The World is Amazing, Actually (Part 11 or 12, I lost count)

It's been awhile since I made a post about how fucking rad the world actually is, and amidst all the pandemics and climate change and economic troubles, I felt the need.

So:

Today’s Wild Place (The Earth is An Alien Planet):

The Danakil Depression, Ethiopia:

The Danakil Depression is probably the closest you'll ever be able to come to standing on the surface of Venus (without the crushing atmosphere, of course). Choking sulphuric acid and chlorine gases fill the air, while acid ponds and geysers pepper the landscape. 

- Daisy Dobrijevic, published July 4, 2022

(BTW scientists recently discovered microbes capable of surviving in this toxic, extremely hot environment, which means...well, even if we kick the bucket, life will continue. There's something comforting in knowing that no matter how bad we screw up...life will go on.)

Today’s Incredible Feat of Engineering (look! at what! we made!):

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station in Morocco, which has gone solar in a big way.

(Which means they are making a huge contribution to helping fight toxic pollution, noise pollution, water use, land destruction, and carbon emissions. No really, there are charts. Reducing carbon emissions charts. Reducing irresponsible land use charts. Charts! Graphs! Data samples!)

Today’s Cool Life Form (the rare, the weird, the beautiful):

The Hispaniolan Solenodon.

A very rare, nocturnal, shrew-like creature that is one of the few mammals able to produce venom. Look at him! Look at his snout! He's just a little guy! He will bite you and run away on his back legs! He's rare, and endangered, but not gone! Not gone yet, bitches!

(Bonus: 10 Fun Facts About the Solenodon)

Today’s Bizarre Mystery (no, seriously, wtf?):

The Great Unconformity.

Hey, remember the Grand Canyon? Remember how we can see the passage of time through each layer, going back hundreds of thousands of years?

Did you know that apparently, on this massive record of earth's geological history, there's a chunk of time missing? Science has some hypotheses about how and why this happens (and yes, it's been found in more than one place), but they are really only hypotheses, and no one's really sure what happened to, oh, 1.6 billion years, give or take.

Today’s Act of Humanity (yes, we are worth the effort):

After fleeing a war, Ukrainians rush to help Mississippi tornado victims.

"They made the 16-hour drive south to donate bottled water and volunteer with aid workers, buoyed by the idea that they could help a community facing a similar struggle to theirs.

“We had to leave our home,” Pavliuk told The Washington Post in Ukrainian, in an interview interpreted by Hrebenyk. “And they don’t have a place to go back, either.”"

NEW CATEGORY:

Today's Good News About The Future (No, It's Not Too Late and Anyone Who Says Otherwise is Selling Something):

The Saiga Antelope, a species critical to the continued survival of huge swathes of grassland, that in 2003 was down to 6% of it's population and already extinct in it's natural habitat of China and Ukraine, has rebounded back to almost 2 million strong thanks to conservation efforts.

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FINALLY FINISHED THIS WOO!!!!!!!! i went insane doing all the details but so proud of itttt ♥️♥️♥️my fav girlfriends

karoo made the alabasta arc approximately 10 times better,,,,so glad i left him there cuz he wasnt even in the sketch initially😭😭

god it took me like 10 thousand years to decide on the colors and im STILL not sure abt how they look💀

eepy <3

21 April 2024

sunsets after 7pm now !!!!!!!!!!! we made it guys !!!!!!!!!!!!

Guys those greedy bastards in the northern hemisphere are stealing our FUCKING SUN!!

*this poll was submitted to us and we simply posted it so people could vote and discuss their opinions on the matter. if you’d like for us to ask the internet a question for you, feel free to drop the poll of your choice in our inbox and we’ll post them anonymously (for more info, please check our pinned post)

Watcher are not struggling artists being forced to make a drastic move so they can keep creating. They are people, who don't want to be YouTubers anymore, moving to Vimeo because they believe they can become a "real" TV Studio from there more easily than from YouTube.

They do not care about making content the YT audiences want because they do not want to be YouTubers. They don't care that you prefer the low budget videos, or don't like one series over another, they care about making the TV shows that they want to make. That's all this is.

Watcher went into this fully ready to lose a good portion of their audience because they don't want a YT audience. They only want an audience whos creative vision aligns with theirs - Watcher becoming a TV studio.

This is fine. It's okay to want to pivot your business. The issue is that they decided to attempt this pivot in the most abrupt, insulting way possible - through a video that puts a lot of corporate lip service around making this move "for the fans" while their actions clearly show this has nothing to do with what the fans want. It's disingenuous and condescending.

YouTube audiences not wanting to pay $6 a month for Watcher videos isn't "not wanting to pay artists fairly". Watcher was already being paid (and their apparent mishandling of money in pursuit of projects outside of their budget isn't on the fans). People not wanting to pay them is a direct response to Watcher no longer wanting them as an audience. Very few people want to support a company that takes its audience fans customers for granted, even if they can afford it.

Gorgeous gorgeous Jewish students say free Palestine

Gorgeous gorgeous additions

another reminder to stop buying/watching/reading anything JK Rowling associated

I cannot stress enough she is a primary funder of transphobia. She is not just someone with bigoted views you can seperate from her work, her work funds the bigotry.