she has a willatine for you ☺️
I understand that vaccines are proven to work and are a great advancement in our medicine, and also that homeopathic remedies don't work, but don't they work on the same principal? Why does one work and the other doesnt?
They do not work on the same principle.
I can see how vaccines look like a "like treats like" situation, but in homeopathy "like treats like" is a kind of magical thinking.
Let's take an example from Chicken Pox, a virus for which there is an effective vaccine and for which there is a common homeopathic treatment.
Chicken pox infects people once, and it is extremely rare to get a second case because once you have had it, your body forms persistent antibodies against the varicella-zoster virus. When I was a kid, they didn't have a vaccine for this, so kids mostly got chicken pox once and it ran around whole schools and that was it. It's a virus that is fairly minor in children, though it can cause dangerously high fevers. Adults who get chicken pox typically get much sicker than children who get it, and it can lead to permanent harms like infertility in adults who get it. Because it can be so dangerous, we don't want people to risk getting it, so we vaccinate.
The way the vaccine works is that it takes a weakened form of the virus and introduces that into the body of a person with a healthy immune system. The immune system responds and the person who got the vaccine may get some minor symptoms, like a headache or a slight fever, but it will be nowhere near as severe as getting actual chicken pox would be. Because the immune system was exposed to the virus and responded, it now has antibodies against the virus that recognize the virus and respond immediately before it can start replicating in the body. If a person who has either previously had chicken pox or who has been vaccinated against it is exposed to the chicken pox virus, their body uses those antibodies to react to the virus and protect against a systemic infection.
Are you familiar with Star Trek? It's kind of like the Borg. You can't use the same attack pattern against the Borg multiple times because if you do, they'll recognize the pattern and will be able to defend against it. The virus is the attacker, and your immune system is the Borg. It knows what it's looking for and won't let anything get through its defenses.
Homeopathic remedies don't seek to prevent illness or provoke an immune response, they seek to cancel out something that is happening in the body.
For chicken pox, which produces itchy red bumps, homeopaths use Rhus Tox - a dilution of poison ivy, a plant that causes itchy red bumps if you encounter it in nature. The Rhus Tox didn't cause the chicken pox, it's not given to prevent the virus, it's from a plant that is completely unrelated to the virus that happens to produce some of the same symptoms as the virus when you touch it.
They don't even think that the Rhus Tox will provoke an immune response from your body like actually touching poison ivy would, they're attempting to use an unrelated compound (that is so diluted that it isn't even present in the preparation) in place of your immune system to attack the itchy red bumps.
So I'm going to go over this in a few brief points:
- Vaccines are preventative ONLY, they are not a treatment for illness or symptoms of an illness
- Vaccines work by introducing your immune system to a partial, weakened, or dead virus so that your immune system can form antibodies against that virus and prevent that virus from replicating in your body when it is later exposed to a whole/strong/live virus.
- Different vaccines have different levels of effectiveness and produce different lengths of immunity; this is for a number of reasons, but if you get a measles shot as a kid you may only ever need one booster, while you need a flu shot every year and a tetanus shot every decade. All of them work the same way, though: they show your immune system what a virus looks like so that your immune system can kill the virus.
- That is why immune compromised people sometimes can't be vaccinated, or why vaccines don't work as well for them or may need higher doses or more boosters. Because they don't have a healthy immune system, weakened viruses like the ones in the chickenpox virus might be too strong for their immune system to fight, and even if it doesn't get them sick, their bodies may not be able to produce enough effective antibodies to protect them from the virus in the future. That's part of why it's important for as many people to be vaccinated as possible; the more people who are vaccinated, the harder it is for viruses to spread, and vulnerable people like immune compromised people or babies too young for vaccination won't be exposed to deadly viruses.
- Homeopathy, on the other hand, aims to treat symptoms of an illness that a person is already experiencing.
- Homeopathic treatments do not aim to provoke an immune response, they aim to cancel out a symptom with a cure.
- Dilution is a very important part of homeopathy, with homeopaths claiming that the more diluted a preparation is the stronger it is. This is simply incorrect; I don't know how to make a more logical explanation of that, it is just wrong that less of a substance causes more of a response.
- Homeopathy says "like treats like" and that may seem like using a vaccine with a weak virus to prevent infection from a strong virus, but their version of "like" is different - Rhus Tox (poison ivy) is supposed to be "like" chicken pox because both cause itching. Rhus tox is also supposed to treat PCOS, erectile dysfunction, uterine prolapse, sunken eyes, nausea, and backache. "Like" can have an extremely broad meaning in homeopathy, which should be cause for suspicion.
Here's a paper that compared the immune response of college students given homeopathic "vaccines" against a control group and against a group of students who were given standard medical vaccines. The control group and the homeopathic group both did not have an immune response in titer tests, while the vaccination group did have an immune response, demonstrating that they had protection from the vaccinated viruses. It's a pretty good demonstration both of how effective homeopathy is (not at all) as well as how to set up a fair and ethical study to look at the effectiveness of different kinds of treatments.
I think it's also important to point out that homeopathic methods can provide a certain amount of natural relief, although they do not cure anything.
Drinking peppermint tea when you have a sore throat isn't going to make your sore throat go away faster, but it might provide some relief from the pain.
A heavily spiced tea isn't going to cure anything, but it might give some temporary relief from a stuffy nose.
No soup is going to cure your illness, but it will give your body some much needed vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes that will help it fight off the illness and recover more quickly.
And sometimes things just straight up do nothing but make you emotionally feel better - that's okay, too. Just know what are realistic expectations for what you're doing.
No home treatment is going to cure your infectious disease - either you're going to fight it off with antibodies, or you'll die. But your home treatments might make recovering from it less miserable, especially if you're taking medication for it. Meds often taste terrible, but if you can follow it up with a spoonful of orange-infused honey, it'll taste a lot better.
It's actually really important to point out that none of those are homeopathy. You might call drinking tea with honey or drinking broth home remedies, but they are not homeopathy.
Homeopathy is *very specifically* the dilution of substances in water to use water's memory to treat illnesses on the principle of like treats like. Calling drinking tea for a sore throat "homeopathy" is like calling stretching "chiropractic" or calling all massage "acupressure."
In the last decade or so people (largely people who want homeopathy to be taken more seriously) have been expanding the use of "homeopathy" to cover more and more home remedies and CAM practices, it's important to know what the actual meaning is so that people don't start to conflate "drinking tea" with "drinking water that was once near a leaf of poison ivy" because it legitimizes the latter.
People who have had a cold and felt better after having some warm soup (clear liquids! vitamins! minerals! protein! rehydration and nutrition, which you need when you're sick and will make you feel better!) who think of that as "homeopathy" are going to see people discussing homeopathy as a scam, quack practice that does tremendous harm and they'll think "what is that person talking about? homeopathy is just putting lemon and honey in tea for a sore throat, it's fine" which will make them more resistant to criticisms of actual homeopathy and will perhaps make them adversarial toward discussions of evidence-based medicine.
This is semantic creep that needs to be firmly addressed; that was NOT a common definition of "homeopathy" when I started getting deep into exploring the world of CAM and quack medicine fifteen years ago, and I'm a bit concerned that it has spread as far as it already has.
(not a criticism of prev, btw, just addressing a distressingly common misconception!)
Do people still not know that this is what the U.S. budget looks like? The giant green part is the money we throw in the garbage to kill people overseas, and it's larger than the next five or six most powerful militaries on Earth put together. This means we could cut military spending in half and still have the world's biggest, deadliest army to placate those who want that, though you ARE a worthless inhuman cancer if you worship military might and you deserve to be gutted like a pig for it, just FYI. The little tiny insignificant blue sliver at the top contains most of the programs conservatives always want to cut first, like food assistance.
Peng Chang by Elizaveta Porodina for W Magazine China 2025
Niko Riam by Tofjan for Stylesby Magazine October 2024
家主が お店いてん 1年をきねんして?
・オレのきゃにすた(さいはん)
・オレのまぐかっぷ
・でしのきゃにすた
いじょうの ヨヤクを おうけするです
30こ げんていですので おはやめになのです
My landlady celebrates? one year since her online store relaunched
・My canister (resale)
・My mug
・My apprentice's canister
The above are now available for pre-order…
All of these are limited to 30 pieces, so don't delay!
オレのきゃにすた あと4こなのです
Only four my canisters (kibbles or something canister) are left...
- lately i've been a feminist killjoy.
2. i pirate all my media, and therefore am not familiar with most tv commercials. i went to a superbowl party. around me were appetizers and bean dip and wine and the rolling movement of people talking - and meanwhile i was sitting there, stonefaced and bonechilled. the extraordinary, willful, in-your-face sexism and racism of advertising. what an odd whiplash: the warm and smiling hosts handing me nachos - in the background, some casual repetition of conservative gender roles. more than once i had to turn to my girlfriend - are you seeing this?
3. often i think of how rainbow capitalism is a canary in a coal mine. i think of what one google employee said when they took down their "don't be evil sign" - he mentioned that while it hadn't really done anything, the removal of it was... eerie. it isn't that i needed pride-themed fast fashion items from target. it's that the pushback to said items has now resulted in the company's looming silence. it's that the pushback worked. target is now among the list of companies aiming to "roll back" DEI initiatives. a false friend, i guess - but a bellwether nonetheless.
4. i remember five, ten years ago rolling my eyes at the faux-feminist faux-activist stuff advertisements would put out. i mean, who can forget that pepsi ad, oh my god. i remember girlboss anthems and lukewarm representation. but it did seem like someone was, you know, trying to be thoughtful. but if we follow the money, i think it's fair to say it used to be a good idea to at least appear "politically correct." now though - who cares? look at the man we chose for politics.
5. i am working my girlfriend through her first watch of FMA: Brotherhood. it should be a sweet deal, and instead, i oscillate from peaceful to pacing. the ads drive me insane. i've been counting - at least three involve a man silencing a woman in some way. two involve a white man silencing a woman of color. in my least favorite, she's sitting at her desk, trying to say the same thing he's saying. but he keeps fucking interrupting her. ha ha. don't even ask me what the ad is even for. i don't understand the plot of the thing. i think the whole idea is just "man talks over a woman. buy our product" but with like, somehow worse pacing.
6. on national tv, in front of millions of viewers, kanye posts an ad for his website that is selling a single white T shirt, a product titled HH. a swastika is emblazoned on it. people can't even talk about how fucking terrible that is - their videos get flagged as soon as they actually say what's happening. i am sitting at home staring at my stupid phone, just quietly stunned. we can make a rapist president, but we cannot say the word rape on most social media platforms. elon can nazi salute on television without consequence, but you can't use the word "female" in your research grant request without being flagged. the enormity of it all is impossible to grasp.
7. there's a company called "his", which sells things for erectile dysfunction. the ads are trucks and masculinity and very gender affirming. the same company has a "hers" line, which is a barely-tested weight-loss injection developed and sold by recently-rebranded absolutely evil company Eli Lilly. in the ad, women who are "overweight" grapple with their barely-visible stomach and smile, beautifully at peace while delivering their own "treatment."
8. i read a lot, though. i spend a lot of time online. someone recently said i write almost exclusively from a place of panic, which they didn't like. it made me laugh though - can any artist say differently right now? still. still! i sat on that couch and watched how casually bigotry is repeated, with no real audience reaction. am i just radicalized and unfortunately very easily annoyed? am i the problem here? can't i just like, relax and let it happen?
9. we stand in line at the movie theatre. i make some snide remark about how the poster we're looking at is basically "sexy trophy smiles knowingly at our hero, nerdy boy". from behind me, some guy snorts down his nose. feminist killjoy.
10. the thing is. i don't want to be like this. it's just like. in my fucking home.
Ajak Dhieu by Levin Baird for Harper's Bazaar Australia Magazine September 2024
Book cover, detail. The book of bugs. 1902.
“Feliformia Spotlight: Aardwolf” by T.K. Wade
So is the aardwolf an aardvark or a wolf? The answer: neither! The aardwolf is apart of the suborder Felliformia which covers cats, civets, and hyenas. Yes, I’ve been hanging around this area for a while now. Please, allow me to introduce you to this very interesting animal.
By size, the aardwolf can be as large as 31 inches long with a bushy tail of 11 inches. They have yellowish fur with black striped which run vertical across its back. They have big, wide ears and a dark snout–the color of which goes up into their eyes. At first glance, they look like a hyena, and there is a very good reason for that. The aardwolf is, in fact, a hyena. They are located in East and Southern Africa.
Hyenas are carnivores, but the aardwolf is specifically an insectivore. It mainly feasts on termites. This is very likely why we find “aard” at the beginning of their name. As far as then being wolves, hyenas do generally resemble canines, even though it is entirely untrue. The aardwolf does not destroy the termite mounds. They only eat what they need and let the termites flourish for the next meal.
Aardwolves live in burrows and can own up to ten of them within their territory. Many of these burrows are stolen from actual aardvarks, springhares, and porcupines. They have a strong family unit which is of particular interest to me. I noticed that it looked a lot like a tight nit and caring family. There is a mother and father. The offspring are watched carefully by the father while the mother goes out hunting. When the children are ready to hunt themselves, the parents will go out with them and supervise. By the time the parents are ready to have more children, the offspring generally have become independent.
Socially, aardwolves are shy. They are not very aggressive and try and stay away from people. When being pursued by predators, the aardwolf will run away and double back on their tracks to confuse the predator. If they are cornered, they will raise up the fur on their mane to make themselves look bigger. They also have the option of spraying the predator with a foul smelling fluid from a gland near their anus. So, they are not entirely without defense, but they have no interest in killing the predator as much as they just want to break free of them.
I don’t know of any Aardwolf in fiction. It would be wrong to fit them into the fictional mold we usually make for hyenas. The spotted hyenas were a polished military force, whereas the aardwolf is more like characters from “The Waltons.” It’s all about family living together out in the wilds. As people, they would love one another and remain as close to each other as possible. They would be wary about strange visitors into their community; however, if any trouble would arrive, they would do what they could to repel the forces. It has all the makings of a good “life on the prairie” story.
Have a look at these guys. They are very cute, and their personality really helps as well. They are sweet-natured creatures who just want to be left alone with their termites. Enjoy the pictures!
This is some background line art I did for the animated series "Scavengers Reign" directed by Joe Bennett and Charles Heuttner and art directed bby Benjy Brooke.
MU-TH-UR 6000 computer / A L I E N 1979
Just a short video of my card weaving in progress
What kind of sorcery is this?! I can never turn more than 10 cards in sequence because they just refuse to cooperate and you have like, what, 35? 40?! HOW?!?!
40 in the tree strap above! The most I ever tried was 44 for this ramshorn strap below - that was tough, but also ok because the groups turned separately? I think my hands would murder me if I tried to go any higher on my backstrap setup though ;) I think the trick is maintaining appropriate tension!
Yeah, that one looks real nice. What did you use it for?
@diamondot speaking for myself, i just decided to learn it one day a few years ago (i had a viking phase ok) and simply started with it. It's surprisingly easy since all the info is available on the net. Honestly, i don't remember where i started since it has been so long ago and now i just browse pinterest for patterns alone. Google tablet weaving or card weaving (same thing, different names) patterns and some basic explanations and yt vids for how to turn and weave the stuff. Things like
S and Z threading are there for a reason, so mind your card orientation. Start with some easy pattern like simple wave or diamonds above, 6 - 10 cards are good for your first project. Don't lose hope in initial stage. Streching and threading all that yarn can take anything between 20 minutes and 3 hours depending on how big is the pattern and how skilled you are. Since you need some lenghts to secure ends and to turn cards, use about 40 cm more than wished lenght of your final product. Secure lose ends after threading through cards so you won't end with a bundled mess. Streching/knotting them to something is one way. Taping each card threads together or using weights (check pictures below) is another way (good only for shorter stuff though). Cards could be made out of anything as long as they have smooth edges and rounded corners. Cardboard, thicker plastic sheet, literal cards cut into squares with holes punched through them, whatever. These are mine 2 decks, minus cards i am using atm.
When you start weaving and pattern looks like a total mess, try turning cards in opposite directions. It usualy solves the problem (all that forward/backward can be a bit tricky and mirroring motions/patterns/card orientation can be confusing at first seemingly messing all your work even though you are doing everything right technicaly, just in opposite order/direction). Don't lose your hope. I still manage to mess up like first 5cm of every other work i start. It's not an issue as that start usualy gets cut off anyway (the tension is not right for at least first 4 rows, aka 1 full card rotation, until all threads go up and down at least once no matter what you do. Don't sweat it). You don't need any fancy startup either. Historicaly, people used to weave like this and this and this:
I just strech the thing between 2 chairs myself. Door knobs work as well and so does staircase railing. Wherever you have some space. Long hair clips are your friend, especialy when you are done with weaving for the day and you don't want stuff to tangle
And that's about it. Have fun 😊
Some of my favorite tablet weaving resources are :
This website is where I learned, twenty years ago while u was intending on Sturtevant Wi.
These books are both great, Collingwood is more comprehensive, but harder to just pick up and weave from.
I love when people post things like this, then say, “ah ha ha, it’s not that complicated! 🤗”
It is complicated. You’re just really good at it!
Hi. I may be late to reply but i'm in a weaving mood so here we are.
The thing is that the technique looks complicated due to the fact that there is 100 something and that number alone is scary. But. Actually several buts.
But number 1 - the technique is OLD. Meaning - while being somewhat tedious just like any other textile craft, it has been used and learned for a long long time and there's plenty of resources (check out links above or any youtube video explaining the process) of varying difficulty from complicated af to easy peasy lemon squeezy with closed eyes
But number 2 - there is only one core principle/step you need to understand and that is when some threads go from up to down or from down to up (aka when they cross), you need another thread going in between so they won't simply snap back again. That's it. That's the basic principle behind every weaving ever. What card weaving does compared to standard weave is that instead of a single thread going up and down in the single row, you get 2 or 3 or 4 or 6 or whatever number of threads your pattern calls for in the same row
But number 3 - the number of rows = number of cards. Simple as that. Cards turn around to make a cord like when you are twisting 2 or 4 or whatever numbers of threads to make a rope. If some of those threads have different colours, you get a repeating pattern.
But number 4 - card orientation or S/Z orientation or whatever other fancy name for the twisting direction simply means that if you turn all your card in the same way at the same time, which one of them will make the twisted rope in this / angle and which one will do that in this \ angle. That's it. That's the whole mystery between S/Z threading.
But number 5 - you can start with as little as 4 cards to make a custom set of shoe laces or a key strap or whatever and call yourself a weaver. Because you did that. And it was nice. And it was easy. You just turn and thread and turn and thread and then you keep repeating this while watching a movie or something. There's no need for the math finals level of concentration here.
But number 5 - no one, literally NO ONE starts with a pattern like this
No. Everybody starts with something like this
Keep it simple, keep it easy, make 10cm and be done if you want to. It's perfectly fine.
But number 6 - you don't need any fancy items for starting. No hooks, no needles, no loom, no anything. If you have 2 balls of yarn in different color or some remains of your old cross stitch project or whatever and some card-like stuff you won't be sad for making holes in it, you are all set. Back side of the sketch pad is good. Poker cards cut to squares are good. A sturdy enough sheet of plastic is also good. You remember that old pexeso pairs stack you didn't touch since you were 9? Guess what!
My point is that if this looks like something you may be interested in, then you can absolutely try doing it for literally zero cost other than your time.
This reminds me that I have my Thor’s Hammer tablet weaving project still sitting in the closet untouched for the last few (almost 3?) years... I need to get back to that eventually.
@cryptid-extremist found it for ya! Go wild!
@hauntedbyyarn you've talked about this for ages!
I need to show you guys my mum's card weaving.... She writes with it. She does incredibly incritate patterns. It's stunning and beautiful and I am in awe
A small selection of my mum's work! She got excited and says she has more to show you guys, and some of her best stuff has already been sold! But stay tuned for more. The blue/pink/black band is my favourite: loads of different knot-like patterns going all the way down!
It's weird this isn't talked about more, but Elon basically kidnapped his son. He used his lawyers to near bankrupt Grimes in her custody battle and it's unclear if she has any access to her son at this point.
Grimes can be an unsympathetic figure at times, but this is just awful. Especially since it seems Elon is using this young boy as an anti-assassination tactic.
Jesus Christ.
today i found out that when monarch butterflies migrate south for the winter, all the ones that go across the middle of lake superior suddenly stop going south and go west for five miles and then continue south. which really freaked scientists out cos like What is in the Middle of Lake Superior what do Butterflies know that We Dont Is This The End Times etc. anyway turns out about a hundred million years ago there was a mountain there and the butterflies still think they gotta fly around it. classic butterflies
Y’all, unfortunately, this is just not true. A few months ago, I urged people on this site to be skeptical specifically about ecology & wildlife biology posts with no sources. This is a perfect example.
This post has made its rounds for ten years (originally posted in 2015), and the earliest source I have ever been able to find for this claim is an article posted in 2013, which says:
“Biologists, and certain geologists, believe that something was blocking the monarchs’ path. They believe that that part of Lake Superior might have once been one of the highest mountains ever to loom over North America.”
Who these “biologists” and “certain geologists” are is a mystery. The article links two sources:
- A 1996 publication on Monarch migrations in The Journal of Experimental Biology, which does not mention this lost mountain range.
- The 1974 nonfiction narrative Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.
Dillard is an acclaimed author and nature writer, but she is not a biologist or geologist and cannot be referenced as such. The referenced excerpt from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
Dillard credits this claim to nameless entomologists and a book with no title. It’s a dead end. Bear in mind, the entomologists and books who may have made this claim, which Dillard later read, would have done so pre-1974.
The truth about monarch butterfly migrations may lack the sci-fi/fantasy allure of a mountain range that exists only in a butterfly’s primordial memory, but it’s still incredible.
These creatures with magnificently intelligent and fragile bodies are believed to use internal solar and magnetic compasses to traverse mountains and lakes:
The geologic history of Gichigami, aka Lake Superior, is also extremely cool:
- The Lake Superior Basin’s Fiery Beginning (2002, some facts might have changed)
- Rockin’ the Rift, The Billion-Year-Old Split that Made Us (2018, working wih the author of the 2002 article)
But as far as I can find, there is no Monarchs’ memories of a long-lost mountain which dictates their modern-day migration route. If anyone has more insight on this, I would appreciate it, because I am not an entomologist. I specialize in marine science and scientific interpretation, and I only used those skills to find and present what I believe is the best available information on this topic. Thank you!
people keep calling this “a net zero information post.” you should click any of the links I shared about butterflies and the lake and learn something new and exciting! : )
Official Fucking Post of Massachusetts 🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️