Cary

porcupine-girl:

not-terezi-pyrope:

noctumsolis:

swankyangles:

deadpanwalking:

HELP

So uh, you know those people who insist Russian psy-ops never happened?

Me three years ago being Cassandra as usual

But there are none of these on Tumblr, nooooope, anyone who claims we’ve got Russian bots on tumblr is drinking the Biden kookaid, amirite? No way a single one of those accounts telling you not to vote is running chatgpt under the hood.

blignick:

steampunktendencies:

Victorian ingenuity: a mahogany “reading station” crafted by Charles Hindley & Co. circa 1890. It features a double wing-back seat with an arm divider, each seat equipped with an adjustable reading stand, various compartments, drawers, and bookshelves.

Photos courtesy of 1stDibs

museenkuss:

So as a continuation of this post I made in frustration about how anglo-centric most “must-read” book lists are, I went and found a few lists with a focus on non-English speaking authors (sorted by number of books listed):

• 8 Must-Read Foreign Books Translated Into English (Babbel)
• The non-western books that every student should read (The Guardian)
• 10 best translated fiction (Independent - has suggestions regarding editions + prices)
• 49 Incredible Books From 49 Different Countries (Huffpost - has amazon links to all the books, which is great to find the editions but please please please support your local bookstores!!!!)
• 100 Must-Read Classics in Translation (BookRead - Amazon links again. Most bookstores will offer to order books for you if they don’t have them, please utilise their services and support local shops whenever possible!)

All these lists have reviews and feature books from a wide range of countries. I haven’t read every single review but I browsed the lists to make sure they wouldn’t all just name the same books and they don’t!!

I hope you’ll find inspiring new reads on those lists! :)

animentality:

invaderxan:

trewneollyn:

jeanjauthor:

heycollage:

sioltach:

@onenicebugperday

“My deity has been spending much more time with me… He has given me food, water, shelter, things to chase and things to bite, a paradise to explore and be safe within… I sense my time is drawing near, and I am comforted by the presence of my deity. They sense my end is drawing near, and they show me how they, too, bite into their prey. Together, we share a holy meal of understanding, between my small self, and their colossal, incomprehensible, mostly unknowable existence.

"Perhaps we aren’t all that different from the gods…and as my life draws to a close, I find that thought comforting.

artoftcbaldwin:

tagedeszorns:

Love seeing this

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I think if we just convince AI that it committed an original sin, we can get it to feel guilty.

1hoverman0k:

Otra víctima el Chupacabra

skyberia:

was reminded of that youtube channel that records footage of that bridge that scalps trucks today. one of the fascinating developments that’s happened since i last heard about it is that, in one of their many attempts to stop the trucks from being can-opened, they installed a traffic light that detects when a vehicle that’s over the allowed height is coming and turns red so the driver can stop and hopefully notice the signage all around that’s screaming “YOUR VEHICLE IS OVERHEIGHT TURN AROUND” and avoid an accident. However as a result sometimes drivers see the light turning yellow and IMMEDIATELY start flooring it to avoid having to stop, ensuring that the roof of their truck just gets fucking annihilated instantly. Really beautiful stuff you should check it out

bolcseszgoblin:

theglasscat:

this image is probably the most accurate visual representation of the United States education system

Oh boy.

Do I have a story for you…

So this is the iconic and beloved clock of Moszkva square in Budapest, Hungary. Or more precisely it was.

It was a very popular meeting point for generations.

„2pm on Moszkva, under the clock?” „sure” It was in the middle of the square, so you could see each other pretty easily from anywhere.

When they „renovated” (rebuilt) and renamed the square that is now called Széll Kálmán tér (only by youngsters and tourists who don’t know any better - it will remain for a lot of us „the Moszkva”) the old clock was removed.

So. Removing the clock was very controversial, but it had to go, because someone dreamed about a new shiny one. Here it is. New, and weird and DIGITAL.

The problem is, it stopped working. For days. (you see, fixing it was time-consuming…) And they came and fix it. But it broke down in a couple of days again and again, so the lovely people around helped to fix it. Some of the best solutions:

Graffity: ?Is this a clock? No" and Where is the old clock? Furthermore, on the clock it states that it shows the right time.

An artistic rendition:

But my favorite one is where people got enough of the breaking down abomination, and the heartless people taking down the actually working clocks (it is a very busy square with a lot of public transport connections), and things escalated quickly:

I think this is the most of them we had taped on at once.

The papers state: In memoriam of the unknown time. Rest in Peace

So… I guess, Hungarians do.

hater-of-terfs:

chismositx:

you can’t support autistic people and support the police. No amount of paint jobs or sensitivity training can stop police from killing with impunity

And fuck the jigsaw puzzle imagery advanced by the eugenicists at Autism Speaks. We’re not a “puzzle” to be “solved“

Half of all people killed by cops have a disability, because cops aren’t trained to recognize or deal with people with disabilities and very few places have people who are trained for those situations easily accessible during emergencies. So the cops come in and do what they’re paid to do - murder anyone who’s inconvenient to the state

dreamwaffles:

roach-works:

knightofleo:

“ExcUSE me?!”

the thing i love about social animals is they necessarily have a concept of manners which means that you can be rude to them. not threatening, but rude. and they’ll be annoyed at you for it.

confusedguytoo:

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

atopfourthwall:

edward-nb:

yeti-zeus:

traditional-latin-math:

*shaking movie directors by the shoulders* NIGHTTIME AND OTHER FORMS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DARKNESS CAN BE IMPLIED WITHOUT MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE THE FUCKING MOVIE

I always think of that conversation on the set of lotr where the cinematographer was asked where all the light was supposed to be coming from in scenes like the battle of helms deep, and he just responded that it comes from the same place as the soundtrack does. sometimes you need to be a little unrealistic to make your work better and actually watchable

This, incidentally, is why “NOPE” had such spectacular and clear night scenes: master cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema just plain didn’t shoot at night.

Instead, they strapped a regular camera and an infrared camera together, coordinated them with lasers…

…combined them, used the naturally black sky created by the infrared as a blank canvas, added a new digital cloud line and various other effects to create a gorgeously lit night scene.

This is a ground-breaking new technique, and Jordan Peele is correct to say it could make movies better.

Good night footage is possible.

You just have to shoot it during the day.

Behold: the final evolution of day-for-night filming.

Please bear this in mind filmmakers and consider that the audience does in fact want to be able to see what is happening O.O

Lies. True fans of film only care that the directos vision be displayed for all to see. Or not see as the case may be

People are gonna be shook when Rebel Moon Part Three comes out and 90% of the film is silent because it’s taking place in the vacuum of space so sound doesn’t travel

elodieunderglass:

teuthidactyl:

regularlesbian:

caucasianscriptures:

Corrupt doggo bribed by bear

a bear has learned my furry son can be bought

– a worried parent who just found out about sugar daddies

This is a perfectly good guard dog, it’s just not site security, it’s a trained club bouncer

a-book-of-creatures:

doomhope:

peterfromtexas:

Ornithologist Jerry McGahan is pictured with a 6 month old Andean Condor, the largest flying bird on earth. Photographed by the Helen and Franck Schreider.  Another version of this photo made it to the cover of National Geographic.

[Additional description: The condor is landing on McGahan’s glove as he leans back for balance. The bird is massive; their body is maybe three times the size of a person’s head, and their wings are outstretched, showing that their length and McGahan’s height are about the same.]

dragongirl-brev:

wtf-scientific-papers:

Submitter comment: I’d like to submit this ’[s]tudy of defensive behavior of a venomous snake as a new approach to understand snakebite’ not for it’s topic (worth studying!) but for it’s insane methodology, which… well, I’ll just let the researcher speak for himself:

[Q: Why did you decide to do this experiment?

A: Snake behavior has been generally neglected as a field of research, especially in Brazil. And most studies don’t examine what factors make them want to bite. If you study malaria, you can research the parasite that causes the disease—but if you don’t study the mosquito that carries it, you will never solve the problem. Up until now, the popular wisdom was that the jararaca would only attack if you touched it or stepped on it. But that was not what we found.

Q: Why did you need to be the victim?

A: The best way to do this research is to put snakes and a human together. In this case, the human was me. We put the snakes inside a ring on the floor of our lab until they got used to it, then I stepped in wearing special protective boots. I stepped close to the snake and also lightly on top of it. I didn’t put my whole weight on my foot, so I did not hurt the snakes. I tested 116 animals and stepped 30 times on every animal, totaling 40,480 steps.]

From the recent (aptly named) interview: Researcher steps on deadly vipers 40,000 times to better predict snakebites

swallowyourgods:

what freak at my barnes & noble made a cannibalism section by the cookbooks

@lizardgirlclawmarks

sightofsea:

love when cats hear that you’ve woken up even just a little bit and they’re like hiiiiiii oh my god oh my god!!!!! i wrote some poems in the night let me recite them for you. this one is called: screaming and knocking your water bottle off your nightstand

sapper-in-the-wire:

paper-mario-wiki:

wukker:

paper-mario-wiki:

paper-mario-wiki:

hey here’s a website for downloading any video or image from any website.

works w/ youtube, soundcloud, twitch, twitter (gifs and videos), tumblr (video and audio), and most other websites you’re probably lookin to download stuff off of.

for anyone wondering about privacy and whatnot, i’m happy to say that the developers are pretty committed to have 0 trackers and 0 data retention. you can read more in their “about” section, but here’s the basic important stuff:

COBALT MENTIONED OUTSIDE OF TWITTER???

^ (one of the lead devs that made cobalt)

thank you for your thingy, it’s real useful 🙏

austinramsaygames:

thedickcavettshow:

Basically for the past 100 years when a group of guys got together and started hanging out they would eventually form a band. This was when there was balance in the universe. Then at some point in the 2010s a powerful crystal cracked and a single shard was lost and then strife began… and now when a group of guys get together they form a podcast

I was once told by my dad (a musician) that “Comedians are musicians who wish they had musical talent, and musicians are comedians who wish they were funny.”

I’m gonna add (as a podcaster) that podcasters wish they had either.

headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

thatmadscientistbitch:

headspace-hotel:

sahonithereadwolf:

headspace-hotel:

glimpsesofgardens:

headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

y'all ever reach the end of google

I’m starting to gain insight into why people turn into conspiracy theorists. Some topics are so totally neglected that it looks like they were intentionally and maliciously erased, instead of falling victim to arbitrary lack of interest.

I think it’s a vicious cycle; when people don’t know something exists, they’re not curious about it. Also, people use conceptual categories to think about things, and when a topic falls between or outside of conceptual categories, it can end up totally omitted from our awareness even though it very much exists and is important.

This post is about native bamboo in the United States and the fact that miles-wide tracts of the American Southeast used to be covered in bamboo forests

@icannotgetoverbirds It already is a maddening, bizarre research hole that I have been down for the past few weeks.

Basically, I learned that we have native bamboo, that it once formed an ecosystem called the canebrake that is now critically endangered. The Southeastern USA used to be full of these bamboo thickets that could stretch for miles, but now the bamboo only exists in isolated patches

And THEN.

I realized that there is a little fragment of a canebrake literally in my neighborhood.

HI I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH THIS.

I did not realize the significance until I showed a picture to the ecologist where i work and his reaction was “Whoa! That is BIG.”

Apparently extant stands of river cane are mostly just…little sparse thickety patches in forest undergrowth. This patch is about a quarter acre monotypic stand, and about ten years old.

I dive down the Research Hole™. Everything new I learn is wilder. Giant river cane mainly reproduces asexually. It only flowers every few decades and the entire clonal colony often dies after it flowers. Seeds often aren’t viable.

It’s barely been studied enough to determine its ecological significance, but there are five butterfly species and SEVEN moth species dependent on river cane. Many of these should probably be listed as endangered but there’s not enough research

There’s a species of CRITICALLY ENDANGERED PITCHER PLANT found in canebrakes that only still remains in TWO SPECIFIC COUNTIES IN ALABAMA

Some gardening websites list its height as “over 6 feet” “Over 10 feet” There are living stands that are 30+ feet tall, historical records of it being over 40 feet tall or taller. COLONIAL WRITINGS TALK ABOUT CANES “AS THICK AS A MAN’S THIGH.”

The interval between flowering is anyone’s guess, and WHY it happens when it does is also anyone’s guess. Some say 40-50 years, but there are records of it blooming in as little time as 3-15 years.

It is a miracle plant for filtering pollution. It absorbs 99% of groundwater nitrate contaminants. NINETY NINE PERCENT. It is also so ridiculously useful that it was a staple of Native American material culture everywhere it grew. Baskets! Fishing poles! Beds! Flutes! Mats! Blowguns! Arrows! You name it! You can even eat the young shoots and the seeds.

I took these pictures myself. This stuff in the bottom photo is ten feet tall if it’s an inch.

Arundinaria itself is not currently listed as endangered, but I’m growing more and more convinced that it should be. The reports of seeds being usually unviable could suggest very low genetic diversity. You see, it grows in clonal colonies; every cane you see in that photo is probably a clone. The Southern Illinois University research project on it identified 140 individual sites in the surrounding region where it grows.

The question is, are those sites clonal colonies? If so, that’s 140 individual PLANTS.

Also, the consistent low estimates of the size Arundinaria gigantea attains (6 feet?? really??) suggests that colonies either aren’t living long enough to reach mature size or aren’t healthy enough to grow as big as they are supposed to. I doubt we have any clue whatsoever about how its flowers are pollinated. We need to do some research IMMEDIATELY about how much genetic diversity remains in existing populations.

@motherfucking-dragons

it’s called the Alabama Canebrake Pitcher Plant and there are, in total, 11 known sites where it still grows.

in general i’m feral over the carnivorous plant variety of the Southeastern USA. we have SO many super-rare carnivorous plants!!!

Protect the wetlands. Protect the canebrakes because the canebrakes protect the wetlands.

Many years ago I did some (non-academic) research on native canes in the USA because I thought I remembered seeing a bamboo-like something in the wild that I’d been told was native, and I thought it might make a nice landscaping accent. But the sources I found said something like “unlike Asian bamboos, the American equivilant barely reaches the height of a man”, and I went “nah, that is exactly the wrong height for anything.” But if it gets 10 feet and up, I think there are a lot of people who would be VERY happy to use it as a sight barrier in public and private landscaping, and if it means putting in a bit of a wetland/rain garden, all the better. The lack of a good native equivelant to bamboo is something I have heard numerous people bemoan. Obviously it’s very important to protect wild sites and expand those, but if it’d be helpful, I bet it wouldn’t be hard to convince landscapers to start new patches too.

For instance, a lot of housing developments, malls, etc. seem to set aside a percentage of their land for semi-wild artificial wetlands (drainage maybe?) planted with natives, and then block the messy view with walls of arbovitae or clump bamboo from asia - perhaps it would be a better option there?

Good Lord. Arundinaria isn’t just a better option, it’s perfect.

I was in the canebrake near my house again this morning, and river cane is extraordinarily good at completely blocking the view of anything beyond it. It is bushier and leafier than Asian bamboos, and birds like to build nests in it. It would make a fantastic privacy barrier.

The cane near my house is around 10-12 feet tall. This species can reach 30 feet or more, but I think it needs ideal conditions or to be part of a large colony with a robust system of rhizomes or something.

It grows slowly compared to Asian bamboos, and seems to need some shade to establish, so it would take time to become a good barrier, but no worse than those stupid arborvitae.

plants like this were often intentionally cultivated in planter boxes as a form of water filtration and civil engineering by a bunch of indigenous nations.

There’s a reason why Native Americans cultivated canebrakes.

Well, several reasons. As y'all may know, bamboo is stronger than any wood, and therefore it makes a fantastic building material.

The Cherokee used, and still use, river cane to make fishing poles, fish traps, arrows, frames for structures, musical instruments, mats, pipes, and absolutely gorgeous double-woven baskets that can even hold water.

This stuff is, no joke, a viable alternative to plastic for a lot of things. The seeds and shoots are also edible.

Uh I know this is out of left field but I work in plant cloning - it’s a lot easier than you’d think to do for plants and it’s honestly a really important conservation tool, and good for making a TON of seedlings in a short amount of time. I can look into this genus for like, cloning viability?

I know about reproducing plants from cuttings, rhizome cuttings have proven doable with this species.

Hi y'all, reblogging the Canebrake Post again. It’s been over a year since I fell in love with the coolest plant ever. I’m trying to bring it back but I am very small so if any of y'all have a Canebrake nearby you might wanna talk to the owners and contact some local parks and nature preserves yeah?

luanna801:

emilysidhe:

So were you aware that the The Beauty and the Beast story we all know is a heavily abridged and rewritten version of a much longer novella by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve?  And that a lot of the plot holes existing in the current versions exist because the 1756 rewrite cut out the second half of the novella, which consisted entirely of the elaborate backstory that explains all the weird shit that happened before?  And that the elaborate backstory is presented in a way that’s kind of boring because the novel had only just been invented in 1740 and no one knew how they worked yet, but contains a bazillion awesome ideas that beg for a modern retelling?  And that you are probably not aware that the modern world needs this story like air but the modern world absolutely needs this story like air?  Allow me to explain:

The totally awesome elaborate backstory that explains Beauty and the Beast

• Once upon a time there was a king, a queen, and their only son
  
• But while the prince was still in his infancy, in a neat reversal of how these fairy tales usually go, the king tragically died, leaving his wife to act as Regent until their son reaches maturity
• Unfortunately, the rulers of all the lands surrounding them go, “Hmm, the kingdom is ruled by a woman now, it must be weak, time for an invasion!”
• And the Queen goes, “Well, if I let some general fight all these battles for me, he’ll totally amass enough fame and power to make a bid for the throne; if I want to protect my son’s crown, I have no choice but to take up arms and lead the troops myself!”
• (Btw, I want to stress that this woman is not Eowyn or Boudica and nothing in the way her story is presented suggests that she had any interest martial exploits before or in any way came to enjoy them during these battles.  This is a perfectly ordinary court lady who would much rather be embroidering altar covers for the royal chapel and playing with her child until necessity made her go, “Oh no, this sucks, I guess I have to become a Warrior Queen now” and she just happened to kick ass at it anyway.)
• And the Queen totally kicked ass, but the whole “twice as good for half the credit” thing meant that no matter how many battles she won, potential enemies refused to take her and her army seriously until she had defeated them so no sooner would she fend off one invasion than another one would pop up on a different border.
• So she spent the majority of her young son’s life away from the castle leading armies, but it was OK because she left him in the care of her two best friends, who just happen to be fairies!  This was an awesome idea because a) fairies have magic, and therefore are like the best people to protect the prince from any threats and b) fairies consider themselves to be so above humanity that the lowest fairy outranks the highest mortal, so they’d have no interest in taking a human throne.  Good thing they were both good fairies instead of one good and one evil one!
• (Spoiler:  they were not both good fairies.)
• So the two fairies basically take turns raising the prince until he’s old enough to rule.  And on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, the evil older one comes into the prince’s bedroom.
• “So listen, kid.  You’re about to become king, your mother’s on her way home from the war to see you crowned, and I have a third piece of good news for you!  You see, I’ve actually been spending so much time here lately because Fairyland’s become a bit too hot to hold me for reasons totally not related to me being secretly evil.  And if I have to hang in the human world, I might as well reside in the upper echelons of it, so even though as a powerful fairy I completely eclipse your puny human status in a staggeringly unimaginable way, since you’re about to be king and since my premonition that I should stick this whole guardianship thing out because you would be hot one day has totally proved accurate (go me), I will graciously lower myself to allowing you to marry me.  Please feel free to grovel at my feet in gratitude.  (Btw, we can totally start the wedding night now, we’ll tell your mother about it when she arrives tomorrow.)”

Keep reading

This post actually inspired me to go back and read the original, and I was not disappointed. In addition to Beast’s Warrior Queen mom, there’s also a whole bunch of backstory about how Beauty’s Fairy Mom fell for a human even though she wasn’t supposed to and the ramifications of that, which I think has a lot of potential too. (Though I’d keep Beauty’s biological dad as the merchant, in an adaptation.) I also enjoyed how much of fairy society was apparently dependent on snake transformations.

My favorite moment that doesn’t make it into adaptations, though, is that when everyone is arguing about how Beast totally can’t marry a merchant’s daughter because it’s beneath him, he says that if him being a human prince is what’s standing between them, he’s willing to be turned back into a beast because he’d rather be with her that way than not at all. That should 100% be included in every version.

toddchavezwatchescartoons:

cipheramnesia:

mirriky:

mostlysignssomeportents:

Deviant Ollam is runs a physical security penetration testing company called The Core Group; in a flat-out amazing, riveting presentation from the 2017 Wild West Hackin’ Fest, Ollam – a master lockpicker – describes how lockpicking is a last resort for the desperate, while the wily and knowledgeable gain access by attacking doors and locks with tools that quickly and undetectably open them.

Ollam’s techniques are just laugh-out-loud fantastic to watch: from removing the pins in hinges and lifting doors away from their high-security locks to sliding cheap tools between doors or under them to turn thumb-levers, bypass latches, and turn handles. My favorite were the easy-exit sensors that can be tricked into opening a pair of doors by blowing vape smoke (or squirting water, or releasing a balloon) through the crack down their middle.

But more than anything, Ollam’s lecture reminds me of the ground truth that anyone who learns lockpicking comes to: physical security is a predatory scam in which shoddy products are passed off onto naive consumers who have no idea how unfit for purpose they are.

When locksport began, locksmiths were outraged that their long-held “secret” ways of bypassing, tricking and confounding locks had entered the public domain – they accused the information security community of putting the public at risk by publishing the weaknesses in their products (infosec geeks also get accused of this every time they point out the weaknesses in digital products, of course).

But the reality is that “bad guys” know about (and exploit) these vulnerabilities already. The only people in the dark about them are the suckers who buy them and rely on them.

So when Ollam reveals that thousands of American cop cars, fleet cars, and taxis can all be unlocked and started using a shared key that you can literally buy for a few bucks at Home Depot, or that most elevators can be bypassed with a similarly widely available key, or that most file cabinets and other small locks can be opened with a third key, or that most digital entry systems can be bypassed in seconds with a paperclip (or another common physical key), he’s doing important (and hilarious!) work.

He’s such an engaging speaker and the subject matter is nothing short of fantastic. There are a hundred heist novels in this talk alone. It’s definitely my must-watch for the week.

https://boingboing.net/2019/06/14/fools-paradise-lost.html

Here are some of his recent talks on youtube to watch or put on in the background:

Through the eyes of a thief (2023)

Elevator Hacking - From the Pit to the Penthouse (2022)

But in that first gif, we all agree he opened the door with a kiss right?

Those doors use an infrared sensor to unlock themselves when they detect the presence of a human approaching the door on the inside. They’re not particularly sophisticated so blowing vape smoke through the crack makes the sensor go “oh look! infrared blob! must be a human!” an unlock the door.

Also they are very lonely and if you kiss them with tongue they unlock.

thememedaddy:

sour-charity:

sour-charity:

Oh I really hate this

IT’S EVEN WORSE FROM THE BACK!!! I WAS JUST LOOKING FOR TOOTHPASTE WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENJNG

Looks like it’s someone reselling a free 3D printable thing:

Shrek toothpaste cap by buzera

BTW it’s a terrible idea to do this. I mean, not because it’s gross, but because you don’t want to be eating anything that’s touched 3D printed stuff. Forget microplastics, that shit will give you macroplastics

inviernodel95:

tiktoks-repost: