the curse is broken i am free
oujibat reblogged
Ranger Rick's Nature Magazine; August 1979 edition. Illustration by Tony Chen.
oujibat reblogged
folks you need to understand that the eradication of trained artists and designers is a much, much, much bigger threat to arts and culture than IP laws.
why do you think is it that every movie poster the same collage of a bunch of faces? why does every website made after 2015 look the same and rendered unusable by the same ugly pop ups? why does it keep getting harder to differentiate the apps on your phone? Why can't the back of the book just fucking tell you what the book is about?
look I'm a graphic designer. when I started studying design I had clear career goals. I spent like, thousands of hours on studying effective visual communication, psychology, history, grid systems, color theory, typography, print and digital design techniques, accessibility like whatever I believed would make me better at design I poured myself into it.
and within the span of like. five years maybe. 90% of design work disappeared. By the time I graduated there were basically no graphic designers. After 2012 Every company decided that design itself is trivial and true designers should know how to code. And manage social media. And do video editing. And copywrite. and this. and that. and. and. and. and as previous generations of visual designers and illustrators retired, the people who had the luxury of putting all their time into developing specific set of skills, they were replaced with tech grifters and designers who were forced to learn a dozen different skills and were at best mediocre at everything.
my job is not threatened by AI automation because it has already been ruined by automation through canva and bootstrap. and no one even tried to put a stop to it because good design is hard to understand and easy to imitate. so people started to imitate the visuals of previous good design and thought that was all there is to design. and after 10 years of copies of copies of copies we're all asking each other: "why does everything look the same"
now illustrators fear the same will happen to their field. and some of them want stricter copyright laws rights, because there is nothing else that can protect their work. "theft" is the only legal protection they have. and yeah, IP laws suck. but it's better for them to defend their labor using shoddy laws than not at all. and if you allow unimaginative grifters to displace artists from the few creative fields where they still work you won't even have a reason to worry about IP laws.
oujibat reblogged
Do Bug Zappers Work? Yeah—About As Well As Any Other Indiscriminate Wildlife Slaughter.
Bug zappers kill bugs by the thousands. But there’s a problem: They kill the wrong bugs. They are ineffective against mosquitoes and other biting flies, and their otherwise indiscriminate killing can disrupt pollination and generally throw the environment out of balance. Plus, the force of their electrocution can spew a mist of disease-ridden bug parts out into the air. All of the mosquito experts we spoke with and every relevant university extension office we could find unanimously condemned bug zappers. To keep an area free of bugs or to prevent yourself from getting bitten, there are much better alternatives.
Read more:
Knock on wood, but things look like they might finally be getting better
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funeralheart-deactivated2023061
oujibat reblogged
Why do sharks attack?
A lot of arguments I get from people when talking about shark conservation is: “But wait, sharks attack and kill people all the time! They’re violent!” Nope. In fact, the average amount of shark attacks that happen a year is 16, with majority not even being fatal. Like all animals, sharks never attack without a reason.
Your chances of being attacked by a shark are just one in 11.5 million. It is easier to win the lottery, get struck by lightning, killed by a cow, killed by a falling coconut, or get killed by a vending machine than it is to get attacked by a shark.
Here’s a list of things that may cause a shark to check you out or attack you:
- Bright clothing. Sharks have sensitive vision, and see colors differently than we do. Bright or colorful swimsuits can resemble a fish or some other prey. And when you’re splashing and swimming, you very much look like prey in distress, which is a quick meal for opportunistic hunters like sharks.
- Jewelry. Shimmery jewelry like gold and silver look like scales from a big fish. A shark may get curious and check you out.
- Splashing. Sharks have special organs in their snout called Ampullae of Lorenzini, which are small, jelly filled pores that act as electroreceptors. These organs are sensitive to movement, and can even sense splashing from miles away. Excessive splashing resembles a large fish that’s in distress, which is another easy meal.
- Surf boards. Sharks may be sensitive to colors, but they don’t have the best sight in the animal kingdom. A human being on a surf board looks like a seal to a shark. Seals are a Great Whites favorite prey, and they will certainly check you out. Here’s an example of how this looks to sharks from below.
- Territory. Some sharks are known to claim large areas of water and reefs. Simply swimming in these areas can agitate a shark. Be aware of where you’re swimming.
- Smell. Sharks have a very good sense of smell. They can be attracted to the smell of blood or even the smell of a restaurant you ate in. Blood, again, resembles a fish that has been injured.
- Curiosity. Sharks are naturally curious. They do not have hands to touch you with, they explore and check out things with their mouth. A shark may nibble your foot to check you out, not eat you.
What to do if a shark is near you or nibbles on you:
- Stay calm. This is the best thing you could possibly do. A shark will remain calm if you do as well.
- Move slowly or not at all. Slow, gentle movements keep the shark calm. Fast, panicked movements scare the shark and provoke it, this is when a shark may attack you in self defense.
- Don’t hit the shark. Unless the shark is full on attacking you, keep your hands off of it.
How to fend off an aggressive shark:
It’s said the best way to fend off an attacking shark is hitting it’s head with your fists. While this is one way, it’s not the most effective. Hit these areas instead
- Eyes. Use your fingers and thumbs to pierce the eyes. The shark will immediately back off and swim away, this is a time to escape.
- Gills. Shove your fingers into its gills. The gills are the sharks only way of breathing. The shark will back off and swim away.
- Snout. The snout is the most concentrated area of electroreceptors. Use your fingers or fist to aggressively rub this area. This will temporarily put the shark into a state of tonic immobility.
Things to remember:
- You are in their territory when you swim. They were here first. In fact, they’ve been here for over 400 million years.
- We kill over 11,417 sharks AN HOUR. Finning, fishing, and consumption of seafood all contribute to the killing of sharks.
- Without sharks, the world would essentially fall apart. Sharks play one of the biggest roles in the oceans ecosystem. If they’re gone, the ocean is effected, and when the ocean is effected, we are too. Check out this video that explains how important sharks are.
How do I help?
- Avoid the consumption of seafood. Hundreds of sharks are killed in the process of catching fish. While this isn’t intentional, it’s a big problem. Be sure to purchase fish from sellers that protect sharks.
- Avoid “scary” shark movies. It is so important to educate people on the effect these movies have on shark populations.
- Avoid cosmetic products with squalene. Squalene is a low density compound found in the liver of sharks and other cartilaginous fish. Recently it has become a trend for sharks to be hunted to process their livers for the purpose of making squalene health capsules. Squalene is often a common ingredient in lipsticks.
- Research. Find shark activism groups and petitions. Participate in whatever you can.
- Make them one of your interests! Sharks are amazing, and there’s over 400 kinds of sharks to learn about. Knowledge can encourage others to protect sharks as well.
oujibat reblogged
Okay I usually hate to post anything like this with names attached however: microbatsofmelbourne is being ripped up in the comments of their own post for fairly calling out unethical practices about someone who OPENLY admits they’re unethical. I feel really bad for them because they tried to educate and approach the topic well, and they’re being accused of harassment and attacking small business in their comments.
To my fellow kiwis: there are a few vulture culture type stores selling taxidermies bats. Please don’t support them. Please don’t enable this kind of blatant behaviour either.
So upon further research, I’ve found out Microbats of Melbourne is a licensed rehabber who is genuinely rehabilitating microbats in the region!
They have a PayPal here if you wanna show some love, because I think attacking a wildlife rehabber for politely and privately trying to educate you is abysmal.
Do not buy mummified “taxidermy” bats online!
Also, there are so many awesome people involved in vulture culture that do not exploit the animals, there’s no reason to buy from one like this. Do your research. Any specimens that can’t be ethically sourced shouldn’t be on the market.
oujibat reblogged
Saddest thing ever is reading an academic paper about a threatened or declining species where you can tell the author is really trying to come up with ways the animal could hypothetically be useful to humans in a desperate attempt to get someone to care. Nobody gives a shit about the animals that “don’t affect” us and it seriously breaks my heart
“No I can’t come out tonight I’m sobbing about this entomologist’s heartfelt plea for someone to care about an endangered moth”
This is how I learn there's a moth whose tiny caterpillars live exclusively off the old shells of dead tortoises.
[Image description: text from a section titled On Being Endangered: An Afterthought that says:
Realizing that a species is imperiled has broad connotations, given that it tells us something about the plight of nature itself. It reminds us of the need to implement conservation measures and to protect the region of which the species is a part. But aside form the broader picture, species have intrinsic worth and are deserving of preservation. Surely an oddity such as C. vicinella cannot simply be allowed to vanish.
We should speak up on behalf of this little moth, not only because by so doing we would bolster conservation efforts now underway in Florida, [highlighting begins] but because we would be calling attention to the existence of a species that is so infinitely worth knowing. [end highlighting]
But is quaintness all that can be said on behalf of this moth? Does this insect not have hidden value beyond its overt appeal? Does not its silk and glue add, potentially, to its worth? Could these products not be unique in ways that could ultimately prove applicable?
End image description]
because we would be calling attention to the existence of a species that is so infinitely worth knowing
I was so inspired by this I made it into a piece of art for a final in one of my courses for storytelling in conservation
#conservation#moths#bugs#insects#tw: death#tw: dead animals#tw: animal death#important#this happens every time too#I remember a chiroptologist trying to save bats from extinction in South America being asked what the bats can do to directly benefit humans#like as a reason we should bother and he got irate and said that living things shouldn’t have to be directly useful to humanity#to be allowed to fucking exist#and the same with the ornithologist trying to bring back the passenger pigeon through cloning being shot down by other biologists saying ew#ew why would we want more pigeons in the world pigeons are gross#and that was OTHER BIOLOGISTS#it’s a real fucking problem even inside of scientific circles
oujibat reblogged
"You're not the main character" also applies to thinking that you're so uniquely horrible that everyone you meet is deeply invested in judging and hating you. That's just as much of a cognitive distortion as believing that you're the center of everyone's admiration. I promise you that other people got their own lives to live and their own struggles and flaws to cope with.
The spam bots have genuinely been worse than they’ve ever been jfc
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