Clear Bright Light

A collection of ruminations and illuminations by a broke nerd who drowns her sorrows in cats. Biromantic asexual with arthritis.

[maureen2musings]

212._.film

[thememedaddy]

[marthajefferson]

Anniversary of APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING

On July 20, 1969, 109 hours and 42 minutes after launch, Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin entered the lunar lander ‘Eagle’, made a final check, and the Eagle undocked from the lunar orbiter ‘Columbia’, where the third member of the crew Michael Collins, stayed in orbit around the moon. Partially manually piloted by Armstrong, the Eagle landed 0 degrees, 41 minutes, 15 seconds north moon latitude and 23 degrees, 26 minutes east moon longitude. Armstrong stepped out, and Aldrin followed 20 minutes later: human beings stepped on the moon for the first time. The two men spent 21 hours and 26 minutes on its surface. One of the astounding aspects of the mission was the seeming simplicity of the technology used to get man to the moon. According to Oliver Gassmann, professor of Technology Management, the mobile phone in your pocket has one million times more memory than the Apollo 11’s computer. Same about the procesor: the latest phones typically have more than 100,000 times the processing power of the computer that landed man on the moon 50 years ago.

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” –Neil Armstrong

(gifs from the documentary Chasing The Moon, 2019)

[aeide]

By day I wove the web, and in the night by torchlight, I unwove it // ἔνθα καὶ ἠματίη μὲν ὑφαίνεσκον μέγαν ἱστόν νύκτας δ᾽ ἀλλύεσκον, ἐπεὶ δαΐδας παραθείμην

Odyssey 19.149–150. Emily Wilson translation.

a weaving based on Dora Wheeler's "Penelope Unraveling Her Work at Night", which is one of my favorite works that looks woven but is actually embroidered. I wanted to try out deborah silver's split-shed weaving technique, so I chose polychrome taqueté with linen and cashmere. I maybe should have chosen an easier technique with fewer colors to start, but here we are! on the right side, I left the uppermost warp threads bare to show the unraveling.

reference below the cut:

[blumineck]

I have done some weird trickshots, and some difficult trickshots, but that last one is the most of both I’ve ever put together!

[herowyn]

5 0    Y E A R S    A G O

[rarebird22]

Almost 57 years ago!

[theotherendcomics]

and hey! There’s a super bonus extended version of this comic on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOtherEnd

[lopkelepke]

[iloveyoudie]

ty ian mckellen

[frontmansdog]

there’s a t-shirt that says “I survived a bad day and all I got was the rest of my life” and yeah I still think about it

[thememedaddy]

[yodaprod]

[mons7errr]

biting your forehead friday

[lionesshathor]

Actually that's very affectionate and careful grooming. Wolves and other carnivores use their incisor teeth to nibble out tangles and scratch itches in their fur. Doing so for someone else, especially on their very sensitive face, shows a highly intimate level of trust. These two are likely a mated pair, or possibly parent and child.

If you have a cat, you've probably had this happen to you. If they lick and then bite your arm, they're trying to groom you. Trouble is, we humans don't have fur, and those teeth are sharp!

[twixnmix]

Eartha Kitt photographed by Ben Martin at her New York home, 1957.

[pronouncingitwang]

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

[yokowan]

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

[le-jardin-inculte]

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

[shithowdy]

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

[whitachi]

at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.

[araceil]

At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.

[bamfspock]

Happy Fucking Moon Day

[boudlo]