@silly-signs

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Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus), family Trogolodytidae, order Passeriformes, Orlando, FL, USA

photograph by Himanshu Joshi

if you're living in the western half of the u.s. and worried about forest fires, i cannot recommend the app "watch duty" enough. it's up to date with its fire tracking, sends alerts about evac notices, and even told me about a community meeting re: an encroaching fire that idk i would have heard of otherwise

Please fucking download this if you’re in the affected areas! I just got an evacuation alert on my phone and the government website had too much traffic so I couldn’t see if I needed to get gone or not. The app was able to tell me. (I am in a safe area for at least right now!) please stay safe y’all

good morning.

We have already averted truly apocalyptic levels of global warming.

Yes, read that again. Let it sink in. This is what the science now says. We have already averted truly apocalyptic global warming.

To quote David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, from his huge feature in the New York Times:

"Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years...

The window of possible climate futures is narrowing, and as a result, we are getting a clearer sense of what’s to come: a new world, full of disruption but also billions of people, well past climate normal and yet mercifully short of true climate apocalypse."

(New York Times, October 22, 2022. Unpaywalled here. Emphasis mine. And yes, this vision of the future is backed up by the current science on the issue, as he explains at length in the article.)

So we've already averted truly apocalyptic warming, and we've already cut expected warming IN HALF in just the past five years.

The pace of technology, of innovation, of prices, of feasibility, of discovery, of organizing, of grassroots movements, of movements in other countries around the world, have all picked up the pace so fast in the last five years.

Renewable technology and capacity are both increasing at an exponential rate. It's all S-curves, ones that look like this:

ALT

-via The Economist, June 20, 2024.

How much more will we manage in another five years? Another ten? Another twenty?

I know the US is about to fucking suck about the environment for the next four years. But the momentum of renewable energy is far too much to stop - both in the US (x) and around the world.

(Huge shoutouts to India, China, and Brazil for massive gains for the environment in renewables, and Brazil for massive progress against Amazon deforestation.)

We're going to get there.

Say it with me. We're going to get there.

starting tomorrow i will be super normal fun kind sexy and functioning

inside me there are two lungs. and one liver. one stomach. a few meters of intestine. there's a lot inside me actually

this is the funniest thing i've read all day

Johnny Eck was a performer from the 1930s who was born without any legs:

He's primarily known for appearing in the 1932 cult classic Freaks directed by Tod Browning.

However what I'm mostly obsessed with is this account of a magic trick he did with his non-disabled twin brother (text under the cut)

Like this is the funniest thing I've ever heard. Can you imagine

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okay so idk how to say this but. i found a cat

so heres how it happens, right

class as usual

my student’s mother is waiting outside the academy to pick up her two daughters. she spots a kitten in the parking lot

the girls run back upstairs and scream to the other kids that theres a cat outside

i lose control of the entire classroom. about a dozen teenagers escape. i leave it to my TA because hell if im gonna get sucked into that mess. i dont like bonding w stray cats. its too sad to imagine them struggling later. i elect to ignore everything until it all blows over

i sit there until slowly one by one my students climb back upstairs to give me the pleading eyes emoji and beg me to do something about the fucking kitten

🥺🥺

like that

ITS YOUR BIRTHDAY TOMORROW, they say, big-eyed and sad. you could keep it, right?? didnt u say u wanted a cat, mx truffles?? cmon at least just come and see it. its your birthday

i sigh. i get up. i go downstairs. theres a skinny dirty flea ridden little creature surrounded by kids, rubbing up on all of them and eating right out of their hands. the sisters’ mother went and got the cat some food. its eating like its never seen food in its life. its so fucking skinny

unfortunately the kids all stare at me. i stare back at them. i stare at the cat. the cat stares back

im the adult here, i know. currently i am the authority figure. none of them know what to do. they fucking beg me to at least please do something. and the cat fucking. comes up to me and headbutts my hand

i lose

so i pick up the fucking kitten. teach the kids how to swaddle it and make a purrito. i take it upstairs in a ratty cardboard box. i take it to the portfolio advisors office. i stay with the cat. i use my TA and one of my older students as a messenger back and forth from the office to the classroom. i conduct class from inside the office next to the cat. every single fucking kid in the building passes the glass door and coos at the cat. im stuck in there. the administrators, the other teachers, even my boss the director of the academy all come up to take a look at the cat.

the cat is sweet. its well-behaved. its affectionate and loves people. its hungry and thirsty and tired. it keeps asking me to pet it. its so skinny you can feel all its ribs. it keeps trying to nap. it keeps bonking me on the hand. it keeps meowing

the children beg me to keep the cat. its your birthday, they plead. your thirtieth birthday. happy birthday, mx truffles. doesnt it feel just right??

the sisters’ mother leaves me her phone number, just in case. they have two cats at home. if i cant take her, they will.

im acting on instinct now. i take the cat into my car. i drive to a pet supply store as soon as work is over. i bring the box with the cat inside with me. as soon as i walk through the doors, a nice lady freezes, points and goes, so it looks like theres something alive in there

and i go. yeah :(

and she’s like. well. what is it??

and im like. uh. i think its my new cat????

she helps me pick out some stuff. i get some food. dry and wet. i get a litter box. some treats. i get advice. the cat keeps trying to escape me to explore the store. i realize that its a fucking rascal

i come home. with the cat. obviously my family doesnt fucking believe ive done this

i set up the litter box in my bathroom. it figures it out in two seconds. i wipe the cat down with wipes. i clip her front claws. i give her the shittiest shower job ever. it is indeed horrifically difficult to bathe a cat. but the cat is very fucking sweet. it doesnt hiss or bite or claw. it trusts me even after that bath. it keeps fucking purring. i towel it down and start to brush it. it fucking loves it. it offers body parts to be brushed. it wont stop fucking purring. it lets me handle it and put it wherever i want. it let me clean inside its ears and take its eye crusts off. its currently purring in a circle on my fucking lap

ive never done this before and i have no idea what to do

she’s a calico. nobody can decide how old she is between three or six months old. she’s got gold eyes. pink nose. pink toe beans. she’s sweet and soft and she wont fucking stop purring

and the sisters’ mom, the one who found her, her name is lily. and thats a hilarious name for a cat because lilies are poisonous to cats. and thats good enough for me

lily

one year later

yes i did find a fucking cat

day 309: if the world chooses to become our enemy, we will fight like we always have

Every day is a reason to celebrate 🥂🥳

happy birthday alan!!!!

High level physics is so fucked up it's indistinguishable from epic level magic