Hey… this is just. A small shout-out to those of you who have successfully left cults and/or are in the process of doing so. What you’ve done is very brave, and you are not wrong or evil or selfish for wanting to escape from that, even if the obstacles between you and freedom are psychological rather than physical.
A truly massive amount of biodiversity was lost in this event, with 96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species disappearing. Some marine ecosystems seemed to rebound fairly quickly, but overall it may have taken at least 5-10 million years for anything close to full recovery. Terrestrial vertebrates may even have taken up to 30 million years to regain previous levels of diversity.
Or it might have been a result of multiple causes at once, events that wouldn’t have been so severe individually but became disastrous in combination. This is known as the “Murder on the Orient Express Model”: maybe they all did it.
But there’s also a secondary element to today’s mystery. In the aftermath of the Great Dying, a small dicynodont synapsid briefly took over the world. For the first few million years of the Triassic, around 95% of the Earth’s population of terrestrial vertebrates were all Lystrosaurus – no other genus or species of animal has ever dominated to such a degree.
Why did these squat little dog-sized animals survive and thrive when everything else was struggling? They might have been opportunistic generalists able to deal with changing conditions better than other groups, the extinction of most large predators may have allowed their population to explode, or it might simply have been a matter of luck.
If you’re referring to NWTW, probably not. It’s old enough that I wouldn’t be satisfied with anything other than a total rewrite, and I’ve moved on to other projects. I’m trying to get a finisher chapter up so things aren’t just left hanging like this, but this isn’t a very good way to encourage that.
If you mean Betrayal, I’m in the process of editing it, bit by bit. If you go back and check the chapter descriptions, you’ll see that I just finished editing chapter 3. Once the edits to the established chapters are done, I’ll write new ones.
These guys are really cute, but knifefish shouldn’t be kept inc lose proximity like this. I assume/hope this is a sale tank. They generate weak electrical impulses, almost like electric eels, to figure out the world around them and look for prey. When you have multiples, the signals clash against them and stress them out.
That aside, they’re amazingly mobile. They can move in almost any direction. Watch.
the “___ change my mind” guy sitting at a desk is Steven Crowder who is literally a deep conservative “comedian” and the biggest transphobe of 2018 so can we NOT use that meme anymore thanks. he literally calls trans people tr**** in some of his videos and refers to caitlyn jenner (I may not like her but Christ) as a transgender f@scist because she transitioned and refers to her transitioning as “going full #sjw.” this meme is cancelled and not funny. use google if you don’t believe me. bye
to all the people replying to this post saying: “but the original meme was about making fun of him you can’t tell me when to let a meme die” all i have to say to you is THE POINT IS THE MEME HAS GROWN OUTSIDE OF THAT CONTEXT. most of the people reblogging this had NO idea of the background behind the meme and were horrified to find out who the man in the picture was. that is because the meme has reached people with a very different message (as memes do) and become distorted. it no longer is a “parody meme” or whatever excuse you have for this. you cannot say to me “it’s just harmless it’s not like it’s spreading any of his idealogy” and not understand you are spreading the image of a man who is known to be racist, transphobic, anti-semitic, and made countless videos supporting harmful conservative ideologies that affect myself and many other people. i do not want this man’s face or any remnants of this image on my dashboard. if you want to keep using this meme, fine, i can’t physically stop you. but that is why i made this post and all the people telling me i don’t have a right to criticize something like this may kindly eat my sneakers.
This is my last post on this issue because frankly the amount of smug “Ugh Tumblr just doesn’t understand making fun of him is a good thing!!!” posts that over-simplify this particular issue is driving me nuts.
Making fun of bigots and taking away people’s ability to take them seriously is a good thing, YES.
However, Steven Crowder could not give a single, flaming fuck about y’all turning his “change my mind” thing into a meme and clowning on him because this meme has brought him lots of attention and money. He talks about the meme on his Twitter and on his show. He loves the attention it brings him. It’s brought tons of traffic to his Youtube account and the video the meme comes from is at 5+ million views, while all his other “change my mind” videos are only at 1-2 million.
He’s banking off of y’all “making fun of him”. It’s stopped becoming a joke and you guys are giving him more exposure and putting cash into the pocket of a literal transphobe because you think photoshopping “Pee is stored in the balls” on his sign is some kind of crushing blow to him when it’s literally the opposite.
Y’all think you’re landing some big “gotchya! tee hee” on him when he’s laughing all the way to the bank while y’all are literally fighting to keep his meme alive and fund his shit channel and his campus trips. He is literally participating in one at SMU as I type this, yet you really keep hammering at @dykean for asking you guys to reconsider spreading his face around for people to find him and his content. Is the meme funny? Absolutely. Is it worth helping a racist transphobe further his platform? No.
A GMs job is to create a compelling story, make a world, make characters and plot and allow the player characters to interact with the story and world as they see fit, what a GM is not to do is dictate the mindset of the player, dictate what the player is allowed to say and not say, dictate what the player is allowed to think.
A GM is a story teller, the players are the audience and actors, how would people feel if Shakespeare said that only those who agree with him Politically could enjoy his play?
A GMs job is not to drive people away but attract different people of different or similar backgrounds to enjoy and take part in the story they crafted.
If you a GM cannot get past someones beliefs, mindset or jokes then you shouldn’t GM, give that job to someone else.
For you are not a Game Master you are a child.
A GM doesn’t have a job. This is a game, with rules made up in the 70s. This isn’t a ‘job’. This is a hobby, for fun. Being a GM, creating a story and a world and NPCs and quests and creating magic items and magic and running the game isn’t a job. It’s a hobby. Lets get that straight.
If a GM runs a game, they 100% have absolute control over who can play- As do the other players. If the majority of the table isn’t comfortable with another player due to their personal beliefs, they are 100% not obligated to keep that player around.
We’re not writing plays, dude. We’re running a game. That’s it. It’s like if the school bully who picked on you through all elementary school came up to you at recess one day and said “You’re going to let me play tag with you”. Would you be comfortable letting the person who treated you terribly enjoy a game with you and your good friends? Probably not. And if you did, you probably wouldn’t have a fun time, because you’d always know that this is the bully- sure, they may just be playing a game with you now, but when it’s over, it’s back to being picked on. You wouldn’t force a child to interact with their bully, would you? Why are you trying to say this is any different?
As a GM who’s RL table is 100% full of LGBTQ individuals, I would never, ever in any capacity invite someone to my table who were prejudice or harbored ill intent for LGBTQ people. Why would I? I have a table full of friends I appreciate and care about, and I myself wouldn’t be comfortable knowing the person at my table hated me for who I am. It’s nice and all to want ‘diversity’ at your table, but you have to draw a line, and for me and many other GMs, that line is “I don’t want Racists, Right-Wingers, Anti-feminists, or other inherently vitriolic individuals at my table”.
Don’t romanticize D&D, my friend. It’s not this big, all-encompassing, important thing. It’s a fucking game. For fun. With friends. If you want to run a game where you take everyone in, fine, good for you, but don’t be a pretentious, elitist dunce about it.
“If you can’t handle that there might be someone playing the game with you who thinks your very existence is wrong, you’re a child” what absolute bs
Blammo. You nailed it, my friend.
Dnd, and other table tops, are games. You play games with friends. Not your foes.
They’re also quite fragile and can be seriously hurt if they fall, or if they’re struggling to get away from you. Bunnies don’t like to be picked up! Just pet them on the ground. If you must pick one up to move it, be sure you support all the bunny feet and the hindquarters, and cradle it close to your body without squishing it.
1. What is an adequate cage size for one budgie? I’ve been doing some research and opinions seem to vary quite a bit. I live in a smallish flat so don’t have a huge amount of space if a very big cage is needed.
2. Can budgies coexist with cats? I realise this probably depends on the cat, but I wouldn’t want to cause any undue stress to either animal. Obviously I would have the cage somewhere the cat couldn’t easily access and at a good height (she’s not a climber). I would also shut the cat out of the room if I was going to let the budgie out.
3. Is it true that you shouldn’t put your budgie cage near your kitchen? I’ve read that they are very susceptible to fumes, so I’d be worried as I have a kitchen/living room which is open plan. I’m thinking I would put the cage at the far end of the living room at the furthest point from the kitchen (about 17 feet away).
4. Is the day to day living room noise likely to upset or stress out a budgie? (I.e. television/stereo, noise from kitchen area, etc.)
Mod Nick here speaking! Here’s what you need to know about budgies:
The tiny things they sell in pet stores that they call “cages” are completely inadequate for their needs. Budgies are playful and acrobatic and need a space big enough for them to fly in, jump around, and climb. Unless you’re filthy rich and can afford a fancy aviary for them, I suggest you stick to 1mx1m cages at best, or around 1m height x .5m width, with horizontal bars. Even then, budgies need some time out of the cage so they can become acclimatised to the place they’re living in, but they also need to be in an area that is easily supervised and not housing anything dangerous like a window you can’t close or exposed wiring.
I am, however, concerned about the fact that you say you live in a small flat and have a cat. Even with the nicest of kitties, the fact remains that they’re still predators and birds are traditionally prey animals to predators like cats. Even if your cat won’t eat them and will just bat at them, there’s a huge risk of transmitting disease via gram negative bacteria in the cat’s saliva and from under their claws, not to mention that what a cat sees as playful might translate as scary and stressful to a bird.
I’m also concerned about your open plan living space. I doubt that baking and cooking that fills your flat with delicious food smells is going to kill a budgie but yes, they’re extremely susceptible to fumes and smoke. Not to mention that open floor plan is the perfect way for a budgie who is out of the cage to land on somewhere dangerous like on the stove.
Noise isn’t too stressful to budgies as long as it’s not too loud, too sudden, and too jarring. A lot of birds enjoy having music played to them and some even pick up a few phrases from listening to the radio!
It’s good that you’re asking these kind of questions before bringing home another animal, but what you’ve described gives me pause; with a cat hanging around, with the fact that you said you have limited space, and with your open floor plan, I’m not sure it’s the best idea to get a budgie just yet. I’d wait a bit longer until you can sort that all out.
–mod Nick
Maybe consider coturnix quail instead. Quail can be kept in small playpen-sized enclosures, since they don’t need to fly. They’d be much easier to let out, too. You still can’t let the cat around them, but you could contain the cat in a cat playpen area and let the quail run around, and they’re unlikely (though not 100% certain not) to fly onto something they shouldn’t. They’re sweet little birds who are domesticated and can easily be tamed, too.
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