people today with access to more raw information than any other period: the earth is flat

german artilleryman in 1916, who barely washes his own ass: I need to account for the curvature and rotation of the earth when plotting my firing plans

Eratosthenes, an Egyptian, in 3750 BC when fucking mammoths hadn’t even gone extinct yet: Oh hey I can use these two obelisks to calculate the earth’s entire circumference based on the length of their shadows and the Earth’s curvature. Neat.

Erastothenes was born in 276 BCE.

The last mammoth died on in island off the northeast coast of Siberia in ~1650BCE.

And as I’ve pointed out previously, the Coriolis effect was known even earlier than that, although it may not have become important to gunnery.

I find it utterly bizarre that humans saw these megafauna.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/science/woolly-mammoth-extinct-genetics.html “ In fact, the Wrangel mammoth’s genome carried so many detrimental mutations that the population had suffered a “genomic meltdown,” according to Rebekah Rogers and Montgomery Slatkin of the University of California, Berkeley. Analyzing the Swedish team’s mammoth data at the gene level, they found that many genes had accumulated mutations that would have halted synthesis of proteins before they were complete, making the proteins useless, they report Thursday in PLOS Genetics. “ That “genomic meltdown” is one of the reasons feminism is so potentially lethal, because they keep pushing for asexual reproduction, or trying to combine ovaries, when the most likely outcome is a population running about - unable to reproduce sexually since the whole “male genocide” bit - with incredibly damaged chromosomes. Sex exists for a reason, and no, “because it’s fun” is not the answer, sorry. It works better than reproduction otherwise. Which is why every complex species uses it. Intelligence requires a lot of things to be working correctly, and if you have an all female species that is over the tipping point of idiocy, then there won’t be enough people to maintain the technology to continue to reproduce. And humans will go the way of the Wrangel beasties. Fortunately, feminists are horribly lazy bastards, so i doubt they’ll continue to get their way, but it does made for a decent plot for a dystopian fiction…

What …the fuck?

That went off the rails so suddenly like I thought I was just gonna learn something cool about mammoths and then WHOA.

I scrolled past this thinking “the earth is round, yes, something, something, mammoths…’ 

But the second time it came past I saw 

And I think I got whiplash from that pivot. I also laughed so hard that I couldn’t breathe. 

I’m????

Point and laugh at the MRA, kids. 

How … does he think … mammoths reproduced …

Never mind, not sure I want to know.

reblog to support Mammoth Feminism,

ignore for G E N O M I C M E L T D O W N

I here af for my Feminist Mammoth ladies, bring the species back!

DOWN WITH GENOMIC MELTDOWN

I… what exactly is combining ovaries supposed to achieve? 400 lazy feminist babies at the same time?

Shhhh…you weren’t supposed to tell anyone.

FEMINISM KILLED THE MAMMOTHS

I feel like we’re getting away from the main point here, which is that the world is flat

the world is only flat because it was trampled by feminist mammoths

reblog if you support your army of genetically-melted feminist mammoths that trampled the earth flat

Don’t anybody tell this guy about that species of lizard where there are only females it might break him

My head hurts after reading that. 

I’m sending this post to @wehuntedthemammoth

Why would you hurt me like this?

I teach genetics, I don’t deserve to have to explain why this is so wrong and yet. Oh my god. 

I reblogged this before but I have to do so again because of the above takedown with its glorious insults. Also, it’s always fun to point and laugh at MRAs.

I am in awe.

“Mueller’s Ratchet kind of presupposes that going in and manually editing a genome isn’t a fucking option, shitwad!” and “you pathetic snailsucking weed in the garden of knowledge” are honestly awe-inspiring and I’m fucking blessed I read them today

This is beautiful

It’s been long enough since I last saw this post that I’d nearly forgotten and it still fucking hit me like a goddamn freight train.

Fucking poetry there, Shakespeare would be hard pressed to improve upon these lines.

@shitpostsampler The snailsucking jellyfish fellator quote is golden.

Are we just going to ignore “a crumbling, confused pile of enraged starfish”?

‘oh hey that’s funny :D man, flat-earth sure is one of the stranger conspiracy theories isn’t it. ooh who was Eratosthenes? i should look him up! and now we’re talking about mammoths,  cool , i love mam

“a crumbling, confused pile of enraged starfish”

now this... this is a post on tumblr dot com

Hey folks! On my sister’s insistence I have set up an Etsy. At the moment the only thing I have on there is my octokittens, but more crafts will appear! Check it out here if you’re interested.

LOOK AT THESE THINGS, THEY ARE ADORABLE, YOU NEED ONE

Hi!! I’ve just spent way too long writing down a probably excessive amount of worldbuilding for Jevin’s species in @martuzzio‘s hermit space outlaws AU!!! Disclaimer: I pulled everything scientific-sounding in this post straight out of my ass. Also I’m pretty sure I contradict things that have been established as canon at at least a couple points. martuzzio, please feel free to take this or leave it, or only take part of it, whatever you like. I just got hit by worldbuilding inspiration! And I had to get it out!!

Keep reading

This is absolutely fantastic. what a comprehensive read! I’m definitely going to link this in Jevin’s biography for people to get a good idea of what his species is like. I don’t think there’s anything in here that directly contradicts something we’ve decided before, and even if it does, I guess it wasn’t that important because I can’t remember it now. Awesome job, thank you! :D

Space outlaws lore can be seen here.

!!! I’m glad you like it! it was really fun to come up with!! :D

MAG 129

A small tribute to this episode of The Magnus Archives I liked a lot !

The thing with humanoid aliens is that organisms with human form have only evolved once in all the half-billion years of multicellular life on Earth, and then under some very specific circumstances.

If you want something realistic, make your aliens look like crabs. Animals evolve into crab shapes so often that biologists had to invent a word for it.

crabs just arent sexy enough though

they are if you’re not a fucking coward

yeah but none of the crab shaped animals around here have evolved to become significantly intelligent, let alone sapient.* crabs have a body plan that’s good for surviving in harsh and variable circumstances. humans have a body plan that’s good for absolutely nothing besides being very intelligent and social tool users.

so to be realistic, your aliens should have something equivalent to the godawful design of the human spine and lower back, and they should look like total wimps compared to basically everything else on their planet!

*unless you count octopi as crab-shaped. soft crabs.

People on this site: How is it that 90% of my dash is filled with that gay angel and demon couple?

Anthony J. Crowley, who won three awards in Hell when he created Tumblr dot com:

countersuggestion: Crowley did not invent tumblr. that was all humans. he did, however, suggest to Yahoo that it would be a great investment which would help them finally break into the social media business.

and he is absolutely responsible for Yahoo Answers.

Do NOT tag as a ship

happy 10th anniversary!!

Slime mold was grown on an agar gel plate shaped like America and food sources were placed where America’s large cities are. 

The result? A possible look at how to best build public transportation. 

I just really like the idea of slime mold on a map of the US. It’s beautiful.

I’m—

holy shit

I have a raging science ladyboner right now.

I’d love if we could do it on a state-by-state basis.

That same slime mold once affirmed that the Tokyo subway is pretty well-designed.  

Using slime molds as a calculator.

Using slime molds as a calculator.

Using slime molds as a calculator.

Natural computation: it’s a thing, and it’s awesome. What is the universe but a really, really complicated computer?

I love this.

It’s a good start, but they forgot a couple of very important points: 1. Topography. 2. Population density.

So like, I can see that they didn’t put any sort of inhibitor where the Appalachians are, so the slime mold put a bunch of networks right in the steepest (not highest, steepest) mountains in the lower 48, and none through the nice flat well-populated Piedmont – that’s the east coast, blank from Jersey to Jacksonville FL here.  (I’m less clear on the Rockies than I am on the Appalachians, so forgive the bias here.  I can’t quite tell how the western networks relate to the Great Basin, Rockies, and Sierra Nevada.)

Ohio is the most densely populated state that isn’t on a saltwater coast.  This network not only goes around it, but it does so via the course of the Ohio River, in the Desolation of Smalltowns twisting between steep Appalachian foothills from Cincinnati to Wheeling WV.  It would make more sense to either go through Ohio, in the 2/3rds of the state from Cincinnati to Cleveland which is flat, or follow the shore of Lake Erie and go through Cleveland, which is pretty much what I-80 does.

In short, most of this network is passing through steep mountain/hill country and avoiding people by hundreds of miles.  Perhaps a later experiment will add growth inhibitors and facilitators to approximate the missing elements.  That would be really cool to see.

End map nerd.

I made this because I have no self control. Enjoy!

[video description: the last verse & chorus of lemon demon’s “touch-tone telephone” edited over a montage of clips across various episodes of unraveled. /end desc.]

also ive been thinking about the house juju. when john took it, it gave him the power to retroactively change canon and therefore save his friends from the game over timeline. this was the only way to win the game. this we already know, and is canon.

it’s implied that john is finding earth c (post-canon) existence unfulfilling and his relationships are suffering because of that. john is the glue that ties the characters together (you’re our friend and this is why you must be our leader). if john is “stuck” in canon aka still relevant to the story, he cannot be meaningfully present with the life he’s built afterwards. with that lack of presence, the rest of the crew starts to crumble psychologically too.

anyways i think john sticking his hand in the juju is why earth c faces the threat of becoming non canon. perhaps as long as there is a way to influence canon in the post game, the story can never be fulfilled and complete.

as long as john (and subsequently, the juju’s power) is in earth c, they will never have their happy ending. that’s why rose’s goodbye felt so final.

the green sun doesnt have influence over earth c universe because earth c universe is not MEANT to have relevance. since john IS still relevant to canon, that defies the logic, and pushes earth c into noncanon territory. they invalidate each other. it’d be pretty upsetting for john to hear that his existence invalidates everyone residing in the universe he created. pretty fucked up. winning the game means you cease to matter to the story; the curse of the juju is that john can never stop being the protagonist.

I DON’T LIKE THESE IMPLICATIONS

Honestly my hopes for John returning to Earth C are not high, but I am expecting him to lose the retcon powers as follows:

With ‘go after Lord English when he’s younger’, it seems likely we’re heading towards the Caliborn Claymation Special. In that fight, John, Rose, Dave, and Jade are imprisoned in the house juju and it is cast into the Furthest Ring.

My theory is that the retcon powers go with John into the juju – and then leave without him, when earlier John touches it. When the juju is actually set off, the four of them will emerge, but John won’t have retcon powers anymore.

What I like most about this theory is it makes the freakishly powerful retcon ability its own origin.

Some say Homestuck will end in meat,

Some say in candy. 

From what I’ve seen the fans entreat,

I hold with those who favor meat. 

But knowing Huss’s modus operandi, 

I think I’ve read enough updates 

To say that for conclusions candy 

Is also great 

And would be dandy.

- Robert Frost

homestuck on main is legal now

anyways here’s my predictions for the epilogue

The Meat/Candy Binary-Homestuck Book Commentary Submission

This quote threw me for a loop, to be honest, and I’ve been mulling it over the last couple days. I wasn’t sure what the Meat/Candy binary was referring to at all, I was just kind of like uhh wtf?

Then I remembered this exchange, and I think things started coming together:

Meat and Candy are all Caliborn/Calliope eat. Which makes sense, since they’re the ultimate audience stand ins.  Hussie gives us a good sense of what Meat means in his description: Very violent, very game-changing animations that move the story forward. Parts where people die and/or Get Shit done, usually delivered with a lot of visual spectacle.

Caliborn gives us a pretty hefty clue as to the second. Odds seem good “Candy” refers to shipping, or at least the very particular kind of shipping Caliborn is interested in.

Which is to say, Caliborn isn’t interested in watching Roxy and Jane have a real relationship, or grow as people, or wrestle with real feelings. He’s interested in the physical titillation they can provide him with by acting out the cute parts of a relationship. See also: Trickster Mode, where the characters indulge candy and become saccharine sweet and affectionate to each other while being entirely detached from their conflicts and issues.

Unsurprisingly, Caliborn’s also only interested in “candy” that caters specifically to his own sexuality, insofar as he consciously performs it.

So basically, Meat and Candy both provide different forms of titillation and satisfying “content”, from the fandom’s perspective. Meat gives us raw plot, the satisfaction of Things Happening, steaks being raised, etc. Candy gives us shipping fodder, absent conflict and growth that real relationships require.

This log also introduces a third concept into the equation, presenting an alternative to the Meat/Candy binary: Pumpkins, or Vegetables.

The implications of this one seem fairly obvious to me. Vegetables may not be tasty or satisfying to eat, but they’re good for you and necessary to a healthy body. Eating one’s vegetables is considered a sign of maturity, or at least being on the path to maturity.

I’m going to guess that in this framework, vegetables refers to content depicting the characters actually reckoning with themselves, facing their feelings and flaws, and growing as people, friends, and relationship partners. This is explicitly built into Dirk and Jake’s relationship symbolically, but really it applies to every endgame ship and to the character’s arcs more generally. Caliborn doesn’t give a shit about anything that has to do with the characters actually growing up.

Pumpkins are also Void items, which makes me wonder. If the most “important” romantic relationships for each character, the ones that help them grow as people, are the ones considered “Pumpkin” matter in the story, maybe that goes some way to explaining why we get so little explicitly romantic affection shown between, say, Vrisrezi, Davekat, and Dirkjake. That’s candy.

If that last idea is accurate to the story’s internal logic, it makes me think of this quote from The Little Prince:

Anyway if I’m right about this at all, the real takeaway is that @sam-keeper​ was writing about this aspect of Homestuck openly way back in 2016. So, you know. Homestuck was good and meaningfully constructed all along, and everyone should listen to Sam forever. What else is new.

Hey friends and enemies it’s Homestuck day so let me tell you about fucking Homestuck.

A long time ago Homestuck was big and everyone who loved it liked to joke that it was bad, because it was kinda, in that it was a weird style and an absurd story and a shambling tangle of non-linear meta-jokes and cultural references only thirty year old coders would get. People still loved it, because that wasn’t all it was (we’ll get to that), but over time Stuff happened, and the momentum of the story slowed while expectations mounted and the resulting dissonance left the ending feeling a little flat. And sometime in the intervening years between then and now, the ironic “Homestuck is bad” apparently stopped being ironic and became sincere.

Which was a little confusing and a little annoying, because I never got the memo and it took me a long time to cotton on to the fact that Homestuck was considered ‘cringey’ even in circles that it literally built. Anyways, the conventional wisdom does seem to be Homestuck Is Bad now, and the wise thing to do is probably apologetically disavow or at very least cautiously enumerate Homestuck’s various flaws so I can reassure both you and myself that I’ve paid the proper penance for whatever nugget of sincere affection I may have harbored under my ironic platitudes in those bygone years of the mid 2010′s. 

Thankfully I’m a dumb fucking bitch, so instead here’s why I love Homestuck.

Keep reading

Mistaken For Strangers- The National

Companion to this piece from three years ago

Sorry this couldn’t be done as an audio post, tumblr said lyricstucks have no rights.