Uranium has about 18 billion Calories per gram so eating a grams of uranium is technically enough food to last you for the rest of your life.

This is the melatonin kitty of sweet dreams. He's here to help you fall asleep easily and sleep well. You don't have to reblog him to have sweet dreams; he loves you and hopes you sleep well either way.

Photographer Mattias Klum from National Geographic gets close and personal with a lion.

“and all of a sudden you feel very small” damn right

IT JUST WANTS TO BE LOVED AND SAVED

please, if you are able, do what you can for the asiatic lion. donate, get involved, spread information. there are only about 300 left in the world, and they all live in Gir Forest National Park in India.

the african lion is also estimated to be extinct by 2050 due to habitat loss, sport hunting, and loss of their prey base to the bushmeat trade. these beautiful creatures could be extinct in our lifetime. the next generation may not ever have the chance to see these creatures, there will be no more cute lion vines, there will be no more documentaries, there will be no more zoos or sanctuaries containing lions. there will be no more lions.

if you have any love for nature, any love for animals, any love for life, and if you care at all about the permanent loss of a species, especially one so beautiful and iconic, if you care and if you are able, please donate to help save lions.

The Lion Conservation Fund

The African Wildlife Foundation

The World Wildlife Foundation

Not relevant to my blog, but my inner nature lover is calling

Saw someone once posted a review on a book that said lions dont live in India; sad that some people dont even know they exist.

“The paternoster elevator at Prague City Hall. These door-less, continuously moving lifts are the 1860s invention of Peter Ellis, an architect from Liverpool, and were once popular all over Eastern Europe and Germany before production ended in the 1970s over safety concerns. ” Video courtesy Jada Yuan

@smolshimadas

Can you even imagine being the poor alien sod responsible for auditing an earthling spaceship’s spending allowance? Like: 

“I see, and why do you require many tubes of white plant flavoured paste?” 

“Oh well, if we don’t rub that on our teeth twice daily the bacteria living in my mouth will begin to devour me teeth.” 

“…Noted.” 

“I have also noticed several large shipments of specific medications, and a variety of individually packaged absorbent material - however injury records do not show sufficient numbers to justify these recurrent deliveries.” 

“Ah, yeah, it’s not really an injury per say. As part of our natural reproductive cycle approximately half the population will shed the lining of one of their internal organs and expel it.”

“…that is the most horrifying thing that I have ever heard.”

“Yeah.”

“Does such a process not hurt?”

“That’l be what the medication’s for. Pain killers for the cramps, birth control to stop the process.” 

“…and your reasoning behind the fully functional, high-tech entertainment system?” 

“Okay, that we could probably do without. But in our defence that was actually insisted on as a standard feature of all fleet-ships expected to encounter Terrans. Admiral Plo’Kaght insisted on it. Something about bored humans and a an illegal betting ring featuring a cleaning robot with a knife strapped to it going up against a human with a mop?” 

“…I believe I should speak with my superiors.” 

I love how Stabby the Roomba has become such a consistent in-joke among these sorts of blogs.

Galactic hero stabby the roomba: his legend continues

An experiment:

Reblog if, at some point in your educational life, you have gotten in trouble for reading a book that ‘wasn’t assigned to you’ or reading ahead in a book you were given in class or reading under your desk

LET 👏 RETAIL 👏 EMPLOYEES 👏 SIT 👏

The only major chain retail store that I know of that allows their cashiers to sit is the Aldi grocery store, a German chain. Their starting pay is also $12 an hour chain-wide.

The interior of the store looks like this so they save money on the annoying shelf restocking. Products remain in their boxes until being removed by customers.  No unboxing and putting stuff on shelves, and constantly having to rearrange it. Also, the boxes make inventory a breeze as a sealed box has a defined number of items in it. 

Typical American grocery stores have shelves like this

Every item has to be unboxed and neatly stacked on the shelves. If they get messed up by the customers, everything has to be rearranged back to specific rigid order. When you have to verify the inventory, every item has to be removed from the shelves to be counted and put back. Aldi’s also do not have plastic bags. You can buy reusable bags or simply use the empty cardboard boxes that are available.

Last is the carts. Most grocery stores have their carts strewn across the parking lots, rolling around and hitting cars until a store employee is sent out to collect them, after being yelled at by the manager when they were told to do other tasks in the meantime. Aldi’s chains those carts together and you have to put a Quarter in to release it. When you are done, you plug the chain back in and get your Quarter back. If others are lazy, you can collect and return the loose carts and collect the Quarters. 

It stops this…

Then the employees have to do this

People don’t shop at ALDI in the states? There is an ALDI at every town in Aus. They pay their employees like $22 an hour and often employ full time (well above the minimum wage for full time service employees). They let workers sit while doing registers and will only ever keep as many registers open as they need. The food tends to come from independent providers who strike a deal with ALDI and it 9 time out of 10 really good quality. I bought my TV from there, which is wild, and it was ridiculously cheap for what it was. 

Like, I’m really against supermarket monopolisation, but hot shit ALDI is the most ethical supermarket I’ve ever seen. Especially since Coles (another Aus SM) now requires applicants to pay for their own police checks when putting in a job application. 

hätte nie gedacht dass ich tatsächlich mal einen Post lesen muss, der fucking Aldimärkte wie eine utopische Zukunftsvision klingen lässt. Geht’s euch gut Amerika?

Aldi \o/

what. the fuck. is wrong. with america.

Only in America. Holy shit. I mean, to be clear here. Aldi is not a shining example here in Germany. That’s just how things work here. Well, minus the  shelving situation but other than that… 

We do have some Aldi stores in the states. That's where I buy my groceries. But we also have...*shudders*...Wal-Mart.

Candles are just pet fires.

At this point, every round mammal is a hamster to me.

coconut

I think we both have different definitions of what mammal is but I can’t say I disagree with you.

speaking as a Jew, i’m extra-super dubious of all that stuff that talks about cartoon witches being an antisemitic stereotype. I can get where the thing with the nose is coming from, but the claims about the hats are based on flimsy claims that require a lot of mental reaching. The hats that Jews were forced to wear were not a universal thing, and I’ve yet to see any evidence that they were part of the cultural consciousness by the time the image of the pointy-hatted witch became common.

The biggest points against the hat hypothesis:

You know what kind of hat does closely fit?

The hat in this painting (“Portrait of Mrs Salesbury with her Grandchildren Edward and Elizabeth Bagot” by J.M. Wright; circa 1675) was “a type worn by affluent women throughout Britain at this date”. Look at that hat. Any modern viewer looking at this painting might think it was supposed to be a character created by J.K. Rowling.

It’s a match in design, gender, region, and most importantly, time period: by the time that pointed witch hats started to appear in artwork in England and English colonies, this style of hat would have been associated in the cultural consciousness with elderly women, especially those who were clinging to decades-old fashions.

The easy, simple answer to where the witch hat came from: it’s exactly what a woman with all the stereotypical qualities of a witch would have worn in the first place, in the time and place the trope originated. 

Old-fashioned but not by several centuries, severe and somber, and popular with a class of women that people would have spread nasty rumors about in the first place (so many accusations of witchcraft were directed specifically at women who were independently well-off, whether out of simple envy or else scheming).

Seemed like about time to bring this back up.

Another very obvious and often explicitly stated basis for the CLOTHING of the cartoon witch is Puritan costume from the 18th century… seeing as Puritans were famous for their witch trials. The green skin, curly hair, big nose, warts etc are all definitely at least racialized things. Though big nose and warts are associated with age the combined picture is pretty much just a racial caricature.

The green skin is a product of old makeup practices. To make something look extra-pale on black & white film, you didn’t use white, because the monochrome film was blue-sensitive:

This is why so many classic movie monsters were rendered as green—because public appearances and the rare color image of he actors in full makeup would be a blueish-green. Filming for black & white even affected the props and scenery. This is what the Addams Family’s house really looked like:

Important input on the witchy costume debate, from a Jewish person who’s clearly done a bit of homework on the origins of pointy hats and green makeup. (And who also seems to be a pretty cool person into the bargain.)

@ayellowbirds - Thank you for this! :)

I’ve reblogged this before, but it’s got new info, which is great

I’d also argue that, though certain aspects of the stereotypical witch align with antisemitic tropes, it’s far more likely that witches’ stereotypical looks actually emerged by being the polar opposite of what the beautiful, and therefore ideal, 17th century woman looked like. This was to emphasize that a witch was the OPPOSITE of an ideal woman, and she could thus be placed in opposition to the beautiful, ideal heroine.

Where beauty (according to 17th century standards) was young, witches were old. Where beauty had fine, delicate features, witches had exaggerated, rough features. Where beauty was relatively unmarred (a rarity in pre-vaccination days), witches had moles and other marks. Where beauty had silky blonde hair (a treasured prize in Renaissance times, to the point that women falsely lightened their hair or wore wigs), witches had rough black hair.

As I said, some of these line up with antisemitic tropes. However, I’d argue that associating Jews with these tropes was a result of already-established patriarchal beauty tropes that had been ingrained in northern Europe for centuries. The fact that the stereotypical Jewish woman happened to defy the beauty ideals of northern Europe was used as an excuse to further oppress Jewish people, not the other way around.

In other words, I’d guess that it went like this:

“Ugliness/evil looks like this” -> “Some Jewish women (who we hate) look like this” -> “here’s proof that Jewish women are ugly and evil”

Rather than:

“Jewish women look like this” -> “we hate Jewish people” -> “Ugliness and evil looks like this”

Of course, once both tropes (ugly witches, ugly Jews) were established, I imagine that they fed into one another, but I’m dubious of the claim that the source of the ugly witch was the Jewish woman, especially since northern European ideas of beauty and fears of malevolent witches seem to go back further than northern European stereotypes of the ugly Jewish woman.

Augh, and COMPLETELY forgot to talk about this, but the stereotypical witch outfit? It comes from traditional English brewsters/alewives, aka, female beer-brewers.

Who used brooms mounted above the door as a way to signal their trade to passerby: 

And who made their trade making strange concoctions in cauldrons: 

And who happened to wear hats just like this:

Brewsters/alewives used to have a monopoly on beer-making. They handed down brewing secrets from mother to daughter and basically controlled the alcohol market. And men weren’t terribly keen on that - they wanted in on this immensely lucrative, influential field. There were some male brewsters, but the trade was overwhelmingly female, to the point that even male brewsters were still called brewsters - a female noun. 

So what do men do when they want to push women out of a trade? They demonise them. 

Suddenly the broom isn’t just a business sign, it’s a tool for going to meet the devil. The cauldron isn’t just a tool, it’s a place to create evil. The hat isn’t just a trade uniform, it’s a mark of malevolent intent and arcane knowledge. 

Coincidentally, many women who became brewsters/alewives became independently wealthy and quite powerful locally. They didn’t need to marry and could provide for their entire households with their trade. They could grow old without marrying, or they could stay unmarried after their first husband dies rather than remarrying. They could also pull strings and influence things in their favour, making local politics ‘mysteriously’ go their way.

And so the stereotype of the ugly spinster brewster-witch is born.

And, as I’ve said above, ugly women look a certain way: harsh, marred features, dark, tangled hair, and above all, old.

Note old Mother Louse up there. She was a well-respected brewster in her town, with plenty of influence, but here she is already being portrayed with stereotypical witch features: a big, hooked nose, and a pointy chin, hollow eyes, sharp cheekbones (not a good thing in premordern times - beauties had rounder faces, as sharp cheekbones were a sign of hunger or oldness). Mother Louse isn’t being portrayed as Jewish, but as an elderly, ugly spinster, who engages in the lucrative, powerful - but suspect - business of brewing.

Know who else this happened to? Midwives. Another female trade, passed down from woman to woman, dealing in business secrets from which men were barred - and this in regard to the most mysterious power of all: the power to bring life into the world. And midwives do pretty well for themselves, too: plenty of families are willing to pay a bundle to make sure their babies are delivered safe and sound in a world with high infant mortality. Just like male physicians, midwives knew how to create tinctures and mix herbs, but now, once again, rudimentary chemistry and herb-lore become demonised when women are the ones doing it. Now, if your baby is born sick, deformed, or dead, it’s clearly the spinster midwife’s doing, full of spite because she has no children of her own.

Anyway, there’s your witch history for the day. The hooked nose and black hair are already something of a stretch, but the claim that the typical witch hat is somehow linked to anti-semitism and not brewsters is totally ahistorical.

As someone who drank the Kool-Aid and perpetuated this shit for a while I’d like to leave this here cuz fuck me.

The first meme for 2017 should be all the old ones but wholesome

I’ll go first

What she says: I’m fine What she means: I love you so much and I want to declare it to the world but public extreme expressions of love short of marriage proposals are looked down upon or made fun of by society and I’m worried people are going to judge me but I’m content being by your side because there’s nothing I love more

you: I love you me, and intellectual: I love you unconditionally and the fact that I see myself as more intuitive does not change that at all, and, in fact, sometimes enhances my love for you

Did you know that I will climb nearly 90 degree angles to announce my deep love for you from the top of the highest mountains. Because I crave that affection.

Me, on a date: how do you feel about wholesome memes? My date: I love them so much as it is my deepest desire to have that kind of connection with someone Me: *pulling breadsticks out of my purse* I stole these from Olive Garden and want to share them with you

Come one guys join in on this In case you haven’t noticed this whole meme is already a wholesome version of a past meme, the “what will be the first meme of 2015” meme So this meme is a meme of itself

I came out here to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so loved and supported right now.

this kind of wholesome subversion of memes looks like a lot of

fun

jewishbookwyrm: i have made a wholesome meme tumblr: you fixed a really bad trend is what you did. look at it. it’s got love and support.

are we doing loving memes? friends, we might be

“Tumblr a pit of hate and despair” factoid is incorrect. Wholesome Georg, who posts support and friendship from a cave is representative adn should be counted.

maybe the real wholesome memes were the friends we made along the way

Tag yourself I’m wholesome subversion of memes

2017 but every time I love and support my friends it gets faster

I awake in the morning

mind: refreshed

heart: open

friends: online

I am forcibly removed from loneliness and isolation.

Here come dat love

i am a frend

and wen i spy

a frend of mine

who wants to cri

i do not walk

awa or shrug

i hold them clos

i giv a hug

here come that boy

o i hope ur havin a good day

thanks! I love it.

GM: You take *rolls* 14 lightning damage. What was your Strength check?

Barbarian: 24

Rogue (Walks in after getting a snack): What are we fighting?

Necromancer: A door.

peter parker calling thor “mr. thor” reblog if u agree

HARRIET TUBMAN ESCAPED FROM SLAVERY AND THEN WENT BACK TO GET OTHERS. LIKE, I KNOW YOU KNOW WHO HARRIET TUBMAN IS AND THAT SHE DID THAT, BUT I JUST WANT YOU TO TAKE THAT IN FOR A SECOND. 

HARRIET TUBMAN WAS HELD CAPTIVE AND BOUND TO UNPAID, BACK-BREAKING LABOR SINCE BIRTH UNDER PENALTY OF TORTURE OR DEATH. SHE MANAGED TO ESCAPE THAT LIFE, AND SHE TURNED THE FUCK AROUND AND WENT THE FUCK BACK TO GET EVERYONE ELSE WHO WAS STILL TRAPPED IN IT. AND THEN SHE DID IT AGAIN EIGHTEEN MORE TIMES.

WHEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS UNSURE WHETHER OR NOT HE WAS PREPARED TO MAKE A STAND AGAINST SLAVERY, HARRIET TUBMAN BASICALLY SAID HE SHOULD STOP BEING SUCH A DIAPER BABY AND THAT GUYS WHO ARE TOO SCARED TO END SLAVERY DON’T DESERVE TO WIN WARS.

NOT ONLY DID SHE SECRET OVER 300 SLAVES TO FREEDOM ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, BUT SHE ACTED AS A SPY FOR THE UNION ARMY DURING THE CIVIL WAR, AND BECAME THE FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD AN ARMED ASSAULT IN THE CIVIL WAR. THAT RAID BROUGHT FREEDOM TO OVER 700 SLAVES IN ONE GO.

SO I JUST WANT YOU TO STEW ON THAT FOR LIKE A MINUTE. ACTING IN THE SHADOWS, SHE WALKED INTO HELL ON EARTH 19 TIMES TO SAVE HER FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS FROM THE TORMENT SHE ENDURED, AND THE SECOND SHE WAS GIVEN EVEN A MODICUM OF POWER, SHE MANAGED TO FREE SEVEN HUNDRED SLAVES IN ONE DAY. 

I GUARANTEE, HOWEVER IMPRESSED YOU ALREADY ARE WITH HARRIET TUBMAN, YOU ARE FALLING LIKE AT LEAST 40% SHORT OF HOW IMPRESSED YOU SHOULD BE WITH HARRIET TUBMAN. SHE IS ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF BADASSERY IN THE ENTIRETY OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 

I just feel like it should be noted that she navigated her way across the Underground Railroad (through thicket and swamp and forest and every risk of wildlife you could imagine) with her own knowledge of the natural world. Some call her “the first Eco-womanist” because it was that understanding of the plant and animal life around her as well as knowledge of the stars that allowed her to bring people with her. Her prowess for dealing with immense problems and obstacles on the spot was nothing short of genius.

She didn’t stop there, either. Harriet Tubman also worked with the Union army during the Civil War as a cook, nurse, scout, and spy. She organized black men in the area as scouts, and often led missions herself with the task of gathering information and to persuade slaves to leave; most of whom joined the regiments of black soldiers for the Union. 

She also got ripped off by the government, who wasn’t paying her what she deserved (and wouldn’t even give her her pension after the war for her service- but instead eventually granted her pension as the widow of a veteran), so she supported herself by making and selling root beer. 

She used her earnings to support free black women, she worked to support two schools for freed men in the south, she provided food and care to the black people that came to her home, and she fought for women’s suffrage. When she died, she was buried with military honors. 

Oh, and when she had brain surgery, she denied anesthesia and instead bit down on a bullet. 

x / x / x / x / x

THESE ARE EVEN MORE AWESOME THINGS ABOUT HARRIET TUBMAN, GOOD ADDITIONS, YOU GUYS!!

Also worth noting that she did all this while living with the results of a traumatic head injury sustained in her childhood, which included pain, bouts of dizziness, and episodes of hypersomnia (sudden passing out) she was not just a badass, she was a disabled badass

That head injury was from when she was trying to save someone else, too. A boy was in trouble with their slave master and the master threw a weight at him, but she jumped in front of him and took the blow. She then suffered from narcolepsy the rest of her life. Also, a cool story about her: One time she was riding on a train, lightly disguised so as to hopefully not be recognized, and there was a ‘WANTED’ poster of her on the train wall. Some guys were looking at it and she overheard them saying they thought she looked like the woman on the poster. Because the poster described that she was illiterate, she grabbed a book and pretended to read it. The men then said it couldn’t be her, and she got off the train safely. She was literally such a smart, quick thinker. I can’t wait to have her on American money!

some really beautiful african architecture because honestly this site is so western-centric

mako

unknown

cameroon

burkina faso

mali

Ndebele

burkina faso

please add more if you can!

these are SO BEAUTIFUL

MALI IS MY FAVORITE. I LOVE THE COLORS 😍😍😍😍😍

The rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia

The Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel, Egypt

The Nubian Pyramids at Meroe, Sudan

Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania

Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, a commemoration of the destroyed Library at Alexandria

Bosjes Chapel, South Africa

The Gando School by Diébédo Francis Kéré, Gando, Burkina Faso

The Dyeji Building, Luanda, Angola

Fred Rogers ladies and gentleman!

Always reblog MR

Hero

He also sued the KKK in 1990 when they tried to use his likeness to try to promote racism to kids

Mr. Rogers was the best.

Mr Rogers has been and will always remain a beacon of light in this dark fucking world

I’m sorry, the KKK did what?

LAST TIME I REBLOGGED THIS THE LAST COMPARISON WASNT ON THERE

This is the best thing I have ever seen

@klubbhead You used a cinnamon roll for Rey and not Leia?

Dam it it got better

S T O P

@klubbhead

Do Darth Maul next!

This is why I love Tumblr. Do Yoda next please or Boba Fett.

Oh god. I can’t even think of something for them lol

Yoda gotta be raisin bread.

ENOUGH

NO

do grand moff tarkin.

The last one got me.

THE YODA ONE 😂

*actually cries with laughter*