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A Trip into my brain... scary place

@germanakice / germanakice.tumblr.com

stuff I like, rants on stuff I don't like
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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.

Reblog if you:

  • Have an iPhone and are in need of repairs
  • Have a friend with that problem
  • Hate Apple and are more than happy to spite them in some way

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.

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toastertango

I don’t own a single apple product and I don’t intend to change that.

Source: youtube.com
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athoughtfox

so does anyone else ever think about the level of post-war wizarding celebrity the Weasley-Potters would have had? like

this is an entire family of war heroes that also contains the chosen one, two heads of Ministry departments, the Minister for Magic herself, a professional Quidditch player and later editor at the Prophet, an extremely successful wizard entrepreneur, an international curse-breaker, an ex-Triwizard champion, and an eminent dragonologist and they definitely all hold an Order of Merlin of one class or another

you can’t tell me they weren’t featured in wizarding papers and magazines every damn week they try to avoid it but it’s no use 

trying to go to Quidditch matches or anywhere really as a family is a tricky business because of the paparazzi

eating Chocolate Frogs is a weird experience for all their kids because their family are on so many cards like ‘oh look i got Uncle Charlie again’ ‘here’s Aunt Ginny, I’m still missing Mum though’ 

Bill keeps being given Witch Weekly’s most charming smile award he’s won it like 9 times even with all his scars. one time Ron won it instead and he teased Bill about it for ages

a good portion of the people who rock up to George’s shop come not just for joke items but also to shake his hand (and later Ron’s) and pay tribute to the portrait of Fred that hangs in there 

there’s a Hermione interview in the Prophet at least twice a week. if anything vaguely significant happens ever in wizarding politics everyone wants a comment from Hermione, even if it has nothing to do with her

George loves making up wild rumours about his family members and ‘leaking’ them to the press, like when he told them Percy and Fleur were having a passionate affair (this one backfired a bit because it was shortly before Percy’s actual divorce. the public excitement and interest was nothing compared to what happened later when it got out that Percy was seeing Oliver Wood, and then there was another professional Quidditch player in the family and it just got worse)  

Harry finds it weirdly comforting that the wizarding world is now obsessed not just with him, but his extended family too - they all get it now

all the kids get hounded towards the end of the year because everyone at Hogwarts want to be invited to the Burrow (very heavily warded and impenetrable to the press) for the summer to witness the annual Weasley-Potter family Quidditch match, which is legendary  

if there’s no new gossip the magazines just put in stuff like ‘recipes from the Burrow! Molly Weasley’s favourite dishes! how to feed a family of heroes!’’ or ‘losing track? here’s the Ultimate Guide to the Weasley-Potter family!’

it’s ridiculous 

Brilliant!

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vondrakenhof

Let’s talk about the battle in the Department of Mysteries for a sec. So after the group gets split up, Harry, Hermione and Neville go one way and Ron, Ginny and Luna the other. The next time we see the latter group Ginny’s ankle is busted and Ron’s brain is addled. Luna says that the Death Eaters blew up a planet in the planetarium and hit Ron with some sort of hex.

Let’s take a moment to examine that. If the curse that hit the planet had hit any of the kids, they’d be dead. So the Death Eater probably missed, hit the planet ahead of them, injuring Ginny. But here’s the important part: the one who actually gets hit by the hex? Ron.

Why is this important? Because Ron is consistently described throughout the series as tall. Like, every time Harry sees him after the beginning of summer he’s described as having shot up. Again. On the other hand Ginny is described as “the small one” by Bellatrix Lestrange. But Ron is behind her. I don’t know if you know this but tall people can run really fast. I am not particularly fit but I am tall. And I can pour on the speed when my adrenaline’s up, which I have no doubt was the case for everyone in the Department of Mysteries. But he’s behind her.

Because he did that deliberately. He kept his body between the Death Eaters and the girls. He shielded them from their spells. Because those he cares about are more important to him than his own life.

I don’t know, I just think about this a lot.

Ron is a strategist, and has already shown a willingness to take the hit for the team and be left behind. In any group, I think that’s just his default position; take the hit, buy more time for others to escape. He’s well aware that realistically, someone is going to be hurt. In this case, Luna is creative and smart enough to come up with something out of left field to throw the enemy off. Ginny is small, but she’s an athletic powerhouse who can throw strong hexes. If it comes down to a crunch, Ron knows that the two of them can fight their way out, and he can increase their odds by at least holding off the wave behind them.

Honestly, this is such an important point.

Consistently throughout the series, Ron can be seen being taken out of the action somehow. AND IT IS NEVER BECAUSE HE IS WEAK.

Rather, it’s because Ron is a STRATEGIST, who CARES.

In Philosopher’s Stone, for example. Ron allows himself to be “taken” by the queen, because he knows that he is standing with the Boy-Who-Lived and the Brightest-Witch-Of-Her-Age and Voldy must be stopped and it’s SIMPLE to him. Ron is a strategist, like has been said. It’s a strategic decision - who cares if it puts himself in harm’s way?

In Prisoner of Azkaban, Ron and Harry are faced with the Grim, and what does Ron do? He pushes Harry out of Sirius’ path, in the process allowing the dog to latch onto his outstretched arm and pull him away, breaking his leg as they enter the Willow. This decision is simple too - it’s because Harry Potter means the world to Ron Weasley, and Ron would not hesitate for a moment in putting himself between Harry and danger.

RON IS A STRATEGIST, AND RON CARES.

And when it comes down to it, he never hesitates.

And don’t forget DH:

“Wait,” said Bellatrix sharply.  "All except… except for the Mudblood.“ Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure. “No!” shouted Ron. “You can have me, keep me!”
“Right,” said Ron, squaring his shoulders. “So you can’t go, that’s what he wants, what he’s expecting. You stay here and look after Hermione, and I’ll go and get it —”

Where do people who claim Ron is a coward who hides behind his friends get their bullshit from?

Also, the bit in the Manor when Hermione’s being tortured, Ron is described as being completely hysterical, mindless with worry, screaming Hermione’s name over and over and nearly clawing his way out of the dungeon in order to get to her, never mind the fact that he was unarmed and Hermione was surrounded by a whole bunch of armed Death Eaters - he just wanted to go save the girl he’d loved forever. Nothing else even mattered - least of all his own life.

DO NOT EVER TRY TO TELL ME THAT RON WEASLEY WASN’T BRAVE OR SELFLESS BECAUSE NOBODY CAN CARE THE WAY RON WEASLEY CARES.

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Humans Are Weird

So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather? 

What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving. 

To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.

Earth being Space Australia Words cannot express how much I love these posts

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crazy-pages

Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”

Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”

Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”

Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.” 

Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”

Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”

Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”

Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.” 

Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.” 

“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?” “Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.” “What, the molten rock?” “Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–” “You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?” “Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”

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wuestenratte

Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.

“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?” 

“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”

“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”

“… well, actually…”

“… what?”

“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”

“…”

“…”

“…what?”

“we sent-”

“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”

“y-yeah”

“and they didn’t… die?”

“Well the first few did”

“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”

My new favorite Humans are Weird quote

“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”

aka The History of Russia

aka Arctic Exploration

aka The History of Alaska

Being from Alaska, this was sort of how I felt going to college in the lower 48′s and learned that no one else had been put through a literal survival camp as a regular part of their school curriculum, including but not limited to:

1. Learning to recognize all forms of animal tracks in the wild so you can avoid bears and moose and search out rabbits and other small animals to eat.

2. Extensive swimming and climbing on glacial pieces with competitions to see who could last the longest, followed by a group sit in the sauna so we wouldn’t get hypothermia (no, not kidding, I really did this many times as a kid!)

3. How to navigate using the stars to get back to civilization.

4. How to select the right type of moss from the trees to start a fire with damp wood (because, y’know, you’re in a field of snow. Nothing is dry.)

5. How to carve out a small igloo-like space to sleep in the snow to preserve body heat and reduce the windchill so you won’t freeze to death in the arctic.

“I’m telling you, I don’t think we need to worry about territory conflicts with the humans. You know all those deathtrap hell-worlds in the Argoth Cluster?” “Those worthless rocks? Yeah.” “80% of them are considered ‘resort destinations’ by those freaky little primates.”

“I’m telling you, they terraform for fun!” “Don’t be ridiculous” “No, seriously. Some of their most celebrated cultural loci are built on swamps. They have an entire city that is literally in a body of water. Not, like, an artificial pontoon city, they literally sunk the foundations into water. For Grilp’s sake, they build elaborate structures out of frozen water AND THEN SLEEP IN THEM.” “Dear Thilak. Think we could get them to terraform our moons?” “Psh, they’d probably pay for the privilege.”

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galaxystew

Eventually, it occurs to someone that humans are the perfect terraforming shock troops, as it were. They think it’s fun to be sent to horrible planets! They’re really good at surviving and then taming them! All you have to do is sit back and wait until the planet is habitable, and then move there yourself! It’s genius.

It only takes one try before the reality of the situation sets in: human definitions of ‘taming’ and ‘habitable’ are woefully incomplete.

“Why did you not eliminate the venomous plant life?” Grahssk’ti moans, clutching one limb.

“Those?” The human laughs. “Why bother? They’re not that bad. And they eat the mosquitoes.”

Grahssk’ti shudders. The ‘mosquitoes’ are… not to be mentioned. Just one swarm of them caused a landing shuttle to crash three planetary daylights ago.

“And the acid storms? Why did you not warn us of them?”

“I mean, they’re annoying,” the human says, shrugging, “but we figured the cool sunsets made up for it.”

Grahssk’ti flails helplessly. “What about the ten-meter tall Fanged Death Bringers? They can eliminate an entire settlement in under an hour!”

“They’re so cute!” the human says, brightening. “Have you met mine? Her name is Spot!”

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exvind

Humans are told of some planet or region of space that is considered “completely and utterly inhospitable - it would be folly to try and settle there.”

Without fail, a decent number make it a point to settle there because “Fuck You That’s Why.” It doesn’t matter how uneconomical it is, how difficult the conditions are, how utterly ridiculous it may seem, there will be at least one human who will attempt to do it only because someone else regardless of species says it is improbable or WORSE impossible. 

“This moon is still forming as such it is primarily soft - by that I mean most of the magma is close to the surface and-” ‘OH BADASS you mean its like Mustafar right!?!?!?! I’m totally going to build a castle there.’ “What. I mean. There is NO fertile ground there whatsoever. No ecosystem. It is molten rock and minerals only.” ‘Which will make my castle there look METAL AS FUCK am I RIGHT!?!??! Come on. COME ON. I TAUGHT YOU HOW TO FISTBUMP COME ON.’ “….you….you are going to die, you know this right?” ‘I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to come to Lava Castle for some reason?’

“Listen, lad. I’ve built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was molten magma. All those aliens said I was daft to build a castle on a molten planet, but I built it all the same, just to show ‘em. It sank into the magma. So, I built a second one. That sank into the magma. So I built a third one. That spontaneously combusted, turned to ash, then sank into the magma. But the fourth one stayed up. An’ that’s what your gonna get, lad – the strongest castle in this solar system.”

“I’m gonna need for you to explain ‘hurricane parties’ to me again.  You humans have the technology to track these apocalyptic storms of wind and rain and predict where on the landmass they’ll hit up to a week in advance.  And you…have social gatherings during them?”

“Well yeah, but only up to about Category 3 strength.  Then it’s time to pack the car and head inland for most people, although a few hardy souls stick around and ride them out.”

“Oh good.  Category 3 is what again?  Winds up to 75 kilometers per hour?”

“No no, Category 3 starts at 175 kilometers per hour.  You left off the one.”

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onnastik

I’m sure I’ve reblogged some version of this before, but I needed the STRONGEST CASTLE IN THIS SOLAR SYSTEM on my blog.

“This planet is so cool!”

“It’s a planet completely made of ice.”

“Yeah! Let’s send some scientists! Or I could be the youngest person there!”

“You’d die, it’s below freezing level!”

“But the blizzards are so pretty!”

“The storms of dEATH ARE NOT PRETTY!”

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blazedbbyy

my favorite scene in the whole tv history

the only sad thing about this scene being in picture form is that you can’t hear the way Garcia says “Quantico”. Kwan-tee-co.

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mhalachai

the best 90 seconds of television ever filmed

This is seriously amazing.

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autumngracy

Hello yes 911 I just witnessed a fucking murder

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there should be a tax that youtubers pay where 1.5% of all of their revenue goes back to Kevin Macleod for basically supplying YouTube with it’s own soundtrack.

who is this man and what music did he make???

if you hear a royalty free song on youtube, there’s approximately an 80% chance Kevin Macleod wrote it.

here’s some you’ve almost definitely heard:

for those wondering, yes, he also made THE generic royalty free song that was EVERYWHERE in 2014.

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genquerdeer

And he doesn’t even make a 1000$ per month!

also, his site incompetech.com also has graph paper generators, if you’re in need of that. It has any kind of graph paper - INCLUDING hex paper, you tabletop gamers out there! (or knitting paper if you’re into that)

HOHOHOHO?

Kevin MacLeod is an actual goddamned hero

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*me taking my meds*: Carrie Fisher would want me to

listen, if you’re ever having a hard time and you just want to give up, think about space mom and how proud she would be of you just for fighting

Carrie Fisher definitely wants you to stay alive to tell the world to fuck off one more time. If spite keeps you alive, embrace it.

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ohboywonder

the most unrealistic thing about harry potter

is that no teacher ever called him James by accident, or that Ron never was called “Bill-, eh Charl-, no Per-, argh!”

As a younger sister who knows this struggle all too well: THIS IS REAL. Pretty sure 70% of my past teachers still think I’m called what my sister is called in fact.

Imagine Fred being called Percy by McGonagall accidentally and then he gets so offended that he refers to her by “Professor [insert any other name but McGonagall” for the rest of the year, costing Gryffindor a considerable amount of points one at a time.

From then on, she vows to just call them all Mr Weasley.

Until Ginny comes along and she calls her Mr Weasley by accident and Ginny “accidentally’ calls her Sir and it starts again.

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kyraneko

It’s lightly off-topic but also slightly relevant but I have long cherished this mental image of Professor Snape saying something snappish to Harry in just the wrong tone of voice and Harry absentmindedly, wearily, and completely accidentally responding with, “Yes, Aunt Petunia.”

which would have all kinds of additional ramifications when you remember snape is the only one who knew petunia personally

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mjrtaurus

He asks Harry to stay after class and straight up asks him “Am I truly that unpleasant?”

Okay, okay, okay, this is probably deeply off-track, but all I can think of is Harry––who upon learning that Snape, of all people, his pain in the neck potions professor knows his aunt––has now received what can only be called a psychic punch to balls. 

How, how, how, is a teenage boy supposed to rectify this, mentally? Connect these strange unjoined worlds to somehow explain that Snape––Snape!––knows his Aunt Petunia?

“It doesn’t make any sense, mate,” Harry tells Ron, blearily, desperately wishing at age thirteen years that his butter beer was a real beer. “It just––it can’t be. Why would he know Aunt Petunia?” Ron grimaces. “Why would he want to? I mean, I know he’s Snape, and all that, but––”

Harry writes his only letter back to #4 Privet Drive, dotted with tears, and it has one line: How do you know Severus Snape?

Petunia writes back: DO NOT MENTION THAT MAN EVER AGAIN. 

And this. This. Sparks a light in Harry’s head. This is the same way Petunia talks about celebrities who have deeply, personally offended her. Usually when she fancied them and then they got married. It’s so completely clear to him, now: Snape is deeply, irrevocably, utterly in love with Aunt Petunia. 

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gnarf

Omg yes it’s back on my dash!

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