Tootfinder

Daisy.

So I grew up next to #Chernobyl and this is, well, TERRIFYING.
A story for y’all: I’m from a city called Zhytomyr, 2 hours west of Kyiv in the North of #Ukraine. We were downwind of the Chernobyl #nuclear power plant when the 1986 disaster happened.
I wasn’t born for another 12 years, but my childhood was filled with stories and the aftermath of it all. Things like:
- My grandmother worked as a head doctor in a hospital and rehabilitation facility exclusively for children of Chernobyl victims to treat the extremely high prevalence of Tuberculosis and other severe health complications. (To specify: these were SECOND GENERATION of exposure).
- A lot of the kids in that facility were orphans, because their parents died young from health problems.
- My uncle’s wife was born in Pripyat. She was 1 year old when the disaster happened. Her parents were told to evacuate while given no information about what happened. They had to pack up their things and rush out to an unfamiliar city with their baby, never to see the rest of their belongings, apartment, or hometown again.
- When I was a kid, it became so common to see weirdly mutated animals and insects that even 2-3 year olds would make jokes about “Chernobyl mosquitos” and I wouldn’t even flinch seeing occasional giant bugs, dark frogs, weird-looking dogs.
- We’d frequently hear of nearby farms having issues with their animals being born too mutated to survive or random outbreaks from contaminated water / food. Crops would randomly fail. People would get poisoned on a regular basis. This all got less common as I grew up.
- My mother still remembers being a little girl, 10 years old, and looking outside from their balcony at the clouds blowing over from Chernobyl that day. People were told to not go outside and to shut all the windows, but not given an explanation as to why. My mother swears that the rain looked different. They weren’t able to go and buy more food for the kitchen for multiple days.
Anyway - nuclear safety isn’t a joke. I don’t understand how this level of carelessness can happen after Chernobyl and Fukushima.

https://www.404media.co/power-companies-are-using-ai-to-build-nuclear-power-plants/

Current mood

Just finished "Roller Girl" by Victoria Jamieson, a graphic novel about navigating preteen social changes, dyeing your hair, and of course, roller derby! It's got a great subplot about dealing with complicated feelings, and I like that it doesn't tie things up neatly with a bow at the end.
I actually know the rules of roller derby now.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

I have been driving, cycling and walking past this old house for years* waiting for it to fail completely but it is still holds up for the most part.
* My wife has been paying attention to it since she was a young girl.

All set for flying out to Paris today, to attend a conference on digital #commons in Strasbourg next week - and meet some friends and family before that. 🥐
Being a very clever girl, Ohana recognized that me packing my travel backpack means that I'll be gone for a while, and she told her sister too. 🎒
#dogsofmastodon

For all its success, there are two things Netflix wants and has never achieved. First is to win the Academy Award for best picture and, second, to make a proper blockbuster movie. It’s well to remember that Netflix is a US corporation, not the radical guerrilla outfit it sometimes presents itself as. And they want their films to be at the heart of mainstream American culture in the same way their TV shows are.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/dec/05/what-does-netflix-hope-to-achieve-by-buying-warner-bros?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

That moment when “what are you?” becomes “an experience.” 🫶
#NonBinary #Enby #LGBTQIA #LGBT