snowynight

Fish:

Fish Eggs Survive Journey through a Duck: New research suggests one way fish might spread to distant waters.

Strange Spawning: interesting reproductive fish facts exposed

Shark virgin births seen in two generations for the first time

The Laws of Attraction: Mangrove Killifish Style Mangrove killifish are the only known self-fertilising hermaphroditic vertebrates.

Insects:

The Mystery of Uruguay’s Ferocious, All-Female Cannibal Insects: The small-winged stick mantis is found throughout South America’s grasslands. But in Uruguay, the population is entirely female.

Single Green Female: Did One Praying Mantis Give Rise to an All-Female Species?

These Male Stick Insects Aren’t ‘Errors’ After All: Some female stick insects can reproduce without males—but they have a secret.

These bacteria trigger a sex change in wasps — scientists finally know how.

Twisted-wing parasites feel no pain: How female twisted-wing parasites endure the trauma of mating

He Clones, She Clones: Dad, mom ants as different species: A study of the insects called little fire ants may be as close as science gets to showing males and females as separate species.

I have just finished "Illicit", and want to make a list about fictional and real life imposters.

True Case:

The Case of Martin Guerre: In 1548, Martin Guerre left his wife and children abruptly. Several years later, a man claiming to be him appeared. He lived with Guerre's wife and son for three years. The false Martin Guerre was eventually suspected of the impersonation. He was tried, discovered to be a man named Arnaud du Tilh and executed. The real Martin Guerre had returned during the trial. How much Guerre's wife Bertrande de Rols is duped or complicit remains a matter of controversy.

Sarah Wilson (1745? – 1780) was an English impostor who traveled to America as a convict servant and pretended to be British royalty. As a teenager, she began her career of "wandering around England “imposing on the compassion and credulity of different persons in town and country". In 1768, She was sentenced to penal transportation to the American colonies then and sold as a convict maid. She escaped and started to travel through Virginia and the Carolina as Queen Charlotte’s sister, and successfully maintained her royal pretension to her death. Interestingly, there was wide spread legend of her as a former maid of the Queen's maid after her death. Perhaps it was more scandalous to imagine a mere working class girl successfully fooling the powerful and high class.

Review of Books about Sarah Wilson:
The Impostress: The Dishonest Adventures of Sarah Wilson

J. Frank Dalton (1848-1951): an American impostor who claims to be two long-dead famous Western historical figures, lawman Frank Dalton and outlaw Jesse James. First he claimed to be Frank Dalton from 1930s. Confronted with compelling evidence that he wasn't, he switched the gear and claimed to be Jesse James instead

Fiction

Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey: "In this tale of mystery and suspense, a stranger enters the inner sanctum of the Ashby family posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerism's, appearance, and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself. It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception until old secrets emerge that jeopardize the imposter's plan and his life."

It's a classic. I love finding out the mystery along with Brat Farrar buried in his lie and pretense. One reasons I'm really into identity issues and pretense in fiction.

Illicit (The Wrong Alpha #3) by Alessandra Hazard: "The last time Liam Blake saw his eldest brother, Anthony was sixteen and Liam was five. Liam barely remembers him. He remembers adoring his big brother and remembers missing him, but his childhood memories faded as he grew up.

Fifteen years later, a man who calls himself Anthony Blake finally comes home after the war ends. He has documents that prove his identity, and he has Liam’s brother’s dark hair, blue eyes, and broad shoulders. There’s no reason to think he isn’t who he says he is—except for Liam’s strange, inexplicable attraction to the man who claims to be Anthony. " (M/M omegaverse)

I really like how realistic the characters feeling are. Lian's full of guilt and shame. When Lian's brother find out their relationship, he's very WTF about it. This detail make it real to me.

We can learn a lot about the society from what they expect children to read and learn.

General Links

“Reading” Primary Sources on the History of Children & Youth

Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read

Online Collection

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Period Reading Materials

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Textbooks in that period:

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Nature Study Movement::

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Almonds

How Almonds Went From Deadly To Delicious: Over time, farmers have bred domesticated almond trees to produce mostly sweet seeds. But wild almonds helped us out — and now we know just how they went from deadly to delicious.

Almond Joy, Stone Age Style: Our ancestors had a bash eating wild nuts: Around 780,000 years ago, human ancestors living along a lakeshore in what is now northern Israel ate a varied diet. It included fat- and protein-rich almonds, pistachios, and other hard-shelled nuts, according to a new report.

Walnuts

Walnuts and the First Forest Farms: Scientists mapping both walnut forests and languages have discovered close relationships between the two along the major Silk Road routes, evidence that the spread of walnut trees was due at least as much—or more—to humans as to nature.

Walnuts Through Time: Brain Food, Poison, Money, Muse Walnuts are different things to different people and cultures.

Cashew

Monkeys in Brazil have used stone tools for hundreds of years at least

Where Does Cashew Chicken Come From?: Think less Sichuan Province and more…Springfield, Missouri?

Pistachio

America’s Pistachio Industry Came From a Single Seed: A “plant explorer” helped establish the crop in California.

Pistachios wallop walnuts as the toughest nut to crack: Microscopic 3D puzzles are a “holy grail” of material strength

List for food and nutrition during apocalypse

13 Foods You Need to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

5 'Foods' That Will Survive the Apocalypse: Twinkies, Processed Cheese, Spam, Jell-O, Nondairy Creamer

The food that could last 2,000 years

Post-Apocalyptic Nutrition

What Will You Eat When the World Ends?: How "preppers" are planning for the impending apocalypse — just don't expect them to share their food.

Food for the Apocalypse: How to grow sugar beet, which is well documented to subside communities in WWII

How to Eat—and Eat Well—After the Zombie Apocalypse

What to Serve After the Apocalypse

Nuclear War Survival Skills or NWSS, by Cresson Kearny: Don't depend on fishing, hunting and foraging. Grain, beans, sugar, vegetable oil, nonfat milk powder, iodised salt, and multi-vitamin pills will be our daily staple.

Post-Apocalyptic Recipes: Snack mixes and salads

Tasting History with Max Miller: A Youtube channel about food across history. Historical diets will be inspiring.

Background

Plagiarism and You(Tube) by hbomberguy: a call out of several big Youtubers for plagiarism including: AVGN and his company Cinemassacre, Iilluminaughtii, Internet Historian & James Somerton (~4 hours)

I Fact-Checked The Worst Video Essayist On YouTube by Todd in the Shadows An expose of James Somerton for rampant lies to talk down marginalized community (eg "AIDS crisis survivors are boring gay. They fight for marriage equality only because they want big weddings"), misogyny, racism, and Nazis kink (eg: Americans enlisted in WWII because they were jealous of Nazi's bodies) . (~2h)

Creators that deserve credits and recognitions

Sources for Somerton's Plagiarism from Hbomberguy's Video (as much as I could get) : a post that tracks down books/magazines/articles/videos/etc Somerton plagiarized.

Your New Favorite YouTubers: Queer YouTubers you should check out, meticulously compiled by Kat.

It's great to recognize queer creators' effort. I have discovered many good YouTube creators because of this, like

MattBaume ,

hhhazel ,

KatBlaque , etc.

Book rec:

In this age of misinformation, it's important to develop skills to discern facts from various claims.

Book rec: Developing Digital Detectives: Essential Lessons for Discerning Fact from Fiction in the 'Fake News' Era

The Evidence Locker: a companion resource site to Developing Digital Detective

Emoji Kitchen let you merge two emoji to create a grand new one. You can start playing by entering "Emoji Kitchen" in google search, or use this alternative emoji kitchen creator

Murdle: Daily logic puzzle to solve mystery

Drench: ‘Drench’ the entire board in one single color within limited turns

Dungelon: guess the dungeon composition in 6 guesses

I am still learning how to build a website, as my knowledge of html from the past was outdated. Some resources I found useful:

Navigation bar

Creating multiple pages with navigation menus

Single navigation bar across website

Footer

How to create a fixed footer

Colour scheme

Contrast Checker: check if there is enough contrast of colour in foreground and background for accessibility

Scroll to Top Button

I want to make it easier for visitors to navigate the site when reading long pages. The following methods are simpler.

How to make scroll to top button

How to Make an Unobtrusive Scroll-to-Top Button

How to Make an Animated Back to Top Button Using Only CSS

Scroll-to-Top Button with Progress Indicator Using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Scroll to Top Button (HTML and CSS Only)

Pagination

can be useful for chapters

CSS Pagination Examples:

Now that many people feel the need of setting up personal websites/archive, I feel that these HTML, CSS, mobile responsive and accessibility resources can be useful.

HTML and CSS

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Mobile Responsive layout
It's easier to build a website that looks good on mobile first.

HTML Mobile Responsive Resources
https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_responsive.asp

Web Accessibility

Introduction to Web Accessibility
https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/

Validators and Tools:

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Images from the Collective Unconscious Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn and the Eranos Archive: In the 1930s, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, mystic and founder of the multidisciplinary Eranos forum, began compiling a diverse visual archive that would allow dreamers to cross-reference their visions with the entirety of cultural history. Frederika Tevebring explores this grandiose undertaking and its effect on the archivist, as images from the collection began to blur with her psyche.

When a UFO Came to Japan in 1803: Discover the Legend of Utsuro-bune: "In 1803, a round vessel drifted ashore on the Japanese coast and a beautiful woman emerged, wearing strange clothing and carrying a box. She was unable to communicate with the locals, and her craft was marked with mysterious writing."

The Little Known History of World War II’s All-Black, All-Female Battalion: The 6888th Battalion was led by 26-year-old Major Charity Adams Earley, the first Black woman to become an officer in the Women’s Army Corps.

That Time Eleanor Roosevelt Disappeared for 10 Days: She reappeared in World War II’s Pacific theater where, for five weeks in 1943, she inspired troops and faced down air raids.

Investigating the strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie: Records held at The National Archives give us a unique insight into the strange events of December 1926.

I saw the signal boost post from

rydra_wong :

This is your chance to help piss off Graham Linehan!

https://twitter.com/Felix_F_Fern/status/1628845214193311746

I am raising £100,000 purely to piss off Graham Linehan.

So if you know any bored, white, able-bodied, cisgender people who have more money than sense, that also dislike Graham Linehan, please do send them my way.

I will spend the money on far more worthwhile things.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-me-raise-ps100k-to-annoy-graham-linehan

Graham Linehan is an anti-transgender activist who has likened the use of puberty blockers to Nazi eugenics. He's now trying to raise 100K for being sued due to, in his own words: "... [having] written about David Paisley and his attacks on gender critical women, gay men and LGB organisations." David Paisley is a domestic violence victim and LGBTQIA+ rights campaigner.

Felix F Fern's one of the co-founders of Trans Activism UK, He's also about to become homeless. Not only does the money can help keeping a roof over his head, but also he will use it to support other marginalized people.

In your own space, tell us about 3 creative/fannish resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy. (One or two is fine, especially if you're in a smaller fandom or like many people at the moment, fannishly adrift right now) Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so

Writing Resources for writing non-human characters

Creating Character: The Inhuman: https://authorreneemiller.com/2013/01/15/creating-character-the-inhuman/

Are You Writing Believable Non-Human Characters?: https://www.standoutbooks.com/writing-believable-non-human-characters/

How to Create Gods Characters for Your Fantasy World: https://prowritingaid.com/art/896/world-building%3a-how-to-create-gods.aspx#head0