Metz!

 Trying to accurately place events in my Animorphs fanfic, I realized that the timeline of the series makes no goddamn sense.

The first year’s summer starts in Megamorphs #1. They’re back to school by the next book, #8. Tobias’s birthday in #23 is supposedly in September (although I’ve seen May suggested as well), so the second year’s summer takes place either sometime between #19 (the Animorphs are explicitly in school when Cassie pupates) and the David saga (they’re in school for that and #23 follows closely on its heels) or sometime ridiculously far ahead, because there’s a long stretch of books after #23 that rely on Chee doubles, Ellimist tricks, or Saturday missions that would have to all take place in May. So either there’s very few books stretched into an entire year of the war, or entirely too many crammed into one month.

That’s without even getting into specific references to age: Jake is explicitly still 13 in #26 (impossible if two summers have passed) and 15 by #41, aging to 16 by the war’s end in #54. The whole thing is a timeline pretzel so I’ve just thrown up my hands and said “fuck it” and am just rolling with what feels right.

That’s really the only possible Watsonian explanation for it, but it makes it really difficult to plot a fic that spans the entire war.

some nice lunny headcanons

- Luna has a small collection of handmade & enormous Holyhead Harpies Banners that she brings to Ginny’s Quidditch games to cheer her on from the WAG seats (she charms the fellow partners with snitch shaped cookies & gardening tips) - Luna also leads clever chants from the stands - Ginny and Luna always go for ice cream after her games - Ginny collects little flowers when she’s out and brings them back for Luna who presses them all in her journals - Luna knows a lot of folk songs and she teaches them to Ginny and sometimes they sing them to each other when they’re making breakfast or cleaning up after dinner - they host tea parties in the summer and all of their friends sit out on the lawn and drink from all the mismatches tea cups Ginny and Luna can scrounge up from the Burrow, Luna’s house, and their personal collection - Ginny is always the first one to edit new editions of the Quibbler and she sometimes writes snarky opinion pieces - when she isn’t training, Ginny goes with Luna on her expeditions and they always send postcards to Molly and their friends from exotic locales and take cute pictures posing near enormous trees and with fancy butterflies - Luna thinks that Ginny is hilarious and admires her brightness and Ginny thinks Luna is interesting and kind and they both bring out the best in each other - Cute Girl Love Forever

@metz77

An ocean mystery that doesn’t need solving is how many marine animals there are. 

See? Pliny the Elder’s got this. 176 animals in the sea.  Everyone else can go home. We don’t need marine biology anymore:

#write with the confidence of a roman naturalist who has literally no idea what he’s talking about

sound advice

Polished Malachite Stalactite - Copper Crescent, Congo

*looks around*

Is

Is anyone gonna say it

malachite is a poisonous mineral. please do not fuck the malachite stalactite

@lizaleigh do you know any rock people that can confirm/deny because I am very curious and really don’t feel like getting into a conversation with my geophysicist brother that MAY somehow get back to the fact I saw a malachite that looked like a weird dildo.

…sadly, I am not on good enough terms with any of our partner geologists to just attach this to an email with the subject line: “EXPLAIN.” Although I think @mollisaurus is a mineral person. Thoughts?

oh geeze, i’m kinda rusty on minerals but malachite is just copper carbonate and is really common in both antique and modern jewelry so i think like if you were really gun-ho about it you could go ahead and put it wherever you want?

It’s really only a problem if you’re polishing or cutting it. The particles would be bad to breathe. It’s rather porous too, so I would worry about bacteria growing. Well, being literal anyway… Better to leave the poor thing alone. ._.

I mean it kinda depends on where you stick it because malachite does not like acidic environments very much and the malachite will degrade and also might dye your bits blue-green as the copper dissolves out.

So use a condom when fucking rocks is the takeaway here.

Oh my god guys it’s poisonous

It is super poisonous

There is a reason we do not use it in make up any more

Not even with a condom, do not fuck the rock

Try this one instead. 

malachite literally explodes in water does it not?

I… no… I think you’re thinking of pure sodium?

Malachite is however water soluble, which really just means it will poison you quicker

This is both hilarious and cool as fuck because you’re getting all this information on minerals and rocks. You’re also watching people argue over wether or not you can fuck this rock

I go on hiatus for a week and come back to find tumblr molesting my post, but hey, at least we all learned something so yay tumblr, you just keep on  being you.

I’m still not sure if I can fuck this rock.

I’m looking into it.

UPDATE:

Today in “I’m so sorry, coworkers, it’s for Tumblr,” I brought this post to the attention the science reporters at BuzzFeed. Dan Vergano did a some research and weighed in on the question “Can you use malachite as a dildo or is it toxic?”

The answer is “It’s probably fine, just wash it first and maybe use a bunch of lube.”

Oh man this got so much better than the last time I saw this post

This is my favourite. Science side of tumblr: asking the REAL questions

*biologist crashes through the underbrush* Ok so here’s the thing though Malachite is not poisonous to YOU. BUT fucking this stalactite will probably wreck your vaginal flora and leave you with a gruesome infection within a couple days. Want details? SO GLAD YOU ASKED, ‘CAUSE HERE THEY ARE. • Malachite is not copper oxide. It’s Cu2CO3(OH)2. Like most carbonates it’s water soluble– that’s how it became a stalactite in the first place! And technically any given chunk of “malachite” isn’t just malachite– it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. This will become important later.  • When malachite dissolves it makes a bunch of copper (Cu++) ions. Cu++ is GREAT at killing bacteria and fungi– so good at it that sprays with Cu++ get used a lot as a spray in agriculture to stop plant disease. It takes such a large dose to harm larger organisms that copper sprays are used a lot in organic agriculture (like Bordeaux mixture).  So bottom line, yes malachite is technically nontoxic to humans. But it kills bacteria when it dissolves and releases Cu++. • Malachite dissolves somewhat slowly in water– but vaginal secretions aren’t just any water. A healthy human vagina has a pH of 3.8-4.5 and a salinity of about 0.9%. It’s also warmer than your average underground cave at 37°C (or 98.5°F in American meat units). As luck would have it, acidity, salinity, and warmth all make malachite dissolve faster.  • In other words, the human vagina dissolves malachite.  • I have no deeper explanation for why human females can dissolve rocks with our genitals. It simply is.  • Gonna to take a quick moment to point out that sex toys that dissolve when you use them are maybe not the best investment.  • Anyway the key question now is “how fast does the human vagina dissolve malachite?” Are we talking geological timescale, a Nazis-in-Indiana-Jones situation, or something in between? If the reaction kinetics of dissolution are very slow, then there’s nothing to worry about. An encounter with a stalactite would have to last years for enough Cu++ to leach out to cause problems. If it’s quick then we’re in trouble.  • Unfortunately it looks like nobody really knows. One of the best sources on how malachite dissolves & precipitates in water– an EPA document on how to avoid too much Cu++ in municipal drinking water systems– helpfully says “The kinetic constraints on the formation of these solids in water systems are largely unexplored” (p. 42) because end equilibrium points is all you need to run a city water system safely. In other words, the experiments that would tell us how fast malachite dissolves in various types of water just don’t exist because nobody’s ever needed to know before. So we’d better assume it’s going to happen reasonably quickly, #for safety. • So in best scientific fashion, we’re just going to bullshit our way ahead using what facts we DO have on hand: endpoint equlibria.  • Is there any info out there telling us what equilibrium concentration of Cu++ we get in salty acidic water at body temperature? Almost! One J.F. Scaife published some great data on this back in 1957. TAKE IT AWAY, SCAIFE. 

That orange box is how many moles of dissolved Cu++ Scaife got from sticking malachite in some water that had 0.171 moles NaCl/L (body salinity is about 0.154 moles NaCl/L so this is slightly less salty than people) at 30°C. He’s got no acidity in there, and again the salinity and temperature are slightly lower than people. But this is probably the closest we’re going to get to data on how malachite behaves in vaginas anytime soon, folks. From this we can take away that if you leave malachite alone in a vagina you’ll get AT LEAST 9.12 x 10^-4 moles/L, or 5.8 ppm, of Cu++ at equilibrium.  • Recall from above that most “malachite” isn’t actually pure malachite, it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. The EPA document elaborates: “[T]raditional ‘eyeball’ identification of malachite by its blue-green color is extremely unreliable, because almost all cupric hydroxysulfates, hydroxycarbonates, hydroxychlorides, and even fresh cupric hydroxide can be some shade of blue-green. … Thus, the uncertainty in the computed copper concentration in equilibrium with malachite is at least about a factor of 2 … until further experimental data focusing on this problem is generated.” In other words, “do your math and then double how much Cu++ you think is going to be in the water, just in case.” So that gives us 11.6ppm Cu++, at equilibrium, with malachite in a (til now!) healthy vagina.  • Next step: do we have any idea what happens to bacteria in acid conditions with copper? OH MY GOD WE TOTALLY DO. Gyawali et al 2011 checked this out in the context of “so what if we rinsed tomatoes with a solution of lactic acid and copper, because that would be a safe & organic way to get rid of E. coli?” So now this post has officially ruined stalactites, vaginas, and tomatoes.

^This would happen. These are the counts of 4 E. coli strains exposed to various levels of lactic acid & Cu++ for 8 hours. This table only shows the end counts but it represents the death of 99.7% of bacteria*. • Losing 99.7% of your vaginal flora is seriously bad news. You’re looking at really good odds of a yeast infection, bacterial vaginosis, and/or other infection issues. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to not be in the 4% of the population or so that’s sensitive to skin contact with copper.  • The good news? Biochemically speaking, you’re probably ok to put it in your butt. It’s not as acidic or salty in there, plus there’s a huuuuuge stockpile of gut microbes right upstream that can quickly repopulate the colon after spelunking is complete. However this stalactite is not flared at the base so it is the wrong shape for putting in your butt. Do not put this stalactite in your butt.  • This all looks like fun and games, but I think it’s really interesting that the internet’s mistake in concluding that this stalactite is fuckable is very similar to the mistake made by the Flint water management system. Hear me out.  • Central to the Flint lead poisoning crisis is that authorities only looked at & tested Flint’s water in its central treatment plant before it went out through the pipes. Not after it went through the pipes. They did not consider what would happen biochemically as it went through the pipes and metals started dissolving.  • Similarly, in concluding that the stalactite is fuckable, the internet only considered the stalactite itself. Not the biochemical processes that would happen to it as it, welp, went through the pipes.  • Media frequently reports that the Flint River’s water is “corrosive,” leading many to believe the river is full of industrial waste. This ain’t the case. You’d need industry to fill a river with industrial waste, and industry left decades ago. That’s why Flint’s so poor. So what IS in the water? Road salt. Plain old stupid road salt. The old Detroit-based source didn’t have salt because it came from Lake Huron which has a large, mostly rural watershed. Meanwhile the Flint River runs through a lot of towns, making it slightly salty as everything melts down in spring. And as we recall from the stalactite experience, a little salt is all it takes to get metals to dissolve.  • Information on this engineering problem was not coming through clearly from the engineering or chemistry sides. It took a biologist, pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, to document the real-time results and provide the data to kick-start a high-level investigation.  • Morals of the story: when dealing with a biological system pls consider asking a biologist, your vagina and/or city could depend on this • Pls use a condom when fucking any water-soluble material • Still don’t put the stalactite in your butt -3/10 do not recommend

OK, I haven’t reblogged this before now but the final post takes it to a whole new level and I can no longer resist. 

space boys

@weird-sc0ut

things i love about game grumps

feel free to add to this if u want

-Failed high fives -“it’s okay big cat” -when Arin screws up and Dan just says “Arin” -psychology grumps -tired grumps -Arin getting passionately angry

-The way they advertise things (see: crunchyroll, lootcrate)

-After Danny says something and at the end he goes “uh dur”

-Danny saying “buucause”

-when one of them is like “I wish I were good at [thing]” and the other one goes “no you’re really good at [thing]! like maybe not the best in the world but you’re still really good.”

so. they made a new german discowrld essentials edition, with a new covers (which is good because the old ones are real bad)

and they are these manga-like ‘build a picture’ style, which i like

but. oh my god. look at that vimes

this isn’t samuel ‘worked the night-shift for 30 years, runs on coffee and spit, has probably not slept more than 3hours any given day’ vimes

this is the guy who played vimes in murder-mystery play, ‘inspired by real events’. hammy acting, horrible script, ‘Clues’ everywhere, heroic fightscenes, big speaches. Vimes threadened to shut the whole thing down for slander.  Sybil probably got an autograph

I’ve been staring at this post for 15 minutes and I can’t stop laughing omg omg I’m seeing stars oh no.

Sybil invited the damn company to the house for their afterparty and you know it.

the actor earnestly explains at one point the fitness routine he undertook to ‘get in character’ for the part of the ‘heroic commander’ while pointing at various melon-sized muscle groups. vimes himself is sitting there shoveling something that’s 98% grease by volume into his face and also staring balefully. he’s never done a pushup in his life. he wouldn’t know a fucking pushup if it spat on him in the street. sybil is doing her absolute best not to laugh and her best is nowhere good enough. the actor, encouraged by the (presumably) admiring male stares and flirtatious female giggles, goes on to describe his hair-care regimen.

Nooooooo oooooonnnnne stops coups like Sam Vimes

Distrusts clues like Sam Vimes

No one lives off of Klatchian brews like Sam Vimes

He’s especially good at in-VEST-igating

My what a guy, that Sam Vimes

This post got better since I saw it last night oh my gods. 

Thank you @roachpatrol I don’t think I’ll ever stop laughing now.

Sorry @roachpatrol for hijacking your post but that was just hilarious and i had to draw it….

(It’s hard to draw Vimes out of uniform! But I guess even he doesn’t wear armour 24/7…)

(Young Sam is like ‘daddy, I want an armour like that!’)

I’m sure Angua loved it too

And then she run

OH WOW I love your Vimes! And Angua messin’ with him is beautiful. :D

why didn’t i see any of these illustrations earlier THEY’RE GREAT

Saw this on @lost-spook’s DW, and it was too good not to share.

Doctor Who episodes | Story: 061 | season 9 [2/5] ↳ The Curse of Peladon

dear fiction writers: 

as far as I know, there is no large carnivore who would abandon actively eating a killed meal to chase live prey. chasing and hunting live prey is a risk, as a healthy live creature has the capability to injure a carnivore, or tire it out through the chase. If there is, say, a giant pile of dead bodies to eat, which abandoning would allow other carnivores or scavengers to steal and eat instead, it makes no sense at all. 

please stop doing that thing

The sole exception I can think of is if the large carnivore thought the live prey was another carnivore or scavenger, and was chasing them as a threat display to ensure they didn’t steal the dead bodies. Even in that case, though, it would only be a short, mock charge followed by returning to the pile if the opponent fled. With possibly whatever the animal’s equivalent of “and stay out” would be. 

Another thing: most carnivores don’t like to fight. They have to mug something to death for every single meal, they have to stay in top shape while conserving their energy. Meanwhile, herbivores have plenty of extra energy because they eat stuff that comes out of the ground and doesn’t fight back, and they often live in big social groups, so they’re better at handling stress and more used to having to actually come to blows with other animals to get their way. 

So like, a zebra will try kick your ass just to see what’s up. A tiger won’t do shit unless it’s damn sure it can take you. I’d rather come face to face with a cougar than a stag— have you seen videos of what happens to hunters when a stag catches a dude on the ground? the stag tears the dude apart. Not even to eat him. Just because the stag didn’t like what was going on and decided it was time to curb stomp a motherfucker. 

So if you’re deciding what kind of Big Scary Animals to have be a threat, like, forget wolves and lions and eagles and velociraptors. Go drop in a moose.

This is why loud noise can scare bears away. It’s a threat display that normally convinces them that the charge isn’t worth the effort.

-Exception:  

If a carnivore is Not That Hungry it might drop something dead to chase something that is doing Extreme Prey Behavior– but it’s not going to be serious about it. I’m thinking of things like a domestic cat that chases birds and mice for kicks. Honestly, I think that the t rex in Jurassic Park was a good example of predator behavior– she abandons something difficult (like the kids in the jeep) for the bright shiny thing she has been conditioned to understand means food (tightpants math guy with the flare + gruff dino man with flare). For the rest of the film, she chases things that run, and then quits and chows down once she has something. This has been one of my biggest beefs with the later JP films, especially Jurassic World– rather than the scares coming from being treated and stalked like prey by animals, the scares are based on monsters killing and eating randomly. (And what’s with the treatment of all the herbivores as good and gentle? Herbivores will fuck you up because they got scared or because you pissed them off and those are the two primary emotions of large herbivores– they won’t eat you, but they’ll still trample you).

+Addition: The predators that aren’t snipers (like cougars or herons) tend to test individuals in a herd– they want to gauge your health and willingness to fuck somebody up before they commit to you as a target. If you stare them down with your cold dead eyes and gear up to wreck their shit they’ll piss off unless they’re completely desperate. (Like I said, the main emotions of prey animals are Time To Fuck Shit Up and Time To Run).  So, I’m desperately tired of all these people running and screaming away from wolves and velociraptors and bears oh my. 

Consider:

How much scarier fiction could be if predators acted like actual predators that can be intelligent and patient and are pressing around the edges of your party to find weakness and fear. 

there’s a goat! why is there a goat!? oh my god! there’s a fucking lama!

People still think of Lando as “The Guy Who Betrayed The Trio” and that’s some grade A bull. 

I mean what would you do if you had people to protect and Darth Vader, Scariest Dude in the Galaxy, comes marching up to your door with a whole battalion of soldiers? Like? How much choice do you think he actually had here? Not much because Vader literally changes the rules on him every scene they’re together so the deal goes from “Trap the smuggler and his friends” to “Han’s being tortured and frozen in carbonite and taken away and the others that were supposed to be left untouched are also being taken capture indefinitely right now” and Lando has all of no control over any of it.

And then the second he realizes what’s happened he risks everything to help Chewie and Leia out. Leaves his cozy home to help them. Joins the Rebellion? Frees Han? Blows up the second Death Star?

But sure he’s just that sleaze ball who betrayed the gang. Sure. 

I do not trust people who rag on Lando.

Seriously?  Did they just sleep through Return of the Jedi?

Also, “They showed up here just before you did” gives us context to when Han arrives unannounced, and Lando tries to get Han to lose his cool and book out?

“ Why you slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler. “

Lando opens with giving Han an excuse to say “Same to you Bantha herder, Chewie, we’re out”.  Lando insults a smuggler known for his pride, hoping to get a rise and a reaction and risks his life to try to insult Han off the trap

“ You got a lot of guts coming here, after what you pulled!”

Also, assume that Lando’s just been ambushed by the Empire, and told that Han Solo is headed here, and that it’s the same Han Solo who just ran a blockade on Hoth, and Hoth is within non-hyperdrive flight range of Bespin.

Lando literally opens with a coded “You ran an Imperial Blockade and now you’re flying in openly at the nearest system?”

If the Han Solo of ANH and, as recently as Hoth base (Who’s scruffy looking?), had been as a hot headed as Lando expected, he would have walked back up the ramp and flown off in a huff.  Lando tries to salvage the situation from before we even know there’s a problem

Lando was administrator and responsible for tens of thousands of lives. From the radio play “You should have looked around more, Han. You’d have recognized a lot of faces. A lot of people here are at the end of their ropes. This is their last chance for any kind of life.”

Yup. Lando’s actions are “Try to get Cloud City out this, try to get his friends out of this, try to get out of this himself, got out? EVACUATE THE CITY. Then save friends and self”

He could have flown off quietly, Lobot could have been instructed to prepare the escape vehicle. No, Lando gives the evac signal by announcing it’s him, and announcing the Empire has control of the city. Yeah, way to paint a target on your back there. No “Hit the fire alarm” button and run, no sneak off in the night.

Lando Calrissian was trying to save the most people possible without being willing to simply sacrifice his friends for the most efficient gain

Lando Calrissian is one of the most ethical characters in the original trilogy.  He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, but he also turned on Vader/helped Leia and Chewie as soon as he could do so.  We last see him in Empire setting off to help track down where Boba Fett took Han.

We see him next in Return of the Jedi, saving Han.  And then volunteering for a possibly suicidal mission.  Lando’s proven himself a hundred times over.

the older I get, the less patience I have for the idea that a story is inherently complex or #deep because it has a bittersweet or tragic ending, or that people who like for things to end on a happy note are simple-minded weaklings who can’t handle harsh realities and mature storytelling. 

Look, shit is fucked. Life is a mess. Sometimes it’s a struggle to even come up with a reason to go on. I respect that media should be realistic and true to life, but fucking sue me, for once I just want to see the bad guys eat shit while the good guys ride off into the sunset and never have anything bad happen to them ever again. I don’t care if it’s unrealistic or implausible, that’s why it’s a fucking story. I have enough tragedy in my real life, thanks.