spoonyruncible:

I do feel bad for plants in general.
Like, I know they are often as vicious as animals in many ways, just slower.
But, I mean, they just show up and they’re like, “I Think I Will Evolve To Eat The Sun And Also Make Oxygen And How Now Is All This.”
And, like, everything fucking dies at first (totally not plants fault, btw. okay maybe it was but they didn’t mean to) but then new things evolve.
And they’re like, “Fuck it, eating each other suuuucks. Let’s eat the plants which give us life.”
And so we start doing that.
And plants are all, “Oh Dear No, I Do Not Care At All For Being Eaten. I Will Make Myself Into Poison Sometimes.”
But, y’know, stuff kept eating plants anyway so plants, ever the bro, came up with a new idea. “I Have Made A Decision About Being Eaten And You May Eat Me Friends And Here Is An Especially Tasty Bit Packed All Full of Delicious Sugars Which I Have Produced At Great Cost (What They Do Not Know Is That My Seeds Are Within And Shall Be Propagated Near And Far By Their Dung)“
But that’s not good enough for animals, no, not at all.
We love the fuck out of some pomegranates but also alliums which are like, “I Have Not Decided To Go In For This Being Eaten Business. I Shall Be Very Foul Tasting And Also A Poison.”
But no, sorry, onions, you fucked up.
You accidentally wound up with a species that just doesn’t give up or fully comprehend the idea of things tasting “”‘bad’“’ or other concepts like not eating poison. (Sorry, plants, later we turn some of you who are not poison into a poison we consume recreationally. We really enjoy eating poison.) 
Legit, alliums are deadly to, like, every other species.
And we call them aromatics and throw them in everything.
Peppers are the best, though.
They completely got on the being eaten train.
BUT ONLY BIRDS
Peppers are like, “You May Eat Me, Fair Avian, For You Are Sure To Spread Me A Great Distance. But, Mammal, Take HEED. Should You Eat Me Then I Will Burn You Most Terribly.”
And we were all about that.
“The FUCK, burning? I love pain,” said humans, presumably.
“You know, peppers, you and evolution have done a good job at burning us but I am pretty sure we could make your chemical agony even more potent. Come hang with us,” humans added to a very confused pepper just before creating the ghost chili.

vultureculturecoyote:

Huge hermit crab I found. Thought I got lucky and found a conch shell. But it had a resident.

They are really strong. I could hardly hang on to it. Pulling my arm into the water with it.

Took this pic before the alligator incident. I don’t think I will be getting this close to water any more. Even if it is salt water here.

Hi! A while back, I stumbled on dog forums with breeders heatedly debating dogs’ lifespans. Most breeders argued that dog breeds with short lifespans (around 5-6 years) were a result of breeding health problems into breeds by humans and that such short lifespans were abnormal. Other breeders however argued that dogs with longer lifespans like chihuahuas (that can apprently live up to 20 years old?) were the wrong ones on a genetic level. Do you have any thoughts on lifespan?

drferox:

Well, I reckon it’s pretty rich to argue that breeding in the ability to live a long and healthy life is ‘wrong’ on some level. I mean, most of us want our pets to live a long time. If they can do that comfortably then shouldn’t that be something we aim for?

If you look at the nearest relatives, 8 years seems reasonable for a wolf in the wild. However, we are not talking about dogs ‘in the wild’, we are talking about animals in human care, and wolves in captivity might live for 12-15 years.

So it’s not unreasonable to say 12-15 years should be the target lifespan, but anything beyond that with a good quality of life is a bonus.

Which means the breeds that do have notably shorter lifespans, around 5 to 8 years old, many of which are large and/or brachycephalic, raise some ethical and scientific questions but should not be argued to be the norm for all dog breeds.

I don’t understand how something can be “wrong on a genetic level” if it’s living longer. Unless the dog goes comatose at 5 but still lives to be 20 or something like that. If the dog is healthy until near the end of its life and then just gets the usual old-dog stuff, and it lives for a longer-than-usual time, that’s good genetics.

PSA

beerune:

everywitchway:

tetsucabromie:

lazygeckoknightintraining:

tassiekitty:

misangremellama:

misangremellama:

selfcarereminders:

nanoboostedpharah:

theres a new product by verzion called “hum” that allows your parents to track your car and places you go, if your parents are controlling like mine please check under your steering wheel to make sure that they havent installed this

here is what it looks like installed:

you can read more about it here, and here– this excerpt sums up what information Hum will send: 

“a car’s owner will be able to get notified on their phone when the vehicle leaves a pre-determined area or drives faster than a set speed… [Hum] will enable location tracking and a driving log, which measures travel times, engine idle times, and average speeds.” 

People in abusive relationships, please check your cars.

DO NOT TRY TO UNPLUG IT BY YOURSELF!

To add to this nightmare, I’ve just heard of a thing called ForceField where people get to monitor and block internet sites that you’re going on if they don’t approve.

It tells the user what sites/apps you’re going on, for how long you’re on them, and WHERE YOU ARE ON AN UPDATING MAP.

So you know if you’re in an abusive household and use sites like tumblr to escape and talk to friends, you could be cut off from that.

They say “it’s not spyware” but it sure sounds controlling and creepy to me.

signalboost

God. Fuck. That’s scary.

Life 360 is another tracker. My parents have used it on me, not allowing me to delete it from my phone, and sometimes even demanding selfies to prove I was where the map said. (As if I’d go anywhere without my phone)

SpectorPro is another one. Afaik it can’t track location, but it takes screenshots roughly every 20sec to allow the installer to watch a video of your computer activity. It also tracks all keystrokes, so passwords aren’t safe, and records any website you visit + the duration. It’s incredibly creepy and a huge violation of privacy, and was one of the cornerstones of my abuse as a kid.