threshold beyond which exposure for more than a few hours can

“Sometimes it gets so hot, I can’t think straight,” said Chunara, sporting a black smartwatch that contrasts sharply with her colourful bangles and sari.

Chunara is one of 204 residents of Vanzara Vas given the smartwatches for a year-long study to find out how heat affects vulnerable communities around the world. The watches measure heart rate and pulse and track sleep, and participants get weekly blood pressure checks.

Data collector Komal Parmar, right, talks with Sapnaben Chunara to get heat related information in Ahmedabad, India.AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

Researchers also painted some roofs with reflective paint to reduce indoor heat and will compare them to homes without so-called cool roofs using indoor heat sensors. Along with the smartwatches, this will help them understand how much cool roofs can help poor households deal with India’s scorching summers.

A man applies reflective paint on the roof of a house to reduce indoor heat in Ahmedabad, India.AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

Chunara, whose home didn't get a cool roof, said she's happy to participate by wearing the watch, confident the results will help her family, too.

"They might paint my roof as well, and they might be able to do something that helps all of us in this area cope with the heat better,” Chunara said.

An increasingly hot planet, due largely to burning fossil fuels such as coal and gas that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, means already hot regions are getting even worse.

A 2023 study estimated that if the global mean temperature continues to rise to just under 2 degrees Celsius, there would be a 370 per cent rise in heat-related deaths around the world, and most would happen in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.

“This is a big concern, and it also shows the heat divide” between the poor and wealthy, said Abhiyant Tiwari, a climate expert with the Natural Resources Defence Council and part of the group conducting the research in Ahmedabad.

In the summer of 2010, the city witnessed nearly 1,300 excess deaths — how many more people died than would be expected — which experts found were most likely due to high temperatures.

Following the 2010 tragedy, city officials, with help from public health and heat experts, devised an action plan to warn citizens when the heat is at dangerous levels and prepare city hospitals to respond rapidly to heat-related illness. The plan has been replicated across India and other parts of South Asia.

I studied design in Ahmedabad's National Institute of Design. Reading this helps explain the design of our campus, architecture that emphasized air circulation and natural cooling. Mind you, I was there umpteen million years ago in 1989-1990.

Can't express how stress free being open minded is.

Some lesbians use he/him? Oh cool.

Some people have people inside their head and sometimes it's fictional chars? Sick your brains like a pirate ship they're all working to run.

Some people like being treated like a pet dog? Bark bark bro.

Being fat isn't unhealthy but a perfectly normal type of body to have? Kinda beautiful how different we can all be.

Something doesn't make any fucking sense? Cool an opportunity to learn. And even if I can't figure it out it's cool we still have mysteries today.