We failed as a society when everyone stopped wearing headphones.
At my parents place with 2 children watching YT on tablets and 2 adults watching tiktoks and reels on their phones and trying not to summon a comically sized Loony Toons hammer out of my back pocket to smash them all.
✨LIMITED EDITION✨The Pride Knights Playing Cards are now officially available for pre-order in our store until June 30, 2023!
omg this is the most beautiful deck of playing cards I've ever seen! Just pre-ordered mine I'm SO EXCITED!!
i never expected them to be as affordable as they are, so i've ordered myself a set thank you!!
IM SO PROUD OF YOU! THESE LOOK BEAUTIFUL!!!!!
Just bought one! Honestly, this is the first time in a long time that I've just seen something and been like, “I MUST OWN THIS!” Beautiful work!
Gorgeous 😍
Sorry to everyone who’s enjoyed the last 130 years of science and culture journalism, but Disney needs the money to fund Toy Story 9
CNN–
National Geographic, the iconic yellow framed magazine that has chronicled the natural world for more than 100 years, laid off its last remaining staff writers this week, multiple departing staffers said. The latest round of layoffs at the magazine cut 17 editorial positions, including all of the publication’s staff writers, its entire podcast staff, and a group of editors, including one who’d been on staff for nearly 40 years, a former staff writer affected by the layoffs told CNN. The layoffs, which were announced to the staff in April, were part of a wave of cuts from parent company Disney, which resulted in thousands of positions being axed across the media giant. Most National Geographic staffers at the time were told their positions would be eliminated in two months, resulting in many of the departures this week, the former staffer said. It was unclear how many staffers were cut during the latest round of layoffs at the magazine, but the move comes as parent company Walt Disney Co. has slashed thousands of staffers across its divisions this year. National Geographic, which had more than 1.7 million subscribers at the end of 2022, will continue to publish monthly issues, a magazine spokesperson told CNN in a statement on Wednesday. “Staffing changes will not change our ability to do this work, but rather give us more flexibility to tell different stories and meet our audiences where they are across our many platforms,” the spokesperson said. “Any insinuation that the recent changes will negatively impact the magazine, or the quality of our storytelling, is simply incorrect.” The full-time staff will be replaced by a roster of freelance writers, save for certain digital content that will be written by in-house editors, the former staffer said. National Geographic currently employs only two designated text editors, a group of so-called multi-platform editors who handle both print and digital, and a group of digital-only editors, the former staffer said. The magazine also employs two wildlife watch reporters whose positions are funded and managed separately, the former staffer said. News of the layoffs was reported on Twitter Tuesday when departing magazine staff writers began to circulate the news. “Today is my last day at National Geographic,” Michael Greshko, a former science writer at the magazine, tweeted. “The magazine is parting ways with its staff writers, including me.” Yet, when CNN contacted the magazine on Tuesday, a spokesperson said there was “nothing to report.” “It’s possible that what you’re seeing is from staffers who were previously impacted and have now reached their final week at the company,” the spokesperson said. But on Wednesday, more staff writers for the magazine took to Twitter to share the news of their departure. “My new National Geographic just arrived, which includes my latest feature — my 16th, and my last as a senior writer,” tweeted Craig Welch. “NatGeo is laying off all of its staff writers.” “It’s been an epic run, @NatGeo,” tweeted former writer Nina Strochlic. “My colleagues and I were unbelievably lucky to be the last-ever class of staff writers.”
By Liam Reilly, CNN
Updated 2:26 PM EDT, Thu June 29, 2023
it’s so funny seeing people refer to Across The Spider-Verse talking about a “trans gwen theory” and whether or not they believe it. buddy it isn’t a theory it’s clearly in the text. she’s obviously trans if you have any kind of visual media literacy. the only “theory” you need here is film theory. good lord you guys don’t watch movies you just see them huh?
I mean it's a possible reading but also
as an mixed-race person I can assure you there aren't half enough Hollywood examples of heterosexual mixed-race couples for me to not feel slightly disgruntled with the aggressiveness of your interpretation. maybe I would like to daydream about a Spider-kid like me, when there are more examples of super powered babies in pop culture than of happy mixed-race kids in functional family units. and Miles' parents did that too! do you know how rare it is to see multi-generational race-mixing without that turning into the plot? I have a lot more examples of transness available to me, frankly.
I could have done with more stories like this when I was a kid, where I. like. exist.
i’m going to break this (nigh incoherent) response down into a couple portions to more easily address this.
1. this is not an interpretation. if you’re upset thst Gwen is trans, you’re upset at the movie, not me, because it’s in the movie. if you didn’t see it, that’s ok, it’s kinda subtle, but it is there.
2. i don’t know what universe you’re living in that there are a lot of ready examples of stories with trans people but… it certainly isn’t the one I’M living in! this film has actually already been banned in two countries specifically because of the trans themes. and i guess that makes you happy, because you hate trans people or something?
3. Miles, a guy, and Gwen, a girl, are still obviously an example of a second generation interracial couple. (or at least, i guess, the trilogy is obviously building to this). it seems like what you’re asking for here is for your interracial couple representation to not have queer people in? to which i would say, as somebody in a queer interracial relationship, go fuck yourself you stupid piece of shit bigot lmao
and like, what, i don’t deserve a spider-person? trans kids don’t get to look up to a hero? the only kids of colour who deserve heroes are straight and cisgender i suppose? you’re fuckin whack
Surprisingly, this is not a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference, but an actual fact. From Burnout: Solve Your Stress Cycle, by Emily and Amelia Nagoski
I think Doctor Emily Nagoski has a PHD but YEAH
[image ID, photo of a book page:
[bold, centered text] Forty-Two Percent [bold ends]
So how much is “adequate”?
Science says: 42 percent.
That’s the percentage of time your body and brain need you to spend resting. It’s about ten hours out of every twenty-four. It doesn’t have to be every day; it can average out over a week or a month or more. But yeah. That much.
“That’s ridiculous! I don’t have that kind of time!” you might protest - and we remind you that we predicted you might feel that way, back at the start of the chapter.
We’re not saying you [italic] should [end italic] take 42 percent of your time to rest; we’re saying if you don’t take the 42 percent , the 42 percent will take you. It will grab you by the face, shove you to the ground, put its foot on your chest, and declare [image ends here, mid-sentence]
end ID]
Here’s the last paragraph, completed courtesy of Goodreads:
We’re not saying you should take 42 percent of your time to rest; we’re saying if you don’t take the 42 percent, the 42 percent will take you. It will grab you by the face, shove you to the ground, put its foot on your chest, and declare itself the victor.
alright so during into the spider-verse's introduction to peter b. parker, we see his wedding, and he stomps on the wine glass right? this is a jewish wedding tradition, which makes this version of peter parker jewish (further confirmed in interviews -- however, i believe this is enough by itself). it's a nice nod to the jewish roots of the character.
we get to see a bunch of peter parkers throughout the spider-verse films, and none of them have any explicit religious associations like peter b. parker. except for one!
here we have gwen stacy's peter parker and aunt may, from earth-65, saying grace over a meal. from my understanding, this is generally a christian practice -- in judaism, we prefer to say short prayers before eating, and save the long, in-depth ones for afterwards. so to me, this was a clear example of the character being coded as christian. i was a little disappointed that they didn't make peter parker jewish here too, but since across the spider-verse discusses variants and the differences between instances of the same person between different universes, i interpreted this as a continued commentary on peter parker's ethnicity -- although he was initially jewish-coded and one of his two creators, stan lee, is jewish, this is often erased, especially in more modern interpretations of the character.
and then i remembered that this peter parker also literally turns into the lizard.
and y'know what? good call on that one guys.
surely this is a good idea that doesn’t have the capacity to end real fuckin badly
Bridges aren’t supposed to have weight restrictions on them. That is, they don’t come with weight restrictions on them when they’re new. So a bridge with a weight restriction on it is a sign that something has gone wrong and the bridge does not meet current standards.
The maximum weight that a vehicle is allowed to carry on the Interstate System per federal law is 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (with a max of 20,000 pounds per axle). That’s 40 tons. That limit applies to every inch of pavement, not just the bridges. Since this is a known cap, a new Interstate bridge will be designed to accommodate an 80,000 lb GVW load on it. You could say the bridge’s weight limit is 80,000 lb/40 tons but that doesn’t really have much meaning, because a load higher than that would be illegal to transport on public roads anyway, and the road leading up to the bridge has the same weight restriction. (In practice, the bridge doubtlessly will be designed to have a little bit of let to it just in case some idiot tries to squeak by a few hundred extra pounds.)
Now, note that that law applies to the Interstate System only, because the federal government only has a governing interest in the Interstate System (and other roads that together make up something called the National Highway System) because they partially fund it. Most long-distance roads are owned and funded by the states. The states could theoretically set lower standard weight limits and/or design bridges with lower weight limits…but in practice they don’t.
One, because all of that 80,000 lb GVW traffic on the Interstate system has to go somewhere when it exits the system.
Two, because a group called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO, who are best known for picking the road numbers) maintains a catalog of standard components for making bridges that meet Interstate System requirements. Engineers are expensive on a per-hour basis, so if you can direct your engineer to use standard components and make a standard bridge, that’s a lot cheaper than having them design a bridge from scratch to go over the creek in Nowheresville. As a result, most new bridges meet Interstate standards and have an 80,000 lb GVW rating even if they aren’t on the Interstate system. (This is also why all new bridges kind of look the same, but we’re not worried about how boring the bridges are for the sake of this post.)
So a bridge only has an explicit weight limit if it has been damaged in some way (through failure to properly maintain it usually) or because it predates the application of Interstate System standards and the standard AASHTO bridges.
Older bridges often have other problems in addition to the weight limits: many older designs are what we call “fracture critical”, which means that if one component of the bridge fails the whole thing collapses. Modern bridge designs have redundancy designed into them so that if one beam fails the other beams will carry the load until the damaged beam can be replaced. Older bridges also often don’t meet other standards, like height (16 ft clearance) and width (12 ft per lane plus 14 ft for shoulders) requirements.
Biden isn’t advocating eliminating weight limits and letting it be a laissez-faire free-for-all where trucks can just go wherever they want. He’s advocating for replacing bridges that carry weight limits with new ones that don’t have them.
wow i got absolutely schooled thank you for all this this is really informative. i have learned so much
This is a great explanation of what the fuck Biden was talking about in his tweet. because I will freely admit that I also went “…….wtf?????” when I read it. So thank you.
Today I learned about civil engineering.
As an engineer, I see the wreckage of The Titanic as a monument to a critical failure in design that must never, never be repeated. The single "positive outcome" of The Titanic Disaster was that it exposed just how woefully unsatisfactory the safety regulations for seafaring vessels were at the time.
The Titanic had 20 lifeboats which, in total, at max capacity, could hold 1,178 of the 2,209 passengers on board the ship. Only 18 out of 20 lifeboats were launched, many of which were half full, cutting down the number of passengers on board to just 712.
That is a disgrace. That is a profound waste of human life.
But the real tragedy is that the Titanic actually exceeded the safety regulations of her day. According to the letter of the law at the time, she had more than enough lifeboats. It was assumed that if, god forbid, the hull was breached, she would stay afloat long enough that passengers could wait on board to be rescued.
To compound this issue, the ship had no real evacuation protocol, and the crew members who were expected to execute a mass evacuation were completely untrained in how to do so. There was one cursory drill performed while she was still in dock, during which only two lifeboats were lowered.
Nearly every mistake made in the Titanic's safety protocols can be attributed to the naive assumption that the worst case scenario couldn't possibly happen.
OceanGate's Titan submersible flies in the face of every safety regulation put in place since The Titanic Disaster. Just like The Titanic, The Titan was built and deployed assuming that every aspect of its voyage would be executed perfectly. When you're dealing with human life, perfection is a dangerous thing to plan for.
We have safety regulations for a lot of reasons, and The Titanic is one of them.
Safety regulations are written in blood.
Bianca: There’s many rules to surviving a horror movie!One: you can never have sex!
Wednesday, Divina and Yoko step back.
Enid: Wait, Wednesday? Really?
Wednesday: Who do you think?!
Enid: Oh right! *steps back too*
Bianca: *sighs* Okay so I guess we’re all dead.
Tyler: Okay I guess I’m the final girl.
Enid: Wednesday why is there a person tied to a chair in our room?
Wednesday: This is a serial killer who was going to kidnap us and make us learn the error of our ways by putting us in violent gorey traps. Im going to torture him to death for breathing in your general direction.
Enid: Not in the room, Wednesday.
i’m having so much fun
okay wow it gets. Way Worse.
Hot take: is the song bad or is the world just worse and we hate to be reminded of it?
Okay, I went to listen to it, nevermind. It’s bad.
Nile slobbed on the sofa, back on the seat cushion, long legs stretched out – surfing a woeful selection of channels on the safe house’s television.
Bored.Bored. BORED.
“What do you, guys, like miss? You know?” She waved aimlessly at the dull television.
“Miss?” Joe peered over the top of his sketch pad.
“Nah, nah, not miss. Uhm… like what is different now, maybe not better? Different? I dunno.” She was bored, and antsy, her skin was pricking but she didn’t want to do anything except something—but she didn’t know what.
Andy dropped over the back of the sofa, thumping between them as Nicky settled on the back by Joe’s shoulder. Her can of beer popped with a satisfying hiss.
“Bread,” Andy said without any explanation, after a healthy slurp of beer. “And, to be sure, beer.”
Asexuals were always part of pride and it really fucking shows when people think it's a recent term.
Although not going by the term "asexual" yet, asexuality was spoken about alongside homosexuality as far back as the 1890s. Asexual history is just as vital to queer history as any other term and I'm so tired of watching us being treated like a new thing
This image is so so fucking important to me
Reblog this, cowards
Yoko looks through Enid’s phone contacts.
Who’s “daddy” on here?
Wednesday of course!
Who’s “mommy?”
Miss Weems
Who’s “mother?”
It’s your contact actually.
Who’s “Ariel?!”
Divina!
And why is Bianca’a contact the 💅💅💅 emoji?!
Because she slays everyday!
How do you even memorize who’s who?!
Tumblr is so funny because you can make a post like "hey do not mix bleach and vinegar in your cleaning, you'll make chlorine gas and you do not want to make chlorine gas. It is dangerous to mix these two specific chemicals together", and the comments are like
"Um vinegar isn't dangerous?? My mom cleans things with vinegar all the time and we have never had lung issues. White people are insane." (<- does not use bleach, missing the point)
"OH MY GOD BLEACH IS CHLORINE GAS? NOBODY EVER TOLD ME I'VE BEEN CLEANING WITH BLEACH MY WHOLE LIFE, I WILL DIE." (<- has literally never used vinegar in cleaning, and never mixed the two, missing the point)
"This is just stupid fearmongering, we use bleach and vinegar to wash the floors all the time, OP is lying." (<- does not actually know what "vinegar" is, and is confusing the word for something else)
"Yeah this is true enough but also keep in mind that this kind of household cleaning product chlorine gas is too weak and unreliable to use for domestic terrorism purposes." (<- raises concerns, but potentially has a point)
It’s possible I’ve already done this post but, eh, fuck it, let’s do it again
