Very Useful - Blog Posts

How I join skeins

Did I daydream this, or was there a website for writers with like. A ridiculous quantity of descriptive aid. Like I remember clicking on " inside a cinema " or something like that. Then, BAM. Here's a list of smell and sounds. I can't remember it for the life of me, but if someone else can, help a bitch out <3

Does this resonate with you?

I find it pretty accurate.

Big thanks to myautisticsoul for making this.

what type of girls each turtle would fall for?(your blog is so cool)

I tried to think out of the box for this one lmao.

Leo

I think our leader in blue would look for someone who’s clever and soft-spoken. Maybe not someone who’s a genius like Donnie or a particularly good leader like him, but someone who was patient and kind and wouldn’t mind curling up with a good book on a quiet afternoon.

Raph

Raphael is a big, brawny guy, so I can imagine him not quite knowing what to do with a girl who has an IQ to rival Donnie’s. She’d be scrawling equations down in her notebook, pushing her glasses up her nose, and Raph would be confused, but also…very attracted to her? She’d be the brains to his brawn.

Donnie

I can see our purple nerd getting toooootally flustered over a really badass girl. One who rocks dark eyeliner and plays the electric guitar. I think to contrast his shyness, he’d need someone who wouldn’t beat around the bush, you know? She’d just walk up to him and be like “hey nerd, you wanna go out sometime?”

Mikey

Our dear little Mikey would be totally in love with a girly girl. She wears flower crowns and has rainbow highlight, her high tops are pink, and she has a new nail color just about every week. He looooves how colorful she is, and immediately, she becomes his muse. He feels like he has to draw her or he’ll explode.

-Admin Mo

wear a different perfume when you commit murder fuckin amateurs 

Cat colors genes masterpost

I copied all my descriptions from the cat color gene tournament here, with pictures and all. I often type out the genotypes, so this is a guide to what each letter means. Under the cut because it's very long.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I don't use the most common designations of a gene or an allele, and I'd like to apologize to everyone who's bothered by this. I have a very good reason for it: I like it better my way.

Genetics guide

Agouti (agouti signaling protein gene, ASIP): this gene determines whether the individual hairs will be banded or not.

dominant allele: A - banded hairs, tabby cat (wild type)

recessive allele: a - no bands, solid cat (variant)

A_ means if there's already an A allele, the other one can be either A or a.

A homozygous recessive cat with wild type alleles on every other gene will be solid black. Combined with other allele variants the a allele can produce other solid colors, different types of smokes and several more.

Actually there are more "secret" alleles for this gene: the agouti alleles of the asian leopard cat and other wild feline species. In certain hybrid breeds, most notably bengals, there's even a special coloration called charcoal born from the combination of the domestic cat's solid and the asian leopard cat's agouti allele.

Ticked (dickkopf wnt signaling pathway inhibitor 4, DKK4): this gene determines if there is any full-colored hairs, or only banded.

dominant allele(s - researchers found at least two): Ti - only banded hairs, ticked tabby cat (variant)

recessive allele: ti - some hairs don't have bands, "patterned" tabby cat (wild type)

If this is the only gene with variant allele, we'll have a black ticked tabby [black tabbies are also called brown, and other, mostly breed-specific names]. Ticked tabbies are possible in every color.

Nonagouti covers up the tickedness (this is called recessive epistasis): we won't see what a solid cat's genotype is on this gene. (Except when other genes make it possible. But that's biology for you.)

Spotted (?): this hypothetic gene can break up the tabby pattern's stripes into spots.

dominant allele: Sp - spotted tabby cat (variant)

recessive allele: sp - striped tabby cat (wild type)

Alone the Sp allele makes a black (brown ect) spotted tabby cat; of course, in combinations with other variant alleles, it can produce a wide variety of different colored spotted tabbies.

Both a and Ti covers up the spotted gene: its effect normally only visible on a cat with the A_ titi genotype.

Mackerel [i use the name mackerel since every other gene here is named after the dominant allele] (transmembrane aminopeptidase Q, Taqpep): this gene determines the type of the tabby pattern.

Blotched and classic are synonym terms.

dominant allele: TMc - narrow vertical lines, mackerel tabby cat (wild type)

recessive allele: tbl - wide, swirling lines, blotched or classic tabby cat (variant)

If every other gene is wild type except this, we'll have a black blotched tabby cat, but of course the tbl allele can produce lots of different colored classic tabbies.

All of the previously mentioned genes are able to nullify the effect of this one, so a mackerel or a blotched tabby must have A_ titi spsp genotype.

Additional annoyed remark: Despite the name, the so-called classic pattern is actually both the newer and the less common worldwide. My only guess for why it's named like that: it's the more common one in England. Well, thanks. (That's why I actually prefer the name blotched over classic.)

Brown (tyrosinase-related protein-1, TYRP1): this gene determines the quantity of the functional eumelanin.

dominant allele: B - full pigment production, black cat (wild type)

"middle" allele: b - less pigment, chocolate cat (variant)

recessive allele: bl- even less pigment, cinnamon cat (variant)

Order of dominance: B > b > bl

If every other allele is wild type except this, we'll have a chocolate or cinnamon mackerel tabby cat. (On the picture the cinnamon cat is spotted rather than striped, because i couldn't find a decent mackerel. So sad.) Chocolate and cinnamon cats are possible in every pattern.

Dilute (melanophilin, MLPH): this gene determines the distribution of the pigments.

dominant allele: D - even pigment distribution, dark cat (wild type)

recessive allele: d - clumped, uneven pigment distribution, diluted cat (variant)

black -> blue

chocolate -> lilac

cinnamon -> fawn

In these pictures the difference isn't that striking between the black and the blue mackerel tabby, but if you look up at the header, in solid cats it's much more pronounced.

For further comparison of undiluted and diluted color pairs on one picture (to eliminate differences in lightening):

black vs blue and red vs cream

Every possible color and pattern can be diluted (with the only exception of white).

Orange (?): this yet unidentified gene determines the type of the most prominent pigment: eumelanin on pheomelanin.

allele: O - mainly pheomelanin, red-based cat (variant)

allele: o - mainly eumelanin, black-based cat (wild type)

This gene is special in two related ways: first, it's located on the X chromosome, which means tomcats only have one allele; second, the alleles are codominant - if a cat carries both of them, it'll show both phenotypes: this is how we get tortoiseshell cats. This explains why almost all tortoiseshell cats are females - every tortie needs two different X chromosomes.

Combined with other variant alleles every possible color and pattern can occure as tortoiseshell, but the O allele is epistatic over a lot of genes: for example agouti (the phenotype of every orange cat is tabby, even the genetically solid ones) and brown (since eumelanin is mostly absent thus can't change - the genotypes OO B_, OO b_and OO blbl all mean red cat).

The dilute version of red is called cream.

The dilution level is always the same in the colors of a tortoiseshell: the undiluted black, chocolate and cinnamon is paired with red, the diluted blue, lilac and fawn are paired with cream.

White (receptor tyrosine kinase, KIT): this gene determines the size of the area the pigment producing cells (the melanocytes) reach.

dominant allele: W - basically no melanocytes, white cat (variant)

allele(s): ws - limited area is covered, white-spotted cat (variant)

allele: w - all of the body is covered by the melanocytes, full-colored cat (wild type)

recessive allele: wg - only the paws remain white, gloved cat (variant)

Order of dominance: W > ws = w > wg

Since the gloving allele is kind of specific to the breed, I used a birman cat to illustrate it.

Lots of alleles here! Actually I'm not sure what's the most accepted opinion about them, but since these variant are all mapped to KIT, I considered them alleles.

If every other gene shows the wild type except for this, we'll have a white, or a white-spotted black mackerel tabby cat, but thanks to the ws allele(s) every color and pattern can be combined with white patches. However, the W allele is epistatic over every other gene: if a cat has one or two copies of W, it will be white regardless everything else.

ws is interesting: it has an additive effect, a cat with the wsws genotype will have more white than a cat with only one copy of it.

wg is fully recessive: the gloved phenotype only present if the cat's genotype is wgwg.

Color restriction (tyrosinase, TYR): mutations on this gene will result in temperature-sensitivity in the pigment production, the cats will be lighter on the warm and darker on the cooler areas of their bodies.

dominant allele: C - regular pigment production, full colored cat (wild type)

allele: cb - moderately reduced pigment production: burmese color restriction, sepia cat (variant)

allele: cm - reduced pigment production, bangkok color restriction, mocha cat (variant)

allele: cs - highly reduced pigment production: siamese color restriction, pointed cat (variant)

recessive allele: c - no pigment production, albino cat (variant)

Dominance order: C > cb = cm = cs > c

Now this group is a lot. Not only five different alleles (mocha was found relatively recently in Thailand), but the middle three are all intermediate with each other meaning that actually we have eight different phenotypes (illustration from messybeast; full color and albino are absent):

I used solid cats for illustration, because in the thai breed (the cats i used belong to this) they are often preferred over tabbies, so it's easier to find pictures; also, it's much more simple to compare them.

(Photos from The Thai Cat Center and Bangkok Mocha Cat, and Pangur from @pangur-and-grim as an albino cat)

Please note that all of these varieties are very changeable; the pictures (especially those of the heterozygotes) are far from representing all cats carrying the respective genotypes.

Alone these variants makes some type of a black (seal) mackerel tabby point cat, but every type of color restriction can occure together with all possible colors and patterns.

***The color restriction gene won the Cat Color Gene Tournament!***

Inhibitor (?): this unidentified gene reduces the pheomelanin production, thus removes the warm tones of the fur (the hairs have white-black banding instead of yellow-black).

dominant allele: I - reduced pheomelanin, cooler toned cat (variant)

recessive allele: i - normal pheomelanin, warmer toned cat (wild type)

If every other allele is wild type except for this, we'll have a black silver mackerel tabby cat. Combined with other alleles it can produce lots of different silver (tabby) and smoke (solid) varieties.

Wide band (?): This hypothetic gene makes the yellow bands on the agouti hairs wider, resulting in a lighter, yellowish pelt. Based on the width of the pale bands we can differentiate between golden (middle band width) and shaded (maximal band width, color is pushed up into the tip).

dominant allele: Wb - reduced area of eumelanin, warmer toned cat (variant)

recessive allele: wb - normal area of eumelanin, cooler toned cat (wild type)

Golden is quite a mess; right now there is one identified gene (found first in siberians), but persians and many more breeds must have different gene(s), based on the interaction with the inhibitor gene (siberian golden + silver = bimetallic, persian golden + silver = silver shaded or chinchilla), and the inheritance patterns (the siberian alleles are recessive, while persian golden appears to be dominant). Since lots of breeds allow golden, and sometimes it can be found even in stray cats, I say who knows what genes and alleles are out there! This is all a hardly understood, very exciting and currently researched area.

If every other gene stays wild type except for this, we'll have a black golden mackerel tabby or a black golden shaded cat. Combined with other alleles it can produce lots of different golden and silver varieties.

Low-grade white (?): Again, hypothetic gene(s). Even with the extreme variability of the white spotting allele(s), the existence of some independently inherited genes is strongly suspected. Their effects most commonly manifest as a white locket: a small white patch on the chest or the belly, and/or a white tail tip. I'm not sure if there is any consensus whether these are more likely to be recessive or dominant alleles.

Dilute modifier (?): This unidentified gene changes the color of a diluted cat, the coloration becomes more brownish.

dominant allele: Dm - (variant)

recessive allele: dm - (wild type)

blue, lilac, fawn -> caramel

cream -> apricot

I put here a cat in all three diluted colors to compare them with the caramel tabby. It's hard to spot the differences, isn't it?

Since this is a dilute modifier, the D allele covers it, and we can only see its effect on cats with dd genotype.

It can be found only in a few breeds: orientals (including related breeds), burmese, different rexes. To our current knowledge, of course.

Extension (melanocortin 1 receptor, MC1R): This gene replaces eumelanin with pheomelanin resulting in a yellowish or reddish furred cat. The change often happens gradually during the first years of the cat's life.

dominant allele: E - eumelanin remains, black adjacent cat (wild type)

recessive alleles: e, er, ec - pheomelanin takes over, yellow/red adjacent cat: amber, russet or serdolik (variant)

All three recessive variants are new mutations found recently in different breeds: the color amber in the 1990s in norwegian forest cats, the color russet in 2007 in burmese, and the color carnelian or serdolik in 2018 in kurilian bobtails (at least that's the first mention). We don't know anything about their interactions, or their effects on cats outside of their respective breeds.

The gene only effects eumelanin, so the O allele is epistatic over the it. However, because of the properties of the overpowering pheomelanin, every e allele is epistatic over agouti, so the tabby patterns will show up on aa cats as well.

Wide band (serine peptidase, CORIN): This hypothetic gene makes the yellow bands on the agouti hairs wider, resulting in a lighter, yellowish pelt.

dominant allele: Wb - eumelanin on normal sized area, darker cat (wild type)

recessive alleles: wbSIB, wbeSIB, wbBRI - eumelanin on reduced area, lighter cat (variant)

Ohhh, citizens of tumblr, we're really in it now. So. In the moment, we have, I believe, three mutations found on this gene: the sunshine (wbSIB) and extreme sunshine (wbeSIB) in the siberian breed, and the copper (wbBRI) in british cats. (I only show the sunshine and the copper here.) The novelty of these mutations means that the breeders still often call them simply golden instead of the new names, so it's difficult to find reliable data. Further complicating the situation, most likely both breeds have more wide band gene(s) beyond CORIN, and especially the copper cat above is the result of the combination of several wb genes.

Karpati (?): This unidentified gene makes the extremeties (face, ears, legs, tail) white kinda like a reverse colorpoint cat, and causes a roaning effect: scatters white hairs everywhere on the body.

dominant allele: K - whited extremities, karpati cat (variant)

recessive alleles: k - normal pigmant production, full colored cat (wild type)

Karpati seems to show intermediate inheritance with significantly more white on a homozygous then a heterozygote cat. This gene is studied for a very short time, and mostly on heterozygotes since they are much more common. The cats appearence changes during their life and also with the seasons: they born very similar to a fever coated kitten but with white ears, then to the end of their first year they almost completely lose the white (at least the heterozygous cats - the homozygotes become darker but still keep strange white patterns), then slowly gain it back as they age.

The karpati mutation is present in the stray cat population in middle-east Europe (including Hungary where I live, wahoo! and indeed, I can regularly see one or two karpaties in facebook adoptions groups and such). It's also introduced to some established breeds (LaPerm, Sphynx ect) and the creation of its own breed also began under the Transylvanian name.

I was today years old when I learned that when you type “otp: true” in AO3 search results it filters out fics with additional ships, leaving only the fics where your otp is the main ship

In case anyone is having a bad night:

Here is the fudgiest brownie in a mug recipe I’ve found

Here are some fun sites

Here is a master post of Adventure Time episodes and comics

Here is a master post of movies including Disney and Studio Ghibli

Here is a master post of other master posts to TV shows and movies

*tucks you in with fuzzy blanket* *pats your head*

You’ll be okay, friend <3

47 more free and helpful things, that everyone can take advantage of

Music

Gnoosic is your place go for new music recommendations. It asks for three of your favourite bands, and based on them, spits out an artist that you might like. You can also “like”, “dislike”, or mark it as something you aren’t familiar with – which further refines the results.

NoCopyrightSounds is a copyright free / stream safe record label, providing free to use music to the content creator community. NCS Music is free to use for independent Creators and their UGC (User Generated Content) on YouTube & Twitch - always remember to credit the Artist, track and NCS and link back to our original NCS upload.

Radio Garden take a trip 'round the world's airwaves! Just pick a city — literally any city — and Radio Garden will play you whatever its local radio station is broadcasting.

Radiooooo Radio Garden walked so Radiooooo could run. This site adds a timeline function so you can listen to radio from not just anywhere, but anywhen. Get down to those 1910s Germany bops!

Art

Krita free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital painting and 2D animation.It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and Chrome OS

29a.ch interactive site that lets you color what looks to be a map of the cosmos, but I'm honestly not sure. Whatever it is, it's mesmerizing.

Games

Patatap is an interactive website that responds to the keys on your keyboard with a sound and a brief animation. Now imagine hammering in entire sentences – and you got an explosion of sounds, colors, and movement! Once you start typing in random paragraphs, it becomes almost hypnotic, in a way.

Drench a very simple browser game, Drench gives you a board with different colored tiles, and you use the buttons to flip the colors around. Do this until your board is full of tiles of a single color only.

River Styx an interactive point-and-click game that takes you through the river Styx and the Underworld. You will meet many Greek Gods and Goddesses here, and you will also be learning a lot about their myths and legends.

2048 this website lets you play a game called 2048, which is kinda like Tetris but with addition. Use your arrow keys to try to combine numbers until you reach 2048, or go ~beyond~ and try to reach 4096.

Little Alchemy 2 fun little time killer. As its name suggests, the website deals with the process of transformation you achieve when you start mixing different things. You start with Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. The goal is to create as many different materials or objects as possible. For example, earth and air will form dust. There are no rules just mix and match your creations to create new ones. You will not even know where your time went.

Akinator website is magic or rather feels like one. You can think of any character in this entire world and through a series of question, it will deduce the name. Don’t believe me, go try for yourself.

Find the Invisible Cow You’re going to want to make sure your sound is on in this fun finding game! Find the invisible cow in this laugh out loud version of hot and cold.

CookieClicker How fast can you click for cookies? Level up and become a cookie pro with this fun time-wasting website!

Knowledge

Zooniverse A really neat website that brings people together to create one of the largest platforms for people-powered research. Volunteers come together to assist professional researchers. There is no need for a specialised background or training; all you have to do is to answer simple questions.

Cool Hunting is a really cool publication platform that uncovers the latest in design, technology, style, travel, art and culture. If you are into art, architecture, and culture, then this website is perfect for you.

OCEARCH Shark Tracker This one looks right on the money for the folks who can’t get enough of sharks! With OCEARCH Shark Tracker, you can keep a track of tagged sharks as they are busy swimming around the deep ocean. Moreover, the website also lets you zoom in on a particular location to check where sharks have been swimming for the past year.

Ad Astra-app An essential tool for every astronomer. The star atlas and skyguide that makes it really easy to pick the best objects, make your own observation list and use it when you are outside

100,000 Stars is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen on the web. It shows a representation of galaxy with stars inside it. You can take a tour which starts from the Sun and takes you to the outer edges of the galaxy while teaching you valuable insights in between.

wikiHow is an online wiki-style publication featuring how-to articles on a variety of topics. For example: How to make ginger ale, How change a lock or How to survive an encounter with an ostrich.

Cooking

Cooking for Engineers is a godsend for those who love to cook. This website has it all, from recipes, to kitchen gear, to cooking tests, down to a handy dictionary. The best part about this website is its classic 90’s layout, which makes accessing the recipes and files intuitive and easier.

My Fridge Food at this point, your fridge probs has, like, three random items in it, and you're starting to panic about meal options. Enter My Fridge Food, which inputs everything you have in your kitchen and outputs a recipe. Bless.

Work, or relax

Da Font Tired of your basic Times New Roman? You can spend hours downloading new fonts from typography artists to spice up your new document!

A Soft Murmur If you’re looking to create your own ambient background music to listen to while you work or read, A Soft Murmur is the fun website for you! Create your own mix of white noise and other natural sounds to relax and waste some time.

Rainy Mood Get all the benefits of rain without getting caught in it with Rainy Mood! This is perfect for setting a relaxed and chilled out mood.

I Waste So Much Time The website is designed to literally allow you to waste your time. There are no long articles, just funny pictures with embedded texts. A very good time waster for short breaks.

This Is My Website Now The website truly kills your time. It is just a collection of small games which you can play on your browser. Effective for less than 10 minutes of usage, it’s good for a short break.

Instructables If you’ve always wanted to learn how to DIY but didn’t know where to start, try Instructables. They have community posts with step-by-step instructions to help you become a DIY master in no time.

OBS Open Broadcaster Software is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers. only downside to it is that you have a power director watermark in the corner of your video, but its not very large.

Sleepytime is your sleeping schedule out of whack? This fun website calculates exactly when you need to go to sleep and wake up in order to get a good night’s sleep.

Boredom

MapCrunch Go on an adventure without leaving your home — because you can't! This site plops you down in a random location on the globe, and all that's left to do is explore.

List of Conspiracy Theories Get sucked down the dark rabbit hole of the internet that will have you denying history and wearing tinfoil hats. Wikipedia’s list of conspiracy theories will have you scrolling for ages!

This Person Does Not Exist If AI and deep-fakes fascinate you, this is a website that will either make you very excited, or give you nightmares about whether ‘The Matrix’ is real, and if you, at some point in your life, took the blue pill instead of the red one. Either way, the website generates fake people using GAN (or generative adversarial networks), and displays them to you. You can refresh the page to see a different face. Also, if this interests you, you might also like:

This Cat Does Not Exist. You know, because why stare at human faces when you can look at cats instead.

The Useless Web Want to see what the Internet truly has to offer? Take a peek at The Useless Web to see what truly is out there.

Not Always Right Had a bad day at work? Did that one annoying, pesky customer or client who just wouldn’t shut up tried to give you a hard time, and succeeded? Then this website is just perfect for you! It’s a collection of stories about customers who just don’t know when to shut up.

Zoom Quilt If you're looking to be hypnotized, then check out this site, which is basically a picture that infinitely zooms in to reveal new pictures.

Just for fun

Tickld is your go-to spot for anything humorous and funny, for anything that’s really cool and interesting, or stuff that’s just plain WTF.

Paper Toilet Just because stores are sold out of toilet paper doesn't mean you have to live without. This site features some interactive TP that you can roll up or down.

The Passive-Aggressive Password Machine Type a password (real or fake) into this site and it'll shade you for how much it sucks.

CoolThings is a collection of cool things. From entertainment, to gadgets, to even toys and inventions, there is bound to be something here that will interest you.

This Is Why I Am Broke This is a great website for discovering new gift ideas which are distinct. The products range from a few dollars to a few thousand. There’s something for everyone here.

PostSecret is a very interesting website. Visitors are encouraged to send in anonymous postcards on which they write their secrets. There are all sorts of secrets on all kinds of postcards, and the variations make this a really interesting project. However, be warned – these secrets are very real… and very heavy.

NOIYS – Post, read, forget is a place to post an anonymous note to be viewed by many people, only to be deleted within 24 hours. It’s the perfect website for venting anonymously and not worry about the consequences, as it will be deleted within a day. The best part (or maybe worst) is that strangers can reply to your note, too. That way, you can have a running conversation with a complete stranger.

Scream Into the Void Take your outrage about our current situation (or any problem in your life) and throw it into the void. Just type out your feels and then click the "Scream" button, which does exactly what you think it does.

And lastly...

Dildo Generator Welcome, good citizens of the web, to my favorite site of all time. It's right in the name: You can generate a custom dildo by length, width, base, contours, and so many more variables. Things get wild pretty fast.

Eyebleach Did you see something on the internet that was just too scary? Or just need to get it out of your head? Click on Eyebleach to be fed adorable pictures of puppies, kitties, or babies!

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