Realm of the InterNutter

Thoughts, stories and ideas.

Challenge #01351-C256: You Try to Teach Them...

Corvids. Just... Corvids. (link)

(btw did you know all modern corvids are descended from Aussie ancestors? Well, technically Australasian ones, but close enough) -- RecklessPrudence

Ravens are widely recognised as one of the more intelligent birds on the planet Earth. Substantial evidence for this includes the fact that they have learned how to tame humans.

Humans tend to object to that minor fact. They will go on endlessly about how they were the ones to teach corvids how to communicate in their language, and how they were the ones who observed them using tools, or playing with human artifacts. Or how they realised that corvids knew about trade.

The simple fact of life remains that humans have been doing all this work and building all this cool stuff and ravens have been slouching around and taking advantage of things like human expansion.

You can take either perspective you like on that one.

Ravens are cleverer than they really need to be. Your average scavenger is usually only smart enough to spot the next meal. Ravens, on the other hand[1], have become clever enough to spot an easier way.

This is one of the key factors in human evolution. But somewhere along the way, humans messed up and started working at things again. Whilst the ravens just hung around and decided that being amusing was way easier.

Humans may have been taught by the ravens. Simple concepts like 'barter', or mimicry as a method of negotiation. Ravens may have even shown primitive hominids how to use tools. They may have taught humans how to distract predators and steal their food.

Ravens have long since been observed riding bigger, more powerful birds. They could easily have given humans the idea of climbing onto a horse and using it to save energy.

Humans are either the ravens' greatest accomplishment or their biggest failure. It all depends on who you ask.

But if you could engage a raven in conversation, they would sigh and roll their eyes at humans as a species. At least they always have food available...

[1] Or, if you prefer, wing.

(Muse food remaining: 19. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

Is Baby Boomer Business Practice Killing Millennials?

I've had my fill of panic-fuelled articles accusing Millennials of "killing" insert-industry-here and laying the collapse of the economy at their rather young feet.

Especially even when an uneducated layperson like myself can take one look at the way the economy's been going and realise it's the Baby Boomers scrabbling for every last cent that got us to this point.

As one of the last of the Baby Boomers, I would like to apologise for the behaviour of my peers. Like Millennials,

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Challenge #01350-C255: The Tale of Sir George (No, the Other One)

Who says a young dragonling can't grow up to be a wonderful knight? -- OohLookShiny

All things begin small, but for some, small is relative. For the hero George, it began with an egg the size of a shorn sheep, and a merciful hero turned blacksmith who honoured a monster's dying wish.

I cannot change, the beast had said. My baby is not hatched. Raise them... to... be good.

Sir Menkhol had obeyed. He took the egg to his home and forge

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Herp de Derp

As usual, I got my wires crossed and the day when I'm getting that heart monitor is NEXT Wednesday. I found out when I looked up my calendar and realised that I was a week ahead of myself.

Everything else is in sync, just this one thing has got mis-assigned. Go figure.

I'm getting ahead on the new regime. For limited definitions of 'ahead'. Instead of doing everything with my inertia-bound Beloved, I use the time when they are making me spin

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Challenge #01349-C254: Ten Good Reasons Why You're Wrong

"Oh my god!"

"What?"

"You're a nineteen year old boy!"

"Yeah, so?"

"So stop puttering around with your knitting like a senile old woman!" -- OohLookShiny

Andrew took a deep breath in. Slowly let it out. "There are things you need to learn, mister complete stranger who decided to butt into my life. One: this is crochet. Two: I'm making blankets for homeless or abandoned kids in shelters. Three: this is an exercise to help me gain back some fine motor control

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Yoiks and Awaaaaaaayyy!

I got my first rejection, yesterday. The agent I sent a sample to, sent me a "thanks but no thanks" letter. I can't let that get to me, but at least I'm not set up to fail on my birthday.

And today, sometime between getting a heart-monitoring harness fitted, fetching a new battery (or more) for my sleep monitor, fetching the kids, arranging dinner, writing my book, etc.... I will fling another sample towards another agency and set my timer for potential

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Challenge #01348-C253: That Escalated Quickly

Lilo Pelekai and Steven Universe -- Anon Guest

[AN: Pretty sure 90% of the Disney Channel visited Lilo, back in the day, so I'm bringing Lilo to Steven]

Steven was getting fast. And strong. And thanks to his newfound ability to leap around like a balloon, Greg didn't have to spend so much on a truck rental. Which meant that the beach stage was going up in record time.

Correction. It had gone up in record time.

"Whoah. You're getting too good,

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Re-arrangements

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. I have kids to deliver to grandparents on Saturday. Tech support and guests coming up on Sunday. The house is entirely skew-wiff. And I only have so many spoons with which to make improvements.

Beloved is seeing a dietician today, which will likely mean that 1000000000% of the food they love and the food we have is instantly unsuitable and must be taken far, far away and burned for the good of humanity.

And it will also mean that

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Challenge #01347-C252: Could They Pick a Worse Team?

I am a ____ agent, I have a voice synthesiser in my throat. I can do any accent you can think of! Unfortunately I've lost the instructions at the moment... And my voice box is stuck on shop demonstration. -- Anon Guest

"Héllo, Madarm. I am hére to see your studént Camila Rodriguéz."

The school secretary looked at the badge, and the agent, and grew a very concerned look.

"Yés. I am a PINATA agént, I have a voice

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New regime

Beloved's been undergoing a run of tests, lately, to discover the root behind an accelerated heart rate. And the answer, dear readers, is diabetes plus cholesterol.

Since I'm still undergoing my own battery of tests, in regards to that same vital muscle, we both figured it'd be great if we got into some healthier habits. Which means breakfast for both of us, morning walks together, and mutual self-maintenance schedules.

The tricky things to do are way less tricky when there's company. It's

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Challenge #01346-C251: Purse of Holding

Like the Tardis it's 'bigger on the inside'. It can be anything carryable from a Ladies handbag (a notorious source of strange objects), to one of those pull along "granny" trailers, or whatever you like. -- Knitnan

"Here. You'll need this."

It looked like a small, leather pouch. There was some beading on it that had evidently not been designed with hard use in mind. But, it didn't feel like a small, leather pouch. It felt indefinably heavier. "What is this?"

"Bag

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Can they see me?

Neil Gaiman said something interesting on his Tumblr, today. The whole post is here but the meat of it is this:

Your job isn’t to convince your teachers that they are wrong, just as it’s not your job to accept their prejudices. Your job is to learn enough from them that when you become a famous writer, whether of fantasy or of something else, they’ll have to be proud of you anyway.

And it's a lovely, inspiring message. There's

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Challenge #01345-C250: Well You Took Your Time

Prompt: the hollow coconut TONK noise that can be produced by tapping the right place on top of someone's head if their mouth is open. -- Gallifreya

[AN: Grats, you got me to hit myself on the head several times]

Rael was currently being a small, blue-black dog that 'just happened' to be where this backwards colony of humans had put Ambassador Shayde.

They had evidently landed with the best technology of their launch-era, but the process of building a colony and

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New and interesting ways of fucking up

I usually try to never make the same mistake twice. That often leads to the title of this blog entry.

I just got over a major depressive bout (I'm still in the fragile stages FYI) and discovered that my breathing problems might just be because I'm actually having lung trouble rather than emotional issues.

It's a process of elimination, folks.

Experiencing breathing difficulty:

  • Is it a rhinovirus? Nope. Got over that.
  • Is it depression? Nope. Got over that (mostly).
  • Is it my
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Challenge #01344-C249: Blindly Winning

Lion and Connie - without Steven -- Gallifreya

Steven? Connie opened her eyes. Pink fur. Cotton-candy mane. Steven's lion. She was in the middle of a small circle of clear air, or what seemed to be clear air. The meadow and the flowers under her feet soon vanished under the eldritch shapes of the obscuring fog.

"Where's Steven?" said Connie. "Do you know?"

Lion just licked her face.

There was... a Homeworld Gem called Moonstone. She had the power to summon obscuring

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