watching stars ✨
watching a video about this cargo ship that blew up in texas in the 40’s and it’s like . i know that with a lot of incidents especially older ones like this the reason that the safety standards were so shitty was because they literally did not know that these kinds of disasters COULD happen (and in many cases these disasters are what MADE the safety standards better) but sometimes you just learn about this shit and you think. how could all these people be so stupid
- cargo of the ship consisted of twine (flammable) peanuts (flammable, oily) and cotton (FLAMMABLE) from houston and POST WAR AMMUNITION (OH MY GOD) FROM CUBA
- additional cargo they were picking up in texas city was LOOSE BAGS OF AMMONIUM NITRATE that the dock workers described as being ANOMALOUSLY WARM UPON BEING LOADED INTO THE SHIP ??????
- small fire breaks out in cargo hold, instead of putting it out with water that could damage the cargo the captain decides to close all the hatches to try to make the cargo hold airtight and smother the fire (stupid but you can kind of understand how they got there)
- the heat of the trapped smoke in the cargo hold instead causes the aforementioned LOOSE BAGS OF AMMONIUM NITRATE to undergo a chemical reaction and turn into nitrous oxide, massively increasing the pressure inside of the airtight hold
- one of the hatch covers fails
- mfw all the pressure in the cargo hold is released at once causing an explosion that fucking levels everything in the port within 2000 feet
- mfw the shockwave shatters windows up to a hundred miles away
- mfw on-fire twine and peanuts and fucking grenades are raining down over texas city
- mfw some of the pieces of the ship got launched into the sky faster than the speed of sound
- mfw they found the ship’s anchor inside of a ten foot wide crater over a mile and a half away
- mfw this was one of the largest and most devastating non-nuclear explosions in world history
- mfw this could have been avoided if they’d just taken the L and put the fire out with water
also worth a mention: the SECOND boat that exploded in a very similar manner the next day which was an even more violent explosion, but less devastating because most of the port was. you know. already leveled and evacuated
someone running rescue and recovery after the FIRST boat exploded noticed that the second boat's cargo was on fire and reported it....and this just went. ignored. for several hours. until someone was like "oh shit better get this under control" and tried to move the boat to no avail and they just gave up and evacuated
next day it started raining glowing-hot metal boat chunks all over the city. AGAIN.
Today's problematic ships are the Grandcamp (first explosion) and High Flyer (second explosion).
some simple MS Paint doodles i made inbetween my reading of Watership Down, i am enjoying these funny rabbits very much :-)
Hmm? I look sleepy? No, I am sleepy– I’ve missed two naps already since dawn.
KING CERBERUS
The so-called king of the Cerberus clan wasn’t just whistling Dixie, let me tell ya. This arm changes shape, releasing fire, ice, even lightning as it tears through everything in its path.
now thats what i call a fucking car
HUSTLER 6' WOODEN
The futuristic ‘Hustler’ series of cars were designed and built by William Towns between 1979 and 1989. Usually based on the Mini, they featured sharp-edged, angular bodywork in the 70s industrial-design idiom, including sliding glass doors. The ‘Wooden’ used a unique marine-ply monococque chassis in place of the usual fibreglass, and as one of the 80 built that hasn’t succumbed to woodworm, it’s very rare today.
Here's a few photos of other ones I've found:
I can't stop imagining the sound it would make if two of these collided
I think an important instinct you have to build up when you read/watch sci-fi is discerning which things are givens. If Arrival tells you that the alien language is atemporal, it is, that's not a puzzle for you to pick apart, it's a prerequisite to getting the rest of the story. When I talk sci-fi with people who don't consume a lot of it this seems to be a thing they get hung up on.
“But why—“ because it make story go. “But I don’t understand what—“ because that’s how the society works. I told you the important parts, the parts that are relevant to the story. I’m not interested in writing a 200-page speculative history Re the entire course of galactic civilization to explain why it’s rude at dinner time to eat before the ambassador eats. “But I don’t understand how (whatever) works—“ it works because it’s science fiction and that’s how it works. The propulsion systems work because the story requires interstellar travel.
I am more interested in the people and the events and the weird ideas. The weird ideas are just weird ideas, this made up fiction story isn’t a thesis statement predicting why cockroaches will be skilled surgeons 10,000 years in the future.
I think this is really important for writers, too. I know I get hung up on worldbuilding details and it's good to have a reminder that I don't need to reinvent DNA just for an alien to have green skin.
boost pad to make you scroll faster
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notajerusalemcricketd-deactivat
That's pointing to the left
Nicknames: when you shorten someone’s name affectionately
Nicholasnames: when you elongate someone’s name affectionately
Nichard names: when you incorrectly elongate someone's name for humorous effect.
going through Google Books looking for pocket-related sources and I found something interesting in an 1875 issue of the magazine “The Spirit of ‘seventy-six”
it’s a letter to the editor, written by someone who signs herself “A Revolutionary Young Person” but later makes it clear that she’s a woman. and she is incensed about These Disgraceful Pockets Nowadays
she went through a man’s everyday outfit, based on general observations, and counted up a total of 25 pockets between all the different articles of clothing. this, to her, seems a gross unfairness compared to “these little shallow things, with the opening level with [one’s] bottom or a little lower, of which they sometimes allow us one in a dress…” she’s also transported with delight at the earlier, separate pockets she’s seen on display at American centennial fairs
based on my own study of extant garments, the “modern” pockets she’s talking about are often around 9 inches by 11 inches
so there might be a bit of an answer to the question of “why was there an association between women’s rights and women’s pockets in a time period when, by our standards, they were quite lavishly pocketed indeed?”
some of them were comparing their pockets to a truly excessive number in men’s outfits, and to the size of 18th-century examples. getting just as frustrated as we are today at our pocketless pants, fake pockets, and tiny pockets barely big enough for half a hand
“As to living another hundred years in this way, it isn’t to be thought of.” oh honey. I have some good news and some bad news…
1875 men’s fashion apparently
I have to quote this because the young lady was so Unhinged about pockets that I wish to go back in time and propose Boston Marriage
Look at a man. He’s just a mass of pockets. See his Ulster overcoat. Two pockets in the breast, to put his dear hands in when they are cold. Two pockets in the skirt [long hanging portion of the coat] to put his hands when he doesn’t know what to do with them, and what man ever does? One pocket just under the belt. Small change for [street]car-fare, is what he says that is for. One side pocket higher up on the breast, for his pocket handkerchief. Well, we don’t object to that. One pocket in the cuff. Heaven knows what that is for. All this on the outside.
Now just unbutton his coat and there, as I’m a living woman, three more pockets inside. Probably under his Ulster he has another light overcoat, many of these tender creatures do, but in that you will not find more than five pockets, so let that go. Then there is his [suit jacket]. Skirts, two pockets; breast, two pockets; another small pocket for change. Oh! if they only had money in any proportion to the pockets they have to keep it in, wouldn’t they be better worth having than most of them are now? Which? No matter which, the men or the pockets, which ever you please, or both together, for we have to take them that way if at all.
Then at least four more pockets in the vest. Then as to [trousers], I found a pair the other day without a man in them, and just counted the pockets myself. Let me see; there were two, where they always put their hands when they have no overcoats on. There was one, said to be a watch pocket, but this is on historical or traditional evidence entirely. No man has carried a watch there since- well, I’m sure I don’t know when- certainly not since the war with Mexico [1846-48]. Then, last of all, a pocket on the hip slanting backward. A girl who has brothers says they call this a pistol pocket…
Now, let me see. There is the Ulster, seven. The overcoat, five. The [suit jacket], five. The vest, four. The trousers, four- total, twenty-five pockets, to say nothing of others which I don’t know about and don’t care to.
Why do women carry things in their hands? humph! Why do women lose their purses? Why do women stuff things in their muffs? These are the questions which men with their twenty-five pockets are forever asking. Why don’t you keep a cash account [written log of money spent]? Why don’t you have a diary [planner]? What do you always want to borrow a knife for? Where’s that pencil I lent you?…What do you want a bag for? Think of their impudence, with all their twenty-five pockets, to ask such questions as these.
is her count correct, or typical of the period? I have no idea. is her energy IMMACULATE? Y E S
It infuriated me how you just exited our lives. I lost...all sense of purpose..
Requested by:Anonymous
Would you slap Malak’s bald head?
Reblog to slap his bald head.