Thursday Things is here! This week we read the cards, raid the roaches, and click our way to fitness.
The cards tell me you will learn about new websites and bug-related science soon. Photo by petr sidorov on Unsplash
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Tarot trouble
I admit I have never given much thought to the challenges of the tarot card reading industry (the tarot industrial complex?) in an online world.
‘Software for witches’: tarot readers fight rampant online impersonation with their own tech
Since tarot practitioner Rebecca Scolnick first began reading cards professionally in 2018, she has been impersonated more than 50 times on Instagram. The scams typically follow a similar pattern: someone creates an account that mirrors hers, using a nearly identical username and reposting all of her photos. The scammer then approaches her followers with enticing spiritual messages. “Hello beloved,” they usually begin. “Have you ever had an in-depth psychic reading before?”
Scolnick, who has more than 11,000 Instagram followers, regularly receives messages from her fans saying they have paid for a reading from someone who is not actually her. After years of being inundated with fraudsters and impersonators, she and many tarot readers like her, along with other mystical practitioners, are exhausted and frustrated.
Yes, tarot card readers are up in arms about scammers impersonating them online.
The solution: “a new online tarot website, Moonlight, which launched in March 2023 and advertises itself as the first tarot-specific online marketplace.”
It's been a longtime problem: “Practitioners say institutional disregard has left them and their clients open to swindlers.”
Fake fortune tellers are swindling people!
And it’s hard for the public to tell the fake psychics, fortune tellers, and tarot readers from the genuine article.
Which does make a certain amount of sense.
Meanwhile, the policies of tech companies, including Instagram and payment processer Stripe, have only made things worse: “Tech companies and tarot readers have had a particularly antagonistic relationship...”
I could see that. Given that tech is science based and tarot reading isn't.
...which the mystics say has exacerbated the risk of scams in their business: in 2021, payment processor Stripe banned “psychic businesses” from using its platform, which barred tarot readers and other occult or spiritual services, many of whom used the payments processor to receive compensation for their work.
What's a psychic to do? Maybe ask the cards.
Tarot readers who had used Stripe switched to peer-to-peer payment apps like Venmo and CashApp – the preferred tools of scammers as well.
So now the legit tarot readers and scammers are even more indistinguishable, since both are using the same relatively shady payment tools.
As for Instagram:
“Instagram rarely allows self-identified witches or tarot practitioners to be verified – and if it does, it typically requires official identification, which can differ from the practitioner’s handle or public persona. Without a blue checkmark on their profile, practitioners have little ability to distinguish themselves from scammers who build identical accounts, confusing followers."
Not helping, Instagram!
“The biggest issue facing online tarot readers now is just the fight for credibility,” Scolnick said.”
One would imagine so.
And yet, as tech taketh away, so tech giveth: Moonlight to the rescue!
Moonlight is an online marketplace and platform for tarot practitioners, with scheduling and secure payment processing.
“Moonlight currently has 25 vetted tarot readers available for booking through the site, with readings ranging from $50 to more than $200 per hour. Providers go through a rigorous onboarding process.”
So you can be confident you're getting a real tarot reading from a real tarot reader.
Also, I learned that the number of tarot scammers went up during the pandemic, alongside a general increase in tarot readings and the like. I guess all those people stuck at home were full of anxiety and uncertainty about the future.
While Moonlight may make the future clearer for tarot pros, challenges remain in the mystic services industry: “If someone DMs you and says, ‘You need to pay $200 to lift a curse,’ and you do it, how can you later prove that’s a scam?”
Yes. That could be tricky. Maybe complain to the FTC?
The Federal Trade Commission, the US government agency tasked with consumer protection and fraud prevention, declined to comment on the growing scam issue in the spiritual and mystical space, and has not issued any warnings on the matter.
It sounds more like an X-File to me.
This is why I only trust the Magic 8-Ball 🎱for all my prognostication needs.
But if you want to seek the mystic counsel of Moonlight, try the site here:
Moonlight: A new place for tarot
400+ year old wisdom in a playful, interactive sandbox. Do rituals with friends, book readings, and reflect solo—all in one platform.
You would have to assume the tarot readers behind Moonlight saw its success in the cards — otherwise why do it?
Roaches resist
Roaches are the worst! I’ve lived in apartment buildings where no matter how clean you try to keep your own unit, the skittering six-legged pests thrive thanks to all your neighbors, or sometimes they just hole up in the walls of vacant units. I have fought long and bitter battles with roaches. I won’t go into much detail, because you may be eating lunch as you read this.
Anyway, for those besieged by roaches, this is NOT welcome news:
Maybe the infestations persisted because people weren’t applying to the sprays correctly. Or maybe the products were failing. Over more than a decade of work trying to better understand and eliminate cockroach infestations, Devries found himself asking, ‘are these consumer bug sprays doing anything?’ New research from DeVries and a team of colleagues offers a clear answer to that question, a resounding ‘no’.
Common consumer insecticide sprays and aerosols are ineffective against German cockroach infestations, according to a study published August 14 in Journal of Economic Entomology.
Well, that’s not good at all.
The findings have big implications for the management of one of the most insidious household pests, and for how pesticides are regulated and marketed.
No kidding!
But wait — did they say German cockroaches?
I should be fine then. I don’t live in Germany.
Alas, no such luck:
German cockroaches (Blattella germanica) have evolved alongside human settlements for millenia. Though a handful of other roach species can become unwelcome indoor invaders, including the much larger American cockroach, German roaches only live in human structures and are the most prolific and problematic home pest. And they aren’t just unsightly and annoying, they’re also a major public health concern in cities worldwide.
German cockroaches, always invading places they don’t belong. Typical.
The findings most likely apply to American cockroaches and other varieties too, unfortunately. Or so I would guess.
The most disturbing thing I learned is that the reason so many anti-roach sprays don’t work is that roaches have developed resistance to them.
Past research has repeatedly demonstrated that the vast majority of free-living German roach populations have evolved resistance to pyrethroids, the class of insecticides most commonly found in consumer pest control products.
And the finding of the research discussed here supported that. Pesticides tested on “regular” cockroaches without an evolved resistance reliably killed the bugs. But strains of roaches with pyrethroid resistance laughed off several leading pesticides.
Even direct hits in some cases.
But the real trouble comes from their resistance to “residual effects”. You’ll never get a direct shot at every roach. To be truly effective a roach spray has to kill bugs that come into contact with it on surfaces later, when you’re not looking.
But that, it seems, is unlikely.
So if roach sprays don’t work, what’s to be done?
Taking out trash daily, cleaning up and securely storing pet food, plugging entry points, and fixing water leaks are big initial control steps to minimize resources available to roaches, Scharf notes. And some consumer pesticide products are worth trying. Avoid ‘bug bombs’ or total release foggers, which also don’t work, and carry a sizable risk of pesticide exposure, says DeVries. A better strategy is to buy gels and other bait products that are meant to be ingested by pests.
Roach motels and sticky traps are what worked for me. And the occasional judicious application of the Size 12 Bug Smashing Sneaker of Doom.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Muscle map
Maybe you need to work out to build those roach smashing muscles. Then you’ll be interested in my other website find of the week: MuscleWiki.
It’s a wiki of all your muscles! Take a look:
You can click on any muscle in the diagram and, based on the options you click in the bar on the right, the wiki will show you various exercises for that muscle. Very cool!
Each exercise is illustrated with a short continuously looping video of someone doing that exercise. Which is a great reference, better than a static diagram, and more concise than a 10-minute YouTube video on how to do a plank, with a discussion of all the do’s and don’ts, why planks are good, how many to do, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, videos like that are awesome for learning a new movement — in fact you can click through to just such a video on MuscleWiki too. But sometimes you just want to see it demonstrated without all the extras. It’s a good visual reference to have.
There is more to the site — you can design your own workouts and routines, or follow those on the site, track your progress, etc. Naturally, there is a premium version.
But even skipping all that, just being able to click a muscle and see some exercises for it is a great resource, so bookmark MuscleWiki!
Thank you for reading!
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