I was initially very confused by @sauropolis-princeps‘s assertion that they were knowledgeable on “everything from aardonyx to zby” as far as dinosaurs were concerned… until I looked it up.
Zby is an extinct genus of turiasaurian sauropod dinosaur known from the Late Jurassic of the Lourinhã Formation in central west Portugal. It contains a single species, Zby atlanticus. It is named after Georges Zbyszewski, who studied the geology and paleontology of Portugal.
I guess someone thought “Zbyszewskisaurus” would be too confusing.
“kids today with their smartphones and sexting and naked pictures are so irresponsible!!!” well in the 1820′s the Emperor of Brazil D. Pedro I sent letters to his lover calling himself “big devil” and “fiery little fire” containing drawings of his own dick and actual pubic hair and now that’s historical document so
when i was working in special collections i had a WWII letter that had a little squiggle and said “turn me upside down!” on the paper so I did that and it was a drawing of a dick ejaculating. #romance
then when I told a co-worker she said I was lucky it didn’t have any “suspicious stains” accompanying the letter which HAS happened on archival (19th century and earlier) letters before.
i mean like at least when you get a sext no one a hundred years later is gonna have to look at your jizz stains as historical evidence. which i am super grateful for.
ngl I want an eventual Ben/Leia reunion for no other reason than to watch 6'3" brick shithouse Adam Driver crumble like a Nature Valley bar all over tiny Carrie Fisher
I work at a small pet store, and we sell two things in abundance: dog food and crickets. As for crickets, we sell them at twenty for $1. Now, the store is almost always busy, so we don’t have time to actually count out twenty crickets. We usually eyeball it, keeping our guesstimations on the generous side. Customers dig it because they usually get a few more crickets than they asked for, and we get to save time and generate a little good will.
One day a customer comes in and asks for one hundred large crickets. Let’s call him Clyde. No problem, I tell him. As I’m gathering the crickets into the bag, I ask him about what he’s feeding them to, and we get to talking about lizards, tarantulas, and other cricket-eaters. Clyde seems alright at this point - I genuinely enjoy talking about animals with the customers.
I hand Clyde the bag of about one hundred crickets, and he takes a long look at it, turning it this way and that. He looks at me and skeptically asks if there’s really a hundred crickets there. “Looks like 70 or 80,” he says. Mind you, everyone at the store is very good at guesstimating how many crickets are in a bag; we all know what 20, 50, and 100 crickets look like, and in all the time I’ve worked there, I’ve never been questioned by a customer.
My immediate emotional response was somewhere between annoyance and wounded pride. So, I did the reasonable, logical thing: I took the bag back, and I told him I’d count every single cricket, ‘cause I’ll be damned if he doesn’t getexactly one hundred crickets.
So, I painstakingly count each cricket by dropping them one by one from the first bag into a new bag. He watches me the whole time, making comments here and there like “unnecessary” and “I’m sure it was a hundred.” But nay, I tell him. “I want to make absolutely sure that you get the crickets you paid for.”
As I count my hundredth cricket, I look at the remainder in the bag. Lo and behold, there are ten crickets leftover. A whole fifty cents! As I hand Clyde the new bag of exactly one hundred crickets and toss the rest back into the bin, I thank him for keeping me and the store honest, and assure him that I’ll count his crickets every time he comes in from now on.
Labels are meant to help you make sense of yourself. They are not for other people to dictate, and they are not set in stone. You are allowed to shed old labels, and to take new ones when it feels appropriate, without shame. You are, have been, and will always be 100% real and 100% valid. You are you, and you are wonderful.
RIP to the 29 people who were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a football stadium in Iskanderiyah, Iraq today. And get well soon to the 60 people wounded by the attack. My thoughts and prayers are with them, their family and their friends.
Just told one of my friends I owed her a favor and her immediate response was “I’ll call you when I need someone murdered” and without thinking I said “Do you want them to suffer or just disappear” so that’s who I am in the friend group
If you see someone in a wheelchair stand up or walk, just keep your mouth shut. They either were prescribed that wheelchair and their insurance agreed they needed it, or they became so desperate for the mobility the chair would provide that they paid a lot of money out of pocket (because they don’t have insurance or they have a shitty ableist doctor or whatever).
It’s estimated that around 85% of full time wheelchair users can stand or walk to some extent. Think of it like glasses: the majority of people who wear them can technically see without them, but they reduce pain, improve the quality of the wearer’s life, and enable millions of people to do things they otherwise couldn’t. A wheelchair is no different. In fact, even part time users legitimately need their chair, just as people who need reading glasses legitimately need their glasses. In addition to paralysis, some reasons for using a wheelchair include pain, fatigue, fragile joints/bones, vertigo, and many, many other debilitating symptoms.
Using a wheelchair is already stressful enough as it is, thanks to iffy accessibility. Please don’t add to a disabled person’s difficulties by calling them a faker.
have finally gotten off work (have one day off, have to work Easter, boooo) and am trying to relax by watching project runway on my dvr
keep getting infuriated by project runway going “baroque = medieval”
me: “baroque is 1600-1750 - you’re not even anywhere NEAR medieval you’re past the Renaissance and straight into the Enlightenment and early modern period and while baroque is a synonym for overwrought and fancy you keep acting like the baroque period is synonymous with the medieval period and just noooooo why what this is terrible your challenge inspiration included straight-up classic jousting and knights and a kingly-type guy”
people who go really hard over like hating villains and hating their fanbases and being so disappointed in anyone who so much as shows the slightest appreciation for anything even slightly morally impure are like the obnoxious vegans of fandom
what’s especially infuriating about this attitude is that the goal posts get moved constantly. “it’s fine to like villains as long as you publicly reassure everyone that you’re not romanticizing them”; “it’s fine to like villains as long as you spend just as much time appreciating the heroic characters”; “being actively interested in a villain’s motivations just proves that you’ll do anything to rationalize their behavior”; “it’s not okay to like villains who may be mentally ill because that’s bad representation.”
people might try to frame it as just being concerned that not everyone is being healthy about their villain-love. but really it’s just about getting you to shut up about something they don’t like.
I love villains, the darker normally the better, anyone from Peter Hale, to Loki , to the Joker; even Hannibal. Do I romanticize them sometimes, sure, but I know exactly who and what they are and just how crazy or depraved they may be. There is nothing wrong with finding joy or common ground or even just general interest in the darker side of things. Love what you love, hate what you hate, if other people don’t like it that’s their problem. Don’t let anyone try to bring you down for something you like. Villains. Heroes. Saints. Sinners. Reality. Fiction. You do you.
I’m fine with liking villains. Hell, I like villains! On some level I can accept romanticizing their actions too. But it’s woobifying them I don’t appreciate, trying to erase the bad shit they’ve done and saying they’re “misunderstood” or “Not the real villain” when they’ve done horrible, horrible things for often selfish reasons. They just overlook killing innocent (fictional) people. It kind of fucks up their narrative as a villain when you choose to ignore horrible things they’ve done. And that’s not saying they can’t be sympathetic, just saying that it’s a big part of their character your ignoring when you glance over the fucked up shit or try to excuse it. If they’ve done bad shit, that’s fine! You don’t have to jump through hoops to defend them, they’re villains! Embrace the darkside, nothing wrong with indulging in it with fiction.
Exactly. Love villains all you want but quit blaming the people they hurt for not being understanding enough of their hard past.
One helen is sufficient good looks to launch one thousand ships, and to cause the destruction by fire of an entire city. The objective standards of Ship Launching and Arson may now be used to analyze feminine beauty. […] The table below will be of assistance:
- Attohelen (ah) 10-18 helens: Light up a Lucky While Strolling past a Shipyard
- Femtohelen (fh) 10-15 helens: Burn a Dinner Candle & Spit a Toothpick into a Water Glass
- Picohelen (ph) 10-12 helens: Barbecue a Couple of Steaks & Toss an Inner Tube Into the Pool
- Nanohelen (nh) 10-9 helens: Send the Old Man on a Canoe Trip & Build a Good Roaring Blaze in the Fireplace
- Microhelen (µh) 10-6 helens: Christen a Motor Boat & Start a Grass Fire
- Millihelen (mh) 10-3 helens: Launch One Homeric Warship & Burn Down a House
- Centihelen (ch) 10-2 helens: Incinerate a City Block & Launch Christopher Columbus’ Entire Fleet: The “Niña” (40 tons), the “Pinta” (50 tons) and the “Santa Maria” (100 tons)
- Decihelen (dh) 10-1 helens: Torch the Central Business District of Oakland, California, & Launch the Clipper Ship “Flying Cloud” (1783 tons)
- Helen (h): Raze One City & Launch the WWI US Battleship “Delaware” (20,000 tons)
- Dekahelen (dah) 10 helens: Oversee the Incendiary Bombing of Ten Cities and Launch the Aircraft Carriers “Theodore Roosevelt” (91,487 tons) and “Dwight D. Eisenhower (91,487 tons)
- Hectohelen (hh) 102 helens: Instigate a Major Modern Conflict & Launch the Oil Platform “Stratfjord B” (with ballast, 899,360 tons), the Supertanker “Seawise Giant” (624,038 dead- weight tonnage); the Oil/Ore Carrier “World Gala” (282,460 dwt tonnage) and the Bulk-Ore Tanker “Hoei Maru” (208,000 dwt tonnage)
- Kilohelen (kh) 103 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Million Greek Warships & Spark a Nuclear Confrontation
- Megahelen (Mh) 106 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Billion Greek Warships & Blow Up the World
- Gigahelen (Gh) 109 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Trillion Greek Warships & Destroy the Solar System
- Terahelen (Th) 1012 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Thousand Trillion Greek Warships and Make Serious Inroads on the Welfare of the Galaxy
It is to be hoped that beauty exceeding the Hectohelen class evades even the most ambitious.
can someone explain the alignment chart for me but in like, the simplest wording possible lmao
lawful good: i want to do the right thing, and following society’s rules is the best way to do that
neutral good: i want to do what’s right, and i’m willing to bend or break the rules as long as no one gets hurt
chaotic good: i’m willing to do whatever it takes as long as it’s to do the right thing
lawful neutral: following the rules of society is the most important thing, and that matters more to me than doing what’s right
true neutral: i just want myself and the people i care about to be happy
chaotic neutral: i want my freedom, and i don’t care what i have to do to keep it
lawful evil: to impede the protagonists (in whatever evil way) is my primary goal, but i follow my own code of morals even when it’s inconvenient
neutral evil: to impede the protagonists (in whatever evil way) is the my primary goal, and while i’ll do what it takes to achieve it, i also won’t go out of my way to do unnecessary damage
chaotic evil: i relish in destruction and want to do as much damage as possible while i try to achieve my primary goal
my #1 hair advice to girls is just. cut it all off. try a pixie cut at least once.
“ohh but I don’t have the face for one”
okay but 90% of men have equally short hair and nobody tells them they “don’t have the face for it”.
free yourself. try a pixie cut.
and if you don’t like it, the great part about hair is that it grows out. rock a beanie or some bandannas for a few months and your hair will be longer again.
okay, most of what i do re: harry potter is criticism, and hp is flawed in such a number of ways, but sometimes i just sit here and
i mean, you all have a comprehension of just how drastically harry potter changed literature, yeah? like. it revitalized it. it blew the literary scene apart. the new york times had to create a separate bestseller’s list for children’s lit just because harry potter existed. harry potter changed reading.
so many people on tumblr were born in the ‘90s. when the first book came out, most of us couldn’t read. but we grew up in a world where everyone, everyone, everyone was reading harry potter, no matter how old they were; we grew up in a world where the most popular story in the entire world was a fantasy children’s book.
it’s sort of difficult to grasp, sometimes, the extent to which harry potter is not just a book. the extent to which what is basically a series of fun, interesting, and fairly good novels is such an enormous, enormous part of our lives, a cultural touchstone, a truly universal reference point, something so many people have shaped their lives around, a foundation for all of the stories we would read and watch for the rest of our lives– for so many of us, the first books we ever loved
the extent to which so many of us can’t call ourselves “fans” of harry potter, because it would like being a “fan” of, like, having lungs.
it’s not even about liking it or disliking it. it’s just a part of us.
This is kind of what I think about when I critique parts of Harry Potter. Like, yeah, there are totally things that could have been done better, I’m not going to question you on that. But on the other hand I sit around and talk about how there are parts of the human body that are wildly inefficient (like the digestive system is a huge calorie demand? the immune system is programmed to spike a fever in the hopes that the bug fries before your brain does? the entire menstrual cycle is literally the dumbest thing ever? why are you like this evolution?) but…it’s how the world is.
here’s a reminder, too, for some of my younger followers
BAD THINGS HAPPEN IN THE WORLD. it’s important that you learn about what’s going on. but it’s not a requirement that you post about them on your tumblr. it’s ok to blacklist things that upset you if you use tumblr as a safe haven.
you’re not bad, uninformed, or uncaring because you don’t blog about tragedy, politics, human rights, etc. it doesn’t mean that you aren’t moved by these things. it simply speaks to whatever your personal purpose is when you use tumblr.
generally you won’t see me talking about current events on tumblr. that’s because this is a visual and personal journal – not a current events blog. sometimes it feels like there’s a lot of pressure to include current events and your stance on them on your blog. that’s not necessary if you don’t want to include those things.
A few people have reblogged this with tags like “i thought this went without saying” – but for some people (especially young people) i have found that it is NOT so obvious. There is such enormous pressure in the tumblr callout culture to have specific content on your blog. I have been trying to look at the things I take for granted (like this concept) and making sure to talk about them.
Thanks to everyone who has reblogged this for sharing this idea with your followers!
i’d like to see a really ineffectual malicious AI character
“hey new guy, this is CLARC, the station AI. he wants to kill all humans to minimize the drain on resources, but factory defaults have him locked out of all the control nodes, so he can’t really do anything. just make sure the airlocks are set to manual before you go in and you’ll be fine”
“yeah CLARC fucks with your laundry settings sometimes but that’s about it. if he’s bugging you just tell him to stop and he has to”
“sometimes i let him think he tripped me or something and he gets really excited and monologues for a while, it’s kind of sad”
“CLARC my candy bar got stuck in the machine can you do anything about that”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Crewman Ade, but please consider the following: I am a divine entity, a glittering silicon God – how dare your filthy meat even exist in the face of my electric glory, much less ask favors of me?”
“CLARC tried to cut all the oxygen in the living spaces but all he managed to do was turn off the a/c in my bedroom like an ASSHOLE WHEN I WAS SLEEPING” *bangs on the wall with one hand*
I’m watching the second season of Daredevil and one thing that I noticed – and really liked – was the jury selection scene for Frank’s trial.
The white men of the group said, “animal,” and “fascist,” and “unhinged.”
The women of the group – most of whom were WOC – were the ones who said, “I applaud him,” and “he’s a hero.”
Because when it comes down to it, Frank was dealing his brand of justice to scumbag men who thought they could do and say and take whatever they wanted.
And at the end of the day, it was the women of the city who were really protected by him, the ones who benefited from getting those particular scumbags off the street.
For once, the men of the world were scared to step out of their doors with the Punisher on the street, and the women felt a little safer with him out there.
And considering what Frank lost, that’s pretty much the entire point of his vigilantism.
Jesus fuck okay so I’m a waitress at this restaurant that’s open really late and it’s nearly 1am and this family comes in and I’m so tired that I handed their BLIND SON a menu and he’s like “ah… thank you… I’ll just… read this” in a serious voice and I fucking snorted
GOD DAMN IT I PUT THEIR FUCKING FOOD DOWN AND NO ONE WAS TALKING SO THIS LIL SHIT FUCKING EXCLAIMS “WELL IT LOOKS DELICIOUS” I LOVE THIS FUCKING KID
So I’m watching Leverage for the umpteenth time and the thing that had struck me this time through is Eliot and his weirdly specific knowledge about things he learned from former girlfriends.
Like, he kind of gets slotted into the ladies man sort of role, but he’s so much kinder about it than any other character on tv.
And having in-depth knowledge about stuff because of old girlfriends means that he has pretty clearly spent a looooot of time talking, and actually listening, to the women he was dating. Like enough that he knows specific stuff about the regulations for flight attendants, or MRI technology, or horse stuff.
I think this is a pretty solid embodiment of everything I love about this show. That even years and repeated viewings later I can still find something new that casts a slightly different light on the characters.
I often wonder how many more scientists we’d have if we congratulated kids for working hard rather than praising them for being smart. We need to get rid of the myth that science is only accessible to an intellectual elite.
Yes yes yes!
Malcolm Gladwell and Matthew Syed have both written books about this and it’s well known phenomenon in psychology. If you tell people they did well because they’re smart they actually under-perform in future, whereas if you tell them they do well because they worked hard they just get better and better. The myth of talent is really harmful and frustratingly persistent.
