Not just any paper maps, they had textbook sized atlases of the entire delivery area with each street meticulously mapped out.

These were insanely handy and a new edition came out just about every year to stay up to date on construction and road changes. I remember stocking my car with these for any of the cities I tended to travel to because they were the only way to actually get anywhere unless you wanted to call a friend and get very in depth instructions on how to get there.

AAA is now mostly known for roadside assistance, but at one time their primary business was MAPS.

For a few bucks a month you could become a Triple-A member and yeah, roadside assistance was one of the perks. BUT ALSO you could pick up the phone, call their 1-800 number, and tell the human operator who answered that you were planning a road trip.

They'd get your starting and destination address. Ask a few questions: what kinds of hotels you liked, preferred gas stations, any interest in touristy things?

Then in 7 to 10 days you'd get a thick package in the mail of carefully customized maps. Each map was the size of a paperback book cover, perfect for holding in the passenger's or driver's lap. Each was enumerated starting at #1 and ending at #whatever number of minimaps the trip required, with a hand-drawn highlighter path drawn on the map marking the route from one edge to another; entrance & exit points for that section of the route.

Motels, gas stations, and (if requested) tourist traps were indicated in color coded ink -- again, by hand. Sometimes detours were drawn in red marker, overriding the printed map because AAA kept up to date on road closures & regional disasters.

These maps were customized for your particular trip, and were invaluable since GPS did not exist. Unless you were familiar with the local region, the alternative was buying a map at the next gas station and guessing.

GPS is amazing and I wouldn't want to give up the ease & simplicity of Google Maps, but my god the old tech was miraculous too in its own way.

Why would you hide that in the notes

I want an ice maker and enough room in the freezer for a pizza and that is IT.

I want the dumbest fridge you got. Gimme the orange tabby of refrigeration. I want my fridge to pull the wrong lever and turn my enemies into llamas instead of killing them. I want the following features: keeps things cold, has compartment that keeps things colder, a door that opens and shuts.

"Here at Stupid Jeff's Dumb Appliance Warehouse we sell the dumbest fucking appliances. Check out this fridge. This fridge won't ask you about your day, this dumb fucking fridge doesn't know what an Elon Musk is and won't fucking tell you what bullshit that dumb monkey is slapping into his phone today when you try to get some fucking milk. We took out all those "smart" electronics and in their place we put a loaded Glock 9mm that is put right up to that light that turns on when you open the door, which is the smartest thing in this fucking stupid fridge and let me tell you that fucker is on thin goddamn ice, if it gets too smart and tries to turn on before you open that door, the Glock will blow it to hell. Speaking of ice, this stupid fridge makes it. It makes ice, it keeps things cold, it comes with shelves. It's sturdy enough that when your ex comes back to your place looking for their stuff that they think they left behind like nine months ago and they know that you don't have it, but they wanted an excuse to come start a fight with you and throw a chair at your head but miss you and hit your fridge MICHAEL, this fridge will keep trucking because it gives zero shits and it only lives to keep things cold. Come to Stupid Jeff's Dumb Appliance Warehouse, if you ask us if we have an app, we break your kneecaps."

socks used to cheat on civil service exams, Qing Dynasty China

Here's their shop and rest of the links to their social media since this tiktok didn't link directly to their actual tiktok be sure to credit these creators correctly!!

túlerőben voltak

变脸 (Bianlian; "face changing") in Sichuan opera

holy shit

thanks for explaining, was about to set laptop on fire for fear of witchcraft (still might, let's see where the evening takes me)

motion capture actress 曦曦鱼sakana shows how to move in games

doomed by the narrative but not to death. doomed to survive. doomed to stay alive inside the story. doomed to never escape the narrative, not even through death. you are allowed no exit. there is no way out for you and there never was. you couldn’t die if you wanted to. the narrative has a hold on you and it won’t let go. death is too sweet a doom for you. the story has something much worse in mind. there is no way out.

submissive in the way a livestock guardian dog is submissive to the sheep it kills wolves for

guys i am fucking crying i got an old copy of pilgrims progress from a used booksale and i just opened it and there's a handwritten dedication to a girl from her grandfather from christmas 1888 and she put a little fucking drawing in the back and im sitting on my bed losing my fucking mind over a hundred years ago a grandpa gave this book to "miss maggie" and she loved it and it's lasted a century and im holding it right now

i showed the book to my mom when she came home from a trip and she reminded me that in little women (1868) each of the march sisters got a copy of pilgrim’s progress under their pillow for christmas there is a high, high, HIGH chance that this little girl was a huge fan of little women and talked to her grandfather about it and he got her a classic book just like her 1880s blorbos i am flailing on the ground humanity is so special

NEW FISH JUST DROPPED

I KNOW that playing God is morally wrong, but holy HELL, it looks fun.

Why is it playing God? We aren’t violating any natural laws. God set the parameters of the universe to allow these things. There’s nothing wrong with it, there’s no hubris in learning more about how to manipulate the universe around us.

We made a whole-ass fish.

The reason this was accidental BTW is because they used paddlefish eggs as a negative control group for a breeding experiment on sturgeons because the scientists, quite naturally, assumed that they were SO unrelated it would be genetically impossible for them to mate. Like. I cannot stress enough to you how these creatures last related ancestors were

140 MILLION YEARS BACK.

If you don't know how far that is, that's basically the start of the cretaceous. Let me simplify that for you even further. Chimpanzees and humans seperated, what, 5 or 6 million years ago?

This is basically like if humans could hybridise with THESE THINGS.

This is the sort of thing that should be impossible. They used those eggs to be ABSOLUTELY 100% SURE NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN.

And then THEY GOT FISH OUT OF IT.

Like. You can quite clearly understand why they didn't think anything would happen. WE ARE MORE RELATED TO BLUE WHALES THAN THESE THINGS.

THE AMERICAN PADDLEFISH AND THE STURGEON ARE SO COMPLETELY UNRELATED THAT THIS IS NOT PLAYING GOD. IF ANYTHING THIS IS AN ACT OF GOD.

THE SCIENTISTS HAD NO BLAME IN THIS BECAUSE NOTHING LIKE THIS HAD EVER HAPPENED BEFORE

It sort of goes against the rules of genetics a bit.

Oh i forgot to add

THESE THINGS, FOR HYBRIDS, HAD A REALLY HIGH SURVIVAL RATING. LIKE 70% OF THEM SURVIVED.

To put that into perspective, getting a blue whale and a squirrel and trying to hybridise them is more sensible, and that wouldn't produce anything but getting you banned from science. Most animals that aren't plants can barely hybridise two degrees away from each other.

BUT THESE TWO ENTIRELY UNRELATED FISH create PERFECTLY HEALTHY HYBRIDS.

the scientists literally had to do the tests AGAIN just to be like "okay this is real right. This is actually like, not a fluke, this works right" and it worked again. They just Can!

it's a few years old now, but here's a link to the article in the screenshot:

and here's the original paper about them (also linked in the article). it's really neat if you like fish anatomy and genetics!

Wild Apples…

‘The Fruits of the Earth’ (1911) watercolor by Edward J. Detmold Published in ‘The International Studio’ magazine vol. XLII From the Article “A Note on Mr. Edward J. Detmold’s Drawings and Etchings of Animal Life”

Ohhhh myyy goddddd

Met this lady on a hike recently, and she reminded me autumn is close

Before you continue scrolling, go back and find the other four cows.