For a while now I've been wanting to try painting over the Pillars of Creation photo taken by the Webb telescope.
When I was a kid I thought the earlier version looked like a bunch of dragons racing to the sky, and I think the new pic looks even more like it, so, here they are~
For reference, same crop of the photo down here:
This is SO stunning 😍😍
I am going crazy for the 2023 QuiltCon winners
This remarkable letter of unknown provenance surfaced recently in the cuneiform collection of the University of West Wessex. Addressed to Azirapil from a Mr. “Crawly,” it appears to be begging for the other’s return to Ur from a western journey with another individual, Abiraham. The relationship between the two (brothers? business partners? friends?) is unknown, and all three names are quite unusual. The letter also mentions a Mr. Ea-naṣir in Ur; if this is the same Ea-naṣir as the merchant mentioned in UET V 22, 29, 71, and 81, then the original letter would be dated to the Larsa period, around 1800 BCE. However, this particular copy appears to be a scribal exercise; the writing is relatively unskilled, and the cuneiform is Neo-Assyrian in form. It is unclear whether the text is based on a historical letter, or if its unusual names and content were invented for scribal practice.
Text:
Tell Azirapil [1]:
Thus says “Crawly” [2]:
When will your time in the West be finished? Abiraham [3] seems very dirty, and I am weary [4] in Ur. [There is] a talented mirsu-maker [5] on Wide Street!
Watch out, for I have acquired a new friend. His name is Ea-Naṣir [6], and I may play wickedly with him if you do not return.
Come quickly!
Title: Handlebars Song Artist: Flobots Vidder: Flummery Website: http://www.flummery.org Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) (Tenth Doctor) Length: 03:27 Summary: I’m the Doctor. Look me up.
We saw that Fanlore posted about Handlebars as their Featured Article yesterday, and realized we’d never updated Tumblr when we updated our Youtube with vids we hadn’t put up yet.
So this seems like a good one to start with. :D
This premiered at Vividcon 2008 (a year before Waters of Mars aired). In 2010, Mary Crawford asked for a “making of” for Handlebars. It’s here on Dreamwidth if you want to read it.
Other ways to view:
Right-click and save-as to download a copy (80 MB, xvid)
weirdest scene….ever
can we just?? break this down, this blessing…
1) Starscream fuckin runs up to Prime outta nowhere. This tiny twinky jet knocks the large truck boy, shoving past him like some 11 year old chump. Optimus’ head/neck bends and snaps like he’s supposed to be in Stretch Armstrong graduating from Harvard Law. Then Screamer jumps away ~WITH FIRE~, and Optimus watches him go like a Disney Princess.
2) Starscream leaps into the sky magically without any “FLAME ON” action– oop wait never mind his thrusters engaged. He of course fucks right off, transforming and flying beneath a rainbow– clearly his gay ass is receiving a blessing from the waterfall gods before his journey to the Land of Oz.
3) Soundwave on the other hand is not as blessed, and busts the fUCK outta there like “shitshitshitFUCKshit” stumbling almost like he had a moment where he forgot he can fly/ leap off like Starscream did. Hmm. He rounds the corner only to find a net that’s obviously used by humans for a pass-time in which they capture Cybertronians and then release them back into the wild, all in the name of recreational sport. Well Soundwave just isn’t having any of that, so he runs into it in a panic tears the net to smithereens on purpose. And apparently the net isn’t having it either, as you can see if you watch closely it starts to move out of frame before the shot is finished, likely to collect it’s paycheck.
4) Finally, Soundwave finds a nice, flat, dusty chunk of painted background to launch from… only to be fenderbendered by Bluestreak, launching him into the sky. Well, joke’s on Prowl Bluestreak, because Soundwave was going to do that anyways. Mid-air the communications officer cuts his losses and resigns to being blasted off again, transforming into his cassette player mode. But before that can happen a GIANT Starscream intercepts him and brings him back to base for the touchdown. Teamwork at it’s finest, folks; the Decepticons are in the playoffs.
This is why G1 is the BEST canon.
I saw this post by @astropixie about how it’d be nice to review fics on AO3 as you read. A little while back, because I was so in awe of the Clexa fic writers, I made this userscript (can install on Firefox by using Greasemonkey and on Chrome, ETA: Opera, and Safari by using Tampermonkey) so that I could do just that. It doesn’t have the wattpad or soundcloud functionality, it’s just a little thing added on to a page, not something supported by the site itself, but it’s better than nothing.
The userscript is available here: http://pastebin.com/vYBCYWu4
ETA: FFN version: http://pastebin.com/addj3Xtm
ETA: User Tampermonkey on Firefox too
Oh, neat!
what does facebook think my house looks like
@thebibliosphere I:m stunned you’re not the OP.
Me too tbh.
I want all of those. It is perhaps fortunate, from my husband’s perspective if nothing else, that our house is way too small and our ceilings too low to accommodate … well, certainly the fan, and probably Anubis. The gnome, on the other hand, could hang out with the T. Rex skeleton in the front yard.
I have never been more sorry I don’t have a lawn. :’(
The finished card. I tried the forces in a new style for myself, I expected that it would be worse ..))
These are diamond-tipped indenter heads. They are used to inflict ludicrous pressure upon various shit in order to measure the hardness of said shit. Recently, one of these was used to measure the hardness of a certain animal’s shell, and, instead of crushing the ever-loving fuck out of it, it found serious resistance.
The aforementioned animal is a snail.
Let me spell this out for ya. There is a snail that can resist the onslaught from an industrial-grade diamond applied with the pressure of several metric fucktonnes. A. Snail. That. Can. Resist. A. Diamond. Indenter.
Just imagine stepping on one of these guys. Instead of breaking their shells like those of usual snails, you’d break your own fucking ankle.
Jesus trilobitic Christ.
Today’s Episode: the Scaly-Foot Gastropod
Just look at this little piece of shit. Look at it and say to my face it doesn’t look like a tank.
What we’ve got here is the rather lamely-named scaly-foot gastropod, also known by the considerably more badass-sounding names of iron snail and Chrysomallon squamiferum. The SFG hails from the deep-sea thermal vents known as black smokers, deep-sea vents from which water gushes constantly. That water, by the way, originates from below the mantle.
The proximities of black smokers are perfectly lightless, unforgiving badlands, with water rich enough in poisonous sulphuric chemicals to perform the chemical equivalent of curbstomping on any “superior” lifeform that dares stick it’s overspecialized, prissy ass down there, heat up to 450 degrees Celsius (one thirteenth of the temperature of the Sun’s surface) and pressures that could turn any land-dwelling scum into a Flatlander within seconds. If creatures want to survive here, they must either be hyper-effective murder-machines, or damn nigh unkillable.
The SFG’s predators, such as venomous, killer cone snails with bionic harpoon guns evolved from their own “teeth”, and car-wrecking carnivorous crabs that kill snails by pressing down on their shells for days with jagged ultra-hard pincers specifically designed to do this belong in the first category.
The SFG itself belongs in the second.
Hoooly shit does it ever.
The unkillability itself is obtained by using the chemosynthetic bacteria lurking in its glands to absorb and mineralize the poisonous iron-sulphides the water is overabundant with, making them non-poisonous for the snail. It then coats its shell with the minerals, constructing an unique three-layer structure no other gastropods possess. None.
To sum it up, the outer layer, used to block the bulk of the attack, is made up of greigite (Fe3S4), a ridiculously hard mineral. Then comes a middle layer of squishy organic matter purposed to absorb the shock of impacts, dents and blows. Finally, an inner layer of aragonite (CaCO3), designed to prevent asshole crabs from sticking their nasty claws into the shell and picking it apart splinter by splinter.
How effective is it? Well, this armor is so much better than what we puny humans possess that the U.S. Army is actively conducting research about it with the hope of developing new armor using the same build. Yes, this shell is so unbreakable that it caused the a military to lose their heads over a goddamn sea snail. Go figure.
Also, according to biologists researching the SFG, if we covered oil pipes with the stuff, they could easily shrug off damage done by such trivial things as fucking icebergs,
Not bad from a snail, I say.
But that’s not all! Look at it again.
There is a reason it’s called Scaly-foot Gastropod.
Those are scales. Made out of iron minerals.
Iron minerals that are poisonous and magnetic.
The scales are there because of the tooth-harpoon-hurling killer snails. Namely, they serve to deflect the harpoons entirely. Deflective iron scales. On a snail.
Holy crap.
So let’s sum it up, shall we? There exists a snail that forges itself a magnetic armor made out of poisonous iron ore to fend off killer crabs and venomous sniper snails that hunt it in its habitat of a vent leading to the Earth’s mantle.
Oh, and they don’t really eat anything, relying on their chemosynthetic bacteria for sustenance instead. In layman’s terms, that means that the snail keeps itself running by oxidating the sulphides in the water, all of which are lethally poisonous to most lifeforms, including the snail itself. The only reason it survives is that the bacteria chemosynthetize the sulphides, enabling the snail to quite literally live off of poison.
This molluscoid tank is ridiculously metal in more ways than one.
I LOVE this sort of thing and holy SHIT is this amazing <3
That’s totally a steel/poison type pokemon.
This is everything amazing and also makes me want to write a story where the Transformers are not mechanical/constructed at all but just evolved metal forms out of organic life.
Wtf is that? A storm elemental?
Ball lightning fuck me all the way up
Excuse me what the fuck is this
Thats a demon
@unexplained-events help
Saving this for miniature-painting inspiration...
What’s this? That’s right – the follow up (and conclusion) to the story begun in HIS ROYAL SECRET, which has been released as of today! Let’s see what the back of the book says:
James, Prince of Wales, is making history. He’s decided to come out to his subjects—and the world. However, telling the truth means exposing his relationship with lone-wolf reporter Benjamin Dahan. Although Ben never wanted commitment, the unexpected depth of his feelings leads him to join James in the media’s harsh spotlight. When the news story explodes across the globe, Ben can endure the mockery and dirty jokes. But after his tragic past is cruelly revealed, his life begins to implode. Can even his love for James be worth this? James has it no easier. His revelation divides the country and sparks turmoil within the royal family. He must struggle to defend not only himself and Ben, but also his younger sister, who hovers on the brink of a breakdown that could endanger her life. Is Ben strong enough to survive the onslaught and stand by James’ side? And will James have to make a choice between Ben and the crown?
Sounds like it would be right up you guys’ alley! So check out HIS ROYAL FAVORITE.
(My great hope is that this will be a Yuletide fandom.)
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH, WE SHOULD WRITE JAMES/BEN FANFIC FOR YULETIDE AND THEN THE UNIVERSE WILL FOLD IN ON ITSELF AND WE’LL BE CAUGHT IN A RECURSION. LOVE YAHTZEE.
I really want an A/U where James is a non-royal person, but with, like superpowers. A professor with superpowers. Bisexual, maybe.
I would like to read that.
AND BEN WAS, LIKE, A COMPLETE DISASTER, BUT TOTALLY HOT AND GRUMPY. HE’D HAVE SUPERPOWERS TOO. AND THEY’D FIGHT OPPRESSION AND RACISM. . I’D READ THE SHIT OUT OF THAT.
I’m TOTALLY going to write the superpowers AU of this BUT THEN I’LL FILE OFF THE SERIAL NUMBERS AND *is crushed under the weight of the recursion*
:D :D :D \:D/
By royal decree.
WHAT IS THIS I MUST WATCH IT
Oh shit. Hype the hell out of this so it survives the pilot.
The title is Still Star-Crossed, since nobody was saying so above. ;-)
HOLY SHIT I AM WATCHING THIS ON REPEAT. Does this start in the fall? WHEN?
(ALSO ANTHONY HEAD IS IN THERE I DON’T KNOW WHO BUT YESSSSSS.)
wowwwwww this looks AMAZING <3
- the rise of old friends senior dog sanctuary - Hamilton - pokemon go - female ghostbusters - i don’t give a fuck im outta here Obama - captain america civil war - girl, black guy and latino guy leads in new star wars - deadpool - lemonade - literally???! Nothing??? Else????
WELL ACTUALLY SINCE YOU ASKED:
- The Anglican church resolved to solemnize same-sex unions the same as opposite-sex unions, which required a super-majority of all three orders of the church (lay, clergy, bishop) and got MORE than that from both lay and bishop.
- The Liberal gov’t changed the Canada Child Benefit so that it’s actually helping people who NEED THE FUCKING HELP. (I am sorry if you are a six figure income you do not actually fucking need this make some fucking lifestyle adjustments for fuck’s sake.)
- Net Neutrality has been upheld by the appeals court. (No that fight isn’t over BUT THIS IS STILL A FUCK OF A GOOD THING.)
- We may have cured MS. (LET ME REPEAT: WE MAY HAVE CURED MS.)
… . and this is just what I came up with in a pretty lazy google search in an hour, including distractions where I went down the research rabbit-hole for a bit because holy crap some of that stuff’s NEAT, guys!
And I know I’m missing stuff, because I wanted a citation for every single thing I put on there.
Yes, there have been some really bad things that have happened in 2016. There have also been a number of huge fucking miracles, and SIMILAR bad things have always happened, just about every damn year - maybe not to you, or maybe they didn’t make the news, and maybe you just don’t remember any of the good because of that whole massive Negative Bias problem that human brains have, but?
A lot of good shit happened. A lot.
And like I do actually get the sudden overwhelmed feeling of EVERYTHING SUCKS? but that mindset is, at this point, literally our worst enemy. “Everything is terrible somebody do something” helplessness is what will in fact consign us to everything BEING terrible.
Everything is not terrible. In fact there are new ways, every single month, wherein new opportunities and miracles are happening and no that does not balance out the bad shit but it gives every reason to FIGHT the bad shit, and to get past the bad shit, and to make sure the bad shit ISN’T the overwhelming stain.
So.
Y’ALL
Y’ALL
Y’AAAALLLLLLL
Holy DAMN.
Everyone, go to youtube and leave some incoherent NOISES for this.
Fantastic!
