avalonsilver reblogged
enokian3310-deactivated20240823
TEAM FREE WILL
avalonsilver reblogged
Risu just sent me this and I am SO DELIGHTED
Ahhhhhhh!!! Go read it! Go read it!! The cording was plied by Neanderthals!!! The article talks about how we can’t keep thinking about them as being stupid it’s so delightful! In these trying times, let’s read about some joyful anthropological and archaeological discoveries!!!
Read it! The fact that it’s plied is so exciting! For plied cord, you first spin your fibers in one direction (they did it clockwise) and then take that collection of singles and twist them in the opposite direction (in this case counterclockwise). So it’s a process that requires planning and experience. You spin your first bit, you set it aside, you spin your second and third, you ply them. You can’t do it all in one go. And unless this piece happens to be the work of the very first person to spin fibers, and that person was a super genius who not only invented the idea of spinning but the technique for plying, it shows that the Neanderthals were communicating technological skills amongst each other. Which I mean isn’t news in and of itself, but this is just one more piece of evidence.
FERAL FROTHING IN FIBER ARTS THIS SHIT IS SO COOL
Holy shit this is incredible! The puts textile technology at 40,000 - 50,000 years old; the earliest previous evidence we had was 20,000 - 25,000 years.
And also, like the poster above said, this is evidence of *planning*. I was going into the article thinking “hmmm, extremely cool but probably thigh-spun two ply which is a single stage process…?” but no! This is three ply cord! I guess it might be possible to do thigh-spun three ply (be bloody tricky though which would be evidence of skill in itself), but more likely this was a highly skilled multi-stage process.
Holy shit.
“Given the ongoing revelations of Neanderthal art and technology, it is difficult to see how we can regard Neanderthals as anything other than the cognitive equals of modern humans.”
avalonsilver reblogged
just look at this and try to tell me a spectral train doesn’t appear on these tracks at midnight on the night of each full moon to whisk you away to lands unknown
this is sum Ghibli shit
avalonsilver reblogged
The world's oldest story? Astronomers say global myths about 'seven sisters' stars may reach back 100,000 years https://phys.org/news/2020-12-world-oldest-story-astronomers-global.html
Holy shit, this is cool!
So many cultures call the Pleiades some variation of the "seven sisters" despite only having six visible stars. There only appear to be six because two of the stars are so close together as to appear as one.
The myths also mention one sister leaving or hiding to explain why there's only six. And based off observations and measurements, those two that are so close together used to be visibly separate. One literally has moved to hide.
And based off the similarities between the more commonly known Greek myth and the Aboriginal Australian myth, plus some other stuff, this myth could possibly even date back to when humanity still all resided in Africa!
And now I will have Blackmore’s Night playing “Fires at Midnight” in my head for several hours.
That is a long time to remember some stars.
avalonsilver reblogged
Anonymous asked:
You keep talking about the origins of AO3 as this group effort by an actual group of people who were friends and who spent time discussing this with each other in person. It's kind of blowing my mind. Is there a post or a journal somewhere that specifically keeps record of this?
--
I'm dying.
Nonnie, seriously?
No, that's mean, I know you're serious. It's just flabbergasting how much fandom has expanded and how much there isn't a direct link to the past.
Astolat and Cesperanza floated the idea at Vividcon and various places, I think, though I wasn't going to cons in that era. We were all on LJ in those days, and Astolat made a big post nailing her theses to the door. Discussion in the comments was instant and prolonged.
A LJ com was set up to discuss. It was later renamed to otw_news, but if you go all the way back to the beginning, you can see brainstorming mess instead of official news posts.
Early brainstorming: https://otw-news.livejournal.com/2007/05/
For example, here I am collecting links to older archives to look at for research when designing AO3.
Fun fact, we never intended to call it AO3. There was a whole call for name suggestions, but nothing was as evocative as astolat's original post title referencing Virginia Woolf. (For those who haven't thought about it, AO3's name is a reference to A Room of One's Own.)
But also notice how many people voted: 562.
That's how many people cared at the time: a few hundred. Maybe a thousand if you count lurkers, but frankly, that community was not as lurkery as now. It wasn't just ten friends. It was a community effort. But what "our" community looked like at the time was vastly different. It was six degrees of Kevin Bacon astolat, not a vast sea of strangers like fic fandom on AO3 is now.
Here's an early post suggesting we ban the under 18s from the site entirely. Pity we didn't do so, given the rise of antis.
Here's the invite to a fundraising party at astolat's in NYC that following Halloween. I dressed as Amanda from Highlander, not very well.
You can tell we knew each other by looking at those comments on astolat's initial post. You can also tell how discussion-based that part of fandom was back in 2007.
The way my tumblr is now with a ton of text, back and forth, and hopping around between threads of conversation, all featuring a consistent set of faces, is very much like LJ. Most of tumblr is not.
This is important info to put out there, and I constantly forget that "fandom" as it is now is nothing like the community we had then. This is a good resource for understanding what was going on with the creation of AO3 in particular, but it's also a great example of why older fans say that we miss the Livejournal era of fandom so much.
AO3 is the result of long discussions, hard work, and a dedicated community of fans. Though it isn't is a social media site (and it was never intended to be), it is the only place now that sometimes feels like how the fannish community used to be on LJ--when a good discussion gets going in the comments on a story. But AO3 is for fanfiction et al, and therefore is limited in discussion subjects.
(The ads you'll encounter if you follow those links, though? Did not exist when we were there and were one of the reasons we abandoned the site--not the most important reasons by a long shot as you'll understand if you read more about why AO3 was created, but they were a factor.)
We were a collection of communities, with some-to-significant overlap in members. Fanfiction writers were not "content creators," and people who didn't write fanfiction were not "the lucky audience who should be soooooooooooo grateful that writers deigned to gift us with their incredible talent." We knew each other. Many of us met each other IRL after meeting through fandom (once fandom shifted to the internet there was some hesitancy at first about meeting "online" friends, but that was quickly gotten over). We went to conventions together. We had lunch and dinner and parties and meet-ups IRL outside of conventions.
If you take a wander around from even just that one LJ community (click on a username to check out their personal LJ), you can see how discussions would branch off without excluding anyone the way they do on Tumblr. If you wanted to share something you saw on someone else's LJ, you just linked to it, and people followed the link to read it and join in the discussion (or just lurk). The force of Tumblr splintering is an active barrier to creating real communities.
I really miss LJ. I miss the connection I felt to my community there.
Man I feel this. I grew up when (fan) forums where a huge thing and I met some incredible people on there that I still meet IRL to this day! Discussion were public to everyone and everything was neatly archived and man I miss it. This one particular forum felt like a second home to me in my teens.
avalonsilver reblogged
I finally took the time to photograph my vintage dip pen nib collection, and I need to share with you all how wonderful and diverse their designs are.
These two are my favorite. Just look at them! One of them is named Gorille and the other Mephisto, but to me they're little pumpkins.
And of course you gotta love the Pinocchio nib. You get to write with the nose of a tiny guy! Just not something you get to do anymore.
avalonsilver reblogged
Happy Supernatural day! It's been ages since I've posted something SPN related, and I wanted to commemorate the occasion by drawing something Season 1 related! I hope you all like it!
avalonsilver reblogged
Layer by layer
May 2021
avalonsilver reblogged
Taisiia Onofriichuk from Ukraine performs her hoop routine to the sound of "Thriller" by Michael Jackson at the 2024 Paris Olympics Rhythmic Gymnastics Individual Qualifiers
This isn't. Physically possible. The hoop throws.
People sleep on rhythmic gymnastics waaaay too much tbh, these gymnasts are wizards
Like, have you seen them with the ribbon?
She could explain string theory to me
Or the ball?
And when you get two of ‘em or more on the mats at once??
Rhythmic gymnastics is always a bop
avalonsilver reblogged
that is pretty cool though
avalonsilver reblogged
Guys I need you all to watch this pan out of the women's 4x400 right now.
avalonsilver reblogged
stunningpicture
idreaminwords
That is the opening of a portal to another dimension and you cannot tell me otherwise
bepsiboy
really cos um. im pretty sure thats a lightning guy riding a lightning horse???
two million notes?????????
avalonsilver reblogged
when swimming’s so easy you start doing bonus quests now
avalonsilver reblogged
I wanted to share video or gifs of the Speed Climbing record getting broken twice by the same woman today in qualifying, but trashy nbc doesn't allow embedding, so I'm gonna post the yt link and a couple news links and hope for the best.
Aleksandra Miroslaw (Poland) scaled a 15-meter wall in 6.06 seconds: https://youtu.be/HEBxTA5KtnY?feature=shared
avalonsilver reblogged
🇺🇸 Sam Watson's world record in speed climbing during the Olympics' qualifier this morning
avalonsilver reblogged
17-year-old Kaylia Nemour of Algeria wins gold in the uneven bars final at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She becomes the first-ever athlete to win an Olympic medal in gymnastics for the entire continent of Africa.