this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

rustingbridges:

these days people link to twitter and even in the case that a thread looks interesting I simply cannot read it. 1/11 ok but where are the other ten. there’s nothing on the page that shows them and half of the links 401. I hope people will eventually start posting interesting things on platforms that support sharing

Tags:

#yes this #for now it remains possible to circumvent this with third-party interfaces #but someday the last vestiges of Nitter will die and that will be the end of Twitter #Twitter #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #amnesia 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

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

rudywiser:

elodieunderglass:

teddy-stonehill:

teddy-stonehill:

f88a7b7b96701519b5a882255c2632d60fde74f9
a5adae809ae81d785bed9c37ac8dbba55e9d2918

I went to the local aviary today and they had some really mean things to say about owls.

9ba1bdc1578f64c466659d20721ddb98755450cb

I can confirm that most birds have a detectable amount of wiring behind the eyes – blinking lights and buttons and sliders and frizzy things that spark and chirp and beep. They also have a lot of soul that can communicate with ours because the programming is fairly compatible. Vultures are clever and curious, swans are clear and lawful, chickens have a lot of personality, caged parrots are dissociated and disinherited and frankly worrying, falconry-trained birds of prey are tremendously businesslike.

And owls are absolutely lovely beasts with their own irreplaceable validity. but they are basically stuffed with polyester fiberfill. They have one button, like a child’s toy dinosaur that opens and closes its mouth when you press the back of its head. And it isn’t even a sophisticated electronic button it’s just a lever that rocks back and forth to make the claws open and close. I think they may have actually evolved independently from sponges. Their skulls simply exist to create holes that funnel sound and light, and as a place to hang a giant hinged beak. An owl is just an empty tube like a windchime that the wind whistles through, and you can drop meat down it. They use the meat to generate feathers, and then emit the bones in pressed little packages like those machines that flatten a penny and stamp it with the logo of a theme park. I think that’s the gist of it – most birds are electronics of varying levels of sophistication, but owls are just a system of levers and pulleys. No elevator music in those skulls, just the wind echoing through empty caverns of slightly irritating design. Absolutely fantastic.

Are owls smart? Lord no.

Are owls efficient? So much so, that they don’t need to be smart.

Tags:

#birds #owls #that one post with the thing #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #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

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

inoppositionflorien:

I’d be great at violence and other crimes, I’d like to think. If that was a job, I mean.

Unfortunately the legal jobs that get characterized often as being “violence and crimes as a job” contain very little violence and crimes by weight and also have a degree of forced conformity that I don’t think I’d do well with. So I guess we’ll never know if I’d be good at them.

The point is I think museums should legally be able to assemble heist teams to heist other museums’s shit. This could solve essentially no problems, create many new ones, and destroy a bunch of priceless artifacts, but also it would be very funny and those priceless artifacts were stupid anyway.

In fact I think museums should all be allowed to steal anything from anywhere if they can get away with it, and it should be very easy to legally become a museum, with the main conditions being you can’t sell your collection and have to display some percentage (maybe 5 or 10%?) of it where it can be seen by the public (for at most a small fee, maybe like $20 tops). Heist wars. “Come to the Guggenheim, we stole davinci’s older, better woman-with-an-emotion painting and threw the Mona Lisa in the trash like the trash it is.” “Welcome to the National Museum of Brazil, featuring three insects and a bust from the British museum, one of the Benin Bronzes, the liberty bell, Two Thirds of Bill Paldorski from the US’s vinyl collection, and a terracotta soldier replica we made because the one we had got heisted by the Museum of Gabon. Also some stuff from Brazil, but you’re not here for that.” “Welcome to the Monument Museum. We were founded three years ago specifically to display the Statue of Liberty, and six days ago, as you may have heard, we successfully heisted it. It will be available for public viewing after we’ve reassembled it. In the meantime check out our Battle of May Island memorial stone and Minaret of Sinan Pasha Mosque, both of which we heisted for practice”

This would clearly be a superior world to live in.

Tags:

#story ideas I will never write #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #((this amusement not to be taken as expressing an opinion regarding the statement itself)) #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #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

Humans are adorable.

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

teaboot:

Supporting evidence:

1. Humans say ‘ow’, even if they haven’t actually been hurt. It’s just a thing they say when they think they might have been hurt, but aren’t sure yet.

2. Humans collect shiny things and decorate their bodies and nests with them. The shinier the better, although each individual has a unique taste for style and colouring

3. Humans are not an aquatic or even amphibious species, but they flock to bodies of water simply to play in it. They can’t even hold their breath all that long; they just love to splash!

4. When night falls and the sky goes dark, humans become drowsy and begin to cocoon themselves in soft, fluffy bedding.

5. Some humans spend time in each other’s nests! Just for fun! It’s not their nest; they’re just visiting each other.

6. Some humans use pigments and dyes to make their bodies flashy and colourful! They even attach shiny dangly bits to their cartalidgous membranes!

7. Humans are very clever, and sometimes adopt creatures from other species into their family units. They don’t seem to notice the obvious differences, and often raise them alongside their own young!

8. If a human sees another creature in distress, they can commonly be observed trying to help! Even at their own risk, most humans are deeply compassionate creatures!

9. If a human hears a particularity catchy sound or tune, it will often mimic it, even to the point of annoying themselves!

10. Sneezes are entirely involuntary, and completely adorable. Especially when the human in question becomes frustrated

11. Humans love treats!!! Some more than others. Many humans will save these treats specifically for a later date when they are in need of comfort or reassurance. IE, pickles, pop tarts, Popsicles, etc

12. They’re learning to travel in space!!! They can’t get very far, but they’re trying!!! So far, they’ve made it to the end of their yard, and have found rocks

Tags:

#that one post with the thing #”so far‚ they’ve made it to the end of their yard‚ and have found rocks” has lived in my head for years #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

ophthalmotropy:

Pick a mundane superpower

pick-a-mundane-superpower-poll

Tags:

#hmm #skip dialogue: I feel like this is not a substantial problem in my life #coffee: there’s probably some perpetual-motion hack here given the thermodynamics violation‚ but it’s once a day‚ so it doesn’t scale well #dust-repelling: define ”my” belongings; most of the dusty things bothering me belong de jure to my parents #volume control: very good‚ but not *as* good as ones later on the list‚ so no #weather manipulation: probably some physics-violating stunts you can pull with this one‚ but God knows what they are #schedule-memory: probably some hacks here to let you use it for other stuff‚ but the central use is not a substantial problem in my life #inventory: oh wow that’s tempting #what counts as an item? is there a weight limit? #would I‚ say‚ get rotting vegetable juice on *other* items if I left a vegetable in there too long‚ or no? #concentration: I thought this was great at first‚ but then I realised it’s almost strictly inferior to the selective-drug-immunity option #because you can just do a lot of stimulants and nope the tolerance and anxiety and whatnot #the stims *are* free with this option‚ but then you can’t use it on other drugs #information search: can I look up where to find information on how best to exploit this? I feel like there’s a *lot* going on here #do-overs: would be very hard to decide which days to use it on‚ also I have serious ethical doubts about collapsing timelines #(though you could instead violate the spirit of this answer and simply isolate yourself during one day each week) #(spending two subjective days reading and studying and other such things-that-aren’t-about-having-an-impact-on-the-external-world) #(meanwhile the rest of the world experiences the two timelines as identical and isn’t losing anything by having the first one destroyed) #scent: do I magically know when something is bad even when it wouldn’t otherwise have smelled bad? #if so: viscerally tempting but probably not the single best option here #if not: meh‚ I can just break out the scent-blocking respirator filters‚ I don’t need magic for this #selective drug immunity: …there’s stiff competition‚ but I’m going with this one #you get so much option-space to experiment with drugs that have any chance whatsoever of fixing any of your problems #knowing there’s no downside apart from the cost of obtaining them #drugs that previously weren’t worth using because the side effects were too severe–I’m looking at you‚ zinc acetate–become useful #and as I age and acquire chronic ailments‚ I may well someday have a med constellation as complicated and delicate as my mom’s #at which point I would *very deeply* appreciate not having frequent nausea and dizziness #(I wonder if you can do‚ like‚ hyper-chemotherapy-type things with this) #(take poisons that would normally kill both you and whatever ~parasites you’re suffering from‚ and then survive while they still die) #(it might not be fine-grained enough for that‚ but even so)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

sigmaleph:

transgenderer:

I feel like while I’m here I should do things thst are illegal in the US and legal here but what even is there besides drinking in public which I’m already doing like. Daily.

buy a kinder egg

Tags:

#(context note: ”here” seems to be Germany) #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #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

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

sofuton:

memewhore:

e132cd1c0a6e60a8b24c67906037450f3ef34603
8def4fd76b238e297fdac773a70311083c89af5a

Tags:

#comics #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #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

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

mihai-florescu:

“college is the best years of your life” “college is for meeting new people and expanding your mind” wrong. college is for discovering new types of grief. also the timeloop

Tags:

#unfortunately true #I graduated almost three years ago and I have still not escaped the timeloop #and I have certainly been discovering new types of grief about it #adventures in University Land #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #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