Fishin' in the stream of consciousness (all-purpose, no topic chat thread)

Today I wandered into the part of Twitter dedicated to documenting what a shitshow the DC Metro is. It was half "wow, this is a transit system held together with chewing gum and baling wire" and half "what good citizen journalists. what good data visualization. someone took hundreds of people's bitching and turned it into a way to identify the cars whose air conditioners were most prone to breaking down. there's a standard Twitter shorthand for reporting it. I love humans."

 

I am fairly sure that this particular one is actually a flamboyant cuttlefish, otherwise known by its scientific name metasepia pfefferi. It's Feferi's namesake!

 

So tiny, such a little guy!

Thinking of cuttlefish got me thinking of nudibranchs, so I have to share some of these gorgeous creatures

 

and speaking of cephalopods, look what just crossed my dashboard

 

i've escaped again... they'll never suspect me!! >38)

 

here's a sleeping cuttlefish for anyone who didn't reelize they needed a sleeping cuttlefish today!!

 

look at how good this dog is

edit: her name is eureka and she has an equally adorable sister named tessie

 

What a good girl. YES SHE IS. YES SHE IS!

 

Spoiler: Irreverence toward vegans, cannibalism

You say "animals feel pain just as much as humans but humans have the reasoning to go get I don't need to eat meat so I should stop killing animals for food"

I say "if we're equal then we should start eating humans too"

More on this train of thought as it emerges

 

Spoiler: More thoughts

Cheap nutritionally sound plant food accessible to all, which means resolving the matter of food deserts and pricing

Or continued capitalist pig land of burger chains of animal cruelty

Or soylent green

These are the only choices.

Nods solemnly and a little shitpostingly

 

Spoiler: more vegan stuff

I've got a medical condition (I don't know if there's a name, a doctor just told my parents when I was five or so) where my body actually refuses to absorb nutrients unless I have some sort of animal protein in my meal. I also have to have a lot of potassium and fat and iron, which... is most easily and densely found in red meat. I've got to watch my diet enough as it is, and I'm in the process of fixing my disordered eating, so the idea of having to have much more mass of food to get the same nutrition, not to mention the whole... animal products thing, is daunting, to say the least. I have zero problems with vegans and vegetarians as long as they don't police my food - hell, a lot of my family was vegetarian for several years and had to make separate meat dishes for me - but it's pretty much medically impossible for me to eat a vegan diet.

I used to work at a raw food vegan cafe, and when my boss asked why I didn't have my free meal with my shift, I explained that to her, and she tried to tell me that was old, bad medicine and that I should switch to being vegetarian at the least. My GP has never told me such a thing and my boss had no medical training. I quit that job soon after when she started pressuring me about eating vegetarian if I worked there. So I'm not inclined to be kind towards people policing my food choices.

 

I for one am all for the solution of science continuing to develop artificially grown meat. No animal suffering, could lower carbon footprint (which is my main concern about the meat industry tbh), people still get the deliciousness and nutrients they need

 

absolutely. so long as it tastes good and isn't poisonous i don't care where it came from.

 

Yeah, same.
Would also make it easier to get your hands on stuff other than beef, pork, and chicken. Just vat-grow kangaroo meat, or whatever.

 

@sirsparklepants I´ve never been diagnosed with anything, but I do know I feel constantly hungry and generally shitty if I go without eating meat for too long. It´s oddly reassuring to know I´m not alone and that it might not be all in my head.

 

LOOK AT THIS but it's okay if you don't look at it because I'm gonna say what it is so everybody can be excited with me

It's a thing that lets you build things in Mincraft, and then use that shape in a 3d printer... And our household has a 3d printer!

I've been procrastinating getting back into CAD because oh god, even though I kinda need to if I'm gonna start printing miniatures... but this would be very accessible.

so excite


eta: it looks like they have a setup where you can pay them to print the design for you, too

 

WHAT

 

all the moral arguments for vegetarianism make sense to me but I am too bad at acquiring and preparing food to limit my diet any more

maybe I will start reducing my meat intake after I graduate

 

I'm vegetarian but I'd never pressure someone else to be. I probably shouldn't be, I didn't prepare or research or anything - but something happened and then I just Couldn't eat meat and I still can't. That was almost two years ago. I've had meat by accident since then, and the most recent time I had a really long panic attack and it's just. Not worth it.

So: I'm vegetarian not for moral reasons or whatever, but because it's a trigger for me.

 

Funnily enough, I actually know someone who is the exact opposite of that - they've got no moral reason to be vegan, but they're allergic to most mammal proteins.