Michał Mroczka (b.1984) - Pillow for the Sleeper. 2022. Acrylic on canvas.
Decoration zu der Oper : Die Zauberflöte.
Art by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.(1781-1841).
Defeat of House Harkonnen
Eye dress from the film Dolly Sisters (1945) with costumes designed by Orry Kelly
I truly hate the word "unalive." There are so many other euphemisms that fictional Italian mobsters worked so hard to provide you with and you just ignore them.
beautiful compilation from @orc-sign-language
"Joined the great majority" is a good one that I practically never hear.
"Approaching room temperature" is a personal favorite from the medical field.
Macro photography of Slime Mold. Barry Webb.
the war on Saturnalia
Today at the taberna I said “Io Saturnalia!” to the cashier. She said “Merry Christmas, sir” back to me. I smiled and said “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. Emperor Julian has given us Saturnalia back.” She started crying tears of joy and said “Io Saturnalia” and then everyone in the taberna clapped.
does a-yao is gay
Anon-gongzi this line of inquiry is MOST indecorous!!!! Surely you don't expect your humble sect leader to have ANY interest in spreading such SALACIOUS gossip regarding the personal affairs of the gentry!!!
why, what have you heard?
remembering the scene in arrival when our linguist protagonist talks about how language is what separates humans from animals. and then a scientist she's talking to says hmm personally I think it's science that separates humans from animals. and I really wanted that scene to just keep going with experts from more fields weighing in on how their field of study is the most fundamental thing about humanity. just showing all their perspectives
linguist: language is what separates humans from animals
physicist: i think it's science which separates humans from animals
linguist: but lots of people don't do science. and anyway, how would people publish their research without language? language is a necessary precursor to science
physicist: i don't mean the specific ways that we do formal science and research, i mean more like how humans analyze their environment to learn, rather than relying on instinct
zoologist: well lots of animals are capable of curiosity and learning. some species are even known to make and use tools. and as for language, while no animal aside from humans has been known to be capable of the narrow linguistic definition of 'language', many of them are capable of quite advanced forms of communication, and really, it's pretty unfair to say that the communication methods that other animals use are 'lesser' just because they don't fit the human standard. if you tried to teach a human to use bee communication, they would probably struggle as well. in the end, i don't think that humans should be considered separate from animals
linguist: you make some interesting points, but i still think that human language is superior for communication compared to other forms of animal communication because human languages allow for infinite regresses of embedded metalanguages, which makes it possible to talk about any aspect of consensus reality, at least theoretically
physicist: your comparison with other animals lacks nuance. sure, there are animals aside from humans who are capable of reasoning and tool use, but humans are far cleverer and can create for more advanced tools than any other animal-
linguist (under her breath): because language allowed humans to pass on increasingly complicated information for how to create increasingly complex tools
physicist: -if you could show me an animal that was capable of advanced metallurgy or something of that ilk, then maybe i can believe that they're not so different from humans, but i don't think there is anything like that native to earth
zoologist: you're both biased because you're humans, and you want to have a rational reason to justify your instinctual feeling of kinship with other humans over other, non-human animals. yes, humans do have particularly good reasoning, tool use, and communication abilities, but even if humans are especially good at them, they're still all things that other animals do in a more general sense, so i still don't think that they should be sufficient for considering humans as separate from the rest of the animal kingdom
theologian: you're all talking around each other here. you all have different standards for what is and is not significant, so even if you can agree on the facts, you will never agree on the conclusions. but there is one thing that sets humans apart that none of you have considered: humans are separate because humans --unlike animals-- were given a higher purpose by god
physicist: wait, why did they bring a theologian on our mission to try to communicate with aliens? no offense, but i don't see how your field of knowledge will be relevant at all
gastronome: the answer is cooking, by the way. we're the only species that prepares our food
zoologist: we are certainly not the only species that prepares our food. famously, a certain group of macaque monkeys have been observed to clean their food and season it with saltwater. as for more cooking-like preparations, big headed ants marinate their food in the spit of their larvae to make it easier to digest. it's not exactly the same method, but it has a similar result of making the food quicker to eat and easier to digest. cooking in particular as a method of preparing food is unique to humans for now, but i have little doubt that you could teach a macaque how to make fire and they would be inventing new culinary traditions within a generation
gastronome: fine, other animals prepare their food, but cooking still makes us special. preparing food by cleaning is it so much more basic, and monkeys being capable of learning to cook is just speculation. and that whole thing with ants is specifically because ant's waists are too small for large bits of food to pass through; it's resulting from a completely different type of evolutionary pressure
zoologist: we don't really know the evolution of ant digestive tracts that well, and it's best not to assume that they started using larvae spit because they had narrow waists; maybe they were able to evolve narrow waists because they could rely on larvae spit. after all, humans would have a difficult time eating raw meat with how our teeth and jaws currently are, but we're pretty certain that we only became like that after we started cooking
linguist: cooking may be somewhat unique as a form of food preparation, but language is unique as a form of communication, and i still feel that language is the more important thing to our identity as a species and our moral considerations. if an animal started cooking, they would be a curiosity, but if an animal started talking, we would have to accept them as an equal
physicist: cooking is only possible because of fire, which i would argue is just another example of technology borne of humanity's unique ingenuity.
gastronome: cooking was pivotal in human evolution though: it allowed people to extract more energy from their food, and coincided with increased brain size. the language and ingenuity which humans demonstrate is only possible because of cooking
major league baseball pitcher: ya know, i've never seen an animal pitch a fastball
[all look to zoologist]
zoologist: yeah, no, you're right. throwing is pretty unique to humans. no other animal specializes in it
physicist: oh come on! after all this, you can't seriously be saying that throwing is what sets humans apart from animals!
baseball heritage post
Little wren, far from home
sometimes it's not even enemies to lovers. sometimes you get handed the leash of a snarling, barking dog against your will and realize with dawning horror that you are now responsible for teaching it not to bite
every time i ask people if they do any new years resolutions its all ooooo i dont like making them bc i fail or ohhhhh no i couldnt keep up wiht that and then when they ask me and i tell them about Pasta Quest (i am eating as many different pasta shapes as possible in the space of a year) or when i did Fruit Adventures (every time i saw a fruit i had never eaten before id get one and eat it and read the wikipedia article about it) theyre like hang on i forgot you can make Fun Ones i want a fun one
while i actually made this post back in May, since New Year’s is approaching here’s some of my fave suggestions from the tags if you’re looking for inspiration!
other favorites from the notes I didn’t get screenshots of at the time:
- learn the names/species of local plants, bugs, and birds where you live (iNaturalist or Merlin the bird app help with this)
- learn the rules to 10 new card games
- steal the colored paint cards from hardware store paint aisles and use them to make art
- try out every different apple variety you can find and rank them
- similarly LOTS of people in the notes doing soup quests, and a few cheese quests also
- similarly lots of people reading/watching certain amounts of media over the year, and tracking/rating it
- track the number of cats/dogs/etc you see over the year
there’s plenty more in there too :)
this year I’m gonna grow things from SEED
Specifically tomatoes and maybe melons
[ID: There are Tumblr tags interspersed through the post. They read
- biigmiikey: coulle years ago my roommate besties new years res was to be cozier, she got a new bed and rearranged her room and i was like damn that is a great resolution
- emmagoldmanfanclub: last year i did sneeze count., i sneezed 1072 times in 2022
- digitalcockroach: fr mine for next year is gonna be to read the wikipedia for every currently existing country in alphabetical order
- cephalopodink: i do eat more pickles every single year. never regretted it. love eating pickled things., rabble babble, queuettlefish
- abysswarlock: only time I did something like this was a resolution to look at clouds and try to see pictures in them at least once a day
- prosocialbehavior: last year mine was to unsubscribe from all marketing emails, maybe this year ill do a fun one
- t4ttragedy: one year mine was just that every time i felt the impulse to compliment someone i would actually do it, and that was like 3 years ago and i just kind of kept doing that
- eevee-williams: my 2018 one was so fun, i learned to make all the classic cocktails, i don’t do it a lot any more but i still do it sometimes, today i got home from work like ‘you know what would fix me? tequila sunrise’, and brother i was so right about that. it’s fixing me
- beatnikfreakiswriting: yeah! the year i turned 21 i made my new year’s resolution ‘wear more red’. It was fun, i wore way more red. i like red., year after i did ‘wear more green’ and you know what? I did that!, i now wear both red and green frequently.
- akinari-kashihara: Mine was to enter every free giveaway I could nothing btw, I’ve won nothing btw
- attractivegkry: I’m going to spend more time in my hammock, once I’m done with school I’m going to visit people and LOOK AT BIRDS when I’m there
- blueberrytruth: saw someone on tt whose resolution was to see every artwork from acnh in person, which is a very cool resolution if you have the means to travel
- anawkwardblue: I think I’m gonna try weaving!, and making fairy houses for the woods
- heylabodega: One year mine was to cook with more butter and the next it was to wink more.
- moonspren: one year i asked for book recommendations on Facebook and read every single one, it was interesting but i recommend only doing this with people you trust, i read some shit books that year
- hrududil: this year my goal was: 30 cat selfies (with different cats), and also: every time i get boba i get a diff flavour :)
- kavat: this year my resolution was to wear more silly little outfits and i think im doing well
- khezhatkhaleesi: a couple years ago my reso was to be slightly less of a lil bitch about eating chilli and i did it!!!, got a chilli in my dinner the other week that would have ruined my night in the past but i just barely even blinked
- cikero: my most successful one was be nice to bugs, and I still do it :)
- bastardclownbaby: yes!!, i am doing Wear All Of My Clothes which is not only fun but useful in helping me figure out what to actually get rid of
- yu3s: txt, my new years resolution this year (last year?) was cat journal where i wrote a journal as a cat going on an adventure and saved cat photos, and every cat my friends sent to me or tagged me in i put in the adventure also! like as an apothecary owner cat or a baker cat etc!, got busy and stopped doing it but cat journal will be my resolution next year >:3c protagonist is wizard cat and it will explore the world!
- nopeferatu: my new years resolution is to suck and fuck, just kidding i dont really want that, my new years resolution is to make myself like avocados :)
/end ID]
Marcus Larson (Swedish, 1825–1864), "Stormy Sea" (details), 1857