joan jett (2000-2006). you agree.
Why did “be critical of your media” turn into “find all its flaws and hate it” why did people become allergic to FUN
Because people confuse “critical as in critical thinking” with “critical as in criticizing something,” so they think that “look for something bad, no matter how far-fetched” is what “being critical” means.
They also don’t realize that “literary criticism” means…
Okay. What literary criticism IS, is like taking a mechanical clock apart to see all the gears and learn how it fits together and approach your next clock with more knowledge of what makes it tick.
What they THINK literary criticism means is, you take the clock apart and beat all the pieces with a hammer, then scream at it because it doesn’t tick for you the way it used to.
OMG SOMEBODY PUT IT IN WORDS
It’s all well and good to use “be critical of what you consume” to mean “don’t follow things blindly and acknowledge their flaws” but this mindset fails to take into account that everything has flaws. An unproblematic fave is just a fave you haven’t looked at from all angles yet. If you go through life like this hoping to find something morally pure to consume you’re just going to be miserable.
PERCEVAL THE UNHAPPY, THE MISERABLE, THE UNFORTUNATE, THE FISHER KING!
Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)
ALRIGHT alright. so previously I did an illustration that explained the premise of all this, that it's inspired by the narrative choices that Bresson made in his film Lancelot du Lac etc
to dive in more into it (because this is something like derivative fiction. I'm putting concepts into a blender and seeing what comes out of it): the setting is haunted by the previously existing narratives that started cannibalizing each other until it regurgitates itself into the more well known narrative beats, and something else about the invasive rot of christianity and empire mythmaking into settings. it's an intertextual haunting, if you will! and this scene takes place during the grail quest narrative, but the temptation of Perceval plays out differently.
in both Chretien (and Wolfram's) Perceval narratives, what 'wakes' Perceval up (in more ways than one. desire and self actualization in one go!) is seeing knights, something his mother tried hard to keep him from. so instead of the temptation of lust & etc in the Morte narrative taking the form of a lady, it takes the form of a knight. the temptation to renounce one's faith to serve something else remains.
so Perceval still stabs himself, but instead of continuing on the grail quest in the shadow of Galahad, he becomes the narrative's Fisher King because his earlier state of being as a the grail quest hero is creeping back into his marrow. it was waiting for an opening, and stabbing yourself in the thigh is one hell of a parallel!!!
that wound isn't going to heal buddy, and the state of the setting will now be reflected on your body. sure hope that Arthur hasn't like. corrupted the justice of the land or anything. that sure would suck for your overall health.
all the red in this sequence is because in de Troyes' Perceval, Perceval takes the armor of the Red Knight and becomes known as the Knight in Red.
and now for the citations, which I will try to order in a way that makes sense!
I just went on a rant about plungers, how’s your day going?
“go off bestie”? Okay, I will.
This is a plunger.
Classic red cup with a wooden stick. We all know it, love it, and have seen a cartoon character using it to unclog a toilet. Right?
WRONG.
The image above is actually a drain plunger, used on sinks, showers, and baths. Not on toilets.
These are a toilet plungers.
Take note of the variations. Each of them have a flange of sorts at the bottom, either connected via a cup or more accordion-like tube. These are designed to actually get down into the toilet bowl where it flushes down, giving it more space and leverage to unclog blockages. See the example below:
Notice how the flange allows it to go deeper into the toilet to provide more power to the plunge. Sink/drain plungers are far less efficient and effective at the task.
Sink plungers can also have an accordion shape to help with power in plunging, but crucially do not have or need the flange that toilet plungers do.
To recap: cup plungers are for sinks, showers, bathtubs, and other drains. Flange and accordion plungers are for toilets. Notably, accordion plungers are slightly harder to use, but are more powerful when used correctly than their flange counterparts.
So the next time you see a cartoon, video game, or stock art depicting a cup plunger being used on a toilet, you can feel the same levels of anger and emotion that I do!
why does this have nearly 100 notes
Because with this level of passion, containment is futile 
The real question is why does this not have a million notes? This is information that will very likely, at some point, be incredibly useful to anyone who has indoor plumbing. Which is, you know, probably, 99.99% of this website's user base. (I'm sure there's someone out there using Tumblr who lives in a house built in 1850 which never got upgraded and they still have an outhouse rather than toilet.)
woof woof getting booed by the crowd many injured milly dead
It’s been long enough since I worked at the hideously mismanaged nanotech startup that I’ve started romanticizing it. Like, yes the hydrogen explosion was scary and I’m entirely too familiar with the odor of decaborane, and yes the CEO and CTO got in a fistfight in the conference room, but nothing makes you feel alive like turning chunks of graphite on an ancient manual lathe with inadequate respiratory PPE.
Asbestosis-like lung damage via inhalation of loose airborn boron nitride nanotubes, nitrate-induced chronic migraines, and a crippling caffeine addiction build character.
Fondly remembering the day where we decided to try a nickel organometallic catalyst instead of our usual iron. The difference being that while nickel should be a better catalyst, if you get an iron carbonyl leak the room smells bad for a bit, whereas if you get a nickel carbonyl leak you’re dead before you hit the floor.
So much adrenaline! We went home wired and giddy, full to the brim with nightmares and scientific euphoria. Every day I dreaded waking up, and every day I held the raw stuff of miracles in my hands. Good times.
god lived in this box, I’m pretty sure
No. Even with such egregious safety shortcuts, they barely even scratched the surface of what was possible. Sure, they had drive and vision, but never enough for my taste. They weren’t mad. They were barely even eccentric.
And I was no mere hench! I know the process. Every single object you see in these pictures was designed and assembled by me, with my own mind and hands. And moreover, I know all the radical experiments that they were too timid to attempt. All I need is some space, a bit of cash, and a used furnace or two, and I will spin up an operation to put my erstwhile peers to shame.
For as much as they were willing to risk with our health, they were unwilling to risk the money. Honestly, I get it. People do stupid things when funding is on the line. Happens all the time. I can’t even be angry. I’m really not.
No, I’m not mad, I’m just… frustrated.
OP how does it feel to be a real life mad scientist
Ok so if you haven’t already heard of it, there’s an excellent podcast on engineering disasters (and sometimes engineering disgraces) called Well There’s Your Problem, and they have a segment at the end of every episode called Safety Third, which is listeners writing in about egregiously unsafe experiences they have had especially at their workplaces.
OP, I am BEGGING you to write in with this because I want so badly to hear their voices read your email with mounting horror as they get to the pictures of the box god probably lived in.
(Also if this is the first you’re hearing of the podcast, last week’s episode had the wonderful Maia Arson Crimew @nyancrimew to talk about cybersecurity among other things, which was excellent. On the whole, great podcast, would recommend.)
124 episodes of workplace drama?????? Holy crap, this’ll keep me occupied for a few weeks, thank you!
I am enjoying the fuck out of the notes here, most of which are variations on “I thought this was a bit and then OH MY GOD THERE WAS A PICTURE.” and look I’ve mostly worked in the corners of science that are founded in naturalistic variation with very little room for hubris and I still believed every word from OP there. I’ve seen with my own eyes a video of the time my friend genetically engineered a hamster for maximum rage, okay? I’ve seen the consequences of the horrors and the thwarted sulking of those whose hands have been slapped by IRBs or Environmental Health and Safety or IT. I have two different friends on IRBs and one of these days I’m gonna make friends with someone at EHS purely for the cocktail party stories. And that is in the relatively tame field of behavioral research, okay, I’m not fucking with the stuff of material reality here.
Also I’ve read the inimitable Derek Lowe’s Things I Won’t Work With and I have a healthy fear of applied chemists.
- Igntion! is fantastic. Every time I read it I skip to the chapter on exotic rocket fuels and laugh at the boron chemists.
- I read Hench cover-to-cover in a single night last year, and now it’s lodged permanently in my brain next to the Genius: The Transgression rules doc and a web serial called Fine Structure that I read in 2009.
Apparently seals in Aberdeen have learned to climb onto a branch and rest there
Arboreal seals
I AM LOSING! IT!!
ARBOREAL SEALS
If anyone doubts here's some photo proof from wildaberdeen on IG :
Wildaberdeen has more arboreal seal footage!
She looks like a panther
WILDABERDEEN KILLS IT
Lee Bontecou — Untitled (welded steel, porcelain, wire mesh, canvas, wire, 1980s)
You will all be overjoyed to know that this was apparently a commercial pattern… in like 1993. If you can find the out of print booklet, this glorious specimen of fashion can be yours.
after all these years……..terror fish lives
not a dream
conservative women are harassing a retro clothing brand for featuring David Ross Lawn wearing their dresses, which they apparently used to love because their linen clothes are modest and it allows the tradwives to cosplay as waifs from the olden times so they're big mad that the brand is inclusive
Also, when I followed the brand yesterday, they were at 320k followers and now they're at 323k so they're gaining, not losing
personally I love retro clothes and it's all linen!
Dude they have pants too! I love linen this is so exciting for me~
Edit: unfortunately the pants only go up to a 45in hip, but the dresses still look promising.
its always “you murdered your husband for his fortune and his land” and “you’re a monster” and never “your black silk mourning gown looks nice” or “was the poisoning fun it looked like fun”
Calvin's parents decide to take a Hawai'ian vacation. They're not sure how much of it their son will tolerate but they would like to do at least a few things that involve sandy beaches and scenic cycling routes. They are therefore pleased when Calvin seems to make friends with a local girl about his own age and the two of them run off to play
Now, from Calvin's point of view what has happened is that he spotted actual aliens, and starts trying to bring this to the attention if the adults. But the tourists are like, "that's nice, go shoot 'em with your water gun, have a good time," and the locals are like, "yeah, they're an older couple who decided to retire here. Happens all the time." Eventually, it becomes clear that Spaceman Spiff is going to have to handle it himself.
From Lilo's point of view, Jumba and Pleakley are her gay uncles, do you mind? Calvin does mind, and so the two of them spend the rest of the afternoon terrorizing Kaua'i in the effort to destroy one another while the aliens alternate between bailing them out of trouble and attempting to escape.
Hobbes and Stitch, meanwhile, are calmly playing checkers and drinking non-alcoholic margaritas.
OP I’m sorry but the last sentence painted SUCH a vivid picture in my mind I had to draw it immediately.
I love how Stitch looks more like a stuffed animal then Hobbes does.
This is perfect.
- Survive for 10 Minutes with a Werewolf.
- In a Fight.
tilthat
armedandgayngerous
that was the Devil
I mean they wanted rain
His name was Charles Hatfield and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t make a deal with him, but I am saying that you should be very clear about the terms and conditions
I think we need to fully appreciate the fact that the reason he “looks like the Devil” is that many depictions of the Devil in American popular media are specifically caricatures of this guy. Like, imagine being a con man and fucking up your hustle so badly that for more than a century afterwards people start drawing the Devil to look like you.