Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

For everybody following #BlackMastodon & #BlackFriday,

We still building this young community, gonna take time and a lot of work, but I know there's still people slowly coming this way looking for connections so please Boost AND spread the word so they have an easier time find us. Just tell whoever you can, we out here!

And for people of all complexions that rock with us, we appreciate it, we encourage you to watch and listen and enjoy.

BlackFriday, we own that now!

#1

Hi everyone! Like many of us, I’m new here but I look forward to connecting! I’m a professor of Black and African Diaspora History at Rutgers University and I specialize in the 18th and 19th centuries. My newest book, Fear of a Black Republic is now available!

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been going around claiming there is "no opposition" to #KOSA. This letter should put that lie to rest. Dozens of organizations signed including the #ACLU, GLAAD, GLSEN, National Center for Transgender Equality, Black and Pink, Access Now, American Library Association, The Human Trafficking Prevention Project, Reframe Health and Justice, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, Ranking Digital Rights, #Wikimedia Foundation, #TorProject, and lots more

https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/11/17/interactive-universe-map/

Harold Fisk and the Mississippi River

Rivers meander over their course as they continuously erode and deposit sediment. Harold Fisk, a geologist and cartographer working for the US Army Corps of Engineers, mapped the meanders of the mighty Mississippi in 1944 and the results are mesmerizing. (See below) They also beautifully illustrate geology’s Law of Superposition: newer and younger sediments are deposited on top of older sediments. We see thousands of years of course changes. You can unravel the layers by eye by noting which layer cuts others.

Or you can cheat and use the map legend which has the youngest course on top, to the oldest on the bottom!

“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year.

“Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago, next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.

“And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen.

“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”

~ Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1883

#geology #LawOfSuperposition #GIS #EarthScience #map @geography

@conradhackett @manlius On Nov 20 there were just 1,776 instances, one week later (Nov 27-today) there are 14,428!

https://instances.social/list/old

I am extremely pleased to announce the return of the Holiday Insect Print Sale, with photographs discounted up to 70% my regular fine art prices.

https://www.alexanderwild.com/Art/Holiday-Sale-2022/n-v3SCbR/

#insects #art #spiders #ants

OK THIS IS EXCITING! I've collected some of my favorite photos--both top hits & ones y'all havent seen before--into a 2023 calendar designed to bring delight and mystery to your new year! Each month features:
* an edge-to-edge print oaf a gorgeous arachnid photo
* facts & stories about these wonderfully weird animals
* a bonus photo or illustration within the calendar itself!
Available now: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1354900811/2023-photo-calendar-a-year-with
\(°OO°)/ I hope y'all enjoy!

I do like it here on Mastodon, but the huge influx of people from Twitter means there are far fewer image descriptions than from even a couple of weeks ago. I’d love to tell every one of them about this, but quite frankly there are so many I don’t have the patience. I’d dearly love it if apps could block posts unless an image description was added to every photo, but I suppose that’s too much to hope for. I’m feeling really excluded from so many conversations. It’s getting as bad as Twitter.

My name is Fernando Salvaterra, I'm a freelance map maker and illustrator from Brazil.

It’s still #nativeamericanheritagemonth, so on this day of giving gratitude, I am expressing mine and gently nudging you to check out the latest episode of the #ologies #Podcast which features me talking about #soilscience #enviromentaljustice and #Indigenouswaysofknowing. Perfect for those road trips back home!

Twitter was never a healthy "public square" for most of us. Let's not rewrite history while eulogizing the hellsite.
Twitter was a frightening battleground where we managed barely to claw out an uneasy existence amidst the worst violent neo-Nazi extremists who constantly published our home addresses, threatened our kids' lives, and sent hordes of racist trolls into our mentions.
The same principles that allowed us to survive uneasily on Twitter will be required here in the #fediverse. Community defense, thoughtful pressure on moderation policies, and eternal vigilance.
There are no safe spaces but those we make safe through constant effort. We keep us safe.

A profile in the British press on my life and my life’s work. I hope you’ll do me the honor of reading it. At the end, there’s info on how to catch me live on a London stage in “Allegiance” starting in January. https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/star-treks-george-takei-cruelly-28590776

Call me old-fashioned but when it comes to COVID-19, I'd still prefer not to f*ck around and find out.

Some folks insist that wearing a mask in crowds and inside public spaces is an overreaction— this despite a preponderance of evidence showing microvascular damage from even mild COVID infections.

I'll keep wearing my mask, thank you very much.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2033369

#IdąPsięta, our dogs, want to turn left. The road straight ahead is much longer and they know it.

That one tree with dried leaves is probably not well as apoptosis didn't kick in on time. We''ll see how it survives the winter.

$44B is actually a small price to pay to destroy the platform used to organize labor unions at Starbucks, Amazon, and other companies with a combined market cap over a TRILLION dollars. The timing is definitely not an accident.

I have a children's book coming out in Oct 2023. It's co-authored & illustrated by my husband, @TealCartoons, and is all about medicine's battles with history's deadliest diseases. We'll be doing the cover reveal soon. We can't wait to terrorize your kids with medical history! #HistoryWritersDay22

I absolutely love visiting Malleshwaram #flower and vegetable #market during the wee hours (especially on the day of a festival). The stock is fresh and the crowds are minimal.

The way in which #technology has taken over and changed our lives, with groceries delivered with a click of your fingertip, we see fewer and fewer shops in these markets as the years go by. A few of my favourite things about this place are the incessant bargaining, the Kannada banter and the lovely smell of flowers that carries itself through the market. The old world charm of this place is something else and I hope we never lose such places.

Place: Bangalore, India.

#mastindia @mastodonindians #india #bangalore #photography #city #urban #urbanphotography #malleshwaram #streetphotography

@ypc_bunsen What policy of free speech are you talking about? Our ToC is here, it doesnt say anything about free speech.

https://qoto.org/about/more

We have very specific rules, and that includes this part of our ToC:

> ... hate-based speech such as sexist, racist, or homophobic speech will not be tolerated, be kind to each other.
>
> QOTO aims to provide a community where our users do not fear being punished for their personal opinions. We do not allow people to disseminate ideologies that are abusive or violent towards others. Demonstrating support for or defending ideologies known to be violent or hateful is a bannable offense. This includes, but is not limited to: racial supremacy, anti-LGBTQ or anti-cis-gender/anti-straight, pro-genocide, child abuse or child pornography, etc. While we recognize questions and conversation regarding these topics are essential for a STEM community, in general, doing so in bad faith will result in immediate expulsion.