As a research scientist who studies making very precise modifications/damage to glass with lasers, I cannot describe the level of sheer fucking skill and practice which must go into this.
I’ve been slowly working on illustrating my own Tarot deck about black cats.
I have a long way to go, but I’m nearly done with the major arcana.
Here are some of my favorites:
I set myself a design challenge (as I often do). I wanted to limit the color palette and the brush styles to create a very consistent look.
And since each card focuses on black cats, it forces me to think deeply about symbolism and design to make sure the meaning of each card is clear and each design is unique.
But there’s still a lot of variety coming through. It’s not all class, or all silliness - just like cats
I have a forearm tattoo of the cats in this one ☝️
I’m so happy with how both of these two managed to feel dark, but adorable at the same time.
And then there’s this one absolute diva:
Most of these used my own feline friends for reference.
There are more but I don’t know yet how many I want to share online. If I can actually complete the entire deck I would love to have it made. But I have a ways to go, so for now I continue to chip away, one card at a time.
vid i stole off reddit and feel like i need everyone to watch
This is a really fantastic return to form for this genre of post. In recent years there’s been less and less effort put into this vital aspect of internet culture, it’s nice to see a return to the truly artisanal work of the late 00s.
Go to Settings > AI controls. There, you can toggle the “master kill switch” on to fully block all the features, which means two things:
you won’t see them,
you can’t even be asked about them.
The default state is, like before, “available”. This means the features are NOT on by default (they never were), but Firefox will let you know about them where they exist (e.g. when you create your first tab group) so that you can choose to opt in.
Please note that Firefox for Android or iOS have never included AI features, so you won’t see these settings on your smartphones or tablets.
Please also note that, unlike popular belief here on Tumblr, besides “chatbot in sidebar” (which is simply embedding the same page you’d have normally browsed to), none of these features have ever interacted with anything outside your PC, because they download a small model to your computer, to do everything locally. These small models have never been and are not downloaded until you explicitly agree to turn on one of the features.
Dude, I almost cried yesterday because of AI. I can’t grade anymore without getting upset because of how much kids are using generative AI. How can I assess their ability to think critically when they aren’t thinking critically? One kid admitted he used ChatGPT on an assignment, and he was like, “So? Is my answer right?” And I was like, first of all, whether or not it’s “correct” is not the problem, and ALSO, it was INCORRECT. Like…majorly so!
They can’t fucking think for themselves (or rather, they’re losing the ability). This is not “ooooh technology scary” – this is a fundamental, they can’t fucking answer questions when I ask them to their faces. I fucking HATE when my colleagues roll their eyes and say, “Well, this is how we felt about phones! Just accept it!” First of all, it’s different. And TWO! We’re FUCKING FIGHTING PHONES every day! We’ve literally banned all cell phone use during class in my district because letting kids use their phones and not fighting their use in class FUCKED US OVER, and now we have to FIX IT.
Okay, but also, kudos to Tumblr, the weirdo website, and our anti-AI stance here because my weirdo queer kids are the ONLY ONES who are STAUNCHLY against gen AI; they’re the only ones reliably not using AI. Dear children of Tumblr, thank you for being little weirdos who give a shit.
It was a slightly different situation, but it’s translatable. This became a stable for me.
I asked my students if it’s nice/helpful/good/acceptable/normal to help someone else lift something really heavy they were struggling with. Of course they agree! Then I asked them if it would still be (or explain to them that it isn’t) nice/helpful/good/acceptable/normal to help someone lift heavy weights if they are working out at the gym. The answer is no! Because the POINT is that it’s hard to do alone! That’s why it makes you stronger! (Plus it gives the kids a very funny and therefore memorable visual for the concept. You can play into it and have a laugh with the kids at how weird someone would be if they did that!)
I often used “Don’t lift their weights!” as a shorthand when a student was trying to give another kid the right answer.
Anyways, AI is lifting your weights for you. If you go to gym everyday and have a robot lift the weights for you, are you going to get any stronger? Even if you are going to the gym and “lifting weights” everyday? Even if the robot was really good at it? School is the gym for your mind. It’s hard for the same reason gym weights are heavy.
Its "creators" (freaky tech weirdos) are basically an apocalypse cult, so this is no surprise.
Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases
[Insert obligatory WarGames joke here]
The longtermist "effective altruism" guys were all in on destroying civilization so that their group chat could emerge from stasis in a few million years to find paradise.
ok I am fascinated by the results of this poll, because it’s clearly not a fandom preference split, and also because it’s really fucking funny. so, what do YOU think is the reason for the Star Trek option winning the poll above? Please do reblog!
Why do most people trust a star trek shirt wearer more than a star wars shirt wearer?
When The Force Awakens teaser trailer first came out, there was a group of Star Wars fans so noisily and virulently racist & sexist that they lost their shit over a two second clip of a black man’s face and the centralized presence of a woman character.
“Quick, Star Wars fan! How do you feel about Rey as she was portrayed in The Force Awakens?”
“She’s a total Mar-”
*The Star Wars fan is ejected from the airlock*
I feel like there are multiple correct answers to this one
when i was curating the marine science museum i was up in the archives looking for something and when i walked out i had to go through the main museum hall and i heard some kids speculating something about a whale skeleton so i walked up and started talking to them about it. they started asking me follow up questions and then another and another and another and then their parents came over and immediately zeroed in on my “curator” nametag and told their kids i was probably very busy and i said no not at all keep asking me questions. soon their parents asked some questions too (after a few more apologies, because somewhere along the line they learned shame that i want to undo) and in the end i talked to them for like 30 minutes as a few more people joined.
a few months later one of the parents wrote me a letter that i still keep with me and in the letter they asked the kids what they learned at the museum and one of the kids said, “i learned i’m special.”
choked up just typing that now LMAO. they didn’t mention the whales or the squids or the seals or the tides or the seaweed i told them all about. they learned that their questions matter so much that even the person in charge should stop and answer them. they learned that they’re special!!!!!!!! what could possibly matter more???
We once had a discussion here on tumblr about carrying dinosaurs, at least raptors/other dromaeosaurs/small therapods. I advised carrying them facing backward, with the legs controlled, rather than forward with the legs tucked under the chest (where they can get leverage and the bird can struggle forward out of your grasp instead of struggling back into it more). Pleased as punch to see a bunch of professionals carrying some quite large birds around safely!
OK but it looks like they were being carried to flamingo yoga class.
I also like the idea of showing something as a problem before it’s shown as a strength. Almost every character trait has two sides, and by showing the “bad” side first, it sets things up to not only make sense, but to also be very satisfying.
I’ve seen this one doing the rounds a few times (and it makes me cry every time I see it), but was curious about the original Latin text, so I did some digging: it’s a shortened version of CIL 10, 00659, a tombstone from Salernum (modern Salerno, Italy). (source; CIL is the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum).
Portaui lacrimis madidus te, nostra catella,
Quod feci lustris laetior ante tribus.
Ergo mihi, Patrice, iam non dabis oscula mille
Nec poteris collo grata cubare meo.
Tristis marmorea posui te sede merentem
Et iunxi semper manib(us) ipse meis
Morib(us) argutis hominem simulare paratam,
Perdidimus quales hei mihi delicias.
Tu, dulcis Patrice, nostras attingere mensas
Consueras, gremio poscere blanda cibos,
Lambere tu calicem lingua rapiente solebas,
Quem tibi saepe meae sustinuere manus,
Accipere et lassum cauda gaudente frequenter
And here’s my translation:
Wet with tears I have carried you, our little (female) dog, just as I did in happier times fifteen years earlier (lit. “three periods of five years). For myself, Patrice, now you will not give me a thousand kisses nor will you be able to lie lovingly around/against my neck. I have sorrowfully placed you, merit-worthy, in a marble tomb and I have joined you always to myself in death, as by your cleverness you matched a human. Alas, we lost such pleasures for myself! You, sweet Patrice, were accustomed to join us at our table, to beg charmingly for food (while sitting in our) laps. You were in the habit of greedily licking our cups with your tongue, which my hands often held for you. Frequently and joyfully (you) receive a weary one with your (wagging) tail…
tl;dr: this dog was named Patrice and was very, very loved. (another translation with some glossing of the text.)
It’s the fact she’s joined to them in death, it’s the fact that she sat in her owner’s arms and ate their food. That he held the cups down for her to drink from….
Hundreds of years and we still know she was loved. We still know how she liked to sleep. All these years!! Loving dogs is the same!!!!
gonna point out too that 15 years is an INSANELY long lifespan for a dog in ancient Rome. This dog was both well loved and well cared for to have lived so long. Obvs there’s going to be some statistical overlap with ancient dogs with loving epitaphs having longer lifespans, but in a world without modern vetrinary science or medicine, no canine vaccines, and no nutritionally formulated dog food, this Roman’s beloved pooch exceeded even the average pet dog lifespan today.
One of the things I really like about Tumblr is there seems to be a healthy appreciation for invertebrate biology here, which I don’t always see as much on other social media websites. Tumblr users overall seem to love bugs, and it’s important to me that every person who loves bugs knows the name Charles Henry Turner. If you’re not yet familiar with this man, I’m delighted to introduce you to one of the most remarkable minds ever born of this earth, and a true pioneer in the field of entomology and animal behavior.
Charles Turner was born in the United States just a few years after the end of the civil war. His brilliance was evident from the start, and after graduating valedictorian of his high school class he quickly went on to earn his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in short order. While in school, Turner’s relentless curiosity became his greatest advantage. He was drawn to and fascinated by topics that were largely ignored by modern science at the time, namely the cognitive behaviors of insects and other invertebrates. While many of his colleagues believed insects to be mindless automata acting on instinct alone, Turner felt deeply that the brains of these oft overlooked animals were far more complex than the scientific community suspected. He performed extensive experiments to test his theories and found overwhelming evidence of problem solving and individualism among organisms as small as ants and spiders.
By the time Turner earned his zoology pHD in 1907 he had published dozens of papers in highly esteemed journals and had even co-authored a book. It is likely that Turner was the first African American to earn a pHD from the University of Chicago. With such a sparkling academic reputation and enormous body of research, one would expect this candidate to have no issues obtaining a professorship at a prestigious school. Though by every right Turner should have been head of science department at a top university, the systemic racism that permeated academia meant that doors a white man would have walked through were locked and bolted shut for Charles Henry Turner.
Turner did not allow this prejudice to dim in any way his blindingly bright passion for knowledge. He took a job as a high school teacher, and continued to perform and publish research on his own all while he instilled his students with a love for zoology. He published more than 70 papers in extremely respected journals and he remained passionately curious for the entirety of his life. If I tried to list here all of the incredible discoveries Turner made in his lifetime it would take me days to sufficiently express the impact he had on the field of invertebrate behavior. His experiments were so ahead of their time that entomologists today marvel at his research and wonder how much more we would know if Turner’s work had been given the attention and respect of other scientists working at the time. Turner’s mind was about a century ahead of those entomological contemporaries who had no interest in giving him a seat at the table. His tombstone simply reads “scientist”
Like many people of color throughout history, Turner’s exceptional contributions to our world have been unfairly overlooked by many. His name has historically been left out of entomology textbooks and courses, despite laying down groundwork that is still used today. I really recommend that anyone interested in entomology or even biology in general read up on Charles Henry Turner and his works. This is an excellent article that discusses his many challenges and triumphs in the field.
imagine stepping off a remote island in the Northern Isles and this thang immediately starts charging you. scary as fuck. presumably they have the reconstruction tied up just in case it comes back to life night at the museum style.
menace pig that pisses of your neighbors and eats their sheep
We’ve got an otter overachiever on our hands. 🌟 Selka’s survived a shark bite, contributed to scientific studies, and raised orphaned pups as a surrogate mother.
Adding to these impressive accomplishments, she’s got a full-time job charming millions of guests and livecam otter spotters. Selka teaches people around the world all about her threatened species and what we can do to protect them just by being her beautiful, brainy self. What, like it’s hard? 🤓🩷
Shared here today by Matthew Boroson on Facebook. (ETA: Gaining inspiration from other authors is great. Lifting passages and avoiding giving credit isn’t.)
Tanith Lee was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for best novel, for the second book of the Flat Earth series. She died in 2015. You can buy Tales From the Flat Earthhere and here .
You can also borrow some of Tanith Lee’s books from the Internet Archive if you are unable to buy them.
Here’s a link to Night’s Master, the first book in the Flat Earth series.
I cannot recommend Lee’s work enough. And it pains me that I’d never even heard of her until last year.
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