Pelican studies

Went to a nature reserve recently and they had a couple of (captive) dalmatian pelicans

So, there's a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.

And I get it! What's the point of voting if there's no one to vote for?

The thing is, I'm Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don't get to sit out our elections, and I'll be real honest with you - we don't exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there's no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there's always someone to vote against.

Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I'll tell you, there's something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don't get that option - you get to mark one person, and that's it.

That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don't even think about who that vote's going towards, that's not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone's election day!

(via @SmudgeTheInsultCat over on Mastodon)

Dawwwww

so cute

Give him the shiny!

@nicool–brolas @phyrexian–dragon @asmund-scion-of-ice

@augment-techs @skyland2703 @ajgrey9647

How does it feel to be the most correct person to have ever drawn breath on planet earth?

( @grumpycakes On the occasion of her birth, the start of a story about birthdays, and getting everything you want, even though it's nothing you know how to ask for. Happy Birthday, Mel!)

-Another Year Around the Sun-

“Are you-  Are you going to get that?”

Tony squinted at the schematic floating in the air in front of him.  “Does it look like I’m going to get that?” he asked, taking a careful sip of his coffee. It burned the entire way down, and he exhaled on a cough.  “Jesus, this is foul.”

“Yep.” Bruce gave him a slight smile from behind his safe, boring cup of tea.  “Just like you like it.”

Tony saluted him with the cup.  “Just like I like it,” he agreed.  His phone stopped buzzing, and he gave it a look, nursing his coffee along with his grudge.  As expected, it started vibrating again a moment later, shaking against the top of the workbench.  “Jay, put him on the block list.”

“He will simply call the main line,” Jarvis said, with the sort of infinite patience only his AI could manage.

“And I expect you to hang up on him,” Tony said.  

Bruce leaned across the workbench.  “It’s-”  He glanced up at Tony, his brows drawing up tight in an expression of concern.  “Are you, I mean, is there-”

Tony took another sip of his coffee, letting the cup hang in front of his face as he punched the surface of his phone with one finger.  The call connected, and there was a single second of silence, and then-

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BIRTHDAY BOY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUST TO YOU,” Rhodey howled into the phone with the sort of glee only a long time friend could muster when doing something unforgivable.  On the other side of the workbench, Bruce rocked back on his stool, his eyes going wide with shock. “WE HEAR THAT YOU’RE THE BIRTHDAY BOY, SO WE’RE SINGING LOUD AND TRUE, EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT YOU’RE A SPECIAL BOY, IT’S THE LEAST THAT WE COULD DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-”

“Die in a fire,” Tony said, and hung up on him.

Bruce was clutching his tea with both hands, his shoulders up around his ears, his expression horrified.  “What was-”

“There was a diner down the street from MIT,” Tony said, making a minute adjustment to the schematic with a flick of his fingers.  “And they sang that hellish ditty if you told them someone in your party was having a birthday.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, drawing out the word.  

“Yeah, well it turns out that if you pre-tip the staff a twenty, they’ll sing it any time you ask.  Such as every Sunday morning.  When you’ve dragged your hungover, barely functional best friend into said diner with the promise of pancakes and coffee, and instead betray him with singing waiters who are just enjoying seeing him suffer.”  Tony took a sip of coffee.  “It was my birthday every single Sunday for two solid months.”

Bruce put down his cup.  “Okay,” he repeated.  “Why did you continue-”

“Honestly, I probably wanted the attention,” Tony mused.  “And the pancakes.”  His phone rang again, and he picked it up, putting it on speaker with a flick of his thumb.  “How did you pass the military psych evaluation?  In that you are clearly a sociopath?”

“Happy birthday,” Rhodey said, his voice full of glee.  

Did you know? Tumblr DOES have a post length limit. Strangely, though, it's based on how many blocks of text you have. Supposedly this implies that you can have any length post so long as it's one block of text? Very strange, will have to investigate further.

Two limits! You can have a maximum of 4,096,000 characters in 1 [one] tumblr post. I would work out how many combinations this is, but 26^6,000 is already considered to be "Infinity" by most calculators, and a program I wrote threw an error code.

26^95,000 is already over 134,000 characters long - which would take 33 different text blocks to convey via tumblr. Whenever somebody says we're running out of posts, don't forget that tumblr is needlessly designed for MASSIVE amounts of information [no matter how detrimental it may be for mobile phones].

There are SOME works of fanfiction which are lengthy enough that you couldn't fit the whole thing into one tumblr post, but this is enough to fit Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy in it about 14 times over.

Don't hide that in the tags

literally no better feeling than blurting out some loud dumbass joke with your buddies and hearing a total stranger ugly-snort-laugh as they walk past bc their own laughter caught them by surprise. find joy and connection in the spontaneity of strangers you son of a bitch. i fucking got your ass

This is what it's like when I say the dumbest things imaginable to my wife or partner in the checkout lines to see if the cashier will crack a smile. A little human connection between the drudgery.

A few years ago when my little sister was maybe ten or so we went to this like, novelty/antiques store which had an impressive amount of really bad taxidermy. We were sort of doing our own things and I was across the room from her so when she spots this horrible fish she has to run over and yell “ come see the ugliest taxidermied old fish I’ve ever seen “ at me. Without even thinking I just said “you’re the ugliest taxidermied old fish I’ve ever seen.” Which got a snort from an old man across the room. Anyways a few minutes later my stepmom came in and my sister said the same thing to her, and without missing a beat my stepmom deadpans “your father’s the ugliest taxidermied old fish I’ve ever seen”. The old guy absolutely LOST it

Knitting youtuber: I like to knit for 25 minute long blocks at most at a time with a 5 minute break within each so I do not get injuries.

Me who did a 14 hour marathon on the weekend with a team of 7 spinners and knitters to shear a sheep and knit a man's jumper in as short a possible time:

Here's the jumper by the way. 14 hours earlier it was on a sheep.

We came second out of the three teams competing.

Extreme sports are WILD huh

OKAY series of polls about sock preferences because i'm a curious autistic fuck:

(if you don't wear socks don't answer any of the other questions)

I’m glad the folks at NASA are having fun with XKCD too.

I replied to your message in my head several days ago did you not get it

rats can drive cars btw. if u even care

fun fact: the lab rats got into the cars and drove on their own free time, even without any treat or reward being offered

fun fact #2: the scientists actually found that the rats stress levels were lowered while driving, implying that rats find cars therapeutic

I love the whole branch of cognitive experimentation that just amounts to “we taught rats a fun new game and they really liked it”

Assessment:

1. In one or more complete sentences, describe what you think the purpose of this experiment was. What do you think the experimenters hoping to learn by conducting the experiment described above? You will not be graded on whether your guess is correct or incorrect, but you must white in complete sentences for full credit.

2. Write out the remaining steps of the Scientific Method [hypothesis, materials, procedure, data, analysis, conclusion] for the experiment whose purpose you just described. Make sure that you use the actual data and materials as described in the original post by @alleycatboy

3. Every experiment raises new questions to be answered in future experiments. What questions does this experiment inspire in you? Write in complete sentences.

4. Write a proposal asking for permission to conduct a follow-up study that will answer your question(s) from #3. You must include the purpose, hypothesis, materials, and procedure of the experiment that you are proposing.

REVEALS THE PRACTICE CARRIES RISKS?!?!?

The practice of injecting people with drugs WITHOUT any knowledge of their medical history or other chemicals in their bloodstream and general system?

NO FUCKING DUH

art by Jono Hey (sketchplanations)

prev I’m stealing your tags and putting them here because I think your friend is hilarious:

#a friend of mine liked to say he was having type 4 fun #which is fun you have because everyone else is miserable

Writing- not fun to do, not fun in retrospect, but makes a good story.