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sciencespies · 1 year

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Sound reveals giant blue whales dance with the wind to find food

https://sciencespies.com/environment/sound-reveals-giant-blue-whales-dance-with-the-wind-to-find-food/

Sound reveals giant blue whales dance with the wind to find food

A study by MBARI researchers and their collaborators published today in Ecology Letters sheds new light on the movements of mysterious, endangered blue whales. The research team used a directional hydrophone on MBARI’s underwater observatory, integrated with other advanced technologies, to listen for the booming vocalizations of blue whales. They used these sounds to track the movements of blue whales and learned that these ocean giants respond to changes in the wind.

Along California’s Central Coast, spring and summer bring coastal upwelling. From March through July, seasonal winds push the top layer of water out to sea, allowing the cold water below to rise to the surface. The cooler, nutrient-rich water fuels blooms of tiny phytoplankton, jumpstarting the food web in Monterey Bay, from small shrimp-like krill all the way to giant whales. When the winds create an upwelling event, blue whales seek out the plumes of cooler water, where krill are most abundant. When upwelling stops, the whales move offshore into habitat that is transected by shipping lanes.

“This research and its underlying technologies are opening new windows into the complex, and beautiful, ecology of these endangered whales,” said John Ryan, a biological oceanographer at MBARI and lead author of this study. “These findings demonstrate a new resource for managers seeking ways to better protect blue whales and other species.”

The directional hydrophone is a specialized underwater microphone that records sounds and identifies the direction from which they originate. To use this technology to study blue whale movements, researchers needed to confirm that the hydrophone reliably tracked whales. This meant matching the acoustic bearings to a calling whale that was being tracked by GPS. With confidence in the acoustic methods established, the research team examined two years of acoustic tracking of the regional blue whale population.

This study built upon previous research led by MBARI Senior Scientist Kelly Benoit-Bird, which revealed that swarms of forage species — anchovies and krill — reacted to coastal upwelling. This time, researchers combined satellite and mooring data of upwelling conditions and echosounder data on krill aggregations with the acoustic tracks of foraging blue whales logged by the directional hydrophone.

“Previous work by the MBARI team found that when coastal upwelling was strongest, anchovies and krill formed dense swarms within upwelling plumes. Now, we’ve learned that blue whales track these dynamic plumes, where abundant food resources are available,” explained Ryan.

Blue whales recognize when the wind is changing their habitat and identify places where upwelling aggregates their essential food — krill. For a massive animal weighing up to 150 tonnes (165 tons), finding these dense aggregations is a matter of survival.

While scientists have long recognized that blue whales seasonally occupy Monterey Bay during the upwelling season, this research has revealed that the whales closely track the upwelling process on a very fine scale of both space (kilometers) and time (days to weeks).

“Tracking many individual wild animals simultaneously is challenging in any ecosystem. This is especially difficult in the open ocean, which is often opaque to us as human observers,” said William Oestreich, previously a graduate student at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station and now a postdoctoral fellow at MBARI. “Integration of technologies to measure these whales’ sounds enabled this important discovery about how groups of predators find food in a dynamic ocean. We’re excited about the future discoveries we can make by eavesdropping on blue whales and other noisy ocean animals.”

Background

Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) are the largest animals on Earth, but despite their large size, scientists still have many unanswered questions about their biology and ecology. These gentle giants seasonally gather in the Monterey Bay region to feed on small shrimp-like crustaceans called krill.

Blue whales are elusive animals. They can travel large distances underwater very quickly, making them challenging to track. MBARI researchers and collaborators employed a novel technique for tracking blue whales — sound.

MBARI’s MARS (Monterey Accelerated Research System) observatory offers a platform for studying the ocean in new ways. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the cabled observatory provides continuous power and data connectivity to support a variety of instruments for scientific experiments.

In 2015, MBARI researchers installed a hydrophone, or underwater microphone, on the observatory. The trove of acoustic data from the hydrophone has provided important insights into the ocean soundscape, from the migratory and feeding behaviors of blue whales to the impact of noise from human activities.

In 2019, MBARI and the Naval Postgraduate School installed a second hydrophone on the observatory. The directional hydrophone gives the direction from which a sound originated. This information can reveal spatial patterns for sounds underwater, identifying where sounds came from. By tracking the blue whales’ B call — the most powerful and prevalent vocalization among the regional blue whale population — researchers could follow the movements of individual whales as they foraged within the region.

Researchers compared the directional hydrophone’s recordings to data logged by tags that scientists from Stanford University had previously deployed on blue whales. Validating this new acoustic tracking method opens new opportunities for simultaneously logging the movements of multiple whales. It may also enable animal-borne tag research by helping researchers find whales to tag. “The integrated suite of technologies demonstrated in this paper represents a transformative tool kit for interdisciplinary research and mesoscale ecosystem monitoring that can be deployed at scale throughout protected marine habitats. This is a game changer and brings both cetacean biology and biological oceanography to the next level,” said Jeremy Goldbogen, an associate professor at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station and a coauthor of the study.

This new methodology has implications not only for understanding how whales interact with their environment and one another but also for advancing management and conservation.

Despite protections, blue whales remain endangered, primarily from the risk of collisions with ships. This study showed that blue whales in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary regularly occupy habitat transected by shipping lanes. Acoustic tracking of whales may provide real-time information for resource managers to mitigate risk, for example, through vessel speed reduction or rerouting during critical periods. “These kinds of integrated tools could allow us to spatially and temporally monitor, and eventually even predict, ephemeral biological hotspots. This promises to be a watershed advancement in the adaptive management of risks for protected and endangered species,” said Brandon Southall, president and senior scientist for Southall Environmental Associates Inc. and a coauthor of the research study.

Support for this research was provided by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The National Science Foundation funded the installation and maintenance of the MARS cabled observatory through awards 0739828 and 1114794. Directional acoustic processing work was supported by the Office of Naval Research, Code 32. Tag work was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (IOS-1656676), the Office of Naval Research (N000141612477), and a Terman Fellowship from Stanford University.

#Environment

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owchie-wowchie · 7 days

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Feel free to leave propaganda

#a very potter musical #me and my dick #starship #trail to oregon #firebringer #the guy who didn't like musicals #nerdy prudes must die #spies are forever #black friday #edgar allan poe's murder mystery dinner party #joey richter #tumblr poll #for science

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ultravioart · 1 year

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Oh no I just thought of the most unhinged deathglare concept I'm cackling I don't know whether to save it for a comic or type it out in full but the idea of Peepers wanting to be THE REASON Lord Hater rules the galaxy makes me think Peepers would also take pride in anything he managed to teach Lord Hater. Like being proud he's the reason Hater knows fancy fork etiquette, superior uno strats, paddle ball, etc. ...Smooching. Okay okay okay so hear me out. One day Lord Hater admits he's nervous about smooching girls because of his whole skull-for-a-face no-lips McGee situation (CPeeps can understand that, right?), and so Peepers being Peepers jumps at the chance "TO BE THE REASON" and boldly whips out and slams down a HUGE encyclopedia of galactic code PDA (the dos and don'ts for seasoned greetings and goodbyes) and in the most determined and impersonal voice, Peepers promises he'll be sure to prepare Lord Hater for any scenario, any girl will be begging for another smooch by the time he is done teaching Hater about intergalactic intimacy protocol. And Hater agrees. LOL (The reason why Peepers even has this book in the first place is because he has a freakin' giant eyeball for a head. How does an eyeball head even begin to know how to read the expressions of faces that have freaky mouths and ears and noses and eyes, emphasis on the plural EYES???)

#death glare #lord hater #commander peepers #deathglare #woy #'for research purposes'#they are both touch starved idiots #making holding hands a science experiment to justify the exchange #bahahaha #sneaking into the smooching room at odd hours of the day like movie spies #bc if they are going to practice makeout with eachother #they might as well do it in the most boyish humored way possible #turns out what is considered intimate PDA in many parts of the galaxy isn't much of a kiss #instead it's silly alien nonsense #so it becomes this near weekly met up of learning silly handshakes and ET GO HOME finger boops and making sock puppets make out #lmafo #*meet up #its a bonding experience regardless #it's only when they get to the page of butterfly kisses that it gets sus #bc grob help him Peepers thought the staring contest PDA was intense already #text #silly posting hours

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monicozslastbraincell · 2 months

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Hello again!

So since I've had Tumblr for 2 years, I figure I'd make a new and improved introduction! (not really an introduction but more of an update on my interests lol)

Hi, I'm Monicoz! I'm that artist-animator-professional procrastinator you might have seen on Instagram for the funny art, or YouTube for the funny animations! I occasionally remember that my Tumblr exists, so here are some of my interests I can and will blab about if given the chance:

Resident Evil/Biohazard

Evil Dead (1-3)

Terraria

Stardew Valley

Gravity Falls

American History

Turn: Washington's Spies (!)

TGWDLM

Hellaverse stuff (Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss: I don't really watch them anymore but I will talk about it)

1950s sci-fi B-movies

19th/20th century science fiction novels

Original stories and characters (will not shut up about this, my friends can attest)

I have other interests as well but I didn't remember them to put them on the list, just ask lol (Re-Animator, Inside Job, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, Blue Eye Samurai, etc.)

Looking forward to meeting new people on here and blogging about whatever! Definitely approach me first bc im scared of confrontation Please be respectful on this page, if you somehow find it. Thx :)

#introduction #interests #i swear im normal #meet the op #science fiction #sci fi #i love me some sci fi #niche interests #resident evil #terraria #stardew valley #evil dead #gravity falls #tgwdlm #hellaverse #original content #turn washington's spies

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ask-de-writer · 3 months

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I would like to thank Delightfully

EAGER BINGE READER

@furislupus for READING and LIKING

Beginnings - Spies! 1812

Sir Clarion Maldimer - 1812

Science Fiction, Alternate History

#@furislupus#Beginnings - Spies! 1812 #Sir Clarion Maldimer - 1812 #Science Fiction #Alternate History #Written by De Writer

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quotesfrommyreading · 2 years

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Reading Harriet the Spy today as an adult, I find a queer subtext throughout. Not only is Harriet the quintessential baby butch, but her best friends, Sport and Janie, run exactly contrary to gender stereotypes. Sport acts as the homemaker and nurturing caretaker of his novelist father, while Janie the scientist plans to blow up the world one day. It was as if Fitzhugh was telling us kids back in the sixties that you didn’t have to play by society’s rules, the first lesson a queer kid has to learn in order to be happy. Harriet’s whole ordeal — being ostracized by her friends after they invade her privacy by reading her spy notebook — sounds to me very much like a coming-out story. Her parents’ response to it all is to take her to a psychiatrist for analysis. Sound familiar? Most importantly, the sage Ole Golly resolves matters with a piece of advice that takes on special meaning for queer kids: Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.

— On Spies and Purple Socks and Such

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fruitsugarcane · 2 years

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"Lame, isn't it?"

"Not at all"

And it works both ways for them

#spies are forever #saf #saf fanart #tatibarb #spyentist #when your gf listens to you about science #and when your gf listens and probably cries about your past

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stormlit · 2 months

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d.octor who sidonie is a member of broadsword, UNIT's intelligence & special operations division, which is the highly classified spying operations section. they're spies. it's basically MI5 with an interest in aliens, people using alien technology, trying to avert invasions before london is shut down on christmas day again, etc etc. it's not a secret that she works for UNIT, but what she does specifically is under multiple layers of security clearance that the average UNIT soldier does not have. broadsword works pretty independently, still being under k.ate s.tewart's leadership but only vaguely; they're run on a day to day basis by d.iana t.averner (lady di to everyone as long as it's not in her hearing) who desperately wants to run UNIT completely.

sid's a really competent, clever agent. she's good at infiltration, she's smart, she's observant. she doesn't carry a gun on the regular but she does know how to use one. she's a good spy. and she's currently on a team of fuck ups, spying on one said fuck up (r.iver c.artwright of the famous UNIT c.artwrights) and doing little ops around for both t.averner and her current boss, l.amb.

she does, of course, know of the d.octor, though i don't think she's met them prior to any threads where that happens, and she's definitely aware of UNIT's like...who's who board of their companions.

#there's basically no info on unit intelligence ops bc everything focuses on soldiers/science so i can do what i want with it #and what i want is for it to be spies but alien flavoured #SIDONIE BAKER / verse / dw.#only like 4 more books til i can finish sid's post-injury verse for her main v and then translate it

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inamindfarfaraway · 1 year

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Gravity Falls AU where the premise of Dipper and Mabel staying with Stan for the summer and all the characters are the same, but instead of Gravity Falls, the town is Hatchetfield, Michigan.

#small sleepy (FUCKED-UP SO FUCKED-UP ON SO MANY LEVELS) town…#extradimensional lovecraftian abominations watching meddling and invading #other seemingly unrelated supernatural beings and phenomena due to a really strong magic aura of Weirdness and often Badness #flourishing scenic woods (don’t go into the woods. Don’t Go Into The Fucking Woods Do You Hear Me)#books of fucked-up supernatural lore owned by heroic people who use that knowledge for good #people inventing portals to other dimensions for science but being used and/or driven mad by the entity inside and coming back Different #a blunt heroic mentor who’s changed their name and identity multiple times in a fraught past and got involved with some dark magical stuff #wild fluctuations in tone from funny to emotionally sincere to deeply disturbing #ancient conspiracies #underground cults #mind control and possession #memory erasing #dark secrets and tragic backstories #extremely hateable evil rich people #supernatural lumberjacks #a theme park (either open or pre-opening designed by a deceptive manipulative villain who spies on people with hidden cameras #the list of parallels goes on!#gravity falls #hatchetfield #hatchetfield series #hatchetverse #gravity falls au #hatchetfield au

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dxppercxdxver · 2 years

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hello everyone it’s that time of year again where i change my urls everywhere so i’m letting you know that my new ao3 handle is evilpxnsy :)

here are some helpful links back to most of my fics! i don’t Think this should change the efficacy of the links in previous posts about them but here

- half of the time i’m only halfway here (where or when?)

- blizzard of pumice piled six feet high (goncharov)

- leave your body at the door (killjoys)

- old churchyard (killjoys)

- where the sun can’t find me (werewolf au spies are forever)

- afraid to look up and afraid to let go (spytown)

- when the chips are down (spytown)

- the road to hell (spytown)

- the (g)hosts of satellite’s past (mst3k)

- de artfest fic series (detroit evolution)

thanks for reading <3

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athoma48 · 1 year

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We're all a little Mad Here - Chapter 6 (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/1339620324-we%27re-all-a-little-mad-here-chapter-6?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_reading&wp_uname=athoma489&wp_originator=WOgnFNDWkM5LiQyuTy8%2BkwSy6o8s43IG83N3N7xoAxqVweo9wOtmLt2dDsC3zCr1wgcfrvlVPixEm4we01ysflk1e%2FTGuIGVX17oOqCe3AvJ3grw4WodcMcN6DUSC5Iv White Rabbit was raised to be a killer. Underland is where she was raised. She was literally made for one thing: to kill But after a brief encounter with an agent from S.A.T Secret Agent Tactics she begins to question her purpose.

#amnesia #assassins #brainwashing #espionage #family #heist #spies #undercover #science-fiction #books #wattpad #amreading

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sciencespies · 2 years

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Fossil Find Tantalizes Loch Ness Monster Fans

https://sciencespies.com/news/fossil-find-tantalizes-loch-ness-monster-fans/

Fossil Find Tantalizes Loch Ness Monster Fans

Plesiosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago, but evidence that the long-necked reptiles lived in freshwater, not just oceans, has offered hope to Nessie enthusiasts.

LONDON — Millions of years before the first (alleged) sighting of the Loch Ness monster, populations of giant reptiles swam through Jurassic seas in areas that are now Britain. Known as plesiosaurs, these long-necked creatures were thought to have dwelled exclusively in oceans.

But a discovery published in a paper last week by researchers in Britain and Morocco added weight to a hypothesis that some Loch Ness monster enthusiasts have long clung to: that plesiosaurs lived not just in seas, but in freshwater, too. That could mean, they reasoned excitedly, that Nessie, who is sometimes described as looking a lot like a plesiosaur, really could live in Loch Ness, a freshwater lake.

Local papers have celebrated the finding. It “gives further credit to the idea that Nessie may have been able to survive and even thrive in Loch Ness,” said an article on page 32 of the Inverness Courrier, a biweekly newspaper in the Scottish Highlands. “Loch Ness Monster bombshell,” blared a headline from Britain’s Daily Express tabloid. “Existence of Loch Ness Monster is ‘plausible’” read headlines in The Scotsman, The Telegraph and elsewhere, seizing on a phrase in the University of Bath’s announcement of the study’s findings.

This is not the first study to find that plesiosaurs lived in freshwater. “This new study is simply providing additional evidence for certain members of this group living in freshwater,” said Dean Lomax, a paleontologist and visiting scientist at the University of Manchester. “We’ve always known this.”

But Nick Longrich, the lead author of the study, said his team had one of the stronger cases for it because they found fossils of 12 plesiosaurs, proof that it was not just one plesiosaur that wandered into freshwater and then died there.

“The more plesiosaur fossils discovered in freshwater environments, the more this will further build the picture to explain why plesiosaurs might be turning up in freshwater environments around the world,” said Georgina Bunker, a student who was a co-author of the paper.

Dr. Longrich, a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Bath, said it was “completely unexpected” to find the fossil of a plesiosaur that had lived in an 100-million-year-old freshwater river system that is now the Sahara.

While on a research trip to Morocco, he was sifting through a box in the back room of a shop when he spotted a “kind of chunky” bone, which turned out to be the arm of a five-foot long baby plesiosaur. Dr. Longrich paid the cashier no more than 200 Moroccan Dirham, or about $20, after bargaining to bring down the price, and brought the fossils back to Britain for further study.

Nick Longrich/University of Bath

“Once we started looking, the plesiosaur started turning up everywhere,” he said. “It reminds you there’s a lot we don’t know.” (The fossils will be returned to museums in Morocco at a later date, he said.)

As the news of the study made headlines last week, some Nessie fans were hopeful. George Edwards, who was for years the skipper of a Loch Ness tourism boat called the Nessie Hunter, said that for him the new study showed how creatures could adapt to survive in new environments — and that the world is full of mysteries. Take the coelacanth, a bony fish that was thought to have become extinct millions of years ago but was found in 1938 by a South African museum curator on a fishing trawler. “Lo and behold, they found them, alive and kicking,” Mr. Edwards said. “Anything is possible.”

Mr. Edwards said he had seen unexplained creatures in Loch Ness plenty of times: “There’s got to be a family of them.” From what he has seen, the creatures have a big arched back, no fins and are somewhat reminiscent of a plesiosaur.

But there is one detail that some Nessie lovers may have overlooked in their embrace of the plausibility of Nessie’s existence: Plesiosaurs became extinct at the same time as dinosaurs did, some 66 million of years ago. Loch Ness was only formed about 10,000 years ago, and before that it was ice.

Valentin Fischer, an associate professor of paleontology at the University of Liège in Belgium, said that it would currently be impossible for a marine reptile like the plesiosaur to live in Loch Ness.

Nick Longrich/University of Bath

The first recorded sighting of Nessie dates back to the sixth century A.D., when the Irish monk St. Columba was said to have driven a creature into the water. But global interest was revived in the 20th century, after a British surgeon, Col. Robert Wilson, took what became the most famous photo of the Loch Ness monster in 1934. Sixty years later, the photograph was revealed to be a hoax.

But some people were not discouraged, and, ever since, throngs of tourists have traveled to Loch Ness each year in hopes of seeing the monster.

There have been more than 1,100 sightings at Loch Ness, including four this year, according to the register of official sightings.

A famous photograph of the Loch Ness Monster taken in 1934 was later revealed to have been a hoax.Keystone/Getty Images

Steve Feltham, a full-time monster hunter who has lived on the shores of Loch Ness for three decades, said the British-Moroccan study was interesting, but that it was irrelevant to his search. Ever since it became clear that the famous 1934 photo of Nessie was fake, he has stopped believing that Nessie was a plesiosaur. Plesiosaurs have to come up for air, so he figures he would have seen it during the 12 hours a day that he scans the loch. Instead, he scans the water for giant fish that look like a boat turned upside down.

“I struggle to think of any bona fide Nessie hunter that still believes in the plesiosaur,” he said. “The hunt has moved on from that.”

#News

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benoitblanc · 2 years

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god i need to do a carter rewatch immediately after i finish midnight mass because i can FEEL myself slipping down the doctor who rabbit hole again

#*beating back hyperfixations with a stick* no!!! only science spies!!!#or else i'm never going to finish my stupid fic!#it doesn't help that who is the only thing i can actually gif at the moment #ANYWAY #arwen.text

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glimpsesofeuterpe · 3 months

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if you live in countries alike mine, you'll have to google to do steps every time before trying to download apps like clippaint, stream and co

they kinda did their best to push a simple user toward going full pirate mode, aand keep coming up with v interesting updates on that every now and then

#blahblah #like steam keep failing to update not seeing net connection despite it being fine #have tried all ways until remembered i am russian lol #a free wannabe vpn and it did the trick #.... look i am still clinging to it bcs to the moon series #its not banned yeat and affortable esp sales #wel at least was doable to pick nowadays steam refuses to show stuff properly #yep it spies on you #it knowss whereabouts #also so do those new wannabe antiviruses (except mb dr web cureit but not sure for how long until update)#so thats what they need net connection to run #to keep pirates and russians away #you know according this trendy logic or lack of they should ban americans as well for kiiiinda same reasons #and three+ more countries #but as iifff politics ever were fair #imo they are kinda real stupid for avoiding to actually fix problems and pouring most of money into you know what #instead of medicine science education #siighh #an au where things are fair and logical #sjdncjfbdjxh

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ask-de-writer · 1 year

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I would like to thank Delightfully

EAGER BINGE READER

@furislupus for READING and LIKING

My whole MASTER STORY INDEX SECTION,

finishing off the MLP Fan Fiction

section moving on to Classical Fantasy

And from thence to Science Fiction

T'LASS’ QUESTION (Parts 3 to 4 of 4)

WAR DECLARED! 1812

SUBMARINE! 1812

LONDON 1812

Beginnings - Spies! 1812

Sir Clarion Maldimer - 1812

Finishing with the Alternate

History/Science Fiction, he moved on

to Dirkhan in the Desert

SLAG

The Treasure and the Serpent - a poem

Carnelian Carvings - the poem

CARNELIAN CARVINGS

THE GOD'S FANGS

THE HOLY DAY

THE LOTTERY

IN THE DESERT

THE MERCHANT'S CURSE!

Finished with Dirkhan in the Desert

He moved on to the Bizarre Borderland

MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE!

TRIGGER TREATS

MEETING WITH A STRANGER

GENII’S JUNK

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bookoblin · 7 months

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for years a debate has raged among computer scientists over what should replace the "master/slave" terminology. ARM landed on reproducing wage slavery with the terms "manager/subordinate". Motorola landed on being as obtuse as possible by saying "main/sub-node". none of these have caught on.

yet the most obvious answer of all has been staring us in the face. one that is inoffensive, memorable, and descriptive.

I urge everyone in our field to replace this terminology with "dom/sub"

#programming #computer science #yes we lose the M/S initials. who cares. if you really really want to keep it you can also use Masochist/Sadist #(i wrote this post after seeing the wiki page for SPI use “main/sub-node”. terrible. we can't go on like this)#slavery cw

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