"And, of course, if one gets Covid and develops long Covid, they might become disabled and thus disposable under the same narrative that helped sicken them in the first place."

Guardians of the Galaxy 10th Anniversary

We made it! We have 100 days before the 10th anniversary of Guardians of the Galaxy! Now stay tuned for a special music video! But this time, it's an official audio!

But spoilers! It's in Japanese! Which means someone will be singing this in a normal voice!

Of course, it can be the one from the events that I watched in May 2023.

Rocket and Groot

I'm sooo sorry for trying to kill and eat you 😇 now apologize to ME for being mean

Garf doodles I did on me bf's white board 🤭

Closeup

Since 2023, three articles have appeared in scientific journals, with 45 authors in all, arguing that the claims made on behalf of the wood-wide web have far outstripped the evidence. The objections are numerous. Many studies of inter-tree transfers have found only minuscule amounts of sugars shuttling between the trees – “statistically significant” but not necessarily “biologically significant”, one group of authors says – and most don’t rule out the possibility that the resources travelled through the air or soil rather than fungally. Despite Wohlleben’s insistence in Hidden Life that in a mycorrhizally conjoined forest “it is not possible for trees to grow too close to each other”, studies have not generally shown that seedlings ensconced in fungal networks do better when close to older trees (they often do worse). And although many trees are colonised by mycorrhizae, there is debate about whether those mycorrhizae actually form a durable network through which nutrients and signals could pass. Nature, the original venue for Simard’s research, recently ran an explosive news feature by Aisling Irwin on the “groundswell of unease” among ecologists with public discussions of mycorrhizal networks. Irwin reports on the scientists’ general scepticism and on a particular episode that has raised concerns. In her memoirs, Simard makes much of the idea that “mother trees” favour their kin. She describes in detail field research by her graduate student showing that seedlings placed in a fungal network “survived better and were noticeably bigger” if they were genetically related to nearby older trees. But that field study, the critics have noted, actually showed the opposite: the related seedlings were likelier to die, though the trend was not statistically significant. (Simard says that other studies by the student, from the laboratory, support her claims and she’d merely made a narrative choice to describe the results as emanating from the forest. “I do not, and would never, imply anything misleading when presenting research,” she told Irwin.) What makes the recent criticisms of Simard’s work so striking is that some come from her former colleagues and admirers. The first critical review of evidence was by three scientists – Justine Karst, Melanie Jones and Jason Hoeksema – who had all co-authored papers with Simard. The lead author, Karst, has discussed how she was inspired by Simard’s research to become a mycorrhizal ecologist. The second, Melanie Jones, appears in Simard’s memoirs as a hero who supported Simard when few others would. Jones co-authored the 1997 “wood-wide web” article, though she no longer stands fully by it. It was the cultural obsession with intelligent trees, from television shows to airport books, that impelled Karst, Jones and Hoeksema to reconsider their own earlier work. Simard, who is preparing detailed replies, regards these in-the-weeds debates as distracting from the urgent task of protecting forests. She has described the attention that Karst, Jones and Hoeksema’s criticisms have received as “an injustice to the whole world”. Perhaps, but it is exceedingly hard to read the recent reviews of evidence and retain faith in the wood-wide web as settled scientific fact. “Why do we so badly want this to be true?” Karst has asked. Maybe the unrelenting news of global warming and its attendant catastrophes – wildfires, hurricanes – has driven readers for respite toward calmer environmental stories. Or perhaps recent political cruelties have led us to seek reassurance that, in nature, beings are thoughtful and kind. The connective aspect seems important, too, as if trees’ fungal friendships could release us from our phone-checking isolation. Fairly or not, we’ve loaded our aspirations on to the forest: be the tree you want to see in the world.

[...]

A tree, Farmer writes, is “a radically nonhuman thing”, and a large, old tree is especially one. If trees have conceptual value, it is not because their similarity to us elicits our sympathy, but because their difference from us enlarges our horizons. They are the most visible markers on the evolutionary road not taken. Trees stand in for all the photosynthesising, carbon-dioxide breathing, fixed-in-place species that share our world yet have fundamentally different ways of living in it. Contemplating trees should be, above all, an exercise in humility. The mountains and woods, Santayana told his California audience, allow you to “take yourselves simply, humbly, for what you are, and to salute the wild, indifferent, non-censorious infinity of nature”. Perhaps the presence of beings older, larger and more numerous than we are – whether or not they resemble internet users or our mothers – can be a reminder that we are not everything, and that everything is not us. “Let us therefore be frankly human,” Santayana enjoined. And let the trees be trees.

Peter Ferguson (Canadian, 1968) - A Lifetime of Adventure Awaited (n.d.)

what part of “killing children and kidnapping children and raping women is wrong” do Palestinians not understand?

Tell me again how it's Palestinians committing mass murder against children? Tell me again how it's Palestinians violating women?

Hey everyone, please consider buying the 2024 itch.io Palestinian Relief Bundle- it's 373 games, game-making assets, tabletop roleplaying games, zines, and comics for a minimum of just 8 USD! They have a goal of 100,000 USD, and as of the time I'm writing this post, they have 8 more days to reach it.

Link will be in the reblog!

This machine kills AI

Coffee Hour

NATIONAL DAY OF PUPPETRY, 04/22/2023

I don’t know if there is a difference between puppets and marionettes. I suspect one involves hands inside a doll or mechanism, while the other is controlled from strings above or sticks beneath (or behind). It doesn’t matter. I had several hand puppets that I used to entertain my kids while they were growing up, and I enjoyed telling stories with their help. What were your experiences with puppets? Did you like them, hate them, embrace them, or avoid them?

My Stunt Double du Jour shows off his terry-fying terrydactyl. I know. Pterrible pun.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav 2023 Pay Package Rises to $50M

Oh I see you dont have money in the budget to release coyote vs acme or batgirl but you can give yourself $49.7 million along with giving all your buddies tens of millions as well yeah totally get why you had to ruin everyone's hard work and possibly their careers

A commission I got to do based on the Coyote vs Acme debacle. It's a joke between me and a friend that Slappy, under better creative choices in Looniversity, would be the main teacher for Buster and co telling it like it is, but still wanting her kids to succeed.

Warner Bros. Confirms Coyote vs. Acme Isn't Dead Just Yet

🧐 interesting...