curiouslilbird

[curiouslilbird]

Watching Voyager

#BWAHAHA #you mean this didn't really happen?? lol #star trek: voyager #humor #webcomic #star trek #tom paris #lieutenant tuvok

[curiouslilbird]

Star Trek: Voyager // S2E18 Death Wish

#her taste in robes: flawless #star trek: voyager #captain janeway #kate mulgrew #star trek

[curiouslilbird]

Rain for My Parade 🌧️🌱🌿🌹🌷🌼

part of my cloud petticoat series~

#lovely! #the use of color to show light: 🤌🤌🤌 #art #goddess vibes #stars #plants #magical

[curiouslilbird]

#I love people sometimes #wholesome #cute #anecdotes #workplace enrichment #work

[curiouslilbird]

Please tell me other people do this please tell me I’m sane

#same #since I was a kid #actually neurodivergent #actually adhd #actually autistic #neurodiversity

[curiouslilbird]

foreverskrubs413 on ig

#awesome #smooth as butter #body butter #cosmetics #piping #pink

[curiouslilbird]

#important #trans rights are human rights #transgender #preferred name #lgbtqia+

[curiouslilbird]

What's the trope name for when someone finds out they're the Chosen One(tm) and is like "No, thank you" and goes and does something else

#tumblr making posts awesome #writing tropes #tropes #humor #writing

[curiouslilbird]

I will wear my clothes until they're literally falling apart. I will wear them until it's one thread holding it all together. And then I'll cut it up and make something new that brings me joy.

#this #solarpunk #anti fast fashion #solar punk #sustainability

[curiouslilbird]

"Heat stored underground in caverns can be set aside in Finland’s summer months to be re-used during frigid winters thanks to a state-of-the-art ‘seasonal energy’ storage facility.

Slated for construction this summer near Helsinki, it will be the largest in the world by all standards and contain enough thermal energy to heat a medium-sized city all winter.

Thermal exchange heating systems, like those built underground, or domestic heat pumps, are seen as the most effective way available of reducing the climate-impact of home heating and cooling.

Their function relies on natural forces or energy recycling to cool down or heat up water and then using it to radiate hot or cold energy into a dwelling.

In Vantaa, Finland’s fourth largest city neighboring the capital of Helsinki, the ambitious Varanto seasonal energy storage project plans to store cheap and environmental friendly waste heat from datacenters, cooling processes, and waste-to-energy assets in underground caverns where it can be used to heat buildings via the district heating network whenever it is needed.

In Finland and other Nordic countries, the heat consumption varies significantly between seasons. Heat consumption in the summertime is only about one-tenth of the peak load consumption during the cold winter months.

Varanto will utilize underground caverns equal in space to two Maddison Square Gardens—over a million cubic meters—filled with water heated by this waste heat and pressure that will allow the water to reach temperatures of up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit without the water boiling or evaporating.

“The world is undergoing a huge energy transition. Wind and solar power have become vital technologies in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy,” says Vantaa Energy CEO Jukka Toivonen.

“The biggest challenge of the energy transition so far has been the inability to store these intermittent forms of energy for later use. Unfortunately, small-scale storage solutions, such as batteries or accumulators, are not sufficient; large, industrial-scale storage solutions are needed. Varanto is an excellent example of this, and we are happy to set an example for the rest of the world.” ...

“Two 60-MW electric boilers will be built in conjunction with Varanto,” adds Toivonen. “These boilers will be used to produce heat from renewable electricity when electricity is abundant and cheap. Our heat-producing system will work like a hybrid car: alternating between electricity and other forms of production, depending on what is most advantageous and efficient at the time.”

... Construction of the storage facility’s entrance is expected to start in summer 2024, while it could be operational as early as 2028."

-via Good News Network, April 12, 2024. Video via VantaanEnergia, March 10, 2024

#this is so cool!!! #solarpunk #solar punk #renewable energy #finland #climate change

[curiouslilbird]

Excellent points so far!

I do want to add first that giving criticism that doesn't shut someone down is difficult without the right wording. I find in my work as a writing tutor that phrasing my criticism as "I wonder..." questions yields better results than saying "You should/shouldn't" statements. Flat statements leave no room for change and close the discussion down; curious questions invite the writer to think differently to answer the reader's question, and in so doing leave room for inspiration, excitement, and motivation.

Secondly, if you have received criticism that feels harsh and has shut you down, you can try phrasing some of the criticisms as questions instead.

Example: I recently received some jarring, judgmental criticism from a friend who's never done that to me before (they were in a really bad headspace when they replied)--it went something like this:

Them: "I don't like what you're doing with [main character.] if you keep doing it like this, people are going to compare [character] to Hitler."

Me: *🤯 actually not sure what I said but it was something straight out of the fawn and freeze trauma response*

This took me a few months to work through; I grieved that my friend had spoken to me like that, and it made me look at my work with revulsion because someone I trusted had so gravely misinterpreted it. I actually also avoided interacting with the friend for this period of time because I did not want to have an angry confrontation and wreck things further. But slowly (very!! slowly!!), I began to ask a question about this feedback in my mind:

"What character actions could my friend have possibly construed as 'Hitler-esque'?"

This curious question let me look at my work without immediately cancel-culturing it in my head. Examining the character actions like this, I found that there was nothing concerning in the dialogue or descriptions, BUT there were some notes I had written in a separate document about the end goals for the book series, in which I noted that the main character's future goal would be to bring various people groups together. This was the only point that even remotely smelled of politics.

Though I still believe my friend's negative headspace led them to overstate the problem, I was finally able to turn their feedback into something I could work with. In the end, I scrapped that one future goal without losing anything vital from the series, AND I have begun to write again after almost half a year of not being able to even open the file. 🙌

I hope this helps fellow writers (and beta readers too)--criticism can lead to grief pretty quick, but there is hope!

Please ignore this if it breaks the guidelines I don’t think it does but jic

So a few months ago, I sent a story that i was proud of to my friend for them to read, and I ended up getting some really harsh yet honest criticism for the story which makes sense since my writing isn’t rhe best, but now it’s made me feel so awful about writing again that I can’t get over my fear of writing poorly anymore and I’m not sure what to do

I'm so sorry this happened. I'm not convinced your friend necessarily had bad intentions, but in situations like these, it's a good idea to clarify what kind of response you want. Because whether you're looking for criticism or encouragement is important, just like it's important to know whether a person who's venting to you is looking for advice or validation. So I'd take this as a sign that communicating your needs in vulnerable situations is important and that the response shouldn't be left to chance alone ❤️

#questions open up possibilities #writing #feedback

[curiouslilbird]

"crochet can't be made by machines" went from being a cool fun fact to being a call to action of "so if you see mass manufactured crochet in Target, that was made by a person and they were underpaid and you should boycott it" which is true, it was made by a person, but EVERY item of clothing you own (that you did not purchase from a company using ethical labor) was made by a person being underpaid (at *best*.)

Sewing machines are operated by *people*. Knitting machines are operated by *people*. Yes lots of the process is automated but you cannot tell a machine "make me a t-shirt" or "make me a knit cardigan".

Higher awareness of fast fashion, and the true human labor and abuse behind it, is GREAT, but let's not pretend that the crochet hat in target is THE problem. Every article of clothing in target is the problem. "All clothes are made by people" is the jumping off point here into understanding this issue it's not just crochet it's the whole thing ahhhhHHHHHHHHHH

#important #fuck fast fashion #anti fast fashion #clothing industry #pay them what they're worth

[curiouslilbird]

Yes this poll is very biased in favor of North America lol

#I lived in the sticks so no animal planet or most of the others for me (no cable/satellite wouldn't work) #thus I became #pbs kid #children's tv #pbs kids #poll #my .02

[curiouslilbird]

I think it’s kinda a shame how far zombies got from their source material

Don’t get me wrong, I like the way that they evolve over time reflects the fears of the people in that time period, but I still wish there was more of a connection to its source

So (this is just a really quick recap but I encourage everyone to go read up on more of it), zombies originated from Haiti (specifically Haitian slaves), and they weren’t violent, they were corpses reanimated against their will to continue being slaves, and the fear surrounding them was about becoming one, having your restful sleep stolen from you, and not being able to have that peace in death because of some jackass with magic

And yeah nowadays there’s a fear in being bitten, but idk, it’s less about the fear of becoming part of the horde and more about the fear of being torn apart by the horde, it’s not like how werewolves agonize over being werewolves, and I think it should be more like werewolves

Like even when a person has been bitten and is slowly becoming a zombie, it’s not really framed from their perspective of the fear of losing themselves and not being able to rest in peace, it’s always framed from the perspective of their loved one coming to terms that they may have to kill them to protect themselves

“Oh hell is full so that’s why the dead roam the earth” those are good people!!! who had their eternal rest robbed from them!!!!

I just. I just wish that killing a zombie was more about having mercy on them

#THIS #THIS IS WHY I HATE ZOMBIE CONTENT #because it treats them as subhuman even though they literally were just human #thank you for putting it into words #zombies #literature #writing

[curiouslilbird]

There's a cinematic equivalent of "this meeting could have been an email" where you get about two hours into a feature-length blockbuster and it occurs to you that this would have lost nothing meaningful if it had been a ten-minute short film on YouTube.

#yup #writing #media #movies #memes

[curiouslilbird]

#same #life #memes

[curiouslilbird]

☕️☕️☕️

#this #recovery #healing #art