My favourite Wikipedia page of all time is definitely the one of aptronyms - aka, names that suit the person who has them. Here are some gems:
This page also contains a section of IRONIC aptronyms, AKA inaptronyms. Here's a sample
Okay, but you cannot convince me that Dr. Baron Brain is not an actual supervillain. That dude got his doctorate and they commissioned a new 007.
He is a pathetic human being
Who is more pathetic, though? Him? Or the simps who follow him?
Birds I have seen, according to autocorrect.
I read the lower left as Pounding Jägermeister. I guess that one can’t fly straight.
okay americans how’d i do
There are so many parts of this that just genuinely brighten my day
Look, I don’t give a shit about the rest of it.
But I live in Virginia, and this asshole put MOTHMAN was the fuck over in the MIDWEST.
FUCKER STOLE OUR CRYPTID (Okay, I’ll be fair; Mothman is West Virginia. The local cryptid is the Bunnyman. But Bunnyman isn’t famous enough for the Dutch to know about him.)
What bothers me is, we seem to have lost the middle ground.
I don’t have an option to contact others in a method that’s not urgent but in which I can reasonably expect a reply. It’s either NOW or NEVER.
Part of that is social: many people are feeling constantly overwhelmed, and the first thing they do to quell their anxiety is shove all the pending messages off their metaphorical desk. For others, if it’s not jumping up and down and waving red flags, it might as well not exist. Either way, a message that has been waiting will not get a reply.
But our technology simply doesn’t help. Tumblr is notorious for this: you have to consciously choose to check your inbox and messages, it won’t tell you that those messages have been waiting, or at least not reliably. In other media, the older messages will simply be flooded with newer ones, and the oldest - rather than getting attention first - get ignored until one digs out from under whatever backlog, if that ever happens at all. And some mediums, they actively punish you for this, automatically removing messages or notes that are more than a few days or weeks old, or rendering them inaccessible.
I think, too, that the fragmentation of our media - balkanization, really - is in part to blame. Time was, you had your email account. Multiple accounts, perhaps: work, school, personal. You might have a BBS or forum you logged in to at your pleasure. But then we got instant messaging: ICQ, AIM, and others. We got Livejournal and MySpace and Facebook.
Of course it feels overwhelming. We each have dozens of social media feeds to manage, and it’s nigh-impossible to limit them. I’m not on Twitter and Facebook, and I’m perennially Left Out because of that. If I lost Tumblr and TikTok, where would I be? But we don’t really have any tools to make this manageable, because TPTB want us overwhelmed and unable to control the firehose of data and advertising they choose to point at us. Our choices are either too much, or nothing.
We don’t want this. This isn’t the future we chose; it’s the future chosen for us.
70′s “Conversation Pit” Furniture From How to Decorate Your Home Without Going Broke, Barty Phillips, 1974.
come to the CONVERSATION PIT if you want to REALLY discuss the issues… have some SERIOUS heart to heart. HOW ARE YOU? No, REALLY. How ARE you. Welcome to the pit, my good friend. Would you like a beverage.?
MEET ME IN THE PIT because i have some nice throw pillows and beverages there if you just wanna talk about your day
My first thought is:
“Ha! ‘Conversation Pit’? That’s for fucking.”
My second thought:
“Ugh, no. Do you know how hard it is to get bodily fluids out of velour? Even if you use a carpet shampooer it’s still not going to be the same. And it would take forever to dry. If that was actually made for fucking, there would be removable, washable slipcovers on everything.”
My third thought:
“I am 100% sure someone has fucked in it anyway. Probably many someones. That cannot be hygienic.”
My final thought:
“Anyway, where are the attachment points for bondage gear? The trunk to hold the toys? The convenient place to put the bottle of lube? I guess it really was made for conversation.”
No, no, I get it.
By looking at your watch, you know what time it is.
But in so doing, you have bound the “you” as you are right now to a specific point in time. Not only will you never be that “you” again, that “you” is now fixed and immovable. That you has died, permanently bound to a time which is past and impossible to revisit. Where you had once existed, innocent of the rushing passage of time, you now exist smeared across the fourth dimension, unable to change what you were, aware of forces beyond your control which take you inevitably to your complete demise, feeling yourself eroding apart along the way.
oh to have a silly little house like this...
the inside has to look like this.
the peasant in me just thinks how hard it'd be to clean.
Yes, that.
I want interesting stuff. But does it have to be entirely composed of tiny nooks and crannies? Can it be made with an eye to maintenance and function?
I’m exhausted just thinking about the dusting.
"It's absolutely disgusting to see what has become a common presence of Nazis in Florida, and even more disturbing when they are holding signs and flags that signal support for people like Governor DeSantis," Eskamani said. "Every person, regardless of political ideology, should condemn this. Florida is a state built on diversity and we will always stand against bigotry and hate."
Is this what you want America to look like?
republicans say they aren’t nazis. But nazis certainly say they are republicans.
holy shit
In the past, hunting wild boars required special spears and sometimes they didn't work. These days, you may need to shoot it several times while praying the bullets penetrate the hide.
Ostriches and rheas are both aggressive and will not only kick people to death, sometimes they just kick each other to death.
I enjoy eating ostrich burgers, but it feels like cheating because I'm not sure I'm higher than them in the food chain.
Hasui Kawase aka 川瀬はすい aka Kawase Hasui aka 川瀬 巴水 aka Kawase Bunjiro (Japanese, 1883-1957, b. Tokyo, Japan) - 大宮の雨 (Rain in Omiya), 1930, Woodblock Print: Ink, Color on Paper
Trying to figure out why my bell won’t ring.
So, I’ve long wanted a really nice windchime. The ones I wanted were sold at the gift shop in Shenandoah National Park for an obscene price, and I opted against buying them 1) because I didn’t have a house and 2) they’re nice but I’m not sure how well they weather.
Unfortunately, now that I own a house they don’t sell those chimes anyway.
But, about two months ago at a craft fair there was this guy selling bells made from used oxygen canisters, and we found one we liked. He set it up as a windchime and I mounted it on the top edge of the main shed - very high up, gets plenty of wind.
It doesn’t ring. Ever.
My guess was, it’s because the clapper is too small. You could see the wind moving it, but it never touched the bell. So the other day I took it down and replaced the clapper - actually a golf ball! - with a wooden one I made which is almost as big as the inside of the bell. The interior of the bell is about 3.75″ in diameter, I used a piece of 1x4 and made a circular clapper that’s 3.25″ in diameter.
It still doesn’t ring.
Now, my best guess is, maybe the wind catcher is also too small? It’s a round piece of metal that’s about 4″ in diameter.
I’m also wondering if both the ringer and clapper are too heavy.
Honestly kind of lost on ideas here, not even sure who to ask.
Made major progress on the shed!
It is now painted, the metal wall is done, as is the roof.
So what next?
Well, I'm going to put down weed barrier and gravel, then hang the door. At that point all that will be left is the trim - much like with the main shed.
However, as soon as I get the door hung and the gravel down I will move the yard tools into it and take down the "temporary" shed.
You know why?
Because 30 years ago, someone would go “Shit, I wish I had an FTP client that could automatically reconnect and let me select files in bulk”. They observed this did not exist, so they wrote one.
And that’s all it was supposed to do. It was a good FTP client that smart person made to address their specific needs, which happened to be the needs of a whole bunch of other people. They weren’t trying to monetize it. They weren’t trying to “disrupt” the file transfer business. They were trying to download files.
And the problem is, we don’t pay attention to those people anymore. It’s not even they don’t exist - they absolutely do. They still even WANT to create.
But. For one, the only way to get any attention anymore is to be an absolute shameless self-promoter. Which is okay to advise, but it makes the smart, calm people super uncomfortable. They don’t want to be saying they’re revolutionizing the way we move data, they want to be clear and honest.
For another, a lot of those people, they’re stuck toiling to be able to afford rent. They’re in overpriced condos in SoMa they share with 7 other developers working 12 hours days hoping to get noticed by a venture capitalist.They’re not sitting around on a quiet Sunday evening poking at some code for the hell of it, everything HAS to be The Grind. There’s no room for creativity there, not really.
Heinkel Kabine 150, 1956. Ernst Heinkel was a German aircraft engineer who, like Messerschmitt and BMW (who made aero engines) where prevented from making aeroplanes after WW2. Inspired by the Iso Isetta , Heinkel set about making a microcar that would out perform its rivals. His version had a lighter, full monocoque shell and a single cylinder, 4 stroke engine. It was made in German until 1958 when production was transferred to Ireland where it built under license. Poor quality control meant the license was withdrawn and in 1960 production was restarted by Trojan Cars in the UK where it remained in production (as the Trojan 200) until 1966
I wish we did more cars like this. Or, rather, more cars NOT like every other car. Pretty much every car on the road looks the same - oh, sure, some are bigger and some are smaller, some have a clever swoosh or a distinctive grill, but that’s just about it. Everyone is afraid to make something unique.
one of the most baffling things about this website is that i can post, like "i fuckign hate carrot cake" and dozens of people will reblog it tagged "#i don't hate carrot cake but otherwise i agree" like girl thats the only thing the post is about. What are you agreeing with
Fuckign
