Weapon of Mass Distraction

I know it's unfair vilification and stuff but it's also a lot of fun to see old media and stuff where people were SO scared of big animals like lions, sharks, crocodiles and wolves were fully expected to just come and eat you the moment you stepped into their territory. In older media we also made that assumption about gorillas and in still older we thought it'd be whales. But some animals that will actually fuck you up got left behind. Boars will kill you and eat you. They're way more likely to do so than any of those other things actually. Hippos, obviously, got off like bandits always being depicted as cute and dopey. And then there's the squids. Not giant kraken size squids. The eight foot squids that hunt in packs and will fuck you up if you fall in the water at night. I can't BELIEVE people slept on that. It's like all they cared about were the huge deep sea ones we never see. The medium size wolf pack squids were right there.

Oh some of you don't know about the squids. I talked about them in another thread that went kinda viral somewhere or other but one of the reasons you should not swim in the open ocean at night in many parts of the world is that the water starts teeming with these:

And as you can see it is not like instant death, they too are just animals and they are often just gently curious about the presence of humans! But people who study and dive with sharks will tell you you're safe as long as you stay calm and know what you're doing. The world's leading professional night divers and experts on these squids, specifically??? Stress in every interview and article and paper they write in that you simply do not fuck around with these squids. They know what they're doing and they still all have at least one story of being attacked, in some cases having to be hospitalized. Considering just how rarely anybody puts themselves in the pitch dark nighttime ocean on purpose, let alone during a squid feeding frenzy, it sounds like they're quite a bit more likely to consider you potential food than other marine predators. We also don't know how many fatal attacks might have ever happened, because what humboldt squid like to do with large prey is just drag it away into the darkness forever. The two worst attacks ever proven involved two or three squid at a time latching on to a diver (in BOTH cases they were professionals and knew the risk!) and jetting straight downward with enough force that both divers suffered injury from the sudden pressure change alone, including burst eardrums, nearly passed out and they probably would have died if they hadn't broken free. In general, people who die drowning in the dark open ocean are either never found, or they're found in pieces picked over by enough scavengers that the precise cause of death can only be narrowed down to "the sea." But now you know ONE of "the sea's" possible murder weapons :)

There's a short section on Humboldt squid in Wikipedia's entry for Cephalopod attacks on humans:

And if you can get past some of Animal Planet's hokey presentation style, this video includes a bit of interview with one of those professional experts who still got nearly squidded from existence:

There is of course some debate about all this, with some arguing that all proven documented attacks occurred on people with reflective diving equipment, which they say the squid must have mistaken for the shine of fish. However, there are lots and lots of people who have to fish around these squids to survive, who do not have access to that kind of equipment, and also have a consensus that if you fall in the water when big squids are out hunting you might disappear without a trace or perhaps just get your head bitten open. With many modern science guys agreeing with this sentiment, this is one case where the "they're just misunderstood sea friends" crowd is kind of outnumbered. The sea at night is theirs and not ours is all. It's not ours during the day either but since we are neither marine nor nocturnal animals we are double fools in the eyes of the squids, which by the way are these eyes:

No for real:

Absolutely! Also, the Humboldt squid will hunt in packs, sometimes with one flashing brightly to draw attention while the others approach in near unseeable camoflage!

Beautiful footage of the nefarious sea demons also :)

Also because I can't reblog every addition together:

Okay where's the other 1199

how come in every disco Elysium post I see, the mustache one is being a massive cringe fail loser (usually face first on the floor), while the bald one is off to the side serving metric tons of cunt

mi dispiace ma "radical leftist Robert Habeck"? das ist gleichzeitig das lustigste und tragischste, das ich heute gelesen habe.

abgesehen davon, dass die bourgeoisie die mittelschicht sei:

wir leben in einer simulation. anders kann ich mir das nicht mehr erklären.

I was wondering if people on tumblr preferred gifs to videos. Many people told me that the sound was missing (and because I'm proud of my owl dubbing). I repost the video version here

okay unrelated but what was the funniest red flag in ur worst relationship

the whiplash of these notes

Reading the notes like

I feel so sorry for all of you. How are people out here being like this

Okay but the fact that Lieutenant Edward Little's mutton chops are basically a barometer of his mental state, especially in the second half of the show, is infinitely amusing to me.

if james fitzjames from hit tv series The Terror (2018) and robert pattinson's character from hit film The Lighthouse (2019) swapped places jfj and willem dafoe's character would have had such a lovely time telling each other their long ass boring stories and probably would have fallen in love or something while robert pattinson's character would have cannibalized sir john within the first week onboard erebus.

Black Sicklebill Bird of Paradise (Epimachus fastosus)

Dinosaurs got WEIRD with it in the holocene.

indecipherable text lost to time

thank you for explaining because ever since I first saw this post, the phrase "nurning annintant" has been burning a hole through the back of my skull

I also came up with "nurning annintant" and am fully crying laughing about it

you ever have “cry and scream yourself awake” level nightmares that are immediately the stupidest premises imaginable the moment you actually wake up

The last time I wailed “help, please, help me, heeelp” loud enough to have the whole house come running, it was because I was having a nightmare that I was in my laundry room, and out of the corner of my eye I witnessed a Snoopy stuffed animal slowly rise up on two legs, as if being manipulated by a ghost or perhaps made animate by a possessing spirit, and slowly start to dance the Macarena.

I can’t stop thinking about this

Eeeeeey macarena

Eres un hombre bueno, Carlos Moreno

'Wie kann ich andeuten dass die verschiedenen Sachen die ich aufzähle sich gegenseitig ausschließen, ohne das Wort 'oder' zu verwenden'

Der bescheidene Schrägstrich:

Der bescheidene Schrägstrich ist mein neuer Lieblingscharakter

From here. If you think arachnids with long legs are just scary please watch this solifugid dig her nest (or try to) like SUCH a goofy little person creature. Look how she shoves dirt with her mouth and then gives it a little pat. Is she even making any progress?!

HELLLLLL YEAH!!!!!!!

they have merch now. a sweater that says 'in der oper gewesen, gekotzt' which means 'went to the opera, barfed'.

Ever since the MH Wilds beta ended I've been sketching Rey Dau heads and faces. These are the ones I'm most happy with.

joppy birthday mr hopson