Sweet moment 🥹

I was working with an item today that just utterly flabbergasted a part of me (the other was deeply frustrated with the catalogue record AS SOMEONE APPARENTLY THOUGHT IT WAS PRINTED ON SILK, coming back to that in a minute) … but ANYWAYS … said item is a replica of a medieval manuscript prayer book THAT IS ENTIRELY WOVEN out of grey and black silk … WOVEN … text, images, intricate grey scale, WOVEN … NOT PRINTED …

And it’s flabbergasting because it’s from 1888, Jacquard machine, IT USED PUNCH CARDS to weave these intricate pages … something like 400 weft per near square inch … IT looks like a page of textured paper, but it’s not, it’s entirely SILK … F*CK …

Anyways …

OKS I’ve since calmed down and found out that the reason they used “printed” is because it is essentially printed by a computer … in a weird way; when I import the record, I’m just gonna take that note out …

BUT this is the item btw

WOVEN! WOVEN ON A LOOM using f*ckin’ punch cards!

This portrait of Joseph Marie Jacquard was also woven with punch cards in 1839!

Every once in a while someone rediscovers that the relationship between Jacquard Looms and modern computers, an intuitive leap originally made by mathematician Ada Lovelace while writing an extensive discussion of Babbage’s calculating machine.

– Ada Lovelace, 1843

Babbage was using it to add numbers. Lovelace went further and suggested that anything one could represented by numbers, such as music, could then be manipulated, transformed and generated (“woven”) according to equations, algorithms and steps programmed in by punchcards in the same way the looms made repeating patterns.

!20 years later, the computers in the Apollo spacecraft that took astronauts to the moon were given “rope-core memory”: fabric-like networks of wire hand-woven by women recruited from textile factories, because it was the most information-dense and durable way they had to store information and computer instructions (far higher density than transistors) at the time.

it was never used again, but it’s a nice link back to the technology which made that book, eh?

"I don't need a shopping list; with effort, I will remember that I need this item"

Okay but will you be able to remember that you already bought it? Because apparently I can't.

They're can openers.

So again, why are they shaped like this? I've never seen a can-opener like this

This is the right shape

That's a Klingon weapon.

person out here using wwi can openers

I've never seen a can opener that's not shaped like

outside of like, American movies? Where are y'all getting CAN OPENERS WITH HANDLES?

Well I got these ones from Kmart. From memory I think they each cost about six bucks. (About $4US)

what is wrong with all of you? here is the opener!

Just looking at this picture is giving me tetanus.

#jesus christ people are really out here using can openers from the bronze age#op is the only person in this thread with normal can openers and they have 3 of them

They're all using these dangerous weapons because I'm hoarding all the good can openers

The earliest version of this type of can opener was patented in 1926, and went into production around 1930 or 1931.

The Swing-A-Way model #407 has been in production since 1955 and has sold an estimated 100 million plus units.

The Bunker company was purchased by the Rival Company and was manufacturing can openers based on this design effectively since 1931 up to the present day (currently owned by Rubbermaid).

There have been a large number of improvements to the design but it remains in production to this day including under more or less the unchanged original patent. Many can openers even incorporate a small hook into their design which can be used as a bottle opener, or similar to the lever type can openers above.

Just so everyone on this thread knows, they also come in electric. Which can be very useful after you slice your hands open on that trench warfare shit.

after that cursed butter denier yesterday and now this, i'm starting to think half of tumblr users are visitors from some kind of Dickensian alternate reality where everything to do with food is crusty and depressing

Why does the box of that electric can opener demonstrate the opener being used on a can with a pull top

Reblogging again because I do actually have something to say to this. I own both, like one of those thingies OP has, and like an ANCIENT canopener. And like those things OP had just survive a year or two, then they don't open cans anymore and are just frustrating BUT the ancient canopener? It works so perfectly fine and well. I think it is still from my great grandmother. And it just fucking SLAPS.

It might last longer but my wrists when I have to use it don't. Those old openers are fucking hell on the hands. I can get a new can opener easier than I can get new joints.

Especially since you already have three of them

I love the migration in this post from ADHD purchasing to can opener discourse. You don't get this shit on any other site.

how do you forget you already have a can opener.

When one breaks and you're like "oh I gotta get a new one" and then the part of your brain that made you get the new one deletes that memory because ADHD fucks with your memory, as do many other things.

…”cursed butter denier”?

(sigh) It’s too early for this. Plainly I need tea.

(will add our can openers later)

If we don’t microdose delusion we won’t make it through this reality babe….

So I remember reading about this study in grad school where they have a bunch of clinically depressed people and a bunch of non-clinically-depressed people a game that was partially chance and partially skill, and asked them to estimate how much control they had over the outcome.

The depressed people were far more accurate in estimating how much influence their actions had on the outcome of the game compared to their nondepressed counterparts, who consistently overestimated the effects of their own choices on their chances of winning.

Then I remember this other study (CW animal testing) where they put rats in a bucket of water that they couldn’t get out of, so they’d have to swim. There was a fairly consistent point at which the swimming rat would falter, and stop swimming, fated to drown.

Except that that’s when the researchers would pull the rat out of the bucket, give it a nice rest warmth and a meal.

When those SAME rats who had been rescued before were put in the same situation again, they swam much LONGER than they had before.

Why? The risk was the same either way- drowning. You’d have thought that the fear of drowning would keep them swimming to their maximum length no matter what.

The researchers conclusion was that the rescued rats had something they hadn’t had the first time- they had more hope. A miraculous rescue could come, and that let them swim for longer, just in case.

I think we do microdose delusion because sometimes that little overestimation of our chances, of our luck, keeps us swimming that little bit longer, just in case something good happens. And sometimes, that little margin really does make the difference. 

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

-Terry Pratchett, Hogfather.

hey, don't just leave the quote there! the last line is what MAKES it!

"YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE.  HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?"

the space seed episode of tos where they find khan and the ss botany bay is so funny because right off the bat you have kirk being like "yeah let's get that historian whats-her-name out there, maybe she can be useful for once" and it's like WOAH what's up with the liberal arts hate?? why is kirk being such a bitch to this lady for no reason. then you meet her and she's fucking obsessed with historical strongmen to the point of covering her walls in her own fanart. she lives on a spaceship in a utopian technofuture and she sleeps surrounded by busts of kings on purpose. her vibes are fashy and kirk is right to be a bitch, actually.

then they get to the botany bay and she's immediately driven to distraction by how horny she is for ricardo montalban under a thick layer of extra-dark foundation. sorry i'm gonna compare montalban with and without the makeup because it is SO distracting

also she refers to sikhs in the past tense implying that at some point in the last two hundred years there was a genocide that they're just glossing over. since she also calls them a warrior race it's also possible that she's just racist and somewhere on board the enterprise there are sikh crew members who dislike her as much as kirk does.

anyway you can assume that this is her first actual away mission and she fumbled immediately because she was so hot for khan but it's much funnier if this isn't the first time this has happened. every time they have to interact with a historical earth artifact she gets so horned up thinking about being a tradwife that she's rendered speechless. spock stays polite but kirk can't stand her. by the time kirk found out she was the type of person to paint her own portraits of napoleon and roman emperors to hang in her quarters it was too late to send her back and request literally anyone else. he's supposed to court martial her but offers to let her stay on fashy eugenics planet just so he won't have to keep her on his ship anymore. it's unclear if he lets her take her paintings or jettisons them into space.

this is the funniest analysis of “Space Seed” I've ever seen

They want air-conditioning in the vans so they don't die from heat stroke.

I haven't found anything saying the drivers want people to boycott Amazon, btw.

look sometimes you have to lean into your mistakes

Hobie 🎸

the x files is funny because at the time it was “progressive” or whatever to have the ultra-rational, levelheaded character be a woman

but it’s also a show where all the fucked up alien shit actually is real, so she’s just constantly wrong about everything

What’s funny is how often they’re both wrong. Mulder will be like “the victims all had their livers scooped clean out this is obviously the aliens escalating from cattle mutilation” and Scully will be like “don’t be silly Mulder this is clearly just a serial killer who’s really good with surgical tools” and then it turns out the actual killer is an immortal sewer man who comes out ever quarterly century to feast on human liver.

I cannot stress enough that this is literally the plot of an actual episode

His name was Tooms. He was stretchy.

I can NOT stress enough how funny it is to experience the x-files from this show

Welp, I have a new thing to listen to!

…should I listen while high? I have a feeling I’ll be giggling no matter what.

48hr tumblr blackout proposal

tumblr mobile has seadily become near unusable these past few updates. not just from a user experience perspective (which is important enough in itself) but also from an accessibility perspective.

examples include the new way the image viewer works (if you can call it "working"), the tumblr live button replacing the profile button, and that newly created blogs will be forced to have their main dashboard tab be the 'for you' page.

the demands of the protest would be along the lines of:

to protest against these usability issues, and inspired by the recent reddit blackout, i propose a 48 hour blackout (where you don't use tumblr at all). preferably of both mobile and web (since web has problems too) but mobile is the focus here.

I suggest the 48 hours between the 30th of June to the end of the 1st of July.

this marks the end of pride month (for the "queerest place on the internet") and the start of disability month (since accessibility is a massive issue here).

tumblr office is in San Francisco, USA, so the times and dates will be calculated using their time zone (PDT).

you can find out the times and dates for your timezone here.

i can't afford to blaze this post so please spread it around as much as possible! protests only work if significant numbers show up!

tumblr rejected the blaze campaigns for this post because they know it would hurt them. let's make this an indefinite blackout - it's the best way to get results.

(so the blackout would be from June 30th onwards)

@one-time-i-dreamt @i-am-a-fish @lizluvscupcakes tagging some larger blogs to hopefully get the word out more

Powerful statements like these, that juxtapose the condemnation of such a simple and pure thing as love with the honour and worship of violence and death, always hit me hard and stay with me for days

This is the tombstone of Technical Sergeant Leonard Philip Matlovich, the first gay service member to intentionally out himself in order to fight the ban on gay people in the military. He hadn’t only served for Vietnam, he was a career Air Force member in good standing who would have liked to continue his career even though he knew coming out would most likely make that impossible. He’d also been an elder in the LDS church but was excommunicated

He was on the cover of Time magazine in 1975 which was the first time an openly gay person appeared on the cover of a U.S. magazine and had their name printed in that magazine

He was an advocate for AIDs/HIV patients from the start of the outbreak in the 70s. He contracted the virus in 1986 and died 2 years later

His name doesn’t appear on his tombstone because he wanted it to be a memorial for all gay veterans

here’s the King himself

and here’s his grave in its full glory, with the pink triangles and everything! the words over the dates of his birth and death are referencing the extermination of lgbt people during the holocaust and the HIV crisis, respectively.

spock is here to bless you with a happy pride

If you put on ultraviolet goggles this is probably what you'd see looking at spock

THIS IS WHAT SPOCK LOOKS LIKE THROUGH ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES THIS IS HOW GEORDI WOULD SEE SPOCK SKFJFJSK

i hope you dont mind, i was inspired

happy pride

Cancel culture strikes again

No but literally this sucks if real. Like it does and it's worrying

it is real. it sucks. my immediate reaction was outrage over them killing my favorite bus line. "promotes satanism" my brother in christ it's a fucking joke. polish christians get a grip challenge.

however,

the bus line's response to the controversy over the number was to change 666 to 669. which is some of the most beautiful malicious compliance i have seen in a while. and it makes up for the hope in humanity i lost while reading the above screenshot.

Truth is, it reads more like "she can do everything" and "him, it's just Ken"

And ken is a slang used in French that means "to fuck"

So "Him, it's just fucking"

Which I think is even more hilarious

starting to suspect that tech bros actually just don’t know what reading is

I can’t fucking enjoy AI shit because these big tech companies keep christo-cishet washing shit. I read shit on Ao3 because it means I can read about some fucking twink getting pounded into a drooling puddle, or read a fanfic where the main character is a serial killer whom the author decided to describe in detail the crimes being committed with such accuracy I fear it may be an admission of guilt.

If I wanted to hear about how everything I think about is “inappropriate” I’d go sit and talk with my conservative family.