Never talk to me or my Mastoson ever again.

Looking at a map of their range they might be in the very southernmost part maybe near Madison, but just barely. You’d probably had to head towards Illinois or Indiana for a better chance of finding them.

If you use the app iNaturalist you can also find geotagged groves. Taking a quick peek there’s a handful in southern WI like I said, but they really pick up once you move south.

Unfortunately I’ve never used LaTeX so someone else will have to answer that.

I… love you too?

For anyone doing academic writing, I use a combination of Logseq, Zotero, and Zettlr. All open source. Collect articles in Zotero. Annotate and take notes on those articles in Logseq with absolutely amazing PDF annotation tools. Write draft in Zettlr which allows me to enter Zotero citations and reference Logseq notes.

Bonus shoutout to LibreOffice for exporting and formatting the final draft. And that’s your recipe for one all-natural, organic, FOSS thesis!

Yeah seconded that it’s not FOSS but still a great app. Logseq is a good FOSS alternative for a knowledge base, and I really like Zettlr for long form md writing and note taking too.

I use a lot of note apps partially for school partially for fun but man Logseq PDF annotation is incredible. That plus native Zotero integration is a game changer for anything academic.

Good list I make use of a lot of these too. Keep both LibreOffice and OnlyOffice around depending on how I feel that day but been leaning towards LO quite a bit recently.

I will say I had Caprine for a while but my god it uses so much memory, it has an absolutely massive footprint on my laptop. I find a nice compromise is using messenger.com as that way I can still send and read messages without delving into the horrors of FB, plus can keep it in a container.

I got the trilogy as a used box set recently and I really wanted to love them but just didn’t click for me. Don’t read a lot of YA now anyway so maybe missed my chance, definitely see the appeal though and think it’s a good fit for OP’s request!

Yes I think Babel is a little lighter on gorey excess than the Poppy Wars (which I haven’t read but my partner has described in detail to me). Which is to be expected for books designed to depict the horrors of colonialism.

But mainly mentioning it with a content warning since it’s often tossed around as an HP replacement. I think the first half of Babel captures a similar “wonders of magic school” vibe, although with a lot more caveats about how inequitable the entire system is. It does get extremely harrowing by the end so maybe should include a clearer warning in my post.

For pleasantness and YA high fantasy vibe Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle is great.

For wizard school with a much more mature tone R.F. Kuang’s Babel is a great read. Warning though it is much darker and heavier, so prepare yourself emotionally haha.

EDIT: was recommended that I give a heavier content warning to Babel which is fair. While it is thrown around as an HP alternative it is emotionally harrowing, has some extremely violent and disturbing sections, and is generally focused on depicting the horrors of colonialism. A good read, but prepare yourself going in and don’t expect it to be quaint or pleasant.

Many locals haven’t either! They really are a hidden gem.

They make it to farmers markets occasionally, and the trees are very easy to identify and surprisingly common. If you know what to look for, most wooded areas in their range will have some pawpaw trees. They generally only fruit for a few weeks in late September/early October but the good news is you’re right on time!

Just doing my part to spread the good word.

Someone else mentioned pawpaws but i just want to emphasize pawpaws are the shit. Plus if you live in the Eastern US especially the Midwest pawpaw season is HERE. You have no excuse not to leave your house this moment and find your nearest pawpaw grove.

Not convinced? Congrats you have subscribed to pawpaw facts:

• they are related to the custard apple and were brought this far north in the shit of prehistoric giant sloths
• they taste like somewhere between a mango and a banana, and so our ancestors in all their wisdom gave them names like Indiana banana, Ohio banana, \ banana
• they are a CAPITALIST NIGHTMARE as they have terrible shelf life so can really only be eaten fresh or bought from a farmers market
• foraging for pawpaws is super fun as they grow in groves, have super skinny trunks and branches with large long leaves and surprisingly big fruit. To harvest pawpaws you give the trees a gentle shake and ripe fruit will just fall off. Don’t shake too hard or you might knock down fruit that isn’t ripe! Not cool!
• to enjoy just shake em down, cut it open and eat the fresh fruit inside (not the skin). Do not eat the big ass seeds leave them where you found em so that out beautiful native pawpaw groves FLOURISH

All in all pawpaws are 10/10 if you want to feel like a literal Animal Crossing character shaking down trees for sustenance and having a great time eating fresh fruit outdoors

The lengths to which this game goes to steal all my free time is absurd.

It’s completely understandable to respond that way towards people who are dismissing or attacking a fundamental part of who you are.

At the same time it’s important to note they are a small sample size of their religious/ethnic/national background. Each of those groups is probably so large as to contain every kind of person from saints to bigots, which is why hating a group that large is fundamentally irrational.

Honor your own feelings, don’t make excuses for their bigotry, but remember that they like any of us are just small parts of the groups they belong to.

Wasn’t self-hosting but trying it out with their server for awhile. I think the idea is great, and I think one of its big UI advantages is it’s a lot more intuitive on mobile than most other personal knowledge management / note takers I’ve used.

I did find it pretty buggy at times and a lot of the features not built out enough yet to be a daily driver for any particular use case of mine yet. I’ve tucked away into my “cool projects to check up on at a later date” mental drawer.

I would probably use cultural activist. You could probably also use advocate or preservationist.

Activist has a little bit more active connotation, like your out in the streets or organizing in some way to maintain the culture. Advocate is good, but a little vague. Preservationist would be more like documenting or conserving existing examples of the minority culture, and is maybe a little dry or academic of a term.

So for your example Cantonese cultural/language activist would probably fit best.

;-)