Oblique Stroke

I saw a post talking about the starfleet pointy side burns and now I’m watching TNG and I CANT STOP SEEING THEM

you can never unsee the sideburns. also, when someone is a traitor or leaves starfleet (permanently or temporarily) the sideburns sometimes go away. tom paris didn't have pointy sideburns when he was in the penal colony and valeris very noticeably has no sideburns at all

I giggle every time I think of The Bible of how to apply the sideburns/facial hair, the seriousness of the instructions....its a gift that keeps on giving

there's...there's a sideburns bible???

Bibles. Plural

Michael Westmore aka the makeup artist for a swath of Star Trek productions, produced numerous Sideburn Bible, aka The Bible, instructing the makeup artsis about how to apply fake hairs, the type of hair to use (crepe wool for preference), how best to integrate with the performers natural hair, when to touch up, when to use makeup vs hairs (as little as possible and only in extremis)...he took this shit seriously.

I forgot the illustrations

THANK YOU FOR THIS I AM LOSING MY MIND

The best sideburns moment is of course Tom Riker peeling off his fake sideburns in DS9.  

"Let's not talk about this ever again."

I was so bewitched by kim's rugby thigh fantasy I--

I found photos of those Pallas Cat kittens born this year and bye I'm deceased

Hunting

(via @Coelasquid on Twitter)

This is now happening to writers as well. Publishing companies are now adding a clause to their contracts that will allow them to sign one book, and then scan it into AI to reproduce similar books with no compensation to the author.  This isn’t the future. It’s here now. And if we don’t stop it, it will continue. 

Is there a comprehensive list of the publishers engaging in this activity?

No, I think because contract negotiations are happening right now it's all very sensitive. But Maureen Johnson said that she new a Very Famous Author who is as we speak arguing about it because they don't want to sign a contract with that in it.

She says she will say more when she can, but can't yet. See thread starting here:

The implication though is that major publishers are doing this, and if a Very Famous Author can't say no to it, the rest of us will be screwed.

See also the actors who did not even have being scanned in their contracts, but we're forced to do it anyway. I don't have the tweets saved, but one extra said she only got out of it by feigning illness, and one member of crew admitted he was charged with rounding up actors and forcing them to go to the scanning booth.

Things are alextremely underhanded and bad.

I hope the naming and shaming of said publisher (or publishers) can happen sooner than not, because that’s extremely disconcerting.

So I have absolutely zero inside intel. This is a guess. A semi-educated guess, but no more.

I would be willing to bet cash the author is either Stephen King or Mercedes Lackey.

Both have large back catalogues spanning several decades (fifty for King—yes really—and three and a half for Lackey, although she writes like a woman possessed and has released over 140 titles). Both are cornerstones in their genres—horror for King, fantasy for Lackey. Both have spoken positively of fanfiction (including King indicating he’s written it, pointing out that he’s written stuff directly set within the Cthulhu mythos), which is definitely a hill where this battle is going to be fought.

And both are elderly.

King is 76. Lackey is 73. And King has the physical damage one might expect of someone who spent several decades as an alcoholic and chain-smoker who also did coke, and then like a decade after getting off all the junk got hit by a car. Both are pretty well-to-do and can afford the best of medical care, but how long do you think they both have left? Ten years? Fifteen? Maybe twenty, for Lackey (I’d love to believe Steve has it in him, but I don’t see him reaching 96). How much of that time will they be writing?

And once they’re gone…no new books. No new “by bestselling author Stephen King,” no more “by Damon Knight Grand Master Mercedes Lackey.” The golden geese, so to speak, will be dead.

I kind of hope it’s King. Because holy shit, when he’s finally free to speak, the fur will FLY.

Im from Hampden Maine, which is right next door to Bangor, where King lives. He taught at my highschool at one point. Carrie was based on something that happened at my highschool. I know a fair bit about him. Hell, ive met him.

If he is the author they are trying to do this to? I actually kind of pity them. This will be a bloodbath tge publishers will not survive unscathed if at all. I will be bringing popcorn.

Oh absolutely NOT. Especially because he’s one of those rare authors who who really did do the Cinderella-story success, and one of the rarer-still authors who did the Cinderella-story success and never forgot his time in the mills or trying to hammer out a life in a shitty two-room trailer. He would NOT stand for his name being used to make things even harder for authors who never got to move past the part of the story where they got invited to the ball (so to speak).

UPS has reached an agreement with the Teamsters union to equip its iconic brown delivery trucks with air conditioning for the first time for new units.

The agreement, announced by UPS on Tuesday, comes as the delivery giant and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters negotiate the terms of a new contract for more than 330,000 U.S. employees. (source)

Unions work, unionize.

Workers need unions because It's 2023 and I can still see a post like this and involuntarily scream "What do you MEAN they didn't have air conditioning?!" out loud

@thebibliosphere

What a fantastic helper.

First of all, this is an amazing invention. 

Second of all, I’d like to remind everyone that Jell-o counts as a fluid. 

That is, many doctors prescript Jell-o, and Gelatin treats to children and adults who, for whatever reason, have trouble keeping hydrated. Maybe they have jaw issues. Maybe dementia, or they are on a fluid-only diet and drinking broth for weeks is mind-boggling boring. 

Jell-o brand in particular has a lot of sugar added to the packets, however it’s quite straightforward to buy plain gelatin and make low-sugar jelly blobs to snack on for that sweet fruit-pop of hydration.

Soo~ Here we goooo~ 

2 cups juice – Orange juice, grape juice, whatever you want. Fuck, you could even use your favorite blend of tea, or coffee (though coffee, in my experience, needs a little more gelatin to set properly)

Low heat until juice is hot, but before it starts to boil – once you see a bit of bubbles rising, add 2 tablespoons gelatin, and stir gelatin into hot juice until totally dissolved.

Turn off heat

Add another cup and a half of juice (or whatever), stir for another minute or so, then pour into a mold.

You could pour it into ice cube trays, a Tupperware container, or any sort of silicone candy mold.

Cover it, stick in the fridge overnight, and viola~

Bite-sized taste snacks, full of water.

Gelatin is broken down very easily and put to use once in your gut, so it’s fine to eat loads of it, and otherwise you’re just taking mouthfuls of juice… or tea or whatever.

If you want it a bit more sweet, feel free to add sugar or honey to your hot juice… or hot…whatever…

I was pondering about the guy’s electrolytes worked and now I’m paralyzed with the idea of turning Gatorade into jell-o.

Don’t use pineapple juice for this!!! The enzymes break down the gelatin and you’ll be left with soup.

Right on, forgot about that! Kiwi, Pineapple, Figs, Ginger, Guava, and Papaya have an enzyme that flips the bird to gelatin. 

Apple, Grape, Strawberries, Orange, Cherries, Blueberries, Blackberries, Lemons, Peaches, Raspberries, and Cranberries all make great gelatin snacks, though. 

i firmly believe that information like this needs to be shared, especially in any situation where the future is brought into question. as someone who’s grandfather had advanced dementia, i know first hand how difficult and devastating this can be.

seeing inventions like this come into existence is uplifting!

~ mod abalone ~

reblogging for both this amazing inventor’s story, and for the DIY alternative that anyone who struggles with hydration needs can utilize.

the mysterious pair of eyes convo is a joy everyone who plays de should experience

No matter how progressive or well-read you are, there are always going to be moments in your life where somebody pushes back against something that's so culturally ingrained you never even considered it before. And you'll say "Huh, it never occurred to me to challenge this but you're right" and that doesn't mean you were "morally toxic" before, it means you're a non-omniscient human capable of growth.

On this, the anniversary of the lunar landing, let us also celebrate the greatest post-mission achievement by a crewman.

I refer, of course, to the time Buzz Aldrin (age 72 at the time) cold-cocked a moon landing conspiracy theorist straight in his smug face after being accused of being a coward, liar, and thief.

Yes, someone was indeed dumb enough to tell a man so unafraid of death that he was willing to go into the void on a fragile explosive rocket, a coward.

Said dumbass was filming this confrontation as some sort of proof of moon fraud, but has instead captured this glorious moment of near-cosmic justice for us to loop for all time.

Aldrin was not charged with any crime. He should have been given another medal for public service.

I honestly think it's okay for any NASA employee to punch a smug moon landing conspiracist in the face.

cody and obi-wan sitting in a LAAT/i

k i s s i n g

THE X-FILES | 6.17

Disco Elysium will make me cry because I found something profound in its poetry and then two screens later I stick the main character's thumb up his ass, because that was an option

Codywan commission for @ryukokei

I apparently commented this on someone’s fanfiction while almost unconscious and had no memory of this event until today, a week and a half later, when the author responded to that comment and I got the experience of reading my own writing for the first time. I, too, will be thinking about this for the rest of my life.

[image description: a screenshot of two comments on a fic, one from OP and then the response from the writer of the fic, whose user name is in red. Both comments are in gray boxes. The exchange reads as follows:

You wrote:    this is my CUP OF SNAKES baby. thanks for a great fic!!!

futureboy responded:    Thank you for this comment! I will think about that phrase for the rest of my life. I love it. /end description]

“We made her dress out of silver lamé  and iridescent rainbow paper, overlaid with lace and jewels on the bodice,” recalls Ellis Flyte. “We had costume breakdowns and a color chart on every character, and in this scene, her silver and mint color pallet set her apart from the others in the ballroom. Lovely young Jennifer suddenly was a beautiful princess. Her hair was dressed with jeweled glue particles. It all took a great deal of work, but she did look otherworldly!”

“Oh, that enormous hair!” Connelly gasps today. “Who can forget that?” The hairdressers opted not to give her an elegant updo; instead they wove delicate tendrils of silver through her dark hair, like enchanted spiderwebs. She looked older and more mature that a fourteen-year-old–yet younger and far more innocent that the other guests at the ball. “It was such a nice change from the blue jeans that I wore in almost every other scene,” she says. “It was really fun at the time. I’d never had an experience like that before, where I’d been dressed like that. It was kind of magical.”

- Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History (2016)