Oddtail @oddtail@meow.social

This is your reminder that "it's not political" means some combination of the following:

1) "I am not aware of the political dimension of this nor do I care to learn"
2) "I don't care about this issue and neither should you"
3) "My particular stance on this should be the default"
4) "I don't mind the status quo, and have mistaken what exists for what MUST exist".

Notably, it never means something is actually NOT political. There ain't no such thing.

#introductions (last one didn't spark joy, third time's the charm?)

Hi! I'm a leftist, somewhat nerdy furry from Poland, 35 y.o.

Never had much luck connecting to the furry fandom, but trying to change that at least with online interactions.

I'm shy and hilariously bad at making friends/"reading" ppl; often with no sense of what's appropriate in communication. If I screw up, let me know, I'll try and improve.

As of this Toot, still figuring myself out gender-wise. She/her on Masto for now.

So, hey, I'm a translator. And I'm pretty much *always* looking for more work.

I translate to and from Polish.

Not the most in-demand language in the English-speaking world, but if you need a translation done or know someone who does, hit me up.

I'm good at what I do, I have low rates, and I can work pretty damn fast if that's what you need.

I am also pretty versatile, I've translated everything from literature to marketing to technical stuff.

(as a person who's made multiple long-term attempts at losing weight, both successful and unsuccessful ones, over the past decade+, I definitely recommend weighing yourself every single day at a similar hour. If you don't want to bother with analysing trends and are not a dumb nerd like myself who puts this stuff in graphs and whatnot, just look at the running average from the past 5 or 10 days, and you'll be fine.)

2/2

you'll have a very distorted picture of what is happening. Precisely *because* there's random fluctuation in weight day to day.

How do you know your weekly weigh-in shows you close to the maximum for the week, as opposed to the minimum for the week? You can't account for that. Yes, it doesn't matter long term for weight loss, but daily weigh-ins can let you look at a trend.

The false dychotomy of "obsessing over latest weight" vs "weigh yourself every few days only" bothers me.

1/2

It annoys me that I often see "don't weigh yourself every day if you're trying to lose weight. Weight fluctuates a lot day to day" given as advice. It appears to be common "knowledge".

Listen, if obsessing over your weight is going to give you an eating disorder, take it easy. But the argument "weight changes a lot" never made sense to me. That's not how statistics work.

You're not supposed to look at the most RECENT number. But if you weigh yourself only once a week or sth,

Technically, it's been legal since 8th of July as per a court ruling, but the ruling was implemented into law yesterday.

Yesterday, Slovenia legalised same-sex marriage and adoption.

A first for Eastern Europe.

Which leads me to believe Poland will catch up soon. In 200-250 years, by my estimate. /s

It's good that the West is helping Ukraine now, but it's important to remember this should have happened earlier to the extent it is now. And heck - now the help needs to be ramped up still, Ukraine is still fighting a very uneven battle despite their spectacular victories.

And while I'm at it, Google what Russia has been doing to Georgia since 2008 or so. About 20% of the country is illegally occupied by Russia. The West needs to react to that, too.

Also, this war did not start in 2022. It's been going on since 2014.

This could have been prevented. Europe, the US and the world could have reacted more strongly to illegal occupation of both Crimea and the eastern parts of Ukraine, 8 years ago.

The reality is, they hoped it'd go away. They thought Russia would stop.

Russia didn't stop, which anyone with a brain cell could have told them.

Holy crap, the pro-Russia/Russian accounts on Birdsite "reporting" on the war are tying themselves into pretzels trying to pretend this is not an unmitigated disaster for Russia.

I'm sure not all reporting of how well Ukraine is doing is *free* from bias, misinformation and punched up for propaganda, but it's pretty safe to say the Ukrainian army has been winning pretty decisively and consistently.

It's funny to watch those who pretend it's not happening.

So let me get this straight - Russia is not just evil, not only incompetent, not just all bluster and no bite, but *also* leave their own soldiers with no support when things go south?

Can't imagine this will do wonders to the morale of whoever's still fighting.

And I mean, good. It goes without saying that Ukraine is in the right 100% and deserves a quick and decisive victory. There's no war scenario more clear-cut than defending from direct unprovoked aggression.

I hate my shoe size.

Also, more than 27% of all votes were for parties that got at least 1% of votes, but didn't clear the 5% threshold. That's nine parties, and one voter in four not being represented in the parliament.

There is some merit behind parliamentary thresholds, but if this doesn't illustrate that making them high is profoundly unfair, I don't know what is.

Also, another party (liberals of some kind) got 4.97% of the vote.

I don't know their policies or anything, but yikes. That's so unfortunate for them.

If like 100 more people voted for them, they'd get into the parliament. That's just, WILD.

Kids, remember - your vote does matter. Vote in elections.

So apparently in this weekend's parliamentary election, a social-democratic (which is neat) and pro-Russian (which is not) party went from being the largest party in their parliament to not clearing the 5% threshold to GET into the parliament?

Seems like a big deal. Going from winners to not getting into parliament. Granted, I'm not up to date with LV politics.

It's almost like a pro-Russian political stance is not the hottest thing in Eastern Europe recently. One wonders why.

I finally watched "Spider-Man: No Way Home". I have no idea why this movie was so praised critically and so popular.

It over-relied on nostalgia and fanservice, it was VERY badly paced, it had plot holes (and not nitpicky stuff, I mean "character suddenly loses their major motivation" kind of plot holes), and overall, it was... not bad maybe, but easily the worst of the Holland trilogy.

It feels like a dollar-store version of Into The Spider-Verse.

Hands are fragile. Unarmed fighting styles around the world make sure you don't break your knuckles on sb's thick skull.

But boxing is all punches, with no open-hand strikes. And suddenly it became safer to hit people in the head.

So things LOOKED less bloody and unpleasant, but the effects of fights became more severe, long-term.

This almost feels like commentary on what is perceived as palatable by the public is not the same as what is good.

When boxing switched from bare-knuckle to using boxing gloves, it reduced the amount of visible injuries substantially.

The thing is, those were cuts, bruises, small bone fractures. All unpleasant, but all recoverable from.

Boxing gloves distribute energy evenly, but that also means a LOT more hits started being delivered to the head. And harder. Normally you don't want to punch a skull. It hurts, skulls are tough. That's their entire job.

This is, no pun intended, a marathon and not a sprint. You don't need natural talent (although I suppose it helps), you need persistence and dedication and a readiness to fail (a lot). Eventually you start to see results. At some point, it stops being a chore and starts being rewarding - that comes sooner for some than for others, but it does happen.

That goes for many activities, not just for exercise.

Should probly take my own advice and work on other stuff xD

Facebook reminded me that exactly one year ago I took up running, for the first time in a few years.

On the first day, I ran 1.5 km or so (about 1 mile), tired myself out, and walked home. I was also pretty darn fat.

In fact, I didn't see THAT much progress with either weight or exercise for months. My results in April were still mediocre.

But now, one year from starting, I weigh ~10 kg (22 lbs) less and counting, and routinely run 8+ km (5 miles) in one go.

Also, it's amazing that Tories try to top themselves with worse and worse PMs. BoJo Horseman was such a low bar, and the UK public still manages to be appalled with the new PM.

I don't want to make light of problems the UK is facing, honestly. But the recent UK politics are extremely funny, in a "tragic farce" sort of way.

A better description would probably be "an off-brand Margaret Thatcher".