ForestBoard

Caracasus wrote:

I have heard of it for a while, though I must admit I haven't done that much reading into it. I imagine they interviewed a large sample of women who were in science related fields and law enforcement who would have been around about the right age and asked them about why they chose their career.

Here is an article. Can't say much for the article's credibility however they do link the source.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/540530/scully-effect-female-x-files-viewers-stem-careers

Here is the source for anyone wishing to skip straight to that: https://impact.21cf.com/sites/default/files/ScullyEffectReport_21CF_1.pdf .

#1: (I know that this is a little early but feel free to begin immediately after you read this! Please remember to number your paragraphs!)

Mielikki woke up in a cold sweat after having a dream that her favorite maple tree had been destroyed by a rogue lumberjack. She saw a flickering orange glow lighting her room and was able to easily find and put on her glasses before looking out the window to see that her prized maple was ablaze. This realization made her feel like her stomach was being eaten by snakes. She had planted the maple as a small child and grown up with it. She had her first kiss under its ruddy canopy. She cannot remember who she kissed there many decades ago but had become to consider this tree to be her best friend. She had watched her son play under it before the incident. She grabbed her cane and rushed outside to futilely attempt to douse the flames with her garden hose. Despite failing to stop the blaze its light revealed a gas can, a lighter, and footprints leading away from the tree toward the woods. A sense of resolve grew in her. She went back inside, called the fire department, and then asked her wise old spider plant if she should follow the footprints and get revenge on the arsonist after sunrise. The spider plant shakily whispered, "Do it if your arthritis won’t stop you! You should go for a walk in the woods in any case because it will calm you."

Ruinenlust wrote:

As a complete bonus, and as an antidote to the above paragraph, I think this might be one of the best websites on the internet. It's incredibly beautiful, aside from being outstandingly informative. This should be required viewing for all students of earth science and meteorology.

https://earth.nullschool.net

Has anyone else come across this website before? It's so cool!!

That's actually pretty cool. At our school, our Science 10 course is a quarter climate change based, and this would be a great tool to build a lab around. It should be required there, not just at a post-secondary education level.

Lord Dominator wrote:

I can do Pacifica Ruinenlust if no one else wants to

My sentiments exactly. I still got a few puppets sitting in Forest if I ever take another region, but I'm happy with 4 for the time being.

Caracasus wrote:

The new bluestocking homeland

Ursula Le Guinn. She was an increadable writer in a field that was and is very male dominated.

Her ability to use sci fi as it should be used, to be brave enough to imagine what could be instead of the same tired 'Roman Empire but in space' nonsense that is so often peddled is unmatched.

Her characters are vivid, human and falliable and above all else she was able to take away the spotlight from anglo american male heroes and instead create something that is far better than pretty much any contemporary.

Her anarchist beleifs and above all else her unshakeable faith in the basic human decency of people freed from heirachical exploitation has influenced me greatly.

If you want a very short read, her story The ones who walk away from Omelas is outstanding.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.mccc.edu/pdf/eng102/Week%25209/Text_LeGuin%2520Ursula_Ones%2520Who%2520Walk%2520Away%2520From%2520Omelas.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjC_4yY2cXgAhWaXRUIHWVTAR4QFjAPegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw005QPYSS5w-FvlxR5wxGXu

i'll second all of that. met her at sf cons a couple of times when i was living in oregon (in the 1980s). wish i'd had her for my english teacher.
another good strange thing she wrote, to me a more fun one, was: "word for world is forest".
my own worlds, both the post eco-pocalyptic earth, and my far advanced small green planet in a distant galaxy, which i call lananara, on which cameroi is situated, owe a great deal to her "always coming home". there's tons of stuff she's written besides novels and short stories. my understanding is that she passed away quite recently.

Ruinenlust wrote:

"Hi, every-body!"
("Hi, Dr. Nick!")

I have two things to share: first off, I am pleased to announce that we are forming embassies with Pacifica. The ayes had it, with a majority of 13 out of 20 votes, with 7 opposing. If anybody is interested in becoming the ambassador to Pacifica, please let me know! :-)

Secondly, and on a more serious note, this is one of those science articles where you sort of realize anew how royally f*cked we probably are:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190220112221.htm

Headline: "Earth may be 140 years away from reaching carbon levels not seen in 56 million years." - American Geophysical Union

As they say in the article, we're really just launching into the unknown. They mention how we are in for more rapid and extreme change since anything since the dino extinction. As I told my classes the other day, this time around, we are the asteroid. We're like the grand finale of a fireworks show: burning all of our fossil fuel in a few centuries, in one huge burst that far eclipses everything before and after (since there won't magically appear another planetary supply of fossil fuels once we've used it up). We're consigning the world of thousands of years from now to an irrevocably changed and distorted world so that I can go get in my SUV and blow upwards of ten bucks on a BigMac and fries with a Diet Coke by the shopping mall. The apex of society is suburbia, urban sprawl, factories, and the landfills of consumerism. What a world.

--

As a complete bonus, and as an antidote to the above paragraph, I think this might be one of the best websites on the internet. It's incredibly beautiful, aside from being outstandingly informative. This should be required viewing for all students of earth science and meteorology.

https://earth.nullschool.net

Has anyone else come across this website before? It's so cool!!

the eco-pocalyps may require little more then a decade, once it gets rolling, and we've already past too many tipping points to avoid it entirely, to decimate our human species. the environmental disrespectfulness of our dominant culture lives on borrowed time. what comes after, is of course a roll of the dice. something between leguinne's 'always coming home', and paul kids rp game setting 'strange lands', seems to me a not unlikely 'morning after'. provided of course, anything close to human survives at all. there's no certainty either way, but there seems to be a reasonable chance of this. many people are discovering that environmentally friendly ways of doing things are possible, and even profitable, though the profit motive as we are currently familiar with it, is one of the culprits as well. the answer to that, i believe, is that there are other and better ways of measuring 'profit' then accumulation of symbolic value.

Turbeaux wrote:

#1: (I know that this is a little early but feel free to begin immediately after you read this! Please remember to number your paragraphs!)

Mielikki woke up in a cold sweat after having a dream that her favorite maple tree had been destroyed by a rogue lumberjack. She saw a flickering orange glow lighting her room and was able to easily find and put on her glasses before looking out the window to see that her prized maple was ablaze. This realization made her feel like her stomach was being eaten by snakes. She had planted the maple as a small child and grown up with it. She had her first kiss under its ruddy canopy. She cannot remember who she kissed there many decades ago but had become to consider this tree to be her best friend. She had watched her son play under it before the incident. She grabbed her cane and rushed outside to futilely attempt to douse the flames with her garden hose. Despite failing to stop the blaze its light revealed a gas can, a lighter, and footprints leading away from the tree toward the woods. A sense of resolve grew in her. She went back inside, called the fire department, and then asked her wise old spider plant if she should follow the footprints and get revenge on the arsonist after sunrise. The spider plant shakily whispered, "Do it if your arthritis won’t stop you! You should go for a walk in the woods in any case because it will calm you."

#2 Mielikki stormed off into the woods at the crack of dawn with all the haste a woman of her old age could muster. She hadn't moved with purpose like this in years and she would assuredly feel the effects of this later on. The footprints she wanted to follow weren't as clearly defined due to the passage of time, but she could still make out enough for a start. About a mile into her trek, she stopped to catch her breath. Mielikki used the time to observe her surroundings. These woods really were beautiful with vibrant greens, yellows and even reds dotting the treetops. As she prepared to start again, she heard faint whispers on the wind calling her to a path up ahead to her right. She glanced around and pondered if she should follow.

Hoffania wrote:

#3 Mielikki hadn't completely lost her curiosity, so she decided to follow them. The path led deep into the forest, and soon she was lost. Not much light could reach the floor, and she wandered around aimlessly, trying to trace her path, but to no avail. She realized her back was sore, and leaned back against a nearby tree. Glancing up, she realized it was a maple. "If only you were mine," she thought bitterly. She was then overcome with emotion, and was soon a crying heap. "I guess I'll die with my maple," she thought. Then, a rough hand touched her shoulder.

#4 She looked up, and found herself staring at a man she hadn't seen before in her life, yet who still seemed familiar, as if from a memory a few years too old to recall. Despite the low light levels, Mielikki could tell that this was an older gentleman, with a face wrinkled by time, and soft blue eyes, that conveyed a wisdom only achieved through experiencing life's best and worst turns. His hair was short but unkempt, and had the color of a birch tree, white with a few flecks of black. He wore a brown leather jacket which was slightly wrinkled, and has a small tear on it's left shoulder, as if it had been snagged by something sharp. His touch was gentle, but not timid, an carried a mild sense of importance, suggesting that this was a moment that wouldn't be soon forgotten. The man didn't seem confused, irritated, or even confused as to why Mielikki was there; it was as if he was expecting her. She didn't know why, but Mielikki felt compelled to stand, not to greet the man, but just to meet his eyes, all of the previous emotion seeming distant.

Hello everyone! I have not posting here once again, and I'm sorry about that! ><

So yes, regarding the Discord thing, which I thought would just talk about once again. While I welcome the slower pace and the more constructive or substantiate the conversations, I feel that this move would put off most of the people. I understand the issue of curbing spam, and the no-spam policy is a step in the right direction so far.

With that said and done, the addition of slow-mode was a change that I feel that was too restrictive. Being only able to post a message once every 15 seconds, while it cuts off the "Send/Enter a new line" like I do, it also means that the nature of the server itself, got too slow. And I am not talking about disabling the slow-mode to spam once again (I don't really do that), but with the light-grove becoming too restrictive along the way, and in an attempt to bring up more acceptable conversation, this has become rather strict.

The idea of restricting excessive memes, which I am aware is also to curb the spam, falls short in the sense that if the history of the server has told me anything, is that the posters like you and I did not post anything NSFW and in fact, the memes and the media, while might not be funny to everyone, are all tame, appropriate, SFW, or acceptable.

At the same time, I really hate to compare A and B, because hey, different folks, different strokes and all that. With that said, I have to point out that I am also in other servers such as The Rejected Realms, Lazarus, TNP (which is actually too big and too fast, so I will leave this one out from comparisons), among many other region-based servers. They did not have the slowmode restriction and in fact have the spam thing curbed to a particular channel. Granted, there is still a spam channel in their server, but that's the nature of Discord, i.e. people will want to share memes, or want to talk about something off-topic with one another, and everything else in-between). Most of the servers I am in have a memes/spam channel, and while they get a little excessive with memeing, none of it goes into NSFW or inappropriate material and if it does, it will be dealt with rather quickly.

I am not in any higher position to talk or suggest more about the server, but I figured that I would at least open up my thoughts here.

In short, I understand the need to curb spam if needed, but this is not the fairest or the best way to go about it, I feel. Just because something happened in LCRUA, doesn't mean we have to restrict too much (keyword being "too much"), when our server was working fine. Sure, it's fast-paced at times, but the spam was kept in the relevant channel, and everything was SFW.

That's all from me, and thank you for the time in Forest so far! I quite enjoy it, really. :D

Canaltia wrote:

Hi! Welcome to Forest. How are you on this fine day/night?

12h48 in Western Europe
Never better, thanks :)
Yourself ?

Caracasus wrote:

Uan aa Boa I fully support the closing of embassies with The LCRUA if they don't clean up their act. Frankly I am disgusted and expected far better of one of their RO's.

We cannot expect any group to ensure their members don't post offensive content like this, no one could expect that, it'd be ridiculous to assume that the people in charge of the region somehow can be held accountable for whatever members post. What we should be able to expect however is a response to this. May I suggest giving a timeframe on this? As in if a satisfactory response to this to be issued within a week for instance.

For me, I'd want to see at the very least a sincere apology from the nation in question as well as an explanation as to why these posts were made in the first place. I'd also want to see the region either putting in place or reaffirming commitment to not allowing this kind of hate speech, and the nation in question's resignation from their position as a regional officer.

Salutations. I understand your frustration with not receiving any response or explanation for what you see as misconduct - that is a frustration that we share, as I have also requested a response that has so far been denied by other regions' ambassadors. I can only hope that this statement on the matter assuages your frustration even if it seems that nothing can be done about mine.

The outrage over the alleged hate speech, while quite valid and serious, strikes me as manufactured. Evidently someone who has - or even multiple people who have - taken great offense at content within our Discord server has reacted to it by taking screenshots of it and apparently using those screenshots to destabilize The LCRUA's foreign relations, rather than going through one of our many legal channels such as reporting it to one of our server's moderators, accusing the nation responsible of violating our law so that a trial may occur, or even informing the user in question that they consider this behavior intolerable and asking them to stop. This reaction, while not optimal or conducive to harmonious conflict resolution, would be perfectly understandable if not for the fact that this has led to multiple ambassadors making public denouncements of The LCRUA and its officials, only to either fall silent or offer vague descriptions or threats when I ask them precisely what they mean.

This scenario strikes a stark contrast to our internal affairs regarding the matter; I have made calls for anyone offended by the conduct of the nation in question to provide me with evidence or make a formal accusation of a violation of our laws for the Tribunal's consideration, and so far, none - be they visitors, members, or even ambassadors - have obliged this request. I take claims of hate speech very seriously, as in many cases this sort of speech hits me rather close to home; at the time of writing, however, it would seem that these claims have not come from within our community. I lament the possibility of a victim of hate speech feeling the need to go over our head and straight to the door of the interregional community to receive their rightful accommodation, but so far it appears that this is the best case scenario - the far more grim and likely possibility is that this controversy is the fulfilment of some manner of vendetta, heedless of my administration's resolve to learn from and improve as a result of what has transpired.

In light of this, our response, presently, is no response. We consider ourselves to be under no obligation to ensure your satisfaction, solicit an apology or explanation beyond any that have already been provided, or arrange for any of our officials to resign. Furthermore, while my administration maintains its commitment to opposing hate speech, it is with the understanding that no speech is innately hateful - the intent of a message, and how the message is perceived, is far more important than any of the individual words that comprise it. In light of this understanding, we will act in the best interests of our users; until and unless those users come forward with evidence of wrongdoing, these interests do not include acquiescence to these demands.

Thank you for your time, attention, and consideration.

Wow lots of long paragraphs. Can someone give me a detailed and nuanced summary in 5 words or less?