mackerel sky

@kasutera / kasutera.tumblr.com

a silly place ❀ please read my about page before following
Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
plaguedocboi

Here it is folks:

My definitive ranking of my least favorite bodies of water! These are ranked from least to most scary (1/10 is okay, 10/10 gives me nightmares). I’m sorry this post is long, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this.

The Great Blue Hole, Belize

I’ve been here! I have snorkeled over this thing! It is terrifying! The water around the hole is so shallow you can’t even swim over the coral without bumping it, and then there’s a little slope down, and then it just fucking drops off into the abyss! When you’re over the hole the water temperature drops like 10 degrees and it’s midnight blue even when you’re right by the surface. Anyway. The Great Blue Hole is a massive underwater cave, and its roughly 410 feet deep. Overall, it’s a relatively safe area to swim. It’s a popular tourist attraction and recreational divers can even go down and explore some of the caves. People do die at the Blue Hole, but it is generally from a lack of diving experience rather than anything sinister going on down in the depths. My rating for this one is 1/10 because I’ve been here and although it’s kinda freaky it’s really not that bad.

Lake Baikal, Russia

When I want to give myself a scare I look at the depth diagram of this lake. It’s so deep because it’s not a regular lake, it’s a Rift Valley, A massive crack in the earth’s crust where the continental plates are pulling apart. It’s over 5,000 feet deep and contains one-fifth of all freshwater on Earth. Luckily, its not any more deadly than a normal lake. It just happens to be very, very, freakishly deep. My rating for this lake is a 2/10 because I really hate looking at the depth charts but just looking at the lake itself isn’t that scary.

Jacob’s Well, Texas

This “well” is actually the opening to an underwater cave system. It’s roughly 120 feet deep, surrounded by very shallow water. This area is safe to swim in, but diving into the well can be deadly. The cave system below has false exits and narrow passages, resulting in multiple divers getting trapped and dying. My rating is a 3/10, because although I hate seeing that drop into the abyss it’s a pretty safe place to swim as long as you don’t go down into the cave (which I sure as shit won’t).

The Devil’s Kettle, Minnesota

This is an area in the Brule River where half the river just disappears. It literally falls into a hole and is never seen again. Scientists have dropped in dye, ping pong balls, and other things to try and figure out where it goes, and the things they drop in never resurface. Rating is 4/10 because Sometimes I worry I’m going to fall into it.

Flathead Lake, Montana

Everyone has probably seen this picture accompanied by a description about how this lake is actually hundreds of feet deep but just looks shallow because the water is so clear. If that were the case, this would definitely rank higher, but that claim is mostly bull. Look at the shadow of the raft. If it were hundreds of feet deep, the shadow would look like a tiny speck. Flathead lake does get very deep, but the spot the picture was taken in is fairly shallow. You can’t see the bottom in the deep parts. However, having freakishly clear water means you can see exactly where the sandy bottom drops off into blackness, so this still ranks a 5/10.

The Lower Congo River, multiple countries

Most of the Congo is a pretty normal, if large, River. In the lower section of it, however, lurks a disturbing surprise: massive underwater canyons that plunge down to 720 feet. The fish that live down there resemble cave fish, having no color, no eyes, and special sensory organs to find their way in the dark. These canyons are so sheer that they create massive rapids, wild currents and vortexes that can very easily kill you if you fall in. A solid 6/10, would not go there.

Little Crater Lake, Oregon

On first glance this lake doesn’t look too scary. It ranks this high because I really don’t like the sheer drop off and how clear it is (because it shows you exactly how deep it goes). This lake is about 100 feet across and 45 feet deep, and I strongly feel that this is too deep for such a small lake. Also, the water is freezing, and if you fall into the lake your muscles will seize up and you’ll sink and drown. I don’t like that either. 7/10.

Grand Turk 7,000 ft drop off

No. 8/10. I hate it.

Gulf of Corryvreckan, Scotland

Due to a quirk in the sea floor, there is a permanent whirlpool here. This isn’t one of those things that looks scary but actually won’t hurt you, either. It absolutely will suck you down if you get too close. Scientists threw a mannequin with a depth gauge into it and when it was recovered the gauge showed it went down to over 600 feet. If you fall into this whirlpool you will die. 9/10 because this seems like something that should only be in movies.

The Bolton Strid, England

This looks like an adorable little creek in the English countryside but it’s not. Its really not. Statistically speaking, this is the most deadly body of water in the world. It has a 100% mortality rate. There is no recorded case of anyone falling into this river and coming out alive. This is because, a little ways upstream, this isn’t a cute little creek. It’s the River Wharfe, a river approximately 30 feet wide. This river is forced through a tiny crack in the earth, essentially turning it on its side. Now, instead of being 30 feet wide and 6 feet deep, it’s 6 feet wide and 30 feet deep (estimated, because no one actually knows how deep the Strid is). The currents are deadly fast. The banks are extremely undercut and the river has created caves, tunnels and holes for things (like bodies) to get trapped in. The innocent appearance of the Strid makes this place a death trap, because people assume it’s only knee-deep and step in to never be seen again. I hate this river. I have nightmares about it. I will never go to England just because I don’t want to be in the same country as this people-swallowing stream. 10/10, I live in constant fear of this place.

Honorable mention: The Quarry, Pennsylvania

I don’t know if that’s it’s actual name. This lake gets an honorable mention not because it’s particularly deep or dangerous, but it’s where I almost drowned during a scuba diving accident.

Avatar
reblogged

Do you want to know how to help the people of the DRC? Go donate money to focuscongo.com, that's one possibility.

You can also donate physical objects in high demand right now, if you have the $ to pay for international shipping prices, and send to this address [10 Avenue Des Messagers, Quartier Les Volcans, Commune de Goma, Ville de Goma, Province du Nord-Kivu, République Démocratique du Congo]. They need just about everything you use in a day to get by.

  • Clothing, socks, jackets, coats, (All sizes from infants to adults), purses, tote bags, backpacks.
  • Blankets, pillows & cases, bed sheets
  • Shoes, (All sizes!)
  • Cutlery, pots & pans, plates, cups, mugs (preferably plastic for the cups & plates so they don't break during shipment)
  • Over the counter medication & med supplies: ibuprofen (Advil), hydrogen peroxide, pain killers, bandages, bandaids, hand sanitizer, acetaminophen (Tylenol), cotton balls, gauze, deworming medication, compression wraps, saline solution, topical pain relief (Icy Hot), hydro-cortisone, detail, anti-funga treatment, surgical tape.
  • Baby formula, vitamins, water purification tablets, lifestraws, hair care / skin care products, pads & tampons, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, wet wipes, baby wipes, diapers.

However! If you are in the U.S., you can send (shoes only) your packages to this address in the U.S. [Exile International, Entrance F. 3534 West End Ave. Nashville, TN 37205, United States] which will ship them to the previously listed address, so it's less cost for you!

And finally, you can also go volunteer with Focus Congo! Fill out the application here, and email them at info@focuscongo.com, make sure to attach your resumé / CV, so they assign you to work that best suits your capabilities. Foreverjuicebae / juicebaeinthewild is one such volunteer and she posts regularly about the conditions of Congolese people in the DRC.

Please reblog! Likes don't help, reblogs spread the word.

Avatar
reblogged

since it’s getting to be big time con season, here’s a friendly reminder!

Cosplay Contact Lens PSA:

if your lens causes actual pain, CHUCK THAT LENS IMMEDIATELY!

Sometimes you’ll hear someone who wears contact lenses on the regular complain about how their lenses hurt, when what they actually mean is “whoops! I exceeded my comfortable wear time for the day, and now my eyes are aching in a non painful but still uncomfortable way! I need to get home and switch to glasses!” instead of that their lenses are causing actual pain. (That still isn’t a great situation btw! Keep glasses on hand in case of this!)

The way that there are two vastly different yet equally common meanings of “my contacts are hurting” has been behind literally every nightmarish cosplay lens horror story I’ve ever seen irl. Someone was used to hearing “my lens hurt” from a friend who meant the not great but not particularly likely to cause injury way, had cosmetic lenses that ACTUALLY hurt, and refused to take out the lens before there was significant damage.

DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE.

if it’s uncomfortable, take it out! If it’s ACTUALLY PAINFUL, take it out as soon as possible, no exceptions! I don’t CARE if you have a photoshoot! It’s not worth it! You can photoshop your eyes later!

Just. My dudes. My fellow cosplayers. Please always remember.

CONTACT LENSES SHOULD NEVER CAUSE ACTUAL PAIN. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO GO WITHOUT LENSES THAN HURT YOUR EYES.

incredibly important tags that extremely pass peer review from @marlequinncos

you can extremely screw up your eyes if you haven’t gotten an optometrist to check if you even can wear contacts!!!!! don’t just shove lenses from the dealer hall in your eyes or whatever!!!!!!

the original post didn’t state this clearly enough which is on me, but I was 100% meaning that if you’re an occasional wearer just for costumes, you might mistake what daily wearers sometimes mean by “hurt” (as in “slight discomfort from fucking up and wearing the lens half an hour too long”) for “it is fine to continue wearing lenses that are actively causing an eye injury”, which is a thing I’ve seen happen irl to occasional wearers more than once, one time of which involved skipping out on the con to go to the hospital.

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
picaroroboto

Shadowbringers is a ghost story, it's a love story, it's a post-apocalyptic horror story, it's a high fantasy that turns the genre's notions of light and dark and hero and villain inside-out and upside-down. Fitting with the whole light and dark schema it's FF14's writing at it's darkest and edgiest, and most optimistic and hopeful at the same time. It's about the struggle of finding and protecting whatever hope you can in the most painful of situations, about how even the strongest of us have to rely on one another, and it's an allegory about healing from grief and trauma on a grand scale. It's about choosing an imperfect present, a broken world, over a false promise of a utopian past.

Most importantly it's a story about the universal human experience of trying to kill evil angels while being lied to by wizards who are weirdly obsessed with you.

Avatar
reblogged

I personally think Y'shtola deserves some more credit for how she advocates for the Warrior of Light during Shadowbringers. Without knowing the whole story I've always felt she had every right to be uneasy with the Exarch, and to be honest I was expecting a pricklier welcome from her in Rak'tika... but as soon as she realizes who it is, her greeting for the WoL is incredibly warm. I love that her first question is "How are you?" She cares about them! And when her aethersight gives her reason to believe the WoL is in danger, she's concerned! She thinks they need to be told! And when Urianger won't agree to tell them, she does it herself, because she thinks it's the right thing to do. She treats the Warrior of Light like a person who deserves to know what they're getting into and make an informed decision, and it's such a far cry from the "You'll do it because you're the Warrior of Light!" attitudes of everyone in ARR.

And I think it's also worth noting that in the end, after she knows the whole truth, she doesn't seem to hold any of it against G'raha. When you're back in the Source, she's talking about whether he should be given the title of Nunh after his long tenure as the Crystal Exarch, and after he joins the Scions, she seems cool with him, so I genuinely have no reason to think she holds a grudge about any of it.

She was, ultimately, concerned and wanted to do the right thing, and she cares about the Warrior of Light and their wellbeing, and I think that's an important thing about her.

Avatar
viiioca

y'shtola gets way too little credit for being fiercely protective of the people she cares about, and a ton of shit for the dramatic things she does to save them (that she has to be rescued from).

some of my favorite bits of missable dialogue that i do not have screenshots for, but come from the text strings from npcs in fanow and slitherbow after the events of mt. gulg, which you never see because honestly who wasn't racing into the finale?:

y'shtola not only advocates for the WOL, she is exhausting absolutely every resource she can get her hands on, and she is grieving. the WOL is her friend, and she wants to help them, and it kills her that she can't. dats it.

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
pitafish

I'm gonna link to the animations in case y'all either don't remember or have never heard of some of these.

A quick note: these were made in the 2000s. Comedy is subjective, there's some strong examples of dark and/or "lolz teh random" humor in these. Maybe some cultural blindness, too. That said, enjoy a time capsule of stuff made before/during the birth of Youtube, now hosted on Youtube.

Avatar
reblogged

really tired of seeing the idea that women & girls are less likely to be diagnosed with autism because it "presents differently" so widely accepted even in progressive spaces

it is also widely accepted that women get raises less often because they don't ask as much as men. this is objectively not true.

it is also widely accepted that women are more talkative than men. this is objectively not true.

it is also widely accepted that women are taken less seriously when speaking because their speech patterns are associated with a "lack of confidence". this is objectively not true. [1][2][3]

every time we talk about gender discrimination, people look for an explanation that starts with women's behavior.

and every fucking time, actual research shows that across the board, women actually don't behave that differently from men.

women aren't diagnosed less often with autism due to "presenting differently". it's gendered medical neglect, and weaponized diagnoses disproportionately applied to women (e.g. BPD, HPD, bipolar, etc.)

Avatar
Avatar
meckamecha

I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence

Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.

Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.

Avatar
cinna-bunnie

u r absolutely right I have SO many complaints about Windows omg.

For anyone who'd like to follow along, I'm gonna share how to get around those things with group policies bc they're more user friendly and descriptive than registry editor imo :3 I'll also show how to get around needing a Microsoft account to get setup.

For the Device Setup

"OOBE" stands for Out Of Box Experience which is what that setup workflow is. But it also happens to be a folder with a little program in it that'll let you skip connecting to the internet; this makes it so you don't have to sign up with a Microsoft account and can just use a normal local one instead. And it already comes preinstalled! Here's how you get to it:

  1. Hold Shift + F10, or Shift + Fn + F10 depending on your keyboard.
  2. Click inside the window that pops up, type the following and press enter afterwards to run it: OOBE\BypassNRO
  3. I believe it should restart your computer automatically, but if not then restart your computer or type: shutdown /r /t 0 /f

Now when you're brought back to the setup workflow, the page where you connect to the internet will have a new button on it that lets you say you don't have internet. Clicking that and proceeding through the rest of the setup lets you get around the Microsoft account thing.

Group Policies

You don't have to know much about them, these are just a bunch of specific settings for what your computer can or can't do that lets you decide how it works in different ways.

I'm gonna show you how to turn off the recommendations and internet stuff basically. For now bring up search and type gpedit, pick this

It'll open up to Local Group Policy Editor and we can get started :3c

Start Recommendations

In the side menu, go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar. Click on Settings to sort them with all the "Turn off" ones bumped to the top.

Here's what you should set:

  • Turn off user tracking: enabled
  • Turn off feature advertisement balloon notifications: enabled
  • Remove Recommended section from Start Menu: enabled
  • Remove Personalized Website Recommendations from the Recommended section in the Start Menu: enabled
  • Do not search Internet: enabled

Windows Spotlight

Back in the side menu, go down to Windows Components > Cloud Content

  • Turn off all Windows spotlight features: enabled
  • Do not use diagnostic data for tailored experiences: enabled

Cortana

In the side menu, this one's back at the top under Computer Configuration. You're gonna want to go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search

  • Allow Cortana: disabled
  • Don't search the web or display web results in Search: enabled

News and Interests

In the side menu go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > News and interests.

  • Enable news and interests on the taskbar: disabled

Microsoft Account Login Nudges

When you don't use a Microsoft account they'll nudge you repeatedly to sign in so you can "get the most out of your experience" *gag*. The group policy for turning that off has a note that suggests it might not work with Windows 11 though (implicitly), so you can close the group policy editor window now and for this last one let's just open up the regular settings.

Go to System > Notifications > Additional settings, then uncheck all the boxes. And there ya go! (✿◠‿◠)ノ u are done.

Group policies are kind of a rabbit hole so while there is a lot more you could change or read into, for your own sanity's sake I would advise against it and say call it a day lol

This is all extremely good information, thank you very much for the addition!

I endorse this as an IT technician. I do this to every new Win11 device I set up.

As a bonus, run Chris Titus Tech's debloat tool on it.

It allows you to add tools, remove/disable shitty parts of windows, and easily change some settings. My default is running the preset for a desktop/laptop and applying security update settings, but there are so many options to customize. I used it on my personal laptop.

Avatar
Avatar
mooonbride

It’s sad that toxic game culture is so prevalent cuz like. As someone who has ended up in random matches with kids before, I can attest to how fucking easy it is to reverse and un-teach shitty attitudes in kids.

Example: I downloaded Friday the 13th because it’s free on psn. I dunno how to play, so I just enter quick play and I’m matched with 3-4 kids on mic. Immediately on mic they’re shitty and disparaging to each other. They laugh at each others deaths, they actively work against team mates and self sabotage, they call each other “fags”, etc. From the sounds of the voices they cannot be older than 13-14.

I put on my mic and just decide I ain’t havin it. I am nice. I thank them for barricading doors or leaving me items. When they break free from Jason’s grasp I say “good job!” or I try to help them. One kid survived for most of the match by himself. When he dies, I tell him he did a fantastic job.

The mood shift is practically INSTANT. These kids almost immediately stop being dick heads. They start encouraging each other and being kind. After the match all of them try to friend request me. Which should tell you a couple of things:

A) kids want to be kind, and they want to have a nice time playing games. But encounters with adults like me or so rare that they’ve trained themselves to instantly put on a toxic, shitty, defensive veneer when encountering any new person online. It’s literally just THAT EASY to not groom a horrible gaming community, it’s just that NO ONE does it.

B) the speed of which they all tried to friend me was cute, but paints for me such a sad picture? Like these kids are SO desperate to find people to play with who aren’t crappy jerks. They played with me for 10 minutes TOPS and all instantly tried to reach out to me.

tl;dr: The kids are alright. Adults are shit heads.

I cant agree with this post more

I witnessed something similar with my younger brother (this was when he was In fifth grade so bear with me here) and his friends. The teacher assigned for them to build a somewhat accurate spanish mission in Minecraft because their school had gotten some iPads and she needed to assign them something other than a PowerPoint.

Now here’s the thing. Most of these boys, my brother included, have ADD/ADHD. About a week into the project all they had in their shared world was chaos. Somebody filled the place with tnt and lit it up. Holes everywhere. Whenever one would attempt to try and build something (mostly wood huts and not the actual project) it would be destroyed within minutes as the boys began to insult each other heavily and complain that the design was ugly.

I brought my own ipad with me and decided to sit with the boys while they continued their reign of terror. I joined the world and built a hallway out of brick at the very center of this war zone. Immediately one of them tried to destroy it under the impression that “it looks bad”.

“Well, what should I make it out of?”

“Diamond.”

The ten year old mind is a mystery to me…

Anyway, then I showed him some pictures similar to these:

I reasoned that it would be easier to sway this kid toward another pretty block than trying to get him to stick to the materials of the time, so I asked him if he would like to help me replace my brick design with quartz (eh, it’s white).

Bam! One of the ten year old anarchists is dutifully building me a glittering gem hallway for our insanely rich monks.

The other three are off somewhere still yelling at each other and setting off explosives, but we have something built. Much to my surprise the kid asked if he could build the church next because he “wanted to build the most important part”.

Here’s where I learned something important. I don’t have ADD or ADHD but as I said before my brother does. When he gets fixated on something, he’s really gets into it. Once a few minutes had passed and this kid already had four walls up I decided to grid up the entire mission. One gets the church, one gets the farm, etc.

After playing the game with them for an hour, I had a pretty good idea of where each kid should go.

Church kid, I found, was very particular about materials and shape(hence his hangup over the brick). I gave him free reign over the outer walls of the mission and showed him the reference pictures to get him started.

My brother liked the farms most (he was building dirt domes over the cows don’t ask me how I made this connection it just worked, okay), so he was in charge of building pens for the animals.

Another kid was, at first glance, very loud and bossy when it came to decorating (constantly said we were making chairs wrong). Turns out he likes interior design, like putting benches and beds in the little rooms, so his bossiness was just frustration with my brother’s artistic sense I guess.

Another was very good with placing trees and plants around the exterior (I guessed this because he covered the place in a ridiculous amount of trees and I asked him if he would like to know where they are supposed to go). He got to make a vineyard for us and organized how the crops should go.

So how did it turn out?

Actually very nice!!

So what did we learn? Kids actually like to play games and be praised for their creativity and intuition. If I had just told them to stop messing around rather than direct their attention to areas within their interests, they never would have gotten anything done.

After an hour of gaming they:

  • Mirrored my language; “thank you!”, “which part are you working on?”, “I like this block.”
  • Realized each other’s strengths; “hey [kid name] can you help me with the roof?” “How do you make the big trees [kid name]?”
  • Were able to articulate exactly what they did or didn’t like without using force; “that looks good!”, “how about we put it there?”, “I don’t like that block, how about this one?”

On the plus side, since we moved the game file to my device for safekeeping, I now have a cute little souvenir of the time I played Minecraft with four ten year olds.

This is a really long post, but it’s super important. In games like Fortnite where you’ll find lots of kids, it’s important (if you can) to steer them away from toxicity. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run into kids who talk like toxic adults and the act of just being nice to them completely turns them around.

Avatar

Whenever an existing faux product is described as “vegan product” my hackles raise.

It’s not vegan leather, it’s pleather.

It’s not vegan butter, it’s margarine.

It’s not vegan cashmere, it’s acrylic.

It’s not vegan fur, it’s faux fur. Also probably an acrylic or rayon blend.

It’s not vegan silk, it’s polyester.

We haven’t gotten to calling vegetable shortening “vegan lard” yet, but given the butter situation…

Call a spade a spade and stop greenwashing! Just admit it’s plastic! Just admit you’ve prioritized one kind of animal life over the other! Stop calling it vegan when it’s just plastic, you’re driving people to destroy the planet with the “more moral” option when it’s NOT.

You can enjoy margarine, that’s fine, just be up front about it being in the dish so people know what they’re eating by a familiar name.

Avatar
reblogged

there is a huge difference between criticizing an institution and criticizing individual behavior. i can criticize the makeup industry without criticizing the 14 year old girl who uses concealer because she’s self-conscious about her acne; i can criticize the plastic surgery industry without vilifying the woman who decided to get a nose job after two decades of pointed comments and bullying. it is intellectually dishonest to respond to an institutional criticism as if it were a personal attack; on the flip side, it is cruel and unnecessary to leverage personal attacks in the name of institutional criticism

if i see one (1) more person respond to a perfectly reasonable beauty-industry-critical sentiment with “but i personally enjoy eyeshadow. why are you attacking people who like eyeshadow :(” or “exactly, all women who wear makeup are miserable and brainwashed” i am going to climb a tree and bite the top of it

You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.