GUYS! I Have Learned Crucial Information About Bats I Think Everyone Should Know. Especially Pertaining

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>"Because of their size, bats are notoriously difficult to find deceased from natural causes, and by the time they are found, the bodies have often already decomposed beyond value."

Sad, but true point to mention here: if one were to visit a wind-energy farm during bat migration season, one will find dead bats. Aeorestes cinereus in particular are all but doomed to be sacrificed on the altar of capitalism/the dollar, it seems...

Here's your yearly reminder NOT to purchase bat taxidermy products.

Because of their size, bats are notoriously difficult to find deceased from natural causes, and by the time they are found, the bodies have often already decomposed beyond value.

As sad as it is, it's true — As holidays approach, I know many people with an interest in these critters have the potential to receive gifts that are very unethical for the creatures they care about. Bats are killed for the sole purpose of displays like this as a soulless cash grab. Already, there are dozens of bat species that are threatened or endangered. It is not fair to them to support an industry that is actively trying to extinguish their life for decoration.

You can read more about this crisis here and here.

Photo provided by Denley Photography on Unsplash.

Reblogs on this post are encouraged.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on my dash today encouraging folks to start archiving their favorite online resources, in case they might be at risk of disappearing in the near future. Since privacy and data ownership are major interests of mine, it seems like a good time to share a bit of what I know! I hope that some of this might be helpful--please feel free to reach out if there's a specific question that comes to mind! 💕

(My bona fides, in case anyone wants to know: I do work in tech, with over fifteen years of experience in the same. Linux systems administration is a hobby of mine, and privacy, particularly as it relates to tech, is very near and dear to my heart. That said, I am not an infosec professional, so you may want to supplement this guidance with your own research, depending on your threat model.)

General advice

If you rely heavily on traditional cloud storage providers, like Google Drive and Dropbox, now is the time to start exporting your important files to a more secure location. Data stored with most online platforms is encrypted at rest, but the encryption keys are stored on the server's side, meaning that the contents of your files can still be accessed by the service providers themselves. This also means that your files and their contents are vulnerable to data breaches, DMCA takedown requests, subpoenas, and the oh-so-popular AI scraping that has wormed its way into nearly every tech product of note. (Including Tumblr! Lucky us!) Saving files on your own computer is one option, but if you want something closer to the Google Drive experience, Proton Drive is my recommendation. Free accounts get 5 GB of storage, and all data is end-to-end encrypted, which means even Proton can't read the contents of your files. A suite of document features were rolled out earlier this year, including rich text editing, collaboration, and sharing, so if you use Google Docs for writing, you can use Proton in pretty much the same way. I also use Proton for my email, and I'm happy to vouch for them--they are nonprofit-backed, EU-based, and all of their products are built on privacy from the ground up. If you have an Apple device, you can also turn on Advanced Data Protection for your iCloud account, which will enable end-to-end encryption for most services. (Notably, mail, contacts, and calendars will remain unchanged, to ensure compatibility with standard protocols.) This might be a good option for folks who already have iCloud services and who don't want to set up anything new. You can learn more about how to enable this feature here.

Archiving websites

There are a number of ways to archive specific webpages, depending on how much content you want to preserve and how tech-y of a solution you're willing to tolerate. A web clipper is probably the most straightforward option: install one of the listed notes apps, install the web clipper browser extension, open the page you want to save, and clip clip clip. The images and text (with formatting) will be stripped from the page and saved to a note in your app. Both Joplin and Obsidian's apps are available cross-platform:

Joplin + Joplin Web Clipper

Obsidian + Obsidian Web Clipper

Notes you create in Joplin are encrypted before being saved to your device, while Obsidian's notes are saved to a location of your choosing in plain-text Markdown format. If you aren't sure which to choose, choose Obsidian--it's a little easier to use right out of the box.

If you want to preserve the full context of the webpages you save, similar to what you'd see on archive.org, SingleFile is a browser extension that lets you save complete web pages as a single HTML file. You'll find links to the various browser extensions, as well as documentation, on the project's GitHub page:

GitHub

GitHub - gildas-lormeau/SingleFile: Web Extension for saving a faithful copy of a complete web page in a single HTML file

Web Extension for saving a faithful copy of a complete web page in a single HTML file - gildas-lormeau/SingleFile

Note that these files can get pretty big. In general, I'd recommend a web clipper for most cases, but it's good to have multiple options on hand!

Other tips

Even in the absence of major geopolitical events, it's worth remembering that anything you see online can change or be removed at any time. Keep backups of anything that's important to you. (And make sure you back up your computer, too!) Have an alternate contact method for your online friends, in case one platform goes down or otherwise becomes inaccessible.

Consider signing up for a Signal account, if you haven't already, and recommend that your friends and family do the same. It's a free end-to-end encrypted chat platform, and unlike some privacy-focused chat protocols (looking at you, Matrix), it's easily accessible to non-techies. Don't use email, DMs, Discord, Slack, etc. for any communication that you expect to keep private. Any platform that can access your messages will give them up to authorities if compelled to do so by a court order or subpoena. This is not a theoretical risk. It is happening to people in the US right now. I am being so, so serious about this.

If you're looking for a new creative hobby, why not teach yourself a little HTML and CSS? Neocities is a great place to build your own website, and it's free. And it's fun! (If you make something, please drop the link, because I want to see.)

Breathe. We have to survive this, somehow. Log off for today, if you have to. Drink some water. Pet a cat. Sit outside and watch the birds, just for a few minutes. Believe that we will be okay, however you can. ❤️

The problem appears to be that Trump's cult showed up, but nobody else did.

I think, it's not so much his cult as.... Trump has a lock on low (really NO) information voters,

so take 2022 Democrats did really well for a midterm, expanded their senate majority and lost the house very narrowly, but only 46% of voters showed up, in 2024 67% of voters turned out, that 20% of the American public that didn't vote in 2022 but did in 2024 likely don't know what a midterm is.

and for people like that, Trump speaks in HYPER, MEGA! simple terms, terms so simple they're wrong even when he's not trying to lie (which he often is) like "build a wall" well thats not actually physically possible, but no amount of pushing back that there was no way to do that got him to stop saying it or his supporters to stop cheering for a thing that couldn't be done, and it was not done, because it wasn't physically possible.

we live in a country PACKED with people who don't understand how anything works, and Trump won because he speaks at a 2nd grade level and there's where 50-ish% of voting Americans are at rn.

Lil Frosty Boy

Photogenic

The Yapper

Another new bat!

Ah, nice! Thanks for the art / visual realization of this particular chiroptera!

>"I hope this is close to what you wanted"

It absolutely is! Thanks!

Hiyo! I apologize for any inconvenience/impertinence, but might I request/commission an illustration of a bat?

Underland!Euderma maculatum. Name: Pythia. Not her actual name. Just what she goes by, due to a rumor; some think she is able to hear into the future - or possible futures. Role/task within Regalia: grief counselor for fliers/humans/etc. who have lost their bonds/family members. or family members of their bonds. Or fliers who have been injured to the point of permanent mobility impairment (cannot fly anymore), individuals that might have dubious thoughts regarding their continued biological existence.

refs: https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Euderma_maculatum/ image refs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=40631

I have three ideas in mind for the illustration I wish to request, but I don't know which of the three to pick. One would be somber, her assisting another... The second would be humorous; possibly depicting Boots and Hazard (or other young-ins) climbing all over the polka-dotted flier, hanging off her ears, etc. Or the third... Pythia's fate. In the hallway leading to Regalia's nursery, with (at least) Dulcet and Cartesian behind her... the Euderma momentarily holding the line, giving what little time before the gnawers overwhelm her position.

I don't know which one to choose. So, leaving that up to you.

I am so sorry it took so long to get finished. I was so excited by someone asking me to draw their OC that I wanted to do more than just a quick sketch and really put my full effort into it. So here's Pythia giving some comfort to a grieving Regalian.

I tried my best to keep her faithful to the bat reference, but a certain degree of creative liberties had to be taken to make her clearly emote. The very iconic spots are only really visible on the back so I had to cheat a little bit around the sides. I hope this is close to what you wanted :')

And FWI yes, the text says "Bat or Owl" that does include Underland OCs... hopefully I won't take three months to get it done next time 😅

Bonuses after the cut:

Alternate color versions that I was iterating. Just getting the right background figured out took so much time and fiddling and I'm still not sure I got it quite right

And here's just a PNG of the characters if you want to put them in a better fitting background