@futurebird Perhaps also: degree of change due to domestication - perhaps the modern farm pig is closer to its wild ancestor than ditto cow because it didn't take as much work to turn it into a farmable animal?

@futurebird
Devolution?

@futurebird i mean, are cows forest animals? chickens are jungle fowl and specialized in eating bamboo seeds

i think degree of domestication might also be a factor here though

@futurebird I used to think they were some kind of rodent until a couple years ago on the last site when everyone was posting that scene from (I think) Master and Commander and it learned they were bugs.

@futurebird I developed the notion at some point when I was young that weevils were a type of fairy or some other mythical creature

I've lost count of how many times I've mentioned a thing that I assumed was common knowledge, only to discover that the other person had no idea what it even was.

@futurebird

@futurebird

In real life, I have only seen the 4th (they're pretty common, here), but the other 3 are amazing.

I had no idea.

@futurebird thank you for encouraging me to get interested in ants again through these posts! As a child I was obsessed with them, especially our native leaf cutter ant, *Atta Texna*🐜

@futurebird Yeah, but then the Merch Ants come in and sell everything.

@futurebird damn I was supposed to be sorting food.

@futurebird
it's now past 20:00 here. I did not get the hallway storage sorted as I had planned. Most things all over the floor. And I've yet to have dinner.

yay getting a work call. otoh, 3 hours of on-call payment is nice.

otth I've gotta make lunch for tomorrow as well.
Pasta + vegan bratwurst & red lentils in tomato sauce with Sichuan peppers & sambal?
Let's give it a go.

@futurebird I love @Cat_Cosplay They do some amazing work!!

@futurebird haven't really repaired much, if anything, but seeing very similar things from creative hobbies that leave you with physical proof of your time and effort I believe you without a second thought.

@futurebird Actually I really miss that if something is no longer working you simply open the case to take a look inside. My dad always used to do this, from toaster to washing machine, from bike to car. Not being able to do that any more feels... unnatural.

@futurebird it's about agency in the digital world, plain and simple.

@futurebird I've sometimes wondered if our weird investments into brains might have been driven by a prolonged period of having to move from niche to niche without time for physical adaptations to really pay off.

People tend to think brains are great, but in the animal kingdom in general, it seems brains are ranked below a really effective digestive tract in terms of evolutionary payouts.

@futurebird If only. Poor Gaia.

@futurebird @glynmoody *homer bart gif* “_another_ time when we almost didn’t make it”

@futurebird "They are not runes" 😄😄

@futurebird

There is only one form of fortune telling that actually (mostly) works:

It's called mathematics.

@futurebird
Aren't figs made like this too?

Figs... those sweet wonderful pockets of yummmm?!

@futurebird its a cute little cute mushroom hut for baby wasps!!! :3 :3

@futurebird 🦧

@futurebird
I so wish there were tiny sauropods the size of pigeons.

(Of course, sauropods probably hatched out not much bigger than pigeon-sized, but they probably grew very fast.)

(I'm aware of linsangs. But I'm going to go take a nap now.)

@futurebird i feel seen

Modern birds are descendants of dinosaurs. Or so I was told.

@futurebird history is so wonderful :blobcatmelt:​

@futurebird about five years ago I was stuck in a traffic jam on a section of the A303 - it's famous for summer traffic jams - with deep, thick woodland either side of the road.

I glanced left and was surprised to see a small herd of wild deer, stags with impressive antlers, sitting down in the forest as close to the edge of it they could be, relaxing in the summer afternoon heat and lazily watching the slowly-crawling traffic

@futurebird How curious! I always thought deer wouldn't need roads. Ask Rudolph.

@futurebird this is touching me at a level i cannot explain

@futurebird Hexagons are the bestagons. Also thanks for alt text :3

@futurebird I'm sorry to inform you that the bees actually make circles, not hexagons. Expansion of the cells then causes them to become hexagons. Bees don't know what a hexagon is. :pensive_cowboy:​

@futurebird that's a crime against graphing right there

@futurebird wow, even with your hint this is so misleading. I looked at both axes and thought "no these units match" and checked really carefully, until it finally hit me. That's not even misleading, it's a graphical lie, displaying an intersection (one of the things we learn to treat as significant on a graph) where there is none.

I was looking for something sneaky and this was too blatant to notice 😳

@futurebird oh wow that is just... nefariously disingenuous

@futurebird
I wonder how fast those Libertarians started crying, “Insulin should be cheaper” after they were diagnosed as diabetics?

@futurebird my friend is part if a group that gets targeted on titter but wont leave, I think it is because of the art scene?

@futurebird (1) Glad I have multiple accounts, because you are not found at my others. (2) beside the racism and stupidity you mentioned, there's obvious bad logic. Insulin is available, Nina Turner is not, so of course it's not free, but they are free to as stupid as they can.

@futurebird that’s the corporate calculus.😑😖

@futurebird I'm feeling seen here

@futurebird This has in my experience never produced any useful results. Not once. Ever.

@futurebird If I believed in Hell, it would include this. I enjoy the breakouts; it is the need to come back that stings.

Don't let them shop online unsupervised. That's all I'm saying.

@futurebird Done!

(Although they're getting off Twitter, I'm guessing somebody is still monitoring responses for a while.)

@futurebird

Just out of curiousity, how does having one's own instance, versus having an account on an existing instance, change things? Does an instance name make it more searchable? Will all other instance members be able to find it.

@futurebird
They are here

@futurebird Were you futurebird there too? I’ve been wondering if you were ever since I got here

@futurebird something that most of white people not only never experienced but haven't even considered. I am sorry.

@futurebird We need a Wiki encyclopedia that specifically includes "fighting white supremacy" in their bylaws because it takes effort to be an island of inclusiveness in the West.

If you try to be an "unbiased source" and you literally just present Western culture as it is today, you've already lost the inclusiveness/diversity/factual accuracy fight.