The Cave of the Crystals, discovered in 2000 in northern Mexico, is an underground cavern (formerly and now again filled with water) with enormous gypsum crystals in it; it is deep enough, and humid enough, that when scientists went down to study it they required refrigeration suits to survive the high temperature, and to keep the extremely wet, warm air from filling their lungs with condensation.
Obviously it’s not a surprise that such a thing can exist, but it still feels like a startling discovery to me. That it does means there may be more like it; or other similarly spectacular underground formations in Earth’s crust (or maybe even mantle?) that we’re totally unaware of. It’s a cool reminder of just how little of the world around us, or the further universe, is directly accessible to observation and how many spectacular or interesting things remain to be discovered.
How could you not post photos? “giant” doesn’t convey what these caves are.
One sensory superpower I think most humans have is that of being able to tell, without looking, whether a water glass they are filling is almost at the limit. Because the pitch changes. Isn’t that amazing?
Tags:
#I love doing that #domesticity #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see
“may this great plague pass by me and my friends, and restore us once more to joy and gladness”
Feeling a powerful kinship with this scribe from 1350 today.
OTD (Christmas Eve), 670 years ago
Tags:
#I missed Christmas for this but it’s New Year’s Eve so that works too #may we reach the anniversary of this night many times #also‚ it’s just…very emotional to read accounts of past plagues where people ask for prayers #because that was all they could do #humanity was not strong enough‚ not aware enough‚ not knowledgeable enough‚ to fight back against a monster that could not be seen #history #illness tw
#I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #…things move so fast huh #we haven’t bought any more game consoles since getting a Wii‚ so it still kind of feels new to me #similar deal with Kinect except we’ve never actually had one #death tw? #aging cw? #Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator
Dreamwidth accounts are now completely open and free, instead of requiring invite codes!
Why Dreamwidth is good:
– You have FOUR different privacy levels to choose from with EVERY post: Public, Private, My Access List Only, A Specific Special Access List Only. You can make as many special access lists as you want. You can ‘f-lock’ your whole journal if you want. Privacy is good!
– All comments stay on your OP, there is no reblogging. No more posts suddenly getting out of hand and running away from you, it all stays central on the OP, and replies are nested into threads! It’s like having a little mini message board on every post!
– Tiered privacy–you can subscribe to someone, and you can also grant them access. Separately. This means you can read someone’s journal without having to let them read posts you have locked.
– Put your interests in a linked list, if they light up as a link you can click and suddenly see everyone–and every community–that has that interest listed! Make friends! Join communities (comms, as we call them)!
– Communities! Which can also be locked to members only! Communities also have moderators (and rules the moderators may or may not have!), which makes them safer.
– Lots of customisation options for how your journal looks. Back in the day we used to match journal themes with our bffs or lovers!
– Multiple icons! We used to use this feature to have different icons to indicate moods/tones. Fun! Let’s bring that back. You can have 15 with a free account, and more with a paid account.
– 100×100 icons! So big! Gifs allowed! Like on AO3!
– MOOD ICONS. This is an extra icon on your posts that has a mood attached. People with paid accounts have custom themes! Mine is Great Mouse Detective.
– Paid accounts are subscriptions but if they lapse you just go back down to a free account, you don’t get your account’s functionality taken away! And likewise, the extra icons and custom mood theme are still there; all that changes is if you change your mood theme you can’t go back to the custom one until you get a paid account again. Paid accounts just give you extra customisation for how your journal looks, and help support the site, because…
– THERE ARE NO ADS. THERE IS NO ALGORITHM. THERE ARE NO SUGGESTED POSTS. NOTHING IS SPYING ON YOU.
In addition, since it’s (currently) December, if you do want to buy paid services, you get a 10% bonus!
Come check out Dreamwidth, it’s pretty awesome there! And if you have any questions, I am happy to do my best to answer them!
(Also I have a Dreamwidth Adding Meme but it’s on Tumblr kinda going right now, because every time I make a post about Dreamwidth that gets more than 100 notes, at least one of the notes is from someone who is on Dreamwidth but wishes it were more active. And it’s always someone different. We can solve the activity problem together, people!)
Yes! And you can also buy a paid account for anyone you want – or for a random user.
Also: the archive works! It’s a calendar! Click on a day with a link, and you’ll see all the posts posted on that day.
Re: The Activity problem: There are a whole bunch of writing communities already in existence, but a lot of them haven’t had anything posted to them for several years. And I want someone to come play with me.
Let’s get Dreamwidth as active as LiveJournal used to be, before it was sold out to Russian investors.
Tags:
#the person I’m reblogging from posted this weeks before the ”content is not allowed on Tumblr” post #but nevertheless it feels like a fitting followup #Dreamwidth #it took some getting used to at first but I’ve found it quite comfy there
Brinens and Things 