The Edge of Cultivation

world_of_engineering_75 on Instagram

Mira Furlan as Delenn in Babylon 5

one of the best tips for Real Life that I’ve ever picked up is to always highball your estimate whenever someone asks you “when can you get this done by” by about 25% (if you can get away with it). that way, if it ends up being harder than you thought, you’ve got extra time to figure things out and if you were right about how much time it takes then you get to look like an absolute genius instead of just a simply competent person.

what you may not have realized is that I learned this crucial piece of life advice from an episode of Star Trek where Scotty is telling Geordi that whenever he told Kirk something on the Enterprise was at full capacity, it was always only ever a notch or so below full capacity so that Scotty looked like the god of all engineers when he was able to magically hack the warp drive to run a little beyond what he’d told everyone else was “full capacity” and honestly that one throwaway gag from Star Trek has changed my life.

star trek heritage post (June 9th, 2017)

[Video description: A two part video of a challenge and response. The video starts with a conventionally attractive young white woman. A white line moves from the top of the screen downwards, across her face, as seen in many videos showing the before and after effects of video filters. However, the line pauses and the viewer realizes it is not a video filter effect, it’s a piece of white string that the woman is moving herself using her hands off camera. She grabs the center of the string with her tongue, and, using only her mouth, ties it in a knot. This particular party trick, plus her deliberately seductive expression, is meant to imply that she is unusually talented at giving oral sex. She ends her video with a challenging face, as if daring the viewer to do better.

The video cuts to someone who has taken up the challenge. This time it’s an old grandmother, with lovely deep wrinkles. She starts her video the same with moving the string across her face and grabbing it in her mouth. She begins to move her mouth around with a look of deep concentration. The video cuts to imply that time has passed. The grandmother pulls the center of her string out of her mouth to show off her results. It looks like a surprisingly large tangled mess. She keeps pulling and unfolds it to reveal that it’s actually an entire crocheted doily that she had stuffed into her mouth. She gives a wheezing little laugh at her own joke. End ID. /]

I fucking love the TOS Star Trek episode "A piece of the action" because BONES AND SPOCK BOTH LOOK SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL LOOK

GOD I'M FERAL

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It's frustrating to have no time or energy to study finnish lately, I see people talking in finnish, and I'm like

What if I told y’all the earth was a skinny legend and her waist was snatched to the gods. Then would y’all finally stan her and do more to fight global warming??? 🤔🤔🤔

oh you want us to stan earth? name any of her number one singles……. that’s what i thought.

I’m pretty sure Earth’s number one single is you, since no one wants to date a clown

Hello crimestoppers, I’d like to report a fucking murder.

Started wondering if people on Tumblr are more or less likely to eat pickles so

no multi option, agonize and choose, no results option, pick one to find out or scroll onward

junimo breakdancing

animated on stream !!

Ahhh this is so cute! 🥰

oh my goodness, one of dian fossey’s first close up observations with gorillas happened when she was trying to climb a tree to see them better, but so badly that by the time she’d gotten up the entire group had come out of hiding to look at her: “Nearly all members of the group had totally exposed themselves, forgetting about hiding coyly behind foliage screens because it was obvious to them that the observer had been distracted by tree-climbing problems, an activity they could understand.”

hello, fellow apes

The lead up to that sentence is gold:

[Image transcript: porch. The group had been day-nesting and sunbathing when I contacted them, but upon my approach they nervously retreated to obscure themselves behind thick foliage. Frustrated but determined to see them better, I decided to climb a tree, not one of my better talents. The tree was particularly slithery and, try as I might, no amount of puffing, pulling, gripping, or clawing succeeded in getting me more than a few feet aboveground. Disgustedly, I was about to give up when Sanwekwe came to my aid by giving one mighty boost to my protruding rump; tears were running from his eyes as he was convulsed in silent laughter. I felt as inept as a baby taking its first step. Finally able to grab on to a conveniently placed branch, I hauled myself up into a respectful semislouch position in the tree about twenty feet from the ground. By this time I naturally assumed that the combined noises of panting, cursing, and branch-breaking made during the initial climbing attempts must have frightened the group on to the next mountain. I was amazed to look around and find that the entire group had returned and were sitting like front row spectators at a sideshow. All that was needed to make the image complete were a few gorilla-sized bags of popcorn and some cotton candy! This was the first live audience I had ever had in my life and certainly the least expected.]

imagine some freakish not-a-human alien THING has shown up out of nowhere and is trying to get into your office building to study you. but it has no idea how to get past a revolving door. it tries for three hours. by the time it finally understands the concept of a revolving door and squeeze into the building everyone in the office is crowded into the lobby to watch and call helpful suggestions. it’s conclusively determined that the alien is definitely not a threat, except maybe to itself.