animals

Link Blog: June 1, 2019

The racist origins of one of RVers’ favorite words: full-time RVing is on the rise, and so is the use of racial slurs (like “gypsy”) and cultural appropriation. (Full disclosure: I wrote this post, and Gluten-Free RV is one of my side projects.)

Google uses Gmail to track a history of things you buy — and it’s hard to delete. You can see your purchases Google has tracked here.

4 reasons why forgiving U.S. student debt makes sense: 1) borrowers’ overall debt could be reduced by over a quarter, even beyond the student loans themselves. 2) borrowers less likely to default on debts (no shit). 3) borrowers are more likely to relocate and get better-paying jobs. 4) overall spending and consumption could increase.

The use of male mice in drug research skews research against women: animal models have long been debunked as lousy ways to test drug candidates, but here’s one more nail in the mouse-shaped coffin.

Link blog: March 8, 2019

I never know whether to title this with a date or a summary.

New Moon, a dark theme for web development. Created by the talented and always-helpful Tania Rascia, this dark theme can be applied to your text editor (VS Code, Brackets, Sublime, or Atom), Chrome, and iTerm2. I’m red-green colorblind and I’ve enjoyed this theme more than other dark themes.

Is This the End of Recycling? After sending countless shipments of poorly-sorted trash to China, China has finally started refusing our garbage-disguised-as-recycling. While it’s nice for consumers to consume less so there’s less waste produced, the onus is really on corporations and manufacturers to produce more responsibly. It’s time to radically rethink our packaging and what we do with it when it’s empty.

The Romani Cultural and Arts Company is a Welsh nonprofit organization created by Romani people to encourage arts and community engagement in order to fight racism against the Romani people.

Sex Redefined: The idea of two sexes is simplistic. Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that. (2015, and forever relevant.) A woman got pregnant in her 40s and was surprised to learn through a routine test that she has both XX and XY chromosomes, proving that gender is not as black and white (or pink and blue) as the creators of “gender reveal parties” and bathroom legislation would like us to believe.

On Likability. “I think, perhaps, one reason — maybe the primary reason — that the world tries so hard to pressure us to be likable (and to punish us when we aren’t) is because they are afraid we will realize that if we don’t need anyone to like us we can be any way we want. We can tell any story. We can tell the truth.”

Daily Hugz is a sanctuary for homeless and abused animals, and offers a safe play space for the children of Palestine. This site is full of adorable photos, and you can support them financially or by ordering some of the most special olive oil money can buy.