July 5, 2023July 28, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Tires cost a fortune. You can buy a car for $200, or at least you used to be able to, and easily spend double that on a set of rock-hard ditch-finders from the local tire shop. When I asked a tire company executive about it, they weasel-worded some mouth grease about tires being “expensive to ship.” Obviously, the only way I was going to get through this was to open a tire factory of my own.

This isn’t unusual. Tire factories used to dot this proud nation in a time before AliExpress and Amazon Secondus. Folks just like you and I would go to work and eke out a reasonable, middle-class existence – with a pension – putting high-quality tires under our neighbours’ cars, for cheap. Eventually, some spreadsheet said this was no longer cost-effective, and now we have to order our tires from another country.

I’m sure they have lots of good reasons for this. Tires are a lot better since the sixties and seventies: for instance, when it starts to snow, not everyone within a 50 mile radius of your car is instantly killed. You can brake harder into corners and also take them at greater speed, without them getting all greasy and knobbly as they heat up. You would expect this improved technology to cost more money, which means that the big tire executives needed to outsource it in order to make the final price more affordable.

Of course, this is patented bullshit. If you’re not interested in profit, you can make inexpensive, good tires all day long. Switch Tire Company, being technically a subsidiary of Switch Investment Corporation, is run entirely at a loss. We simply bet against ourselves every day, shorting our stock on the open market. People take the other side of it, maybe because we keep renaming our company to things like “Switch Blockchain Expressions” or “Switch Artificially Intelligent Hookerbots,” the sort of names that make the casual Wall Street Tier 1 investment bank think that we’re up-and-comers. Then we pour the money we made off their backs into running off a new set of race tires.

Sure, I could have used this kind of business acumen to do something other than lose money making tires for shit-box cars. How else was I going to be able to find 13-inch tires that are 10 inches wide?

Tags:

#storytime #unreality cw #death tw? #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

July 5, 2023July 28, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

dustylovelyrun:

elidyce:

mycroftrh:

mycroftrh:

mycroftrh:

people get so confused trying to figure out the Lois/Clark/Superman situation that somehow they come to the conclusion that Clark is cheating on Lois with Superman

I mean Lois clearly has nothing to hide, everyone from here to Krypton’s seen Superman fly her with a chaste hand around her waist. but Clark puts an awful lot of effort into making sure no one ever gets a pic of him and Superman together

what is he worried Lois will see

people shake their heads sadly every time Superman visits the Daily Planet and then Clark emerges from a closet disheveled and tucking his shirt back into his pants. but if Lois won’t see it there’s nothing they can do

When Lois finds out she thinks it’s hilarious, and when someone finally tries to ‘break it to her’, she’s all ready.

“Oh, I know.”

“You… know?”

“Neither of them would ever lie to me.”

“So… *gears frantically spinning* this is like some kind of threesome thing?”

“Oh! No, no, no, absolutely not. *Lois pauses and grins the most lascivious grin she can produce* I just… watch.”

Clark gets a lot of very weird looks that day that he can’t understand at all.

@elidyce no, no, no. don’t hide a shit-stirring bruce and chaotic lois in the tags. this is an important addition, too. just gives that final touch that’s dearly needed to really complete this, y’know?

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #Superman #fanfic #story ideas I will never write #embarrassment squick #nsfw text? #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

July 5, 2023July 28, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

a51b4c078705ce344940d9cc030267ad2eea56ff

dailyunsolvedmysteries:

This is a metal snail (Volcano Snail) that lives on underwater volcano vents in the Indian Ocean. Its shell and scaly feet both are armoured with layers of iron, making it the only animal to incorporate iron sulfide into its skeleton.

todaysbird:

damn right. that snail is metal as hell

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/03/discovered-in-the-deep-the-snail-with-iron-armour:

“In 2019, scientists worked out that the scales on the snails’ foot are not to protect against predatory attack but to avert a toxic threat that comes from within. The bacteria stashed in a scaly-foot snail’s throat release sulphur as a waste product, which is deadly to snails (it’s a common active ingredient in slug and snail-killing pellets).

The internal structure of their scales acts as tiny exhaust pipes, drawing the dangerous sulphur away from the snails’ soft tissues and depositing it as a harmless iron-based compound on the outside.”

Tags:

#snails #biology #the more you know #poison cw? #body horror? #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

July 4, 2023July 28, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

sirfrogsworth:

If you have seen Ted Lasso you may have noticed these unusual microphones used by the football commentators.

Despite being a microphone nerd, I had never seen anything like them before. So I decided to go into research mode and discovered these microphones are quite fascinating.

They are called “Lip-Ribbon” or “Commentator’s” microphones.

They were specially designed by the BBC in the 1950s for extremely noisy environments. Soccer Football stadiums have peaked at 130 decibels so they needed something that would not get overwhelmed in that circumstance.

They use several very clever techniques to make sure only the voice is picked up and everything else is rejected.

First, they use a bidirectional polar pattern.

That means it will accept sound from two directions, but reject any sound coming in from the sides. And since the diaphragm is only exposed on one side, that helps reject sound coming from the other direction.

Next, the microphone is not very sensitive so you literally have to hold it up to your lips (hence “lip-ribbon”) in order for your voice to have enough sound energy to vibrate the diaphragm.

That top part rests directly on your lip and there is a little pop filter to keep your plosives in check.

There is a built-in high pass filter so it rejects any sound below the frequencies typically used by the human voice.

But my favorite trick… a labyrinthian internal baffle system.

(I found a diagram of this when researching but then I lost the tab and I cannot find it again. So you’ll just have to accept this crude photoshop I did in 30 seconds to help you understand.)

Sound is energy. And that energy is diminished the farther it travels. The inverse square law for sound states that the intensity of sound decreases by approximately 6 dB for each doubling of distance from the sound source. Sound also diminishes when it reflects off a surface.

That is a very sciency way of saying… make sounds go through a tiny maze and only sounds with the most energy will prevail.

So if you have your lip pressed up against the front of the mic, your voice’s energy will make it through the labyrinth of baffles without issue. But every other sound in the stadium will have a much harder time getting through.

These mics may even be vuvuzela-proof.

And even more amazing… this microphone was designed in the 1950s and they have yet to create anything better for incredibly noisy environments.

Isn’t that neat?

I think it is neat.

Tags:

#the power of science #the more you know #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

July 4, 2023July 14, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

hatingongodot:

Found another idiotic accounting mistake from my predecessor that I have to fix and I was like “WILL THE SPECTER OF THAT MAN’S INCOMPETENCE EVER CEASE TO HAUNT ME” and my coworker was like “Why do you talk like that”

Tags:

#””why do you talk like that”” #man I *wish* I could talk like that #that excuse for communication called speech #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

July 4, 2023July 14, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

a73d907bd3935b968fa729de01c4fda4ba26d9b3

adriftinginventory:

Saul Steinberg, Country Noises.

Tags:

#art #domesticity #that one post with the thing #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

July 4, 2023July 14, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

jtstoryweaver:

writing-prompt-s:

“Mom, there’s someone under the bed.” You bend down and see your son there instead and he whispers “Mom that’s not me up there!” You take a step back when someone tugs your shirt. You turn, your son is in the closet asking “who are they?” You suddenly hear him calling from downstairs “Mommy?”

You sigh, raising your voice so that all of your sons can hear you. “All right, everyone into the kitchen. Now.” Hearing a shuffle in the attic, you add, “Yes, Duncan, that includes you.”

You don’t see any movement as you go down the stairs, but you’re used to that. You know they’ll all be there by the time you walk through the kitchen door.

As usual, your children have all fitted themselves into the kitchen. The dimensions of the room are a little wobbly with so many of them present, but you’ve long ago learned to ignore how the laws of physics only occasionally apply to them. A host of little faces look up at you anxiously, and you smile gently.

“It’s okay, none of you are in trouble,” you reassure them. They relax – and how astonishing is it, that they trust you so much? You’re so proud of their progress.

One, however, still looks nervous. You beckon him forward, and he comes reluctantly, shoved by his identical older brothers.

“Are you new?” you ask carefully.

He nods, and you drop to one knee. “It’s okay, sweetie,” you tell him firmly. “I love all of my sons, even ones I haven’t met before. Ask your brothers, they’ll tell you.”

“’m here because I heard you were nice,” he says in a tiny voice.

You open your arms, offering a hug but waiting to let him decide whether he wants one. This child must have seen hugs before, because he flings himself into your arms and starts crying. That’s good. Some of your sons are traumatised from what they’ve seen, knowing more slaps than kisses.

Eventually, the sobs dry up, your other kids patiently waiting for your attention again. “Why do we look like this?” he asks, curious.

“Because this is what the first of you looked like – Wilson, where are you?”

A hand raises from the crowd and waves energetically.

“Wilson took on my son’s form to play Child or Double. Calling from downstairs when my son was in bed, getting tucked in when the child I bore was playing out in the garden. Once I figured it out, I hugged him and told him that as far as I was concerned, I now had twins. It took him some time before he believed me.”

Wilson shrugs unrepentantly.

“When my son died, Wilson stayed. It helped, having one of my sons with me while I grieved. Then another of you began to turn up, and I had twins again. Then more. Until now, when I have more of you than will technically fit in my kitchen.” You give your sons a look of motherly disapproval, but they only giggle. They know you don’t mind.

“It’s not like you need to feed us!” calls out one of your bolder sons. Eric, probably. Your newest, unnamed child looks up hesitantly, then steps out of your arms to join his brothers. Lucas might be a nice name, you think idly. You don’t have a Lucas yet.

“That does help,” you admit. You put steel into your next words. “However, there are Rules in this house, and one of them is no messing around at bedtime. I know that bedtime is a traditional time for the Child or Double game, but four of you is pushing it.”

You’d say more, but there’s a knock at your back door. You turn to answer it, knowing that your sons will have evaporated before your fingers grasp the handle, and brace against the cold night air as you pull the door open.

Two identical little girls stand there. One has a bruise on her cheek, and has clearly been crying recently. The other – the other is a Doubler, just like your sons. After this long, you can tell the difference.

“Please,” the Doubler says, and her voice trembles on the word. “Please. She needs somewhere to stay.”

Part of you is shocked, already looking ahead to the potential legal issues. The rest of you is all mother, and you whisk her into the nice warm kitchen and get her a glass of water.

Your son’s bed will be occupied by someone else tonight. You think he’d have been okay with that.

Tags:

#storytime #abuse cw #death tw? #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

July 3, 2023July 14, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

wizard-council-bureaucrat:

God forbid wizards do anything

wizard-council-bureaucrat:

Wizard forbid gods do anything

faery-wizard:

anything forbid wizards be gods?

wizard-council-bureaucrat:

Anything forbid wizards do gods

inkedintothepaper:

wizard gods forbid do anything

wizard-council-bureaucrat:

For bid: wizards do any god thing

wizard-council-bureaucrat:

myc0l0gy:

do wizards! forbid god! anything!

#leo carefully regulating his breathing while star recites this post in the squad car (itsbenedict)

Tags:

#Star Seeker #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

July 3, 2023July 14, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

ms-demeanor:

Okay so in LA they’ve had the reusable bag and thick plastic bag for ten cents going on for years but in Vegas they still give you thin plastic bags at every store but they’re these really thin shitty bags that you pretty much can’t reuse because they barely survive the trip from the car to the house.

So basically this is how I tell you that I’ve started making plarn that I’m crocheting into a plarn basket that I will use to hold the plarn balls I make in the future in order to control how many plastic bags are pouring out of our cabinets.

ms-demeanor:

How to make plarn:

1. Flatten out a clean plastic bag

2. Cut off the handles and the bottom

3. Cut diagonally into the plastic until the strand is about as thick as you want it to be. (Probably aim for at least an inch thick, it doesn’t have to be super even all the way around but you don’t want it to get so thin that the strand will break)

4. Cut in a spiral until you run out of bag and then diagonally cut your way out of the final loop.

5. Tie the end of the strand to the end of whatever you were working on or to the last stand you cut.

6. Wind or crochet like any other bulky yarn.

The gray disk at the bottom of this post is the bottom of my basket, I’m using an N/10mm hook in a double-crocheted spiral. (I’ve just started the first layer of elevation)

So far I’m about 10-12 bags in and I’ve been trimming the tails of the joined bags as I go.

(One bag’s worth of plarn goes about halfway around the disk at this point, I think I’m going to do 3-4 more gray bags before I change colors; bags come in 3 general colors around here so this basket is going to be mostly white with gray and brown accents.)

ms-demeanor:

Also save the bag scraps, you can use them as stuffing. I’m gonna make a big fucking pincushion with mine. It’s gonna be a cube made out of the leftover cat fabric that I don’t want to use for masks.

ms-demeanor:

Worked my way through the ball in the first photoset, made some more balls. I’m intrigued by the way the patterns on the white bags show up. I’ve got some Ross and 99 cent store bags in the next white ball to add some purple and blue-green to the mix.

Making this basket might actually exhaust my current supply of plastic bags, so I’ve asked my dad to set aside his thicker bags for me in LA so I can compare working both materials.

Kind of get the feeling that I’m going to be a complete gremlin and make a laundry hamper out of the thicker plastic.

ms-demeanor:

It’s a little ugly, but it’s going to do a great job of holding my plarn and associated projects.

pirenja:

Oh this is totally apocalypse punk! Makes me want to make my own for use in small grocery runs. Or just to write a scrappy band of fictional survivors using them, haha.

ms-demeanor:

NGL, cutting apart a pile of plastic trash and turning it into thread and rolling it into balls and crocheting it into fabric does feel like some variety of cyberpunk Rumplestiltskin shit.

kipplekipple:

Idk that I’d call it ugly because the white part with the little flecks is so cute.

Tags:

#art #domesticity #the more you know #fun with loopholes #apocalypse cw? #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

thebewingedjewelcat asked: Can a sunbeam snake be a good second snake?

July 3, 2023July 14, 2023 ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

is-the-snake-video-cute:

If you are diligent and manage your expectations, sure! Many people are interested in them because of their beauty, but it’s important to remember they will spend most of their time hiding. It’s also crucial to find a captive-bred baby – which is thankfully a lot easier than it used to be.

I would be very sure to do a lot of research and make sure the enclosure is set up before bringing the snake home, and they’re not going to be a snake I ever recommend for most keepers looking for their second snake, but if you’re committed it’s doable.

Also, baby sunbeams are so cute it should really be illegal.

Tags:

#snakes #adorable #the more you know #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

Brinens and Things

Author: Brin

thebewingedjewelcat asked: Can a sunbeam snake be a good second snake?