Passeriform on the Wing

¿Cómo te sientes hoy? Yo muy 5

As a new weaver i find that warp speed is in fact not very fast

That largely depends on the shuttle you're using.

@prguitarman

May I present to you Wheel Running In the Wild, a published research paper that delights me to no end:

This paper intended to test whether would mice would run on a wheel if they found one, to try and determine if this was a natural behavior or a stress response in captivity. They put a wheel in a protected little box with a camera that took pictures any time the wheel turned, and tallied up how often it was used by what.

Mice were, happily, the most common users of the wheel, and their patterns of use indicated they were doing so voluntarily once they figured it out.

But the second most common users.

Those were slugs.

As to whether the Gavle Goat's consumption should be seen as a good omen or a bad omen, I'd say good. Traditionally the Yule goat is made of straw from the final harvest and as a talisman against hard times, and there are unproven theories that its shape is inspired by Thor's goats, who are constantly killed, eaten, and reborn to provide endless meat for Thor and whatever guests he entertains. Therefore, its use by birds as a food store and safe harbor is an affirmation of its original purpose and truly in the Christmas spirit of generosity in lean times. What's more, the birds eating it seems to be have been the one outcome to unite both goat burners and goat keepers, as they have decided not to scare the birds away from their safe harbor and not to harm the goat, a decision that has been universally lauded.

As omens go, this one's all positive: safety, plenty, and unity between previous ideological opponents through a creative third solution built on shared values (birds being fed and sheltered is a good thing). May more birds find their way to the Gavle Goat next year.

A Vulcan named Stork works at the Terran adoption agency. Parents always request that he be the one to deliver their child to them.

It’s years before anyone explains it to him.

People keep gifting him robes with long white birds on them.

The fun thing is he would understand why people were getting him outfits with storks on them. That’s a word, it’s his name, straightforward. All the humans get him the same gag gift, but like, they’re putting effort in at least. This is a genuinely nice outfit. Stork will be a walking zero-effort pun sometimes, rather than waste a perfectly fine robe.

It’s fine. This is a readily comprehensible human illogic. Exactly the kind of thing he expected from moving to Earth.

Six years in he finds out about the stork bringing babies.

Stork has a good long meditation session about this myth, his name, his job, the outfits, the whole shebang (or whatever Vulcan concept is the equivalent).

And he decides he’s honored by it, in a humanly illogical way.

The humans are asking him to do what is after all his job, and specifically requesting him for the joy his name brings them on top of an already agreeable and satisfying task. He has no objection to engendering positive emotions in others. Harm hastens the heat-death of the universe, Surak teaches, so happiness must logically slow it down. 

Plus, Vulcans of his generation love puns. There were two decades of punning competitions in colleges across the planet. So when he realizes that he is a walking zero-effort pun, and that the humans also love the pun, he is all for it. He is the Joe Cool of the entire Vulcan population in his city. 

And via this pun, the humans are including him in a cherished and traditional myth, by casting him as the literal bringer of life and the expander of families. 

There’s no downside. Stork wears his robes, pins, keychains, and other bird-related tchotchkes with genuine pride. 

YES IT’S BACK ON MY DASH AT LAST

For real though working together with some human social workers, a Vulcan would be an excellent caretaker for children in an adoption center.

Child has a meltdown? Imagine Stork, perfectly calm and unbothered, approaching the kid and saying “You appear quite upset, Eliza. If you would please allow me to relocate you to the ‘bean-bag-chair,’ we can discuss the source of your distress.”

A Vulcan educated in medicine and child psychology would be endlessly patient with a kid with behavioral issues. Stork wouldn’t get or upset or frustrated. After all, these are children with medical and psychological conditions. It would be illogical to blame the child or to not treat them with the appropriate care.

Even if the a little one was having a bad day or was just overtired, Stork wouldn’t get angry. He might even be a calming presence. Any new kids acting out would learn real quick that they’d have better luck trying to arm-wrestle a Klingon than get a rise out of Stork.

Not only that, Vulcans live much longer than humans. Imagine Stork looking virtually unchanged as decades pass. Kids he’d helped years ago would turn up fully grown, maybe there to adopt their own kids, and run into Stork, looking almost exactly as they remember him.

And he’d probably remember them too. “Welcome back, Eliza.”

“…Harm hastens the heat-death of the universe, Surak teaches, so logically happiness must slow it down…”

Will reblog every time it crosses my dash 🖖🏾

Sound on!

one of my favorite things about my job that i can say to people that sounds utterly ridiculous but is technically 100% true is that one of our sea turtles keeps trying to get me to commit a felony on her behalf and gets SUPER cranky when i won’t do it

this is because she is spoiled rotten and LOVES head and shell scritches. every time i go to the tank she’s in to collect water samples while she happens to be awake and swimming near the surface, she sees my hand enter the water and immediately comes over to try and get my attention, headbutting the dive platform and splashing water at me and generally making a huge fuss.

unfortunately, because she is also a ~100yr old green sea turtle, i legally cannot touch her. she’s a protected species, and a fairly prominent individual at that, and im not one of the aquarists who dives into that tank NOR am i a vet, so i’m not among the handful of people who are ALLOWED to give her scratchies. she knows all of the divers personally, and knows that i am not one of them. she doesn’t care. she wants attention and because she’s the specialest princess in the entire universe she will do anything in her power to get it.

she also throws a big ol tantrum when i end up not petting her. she’ll stick up her head to snort water at me, slap at the platform and ladder with her fins, and then swim under the dive platform and bump her shell against the bottom — she’s a 500lb turtle, which is a lot of weight for her to be throwing around. i usually have to move pretty quick to get off the platform and onto solid ground cuz there have been times where i’ve genuinely felt like i was about to lose my balance and REALLY didn’t want to end up falling into the tank.

^ myrtle, throwing a tantrum because she was unsuccessful at peer pressuring me into violating the endangered species act

Really? You're calling this a win? You're saying the goat survived this year?

This isn't living, this is making it to the end of 2023 in a relatable state of natural decay.

This is a zombie goat

Have I told you guys about the Fake Alaskan Volcano Eruption of April Fools 1974?

*sits down* Gather round, kiddies. its Story Time with Viv!

Whoa you calling me Tori was really weird for a second, not in a bad oh god no kinda way, but in a “who the hell is Bucky” kinda way

ANYWAY, gather round friends, and I will tell you the only story you need to hear if you want to really understand my home state.

APRIL 1ST, 1974

Residents of Sitka, Alaska woke up to a rare beautiful clear day(it rains all the damn time in Southeast Alaska), the sun was out, the sky was blue, and black smoke was rising from Mt Edgecumbe

Now Mt Edgecumbe is only 18 miles from Sitka

And it’s a dormant volcano that hadn’t erupted for thousands of years, so to see this:

was very unusual, and rather worrying.

“Shit,” the Sitkans thought, “we may be Alaskans and pretty weird about responding to danger, but even we know this might be bad”. 

SO the Coast Guard was called!

They flew a helicopter up right away and guess what they found? 

Was it:

nope

Maybe it was:

Nuh huh, sorry

It couldn’t POSSIBLY be:

God no, but that would be hella rad

It was this:

(this is not an accurate image, there were only 70 tires in real life) 

Turned out that a 54 year old local dude named Oliver ‘Porky’ Bickar and some buddies had flown the tires up early that morning and he’d come up with the prank in 1970 but hadn’t been able to do it until ‘74 because all the other years had terrible weather on April Fools. 

(He’d woken up that day, saw the clear sky and told his wife, Patty, “I have to go do it today” to which she replied “Just don’t make an ass of yourself” which delights me no end)

Porky has actually warned the police he was going to do this and also informed the FAA (gotta get that flight plan approved to haul those tires up) but, and oh god I love this, TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE COAST GUARD

Luckily for him the Coasties thought this was the funniest fucking thing they had ever seen in their goddamn lives, and as it turned out, residents of Sitka agreed!

The story ended up exploding(ah ha ha do you get it? because volcano?) and national newspapers even covered it.

But Porky’s favourite response was a letter he got after the Mt St Helens eruption in 1980 that read:  “This time, you little bastard, you’ve gone too far.”

I’ve been told, though I can’t find any sources to verify this, that when he died another fire was set in the volcano by the town to honor him. 

And that’s the story of how a man faked a volcanic eruption and became a state hero. 

QUEENKLU I NEED A FACT CHECK HERE

Checks out!

http://www.sitka.com/Porky/porky.htm

http://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/the_eruption_of_mount_edgecumbe/

http://www.thebaynet.com/articles/0316/adayforgivingpranks.html

If you click on ANY of those links it should be the first one, which is the “official” telling of it.

If you click on another one, it should be the last one, which also discusses the “spaghetti harvest” prank which is awesome.

[image 1: Sitka as seen from the water, with Mount Edgecumbe in the background. image 2: a closer view of Mount Edgecumbe, with smoke coming from the top of the mountain. image 3: lava flow. image 4: yellow-hot lava showing through cracks in cold black lava. image 5: lava monster. image 6: rubber tires as far as the eye can see, some of which are burning and putting out vast quantities of dark smoke.]

** I got a fountain pen and a couple of custom-made notebooks for Christmas, so I thought I'd give you a handwritten story, as a treat.

(It's been ages since I last used a fountain pen, or handwrote something with the aim that it should be legible to anyone but myself.)

I hope you have an enjoyable festive period. **

This is Money Snake. She only appears every 312 years. 

If you reblog her picture within the next twenty-five seconds you will have good luck and fortune for the rest of your life. 

things that made me stop wanting to die that require no effort whatsoever

Almost all of these are about variety. Humans need stimulation! We need enrichment! We literally cannot do the same thing every day!

The other day I was feeling miserable, so I hopped on a bus and rode it all the way back to where I’d started, and my brain, which had finally had some proper stimulation via new environments, was suddenly ready to go again!

This is why taking walks/drives and trying new hobbies are good for you! Don’t turn yourself into a sad zoo animal! You need some pumpkins to roll around in your enclosure!

ITS BACK!!!!!

god i fucking love the quote “dont turn yourself into a sad zoo animal” it has really inspired me!

On the list of things ABSOLUTELY NOBODY HAS EVER ASKED ME FOR. Here’s the dialogue from the TV show that the Young family are watching in Episode 3, before Adam heads off for an early night.

From 2019. I just ran across this on the hard drive looking for something else, and wondered if it had ever been posted anywhere…

That’s Louis Rossman, a repair technician and YouTuber, who went viral recently for railing against Apple. Apple purposely charges a lot for repairs and you either have to pay up or buy a new device. That’s because Apple withholds necessary tools and information from outside repair shops. And to think, we were just so close to change.

Follow @the-future-now

Reblog if you:

No one will know which is it

This guy inspired me to repair my own macbook. First of all, you should know that I am not… like, I have to look up HOW to look up what my computer specifications are. Tech, that ware either soft or hard, is not a subject in which I experience comfort or competence. But my puppy peed on my keyboard, and I asked the apple store, or the fucking mac cafe, or the godsdamn Computer House Chill Zone or whatever cute ass name they have for their bullshit store, and they said it would be TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS TO REPLACE MY KEYBOARD. I’m not even exaggerating.

So I asked the internet, well how hard IS it to repair? And I saw this guy’s video, and while I am no techie, I AM fueled by spite, so I was all “oh, they do that shit on purpose specifically so they can charge me $1200 bucks or make me buy a new computer hunh? FUCK THEM” and I bought all the tools I needed for about $25 and I bought all the parts I needed for about another $25 and I watched a few tutorial videos, and I replaced my own keyboard.

So, once you are doing the actual deed, it becomes pretty obvious that they are finding creative ways to make this much harder than it has to be on purpose. On thing that stood out to me is, instead of all the tiny screws being the same size, there are about two dozen very slightly different sizes. They could easily be all the same size, or like, two sizes at most, but no.

These mother fuckers will take a panel that screws into place and they’ll use a different size screw for each corner. They are so close that you almost cannot tell them apart visually, but they each will only screw into the matching corner. Like, it’s a pretty clear “fuck you” to anyone trying to do repairs.

anyway, this guy is also fueled by spite, and doing holy work, and I have mad respect

This is awesome. Man is doing good ass deeds 24/7 because he’s giving people control.

How dare you not leave a link to his channel, this guy is the savior of the modern world.

@amtrak-official

Remember to grab your luggage off the rack when you leave or it will get all sad and msuhy like this bag here