ungoliantschilde reblogged
some Black and White photography that I enjoy.
A rotting, decaying, bloated sperm whale on a beach was gutted by a biologist in the process of disposing of the dead animal. It’s a thing that has to happen. So, here’s a video of a dead sperm whale’s entrails violently exploding from the gaseous pressure.
Why? Because it was in my YouTube feed. And now it’s on your scroll. *forehead kiss*
ungoliantschilde reblogged
renaissance in the 21st century
some more
the WHAT??
okay, found her
some more good replies from the notes
📸📷📸📷📸
ungoliantschilde reblogged
Anonymous asked:
hey. Different anon, but that was interesting about opioid use. I never thought of it as something could cause depression.
Opioid usage can cause depression... not always, of course. ...but the thing with addictive drugs is that the initial hit is to get high and all subsequent usages are often about trying to get rid of how awful coming down feels.
I smoked cigarettes for a time. When I was younger, smoking would offer up a buzz and it felt good and that was fine. But pretty soon the only reason why I wanted a cigarette was not because I enjoyed them but rather that I just wanted relief from the 'jones' of addiction withdrawal.
That’s the trap of addiction.
Imagine your emotional state as a pendulum. Like the thing that hangs down in a grandfather clock. One side is the positive emotions. The other side is the negative. The implication is that in order to feel super happy, you also need to risk feeling super sad.
Depression is not the opposite of happiness. Depression is NUMBNESS. That’s very important, so remember it.
Your pendulum will swing between positive and negative emotions, and you have very little control over when that happens. Happiness comes from feelings of self satisfaction. Finishing a project. Accomplishing a goal. Exercise is usually cited as a good source of happiness. Sadness is an involuntary reaction to life events beyond your control. No matter how much you exercise, there will still be things that happen that make you feel sad.
Depression is when your pendulum doesn’t swing. Period. It stays in the neutral, numb position. Nothing is interesting. And THAT is the agony. All the things you used to like to do are no longer interesting or even worthwhile. That’s why people that are depressed are encouraged to exercise more. Because it will move the pendulum.
Now. The main topic: substance abuse and subsequent addiction.
The promise of drugs (of all forms) is simple. They offer a measure of control over your emotional state. The problem is that repeated use makes your emotional state dependent upon the outside stimulus. And then you get mad at yourself for being dependent upon something to feel happy. And then you use more of the drug so that you don’t feel so bad about using the drug in the first place. And that’s where the pendulum and depression comes into play. The substance is an attempt to make the pendulum only swing towards the positive side. But without the substance, you’re numb.
I used to smoke pot like a fucking chimney. It’s fantastic. Should totally be legal. If booze is legal, pot should be too. The problem is, like booze, I found after a while that I used to enjoy being a bit stoned while watching a movie. One day I woke up and realized I didn’t like watching any movies unless I was stoned.
Ozzy Osbourne said it took him forever to realize that he didn’t need Cocaine as a pick me up after he drank too much. He just didn’t need to drink too much.
a pod of Sperm Whales sleeping.
the Killdeer is a rather commonly seen bird in North America. people that live in more populated areas might not see them as often, and I wanted to share a video I took yesterday while mowing.
When nesting, Killdeer mothers will protect their eggs by first trying to scare off potential predators. They will make themselves look larger, and advance slowly towards the perceived threat. If that does not work, the mother Killdeer will then drag a wing on the ground and walk away from the eggs. They pretend to be injured and in distress to lead predators away from their nests.
These are her eggs - I made sure that they were undisturbed.
This is the Momma Bird, pretending to be in distress:
If you noticed, the nest was created on the side of a gravel road. And the eggs themselves blend in with the gravel quite well. When the babies hatch, they will be able to run around and fly within a day or two.
These birds are an absolutely fascinating example of evolved survival instincts. And the opportunity I got to film some of that behavior yesterday afternoon was just too good to pass up.
I am sorry if the video is at times a little shaky, and I lose track of her movements at times as well. The birds are rather quick in general - they constantly scurry across the gravel and the lawn.
Anyways, this is just a small snippet of the stuff I see almost every day in what I do for a living. I know it’s a bit of a departure from my usual offering of comic booky goodness, but I figured at least a couple of you guys would appreciate it.
ungoliantschilde reblogged
some truths from George Carlin.
I hope that later generations read Carlin’s monologues as part of college courses. That’s what he was. He was a philosopher and a cultural critic that had a deep and abiding love for his fellow man, but it was tempered by disappointment in our achievements. Carlin saw the funny side of what we do as people, and he would deliver these brilliant oratory performances - a new one every year too - and they were his thoughts and observations on us as a society. He wasn’t a comedian. He was more. He was a philosopher and a student of human nature. His standup specials were written out in full before he performed, by the way. He memorized his entire set - word for word - before performing it. Because he was a MASTER of oration. But if you take a look at what he was saying and read it as text, he was absolutely right to be hostile and yelling about the things he saw that could be better.
new images from the Hubble Deep Field were released by NASA.
ungoliantschilde reblogged
I am reminded of a story about two people walking down a beach that was littered with starfish. the tide had brought the starfish ashore and left them stranded. one of the two people started to pick up the starfish and place them back in the water. the other person asked, ‘why are you doing that? there are too many. we cannot possibly hope to make a difference.’
the person that was picking up the starfish did not break their stride, they simply continued to pick up the starfish and put them back in the water and answered, 'that is true, I cannot save all of them. but, it will certainly make a big difference to the ones that I am able to help.’
ungoliantschilde reblogged
from Parks and Rec.
ungoliantschilde reblogged
the Fibonacci Sequence is a ratio of increase. It is a mathematical concept that is (effectively) the growth rate of life.
Here are the first 11 steps of the sequence:
0, 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, etc.
Each successive number is the sum of the two previous.
This is a pattern that repeats itself over and over and over in nature. It is found in the measurements of the human body, in the growth rate of plants, in the population growth studies of animals, and in the spiral pattern of a sea shell.
It is that math equation from the Da Vinci Code, but that is not where it comes from. It was first written down in texts dating back several thousand years BCE.
During the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci drew the Vitruvian man in accordance with “the golden ratio”. Da Vinci and his peers were renowned for their rediscovery of supposedly lost knowledge. That is why it was called the “REnaissance” it was the rediscovery of the paths to enlightenment.
An example of the Golden Ratio is that the average across humanity is that the distance between your ears to your nose is greater than the distance between your nose and your upper lip. The measured difference is greater by a ratio that conforms to the Fibonacci Sequence. If you go out and measure it, it might not be exact, but it is close. Michaelangelo’s David is proportionately perfect because it conforms to the Fibonacci Sequence. Michaelangelo knew the math, and he used it carve the perfect man.
Now, set that aside for a minute and bear with me. The Human Body is mostly water. About 60-70%, I think. We live and die by the presence of fluid in our bodies. You can go without food for more than a week. But If you do not drink water for more than a few days, you will die of dehydration.
Earth is mostly water. About 60-70%.
To protect that fluid in your body, you have certain types of cells that prey on weaker, damaged cells. They repair dead tissue by removing it.
Antibodies are the Sharks of the Human Body.
Extrapolated out from that statement, it can be inferred that this means that Sharks are the Antibodies of the Ocean. Which, if you think about it, is kind of true. Granted, Sharks are predators that attack what they can to feed, whereas Antibodies are medics for the human body. The reality is, antibodies aggressively attack any foreign or decaying organism or cell structure. It is why AIDs is dangerous: it attacks your immune system, and then your immune system aggressively propagates virus to the rest of your body by responding to every threat it normally does.
Imagine what the ocean would be like without sharks, killer whales, or any other predatory organism. When fish died, they would rot. Overtime, the ocean would be overrun with the things that sharks and predators usually eat. Those organisms would eventually become an invasive presence that would cause a lot of problems in the ecosystem.
Google the Chinese Carp in the Mississippi River videos. Someone introduced them into the river, and they have effectively devoured everything that could eat them. I watched a documentary that showed two guys in a Boston Whaler, going down the river while it is quite literally raining Chinese Carp.
The point I am making is that there is a repeating pattern.
ungoliantschilde reblogged
Throwback Thursday
Well, this is fun.
I haven’t experienced severe depression in years. I live with fairly mild depression that’s generally pretty easy to manage (and sometimes clears up altogether!), but nothing like the desolate quagmire of hopelessness and self-loathing which was where I lived from about 1992-1999, and then again from 2009-2010.
I woke up today and my brain was like, “Hey, remember this? Remember how fucking awesome this shit was?” It then proceeds to treat me to an oldie-but-goodie I like to call Why Sean Gilroy Is a Useless Piece of Shit Who Deserves Nothing But Misery. It’s like an interminable PowerPoint presentation in which all of my faults are neatly catalogued and all of my failures are chronicled in excruciating detail. All of the things I can’t do right and all of the goals I’ll never accomplish. A relentless barrage of brutal, merciless self-criticism, playing on an endless loop in my head.
I remembered that I used to feel this way, but I had almost forgotten how it actually felt. It’s like my brain is reminding me who’s boss. “Just because I don’t do this to you all the fucking time anymore doesn’t mean I can’t do it again. I can flip that switch whenever I want, and don’t you fucking forget it.”
That motherfucker.
Bruce Springsteen wrote in his most recent book about how he has struggled with depression his whole life. Something he said in it really resonated with me: when you have depression, it is like you are on a car trip with all of the different versions of “You” that exist within your head. Depression is one of those people, and sometimes depression is at the wheel of the car.
When depression is NOT driving the car, it just goes and sits in the back seat. It does NOT get out of the car. The car does not stop somewhere and leave Depression at a bus stop or something. It is always in the car.
Always remember that you the car owner get to decide who is driving. It does not always seem like that, but it is always a choice.
For the record, I like Sean Gilroy quite a bit. He is a good dude.
ungoliantschilde reblogged
Vintage Club Chair Manufactured from rustic aluminium and quality vintage leather, art deco cocktail chair
They sell these at a Restoration Hardware. Ridiculously expensive, and not all that comfortable. However, they look cool as hell from just about any angle.
IMHO, if you are gonna drop 7k on an arm chair, get an Eames.
cutaholeinthebox
This dudes has quite the opinions on chairse
Your home is your sanctuary from the rest of the world. And you can choose how that sanctuary looks and feels. I choose to live my life surrounded by artwork, and I have learned to recognize craftsmanship and quality in the things around me, because doing so has enriched my life.
ungoliantschilde reblogged
Pussies are biologically designed to receive regular poundings and stretch to birth an entire miniature human; one kick to the testicles can destroy a guy. Yet for some reason, we associate “pussy” with weakness and having “balls” with strength.