I watch a ton of great youtube videos about halting and reversing desertification but now youtube recommends me a ton of videos of people using those techniques to turn desert ecosystems into farmland. If you see these too, please downvote them. Going to desert ecosystems and planting food forests is not a trend we should be starting. Many plants and animals are endemic to those areas and those ecosystems are worth protecting. Deserts are not wastelands. These videos mislead people into thinking that this is a good thing for the environment just because there is more green. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are so many actual forest ecosystems that need to be restored, we should not be wasting energy foresting deserts that have been deserts for millennia.

friday night convex activities

the chosen aesthetics of the various redstoners fascinate me. tango and impulse are tinkerers of various mechanical marvels. doc is the industrial revolution personified. mumbo continually casts himself as a silicon valley startup guy. its just. Interesting

hey good faith question- do you mind elaborating on judaism’s belief of g-d not being the ‘one true g-d’ and just the ‘g-d of the hebrews?

sure, but keep in mind that I wasn't raised in a religious house, so I'm not an expert and this could be inaccurate, you could wait to see if other people would elaborate in reblogs or replies.

a lot of religions have the belief that they worship the true g-d(s) and everyone else is wrong and are worshipping (a) false g-d(s). I believe Christianity works like that.

in the Tanach, there is no claim that other religions' g-ds don't exist, in fact, there are instances were miracles from other g-ds happen, but the jewish g-d is described as unique and stronger than others.

for example, in the story of The Exodus (is that how יציאת מצרים is called in english), when Moses comes to the Pharaoh for the first time to ask to release the Hebrews, he showcases Hashem's (the Jewish g-d) strength by turning his staff into a snake, the Pharaoh's magicians(?) then proceed to also turn their staffs into snakes, but Moses's snake eats theirs. the story doesn't show their g-ds as non-existent, they gave the magicians the same powers as Hashem, but the power of Hashem was stronger and thus Moses's snake won over the other snakes.

foreign worship is banned in Judaism, not because the foreign g-ds are false, but because they're not Hashem, I don't know how to explain it but that's how it works.

👀

sorry balance-wise i am also still laughing about the difference between Xisuma’s team, in which Scott went “maybe if i stick him on a team with FBM and Joel he has a shot???”, Iskall’s team, in which Scott went “this may be overpowered if Iskall picks up the games fast enough to show off his movement skills but we have a Fienberg in Red so it’ll probably at least still be competitive”, and Team TIES here, in which Scott went “just to confirm: you don’t give a shit about winning as long as you’re together right”,

three kinds of new MCC hermit teams.

So, there's a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.

And I get it! What's the point of voting if there's no one to vote for?

The thing is, I'm Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don't get to sit out our elections, and I'll be real honest with you - we don't exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there's no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there's always someone to vote against.

Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I'll tell you, there's something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don't get that option - you get to mark one person, and that's it.

That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don't even think about who that vote's going towards, that's not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone's election day!

I am in complete agreement with you and, from what i understand to be, basically every jew on the planet that the creatures called Golem in dnd/ttrpgs/gaming/etc are, generally speaking, very much not golems. I say "generally speaking" because i am aware of a few ttrpgs that are jewish and are using the term to specifically refer to the creature from Jewish lore. I think those are valid exceptions? Although it would be more accurate to say that my word choice has more to do with not being an expert on the topic and wanting to avoid saying anything that i am not 100% sure of. All that being said though, the proper naming of those creatures in dnd is something that borders on being a special interest of mine and woefully i dont know anyone that actually cares enough about the topic to discuss it with me irl. So my question is this. Given that 1) we are both in agreement that those creatures are not golems. And 2) You at least appear to be at minimum somewhat knowledgeable on the topic. Would you be willing to discuss what the proper name for that kind of construct should be instead? I habent been able to come up with a name i like and i would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter. If not, then thank you for your time.

There is no discussion here. They’re called homunculi. It’s that simple.

All ten MCC Season 4 Kick Off teams!

TEAM TIES MCC????????

place your bets on your phone now: did etho give in to scott’s “if you want to keep playing mcc you have to start streaming”, or did scott give in to etho’s “if you want me in mcc you have to let me not stream”? did the unstoppable force or the immovable object succeed first? is etho’s setup even capable of streaming,

Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1

The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.

So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.

So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.

Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.

And the probe is working again.

From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.

I sat next to the protest today.

I wrote fan-fiction about two gay jewish dads raising children to the play list of the chant- "No peace on stolen land!" on an American college campus. It isn't a name brand one either, nor does it have any legitimate ties to Israel. The anger is just there- it has rotten these future doctors, nurses, teachers, and members of society.

I don't even know what to call their demonstration- it was a tizzy of a Jew hatred affair. At points, there were empathetic statements about Gazans and their suffering. Then outright support of Hamas and violent resistance against all colonizers. Then this bizarre fixation on antisemitism while explaining the globalists are behind everything.

"Antisemitism doesn't exist. Not in the modern day," A professor gloated over a microphone in front of the library. "It's a weaponized concept, that's prevents us from getting actual places- ignore anyone who tells you otherwise."

"How can we be antisemitic?" A pasty white girl wearing a red Jordanian keffiyeh gloats five minutes later. "Palestinians are the actual semites."

"there is only one solution!" The crowd of over 50 students and faculty cried, over and over.

"Been there, done that," I thought, then added a reference to a mezuza in the fourth paragraph.

Two other Jewish students passed where I was parked out, hunching and trying to be as innocuous as possible. We laughed together at my predicament, where I am willingly hearing this bullshit and feeling so amused by this.

"Am I crazy? For sitting here?" I asked them. My friends shook their heads.

"We did the same last week- it's an amazing experience, isn't it?”

We all cackled hysterically again. They left to study for finals. Two minutes later, I learned from the current speaker that “Zionism” is behind everything bad in this world.

Forty-five minutes in, a boy I recognized joined me on my lonely bench. He came from a very secular Jewish family and had joined Hillel recently to learn more about his culture. His first Seder was two nights ago.

He sat next to me, heavy like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. There was just this despondent look on his face. I couldn’t describe it anyone else, but just sheer hopelessness personified.

“They hate us. I can’t believe how much they hate us.” He said in greeting.

And for the first time all day, I had no snarky response or glib. All I could do was stare out into the crowd, and sigh.

Jimmy's Customs ordeal and Iskall's surprise

Transcript under the cut

Cleo: Jimmy got stopped at US Customs, is that what you're saying JT? Joe: Oh--yeah, see, that's the thing, so, stuff like that I don't know how much the public knows, uh-- Cleo: Well this is from-this is from my chat, so, like--and Jimmy's Jimmy, Jimmy'll tell people. (laughs) Joe: Yeah yeah yeah, so, um, yeah, he definitely did. Uh--and he was the one that knew the least about what we were doing? Yknow? (Cleo cackles) At least Martyn had done it before, um. But like, yeah, they were--they were trying to good cop/bad cop him, and, uh, I don't know if you know Stage? She's one of the people who works for Gamer's Outreach who helped organize this-- Cleo: I--interacted with them, but I don't know them. Joe: So, yeah, Stage was saying that like, uh, that Customs calls, and is like, hey, we have somebody in holding, right now, that said that you would vouch for them. And she's like, well, I know a lot of people coming into the country cause I'm organizing a charity event, can you tell me their name? And they're like, no. You have to--you have to vouch for them. Joe: And-and-and Stage is just like, well, okay, I could give you a list of all of the foreigners coming in, or I could just tell you that I vouch for this person hoping that it's one of them and not somebody else lying because they know I have a bunch of people coming in, and uh, the Customs people were like, yeah that's good enough. (Cleo starts giggling) It's like, wait, really? That's good enough?! Okay-- Cleo: Wow, okay--(Cleo and Joe laugh) Joe: Like, like, they never said--I don't know Jimmy's actual name, like, um, oh, I will say-- Cleo: It is Jimmy. Joe: I will say a highlight of the trip--oh, but they didn't say like, 'we had James--' Cleo: --oh yeah-- Joe: 'so-and-so here.' Y'know, blah blah blah. Um. But like, yeah, one of the highlights of the trip was, uh, we were at like, a bar, or a restaurant or something and I was signing the check--y'know, you get a credit card thing, you sign it or whatever--and I was signing the slip, and Iskall just looks at me--looks at me and goes, "your name is really Joe Hills?!" And I'm like, yes-- Cleo: Iskall! Joe, through laughter: It just, it didn't occur to him--it didn't occur to him! Cleo: Iskall man, (wheezes) Is it news to him that you live in Nashville, Tennessee, is the question. Joe: I don't know. "Nashville, that's in America!"

From @MCChampionship_

👑 Announcing team Lime Llamas! 👑

@.Seapeekay @.HBomb94 @.iskall85 @.cubfan135

Watch them in MCC on Saturday 4th May at 8pm BST!

OH SHIT WAIT HOLD ON EVERYONE PAUSE. ISKALL IN MCC?????