a roulette wheel of bitchin’ hyperfixations

I just saw something that looks very mundane but is extremely rare and incredible. Details later, gotta drive home.

OKAY SO

The plan was to go there friday, but as you recall, I got lost in the forest looking for cool rocks and there just wasn’t time. So I took the detour on my way back.

Here is the setting. We are at the bottom of a disused quarry. We took an hour detour and walked here for a little while and maybe you don’t really know why I’m excited yet.

At first, unless you’re a geology geek (I am not, btw), you might just be thinking, ah, rocks.

But what if we move closer?

Okay, big slab of rock. Some cracks and pockets in it. And?

Come even closer.

What’s the big deal? It’s just a rock with some marks in it. It looks so boring and ordinary and why did I even drag you to this quarry and am making you look at boring rocks?

Because. COME CLOSER.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT?

TOUCH THE LITTLE ROUND MARKS IN THE ROCK. PUT YOUR HAND OVER THEM AND FEEL THE RUSH OF HISTORY.

I AM SORRY TO BE YELLING BUT I AM VERY EXCITED.

YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE FOSSILISED FOOTPRINTS OF…

OUR ANCESTOR!

OKAY OKAY I had to add the meme for effect BUT this wouldn’t be the one in the picture, who is still a fish with fins. The tracks belong to a creature with four legs : A TETRAPOD!

Who may have looked and walked like this:

YES!!!!!These little pocks in the rock are footprints that show the path of a tetrapod crawling out of the sea, and they are approximately 495 million years old!!!

Why did the tetrapod come out of the water? Well, apparently there were invertebrates to feed on, and they left marks too:

So that was the coolest thing I saw this year for sure :D

Is it verified that it's authentic? Because if so that is incredible

Oh, yeah!!! I can't believe that after all that I didn't include any links to the info about it???

The tracks I saw are in Zachełmie in Poland :

and are a fairly recent discovery from 2010 so scientists are still arguing about what they mean for evolution history, but they ARE real.

I didn't find these myself, there are helpful signposts in the area that just say 'TETRAPOD', but you have to be curious or know what you're after to find the place.

here’s the thing about adulthood-

you will go for like three months with nothing happening and you’re bored as hell and then in the span of two weeks eight different things happen at once - some fantastic and some shitty and some just plain bonkers - and you’re just running around like a chicken with your head cut off and no clue what the fuck is going on

I saw an opportunity and I took it

This is what they mean when they say life flashes before your eyes as you die

For those wondering, the song is ”Mr. Blue Sky” by ELO.

Perhaps someone beat me to it, but here are ALL of the featured vines, in order of appearance:

I HOPE IT’S HELPFUL TO SOMEONE! Peace ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

this gave me such a warm feeling i legit teared up no joke

I think this is my favorite post on the Internet right about now! Edit: And I just needed to Edit this Photo 4 TIMES till it worked here… #youarewelcome #tumblrnoob #learnhowtotumblr

A family

Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.

— Vincent Van Gogh

by far the funniest thing you can say immediately after winning the NBA finals

for those of you who don't follow basketball, this guy is the best player in the world right now

#you don't understand how completely devoted jokic is to racing horses#he's tried to quit basketball several times to commit full time to his horses#he doesn't even like playing basketball i don't think, he's just stupid good at it#he's counting down the days until he can retire to move back to serbia and work with his horses#his post retirement plans are becoming a 'trotting coach' his words @sayheykid​

#HOW TO DODGE NBA DRAFT

PEGGY’S PINK AND PURPLE DINO PARTY 💜💕

@peggytheheadsmasher

I DIDN’T LEARN ABOUT THIS IN DRIVING SCHOOL

Stop says the red light, go says the green

Wait says the yellow light, twinkling in between. 

KNEEL, SAYS THE DEMON LIGHT WITH ITS EYE OF COAL  SAURON KNOWS YOUR LICENSE PLATE  AND STARES INTO YOUR SOUL

THIS IS ALWAYS FUNNY

@irritatedlifeguard I agree with your tags.

this is literally the first tumblr post i remember ever seeing. we’ve come full circle.

pushing daisies really was a modern retelling of orpheus and eurydice in which they knew they wouldnt make it out of the underworld so instead they simply built a life together on the stairs

i hope this doesn’t need to be said but just in case

you might have seen people talking about sudowrite and/or their tool storyengine recently

and just like… don’t. don’t do it. don’t try it out just to see what it’s about.

for two main reasons:

1) never feed anything proprietary into a large language model (LLM, eg ChatGPT, google bard, etc.).

this means don’t give it private company information when you’re at work, but also don’t give it your original writing. that’s your work.

because of the way these language models work, anything you feed into it is part of it now. and yeah, the FAQ says they “don’t claim ownership” over anything and yeah, they give you that reassuring bullshit about how unlikely it is that the exact same sentence will be reconstructed—

but that’s not the point.

do you have an unusual way of constructing sentences? a metaphor you like to use? a writing tic that sets you apart from the rest? anything that gives you a unique writing voice?

feed your writing into an LLM, and the model has your voice now. the model can generate text that sounds like it was written by you and someone else can claim it’s theirs because they gave the model a prompt.

don’t feed the model.

2) the other reason is that sudowrite scraped a bunch of omegaverse fic without consent to build their model and that’s a really shitty thing to do, because it means people weren’t given the chance to choose whether or not to feed the model.

don’t feed the model.

also this.

don’t feed the model.

biden 2024 - making things work

This is why I honestly feel like Biden was the best possible choice in a shitty situation, even with his age and potential health issues. Because if nothing else, he is NOT REACTIONARY. He is methodical and dedicated. Do I wish he acted a little faster and with more of an eye towards progressive policies? Obviously yes. But given the choices, and given everything else that's happened, Biden has absolutely made the best of a bad situation. Sometimes you don't need a hero, you need a fucking repairman to come and just make it work until it can be fixed. And he's a damn good repairman.

Okay, I’ll give him the W for this one.

this is not a Joe Biden fan post, just a reminder that there is more than one way to get shit done and the more people working in their various different ways the more gets done. if you do mutual aid and protests, you do that! if you do union organizing and strikes, you do that! if you vote and push for regulations, you do that!

Source:

"More than 60% of U.S. unionized railroad workers at major railroads are now are covered by new sick leave agreements, a trade group said Monday [June 5th].

Last year railroads came under fire for not agreeing to paid sick leave during labor negotiations.

In December, President Joe Biden signed legislation to block a national U.S. railroad strike that could have devastated the American economy after some unions voted against the deal over a lack of paid sick leave.

“For months, railroads have been at the table individually with their unions to find a path forward on the quality-of-life matters that came into the spotlight during the round’s final days," Association of American Railroads CEO Ian Jefferies said.

“Not all of these agreements are the same. However, they are the result of good faith bargaining and a shared desire to demonstrate the value rail employees provide to their companies, their families and the overall economy."

Norfolk Southern (NSC.N) and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers -Transportation Division (SMART-TD) said Monday they reached an agreement that immediately provides nearly 300 yardmasters with four new days of paid sick leave per year while also offering flexibility to use up to three additional days of existing paid time off as sick leave.

Norfolk Southern said all of its unionized workers are now covered by sick leave agreements.

Also on Monday, Union Pacific (UNP.N) reached an agreement with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) to provide paid sick leave to for its 5,600 locomotive engineers.

Under the agreement effective Aug. 1, members will have up to seven paid days of sick leave. Five days will be considered paid sick days with the ability to convert two additional paid leave days for use as paid sick time."

-via Reuters, June 5, 2023

people who have watched d20 please don't vote! rb for greater sample size

This is a map of the range of all giraffe species. By my count that puts them in just 16 countries out of the 54 in Africa (of which 5 are island countries with no territory on the continental mainland). That's 30%, quite a long way shy of all, and as you can see many of those countries that do have giraffes only have a tiny portion of their territory within giraffes' habitats

Wow, I knew they weren't in "every African country", but I didn't realize just how restricted their range was

Good teachers don't mind saying "I don't know" or that they need to look it up and will get back to you.

Not only that but giraffes in different areas have different patterns and it's so cool

Masai giraffes look cool af

The Masai giraffes are stuntin’ on the heauxs!

Masai Giraffe:

Reticulated Giraffe:

dr who’s on first, doctor strange is on second and doctor house is on third. theres no way theyre getting through a single inning

so who’s on first?

That’s right 👍🏻

that’s strange

No, he’s on second.

Well how’s he on second if he’s on first?

No no no, House is on third. Second base is Strange.

Well this whole darn thing is strange but what I’m asking is who’s on first?

Naturally.

Who?

Naturally.

So Naturally is the first baseman?

No. The first baseman is Who.

Well I don’t know that so how’s about you tell me?

House is on Third.

I’m not asking you about third base I’m asking you about first base.

Who’s on first!

This is horrible

Dr Horrible is the pitcher, not first base

just sayin'

This should be taught in school.

reblog the money pigeon for a financially stable future

I reblog  the money pigeon because I love him.

I reblog the money pigeon because its a dinosaur