My team of scientists sent me this video from their experiment on whether a bird on a treadmill can take flight.
Their conclusion was no, they can not, solving an age-old mystery.
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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Xuebing Du

Love Begins
Sade Olutola
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roma★

Discoholic 🪩
One Nice Bug Per Day

oozey mess
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open

if i look back, i am lost
RMH
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Stranger Things
Cosmic Funnies
NASA

Andulka

Product Placement
wallacepolsom

seen from Malaysia
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@carlosinthedesert
My team of scientists sent me this video from their experiment on whether a bird on a treadmill can take flight.
Their conclusion was no, they can not, solving an age-old mystery.
My telepresence bot is standing there like nothing is wrong. It's easy, when apparently all that's showing on the screen instead of my face is a lighthouse anyway. I'm glad I, my real I, is in the desert where I can text without glancing furtively over my shoulder.
Something is wrong. I think the Night Valeans have been drugged, perhaps by something in the food or Kool-Aid. Perhaps in the alcohol, but this is not the sort of drunk madness that accompanies alcohol. People are changing their very personalities and minds. Cecil is among them. They have been getting progressively more and more confused, compliant, and religiously fanatical as the evening has progressed. People who were previously stand-offish are now dancing in great ritualistic chanting circles with their Desert Bluffs counterparts. They have lost all sense of self and what made them Night Valean. Nobody seems to be aware of this but me.
If anyone is reading this, please, send help. Cecil, if you read this, please… get out. Just get out. I see you through my webcam, removing your shirt and smearing blue mud on your belly, drumming that Strex-brand drum while Desert Bluffs re-educators smear conductive gel on your temples. I tried to reach you from my telepresence robot, but you pushed me away, insulted when I refused to shout praises to the smiling god. I try calling and texting and snap chatting, but you do not answer. I post this now in desperate hope that you at least check tumblr before you are re-educated. Please, Cecil, forget this smiling god, forget productivity, forget deadlines, forget the StrexCorp Masquerade, and run. Run back to the place where I may someday be, so I can imagine that you are closer to being in my protective arms there than you are here, Cecil, just run.
My telepresence robot has been standing in a corner by the vegetable platters for the last hour. Cecil has been ignoring me, but hey, on the plus side, he's socializing a lot with the Desert Bluffers. Look at him having animated conversations, making friends… oh, they're chanting now. I'm glad he's found a social group he can do activities with. Sometimes I worry he gets too lonely waiting for me to return from the desert. I need to hurry up and post this; it looks like a whole lot of people are getting together to chant now. Night Vale and Desert Bluffs are really getting along!
Cecil and I just arrived at the Masquerade. Well, at least Cecil did, with my telepresence bot in tow. From what my webcam shows me, the venue is gorgeous. High gold ceilings, crystal chandeliers, gourmet hor d'eourves, live music, and costumes putting my plain metal frame to shame. Though I of course cannot smell anything from the desert, Cecil tells me there is also an enchanting aroma of vanilla in the air.
Cecil, I’m still stuck in the desert, but my team of scientists rigged a telepresence module for me. I’ll be able to accompany you virtually to that masquerade you’ve been talking about so much. Here’s the picture my team sent me; you can see Rochelle on the screen in the demo. Can you find a mask that fits on the monitor?
Sometimes I pause to wonder what alien archeologists would think if they found human artifacts centuries after our demise. Would they be able to conclude that we shared our nutritional resources with a random smaller species for no benefit to ourselves than to see this small species appear to have the head of yet another random species?
THE STREXCORP MASQUERADE : OCTOBER EVENT
Ricardo Vega, President of StrexCorp Synernists Inc, is holding a Company Masquerade this month to celebrate harvest holidays and to maintain company morale. There will be music, ballroom dancing, spiked punch, and the looming threat of re-education for anyone who dares spoil the atmosphere. This will be a two-week event beginning on October 15th, following the release of the new Night Vale episode, and run until the official in-character date of the event, Halloween!
Event rules:
Anyone can participate! StrexCorp employees are required to attend, and are allowed to bring one or two outside guests, provided they pass all company security checks and aren’t going to cause trouble. (This doesn’t mean you have to play if your character is Strex! no one has to participate, but it’s an excuse.)
Starting October 15th, simply tag your posts with #StrexCorp Masquerade to have your thread considered part of the event.
strexcorpsguardian and myself (smilingindoctrinator) will be moderating the event. That is to say, if a thread is deemed inappropriate, unrealistic, or otherwise bending the corporate rules too much to be believable, we reserve the right to veto that incident from canon.
Always ask to join someone’s thread! Just because everyone is in the same hall doesn’t mean people don’t have plans among themselves. Be courteous to your fellow writers.
If your character is attending the Masquerade, they MUST be in a mask! Not a halloween costume—they shouldn’t be dressed as full-furry werewolves or sheet ghosts. Think fancy dress party with masks inspired by whatever you want (So a black suit with a long-nosed wolf mask and a moon-patterned tie, a cloak and a fanged porcelain mask to mimic a vampire, etc). Be creative!
Some suggestions to consider:
The Masquerade is the main event, but feel free to make up your own little sub-plots around it! Maybe your character is helping out with catering, or wants to dance with someone and can’t get their attention, has to go home sick, or gets up to some scandalous behaviour behind the curtains. You can also have your characters make observations on other peoples’ threads by tagging your post with #Masquerade Commentary as well as the URLs of the participants and the event tag. Send starters and plot ideas to other people participating! Draw your character’s mask and costume! Write drabbles about the event! Basically, have fun!
Last but not least—if you intend to participate, all you have to do is reblog this post and consider yourself on the guest list!
Oh, Cecil. I would take you if I weren't stuck in this desert!
Coooooooool!
You know what I don't miss? Teaching.
Curiosity Surveys Wind-Rippled Sandy ‘Sea’ on Mars
At first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity had stumbled across a wind-rippled lake or sea at the base of Mount Sharp. But on closer inspection of new images captured by the robot’s Navcam, we realize that the apparent ‘waves’ in this Martian vista are in fact ripples of sand and dust.
After a 778 sol (Mars day) drive since landing in August 2012, the six-wheeled rover finally reached the base of its ultimate destination, Mount Sharp, last month. The 3.5 mile-high mountain in the center of Gale Crater holds great scientific promise; its rocky layers are an open history book of sorts, providing valuable information about the planet’s geological history and its potentially habitable ancient environment.
Currently, the rover is working in “Pahrump Hills” — an outcrop at the mountain’s base — after carrying out its fourth rock drilling operation on a target dubbed “Confidence Hills.” The drilled powder, which appears to be of a softer consistency compared with previous rock samples, has been ingested into Curiosity’s onboard chemical lab to determine what the base of Mount Sharp is made of.
In this new observation (see the full resolution raw image here), Mars’ windy environment is obvious. There are many examples of aeolian (wind-blown) features across the Martian surface, including vast dune fields and wind erosion of small hills known as mesas. Many of these features can only be seen from orbit, but Curiosity has a ground level view of small scale features such as these sandy waves resembling a choppy sea.
As Curiosity continues its drive up Mound Sharp over the coming months and — possibly — years, we can expect many more stunning examples of Mars’ diverse geology and elegant wind-blown features, each observation helping us better understand the Red Planet’s evolution to its current form.
I saw a great basin here in the desert that at first I thought was actual water, but upon closer inspection I found it was very much like these sand-waves on Mars. Here's a picture I took of it; you can see they're almost identical.
More of Dr. Tyson's incredible ability to express complex scientific concepts to laymen with clarity and elegance.
This illustration is by my good colleague, The Oatmeal.
This is what I have loved since I've come to Night Vale… everyone uses the term "literally" correctly. The same goes for this masked army out here. Surprisingly well-read for pre-literate nomads.
Very Round Pond
I found a small pond that is exceptionally round. I measured it, and its circumference is exactly 3.81 times longer than its diameter. I’m guessing it’s artificially constructed, since it appears in the middle of a desert, is surrounded by hundreds of flashing metallic pinwheels, and has a circumference:diameter ratio much larger than anything found in nature. See the little fish inside it? I think they’re koi.
Cecil! I need one of these!
Okay Cecil. Listen carefully. Since I’ve been in the desert and I don’t really have use for money or anything, I’ve just been letting my accounts sit there. But I need to start saving up. Please close my Netflix account, turn off my A/C, cancel my subscription to Scientific American, all that, so there aren’t drains on my money, and invest the rest. I’ll text you my PIN number. Sell my car while it is newer and has a higher value. When I get home, I am going to buy this:
This is what sound looks like
You’ve never seen sound visualizations like this before. Evan Grant creates beautiful illustrations of what we hear by capturing the vibrations from sound waves in mediums like sand or water. This process — called cymatics — makes sound look so wonderfully alien.
Watch the full talk here »
Cecil, this made me think of you. Well, everything makes me think of you. Each grain of sand has some sparkle or curve that matches one on your body. As such you are everywhere, billions and billions of times, in every degree of my vision. But I thought this article would be of particular interest to you.
Parasitic Plant Strangleweed Injects Host With Thousands Of Its Own Expressed Genes
Virginia Tech professor and Fralin Life Institute affiliate Jim Westwood has made a discovery about plant-to-plant communication: enormous amounts of genetic messages in the form of mRNA transcripts are transmitted from the parasitic plant Cuscuta (known more commonly as dodder and strangleweed) to its hosts.
Using Illumina next generation sequencing technologies to sequence the tissues of the host and an attached parasite, the team found that the number of genes that gets passed into the host depends on the identity of the host. The tomato plant received 347 of the strangleweed’s mRNAs, whereas the Arabidopsis received an astonishing 9514 mRNAs. When Arabidopsis plant receives this many mRNAs, the total genetic material of tissues in contact with the strangleweed is about 45% from the parasite.
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Cecil, I'm not sure what the most gentle way to break this to you is...