Italian Ninja

I will stir your sauce when you aren't looking.

[flock-talk]

[kaijutegu]

Stages of the tongue flick

1. Consideration.

2. Goin' for it.

3. GET SNIFFED IDIOT

4. Retraction.

[wheelie-sick]

"oh, I live in a desert and-"

"wow that must be so terrible" "deserts are so ugly" "I would never want to live in a wasteland like that" "it's just empty nothingness"

wishing 10,000 exploding hammers upon you

behold New Mexico

[ID 1: tall, snowcapped rocky mountains rising above a plain filled with desert scrub

ID 2: brightly colored banded cliff walls of several mesas climbing their way into mountains

ID 3: a desert prairie

ID 4: colorful hoodoos against a twilight sky

ID 5: white sand dunes as far as the eye can see

ID 6: a collection of hoodoos against a stormy sky at sunset

ID 7: a juniper tree standing with a cliff wall in the background

ID 8: several juniper trees on a rocky landscape]

[wheelie-sick]

this post and all its wonderful additions (look in the notes) is circulating again. these photos and many of the ones added in the notes come from the US Southwest.

right now the trump administration is attacking the public lands in the Southwestern US. most recently (July 2026), in Utah the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments have been cut by over 90% to allow for mining. these lands are sacred to multiple Native nations in the area and contain irreplaceable archeological sites. additionally, the commission of Native representatives who aided in management of these lands has been dissolved leaving Native people without a voice in caring for the remaining land. (read more here)

here in New Mexico, the 10 mile buffer zone surrounding Chaco Canyon preventing oil and gas drilling is under attack. Chaco Canyon contains incredibly old and incredibly fragile archeological sites sacred to Pueblo people. these sites are threatened by mining and drilling. (read more here)

The attack on the Chaco buffer zone is currently in a public comment period open until July 29. PLEASE leave a public comment to save these irreplaceable places.

[dracanthropic]

After learning that Blumineck has a wife by her occasionally popping in to some of his more recent videos I've started seeing her videos on FB because probably the Algorithm™️

I decided, sure, I'll just scroll through her videos and it cracks me up seeing him just strolling through the background of her fitness videos on occasion with his quiver on and in his typical elven get-up

[tuulikki]

It’s weird how there are some American crops that I think of as wholly integrated into the world such that I occasionally (ungratefully) forget they’re American (potatoes, tomatoes, hot peppers). But then there are other American crops where I’m lightly surprised the rest of the world grows them or is even into them (sunflowers, maize/corn, peanuts).

The real point of this post being that, while obviously I’m kinda stupid, those indigenous American agricultural bioengineers were fucking geniuses. Endless series of absolute culinary bangers. We owe them everything.

[iamthetruenhaz]

That moment when I, as a Bulgarian, realized that tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, sunflower (oil) and corn are in fact not native to my country and were imported from the Americas. I remember that day. My heart shattered. Oh, and the irony of our nationalists accusing Turkey of "stealing our cuisine". My brother in Boiko, when did Europeans discover America and what empire were we under during that year and would continue to be under it for 4 more centuries?

[da-boy-o-kultur]

I'm just imagining Italians seeing a tomato for the first time, they gently put olives away, tenderly grasp the Tomato and whisper to it with love

"You are my new best friend." Same happening with Poles and potatoes XD

[tuulikki]

And much of Asia responding similarly to peppers. I think the peppers loved Asia back just as much. A true love story.

[tuulikki]

#wait potatoes are native to America???? i thought they were Irish????

@disasterpenguin

Nope! Not Irish. The potato just produces a lot of calories per square foot of soil for growing it. So it was a big hit. (Note that it’s not more nutritious than bread, it just takes less land and labour than bread.)

Other things from the Americas:

Cocoa and chocolate

Beans (except soybeans, fava beans, chickpeas, mung beans, lentils, and peas)

Squash (except inedible Eurasian gourds)

Avocados

Sweet potatoes

Vanilla

Tobacco

Pineapple

Cassava/manioc

And some American critters:

Chipmunks

Raccoons 🦝

Hummingbirds

Skunks

Turkeys

Guinea pigs

Llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, etc.

Turkeys

On the flip side, things that are not native to the Americas include:

Rice

Horses, donkeys, mules

Cattle (so also dairy), pigs, sheep, and domesticated goats

Chickens

Large dogs

Cats

Rats

Earthworms

Pigeons, house sparrows, starlings

Wheat

Onions and garlic

Citrus

Bananas

Honey

Sugar

People always forget that every horse in the Americas came from Eurasia. Which may come from some idea that indigenous people in the Americas were… static, unchanging cultures? As opposed to the reality, which is tribes like the Lakota taking one look at these weird new animals and going “oh hell yeah” and doing horses so good it would make Genghis Khan shed tears of awe

[keatxu]

abandonware should be public domain. force companies to actively support and provide products if they don't wanna lose the rights to them

[omikronsoul]

Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don't want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for the 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago. Nobody who wants to play something for the purpose of retro gaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we're certainly not going to let the original dissappear. They're crying about opportunity cost for a product they're not even selling.

[justletmeremember]

op i know you're probably talking about like, video games, etc, but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company's out of business, or the company decided to not maintain it, and it's a fucking nightmare. we have two windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware. one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research. part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make it difficult-to-impossible to convert those file types without their specific software. by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so that i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can't be converted.

for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.

so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post here and go "well op just wants old video games to play" (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and then close it off) but also this is critical for like. biomedical research. if y'all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.

[jollysunflora]

#there is so much abandonware just...out there being used and carefully maintained#because nothing quite replicates the functionality

[kaijutegu]

I did 100% of the imaging and analysis for my doctorate on a machine running Windows 95. I did not have a choice about this, that's just what my microscope's software ran on.

[dracanthropic]

We recently ran into a problem where the old computer connected to a machine died and the new computer was too new and the instrument was too old for the new software and it was so difficult to get the company to come in and do anything about it. And this is an instrument that they currently still make -.-

[herowyn]

5 0    Y E A R S    A G O

[closetocanada]

Happy Moon Landing Day! ❤️👩‍🚀🌛

[dracanthropic]

HAPPY MOONDAY MONDAY EVERYONE!!!

[vintagewildlife]

"I can't believe humans would hunt the thylacine to extinction, humans are fundamentally evil" Hey, did you know that extinction was long thought to be impossible, and within 50 years of humans realizing that extinction via overhunting was a possibility it practically stopped happening? Did you know that humans are so desperate to prevent more losses that they're funneling millions of collective hours and billions of euros into helping other species? Hours and euros that could be spent on humans, and species on whom humanity's own survival does not depend? Did you know that due to an accidental introduction of rats, the Lord Howe Island stick insect population was brought down to 24 individuals and now there are tens of thousands of them?

This bug. This bug that, to most humans, is utterly useless, relatively gross, and completely foreign. Humans saved it because humans do not want to cause another extinction ever again if they can avoid it.

[thundergrace]

WOW I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS MY FAVORITE TELEVISION SERIES OF ALL TIME (it's not out yet)

[dracanthropic]

Just watched the first two episodes. Immediately hooked.

[sirfrogsworth]

The Egg Project

I'm a member of an advanced photography training community. My mentor creates challenges to help demonstrate certain concepts.

This one required shooting a pop-art-style egg photo to show how specular highlights change with hard and soft light.

This was the example image I was to emulate.

A specular highlight is just a direct reflection of the light source.

With hard light, specular highlights are perceived as brighter. To get hard light, the light source must be smaller (or more distant). So the reflection is smaller, but also more concentrated in intensity.

With soft light, the light source is much larger (or closer). So the intensity of the reflection is spread out over a larger area. So it is perceived as dimmer.

Think about looking directly at a flashlight versus shining it against the wall. The same number of photons are involved, but your experience of them is vastly different.

If you are shooting someone with glasses and the light is reflecting brightly, you can move your light much closer to reduce its apparent intensity.

I worked for 10 minutes at a time over a period of 4 days. I got some fake eggs so I wouldn't have to spend energy cooking. Frustratingly, they arrived with a matte finish. They would not take on a specular highlight at all. So I ordered some automotive clear coat and sprayed the fake eggs on my deck.

You may have noticed my context-less egg art on my deck railing in another post. It was drying in the sun.

The clear coat worked well, so I proceeded to glue the egg to some colored construction paper and tape it to the wall in my kitchen.

I don't have a top-down rig to shoot things from above, so I felt this was a creative and low-energy solution.

A bonus aspect of the challenge was to create a Photoshop composite in which I retain the shadows from the hard light example and the gradient specular highlight on the egg yolk. I can't decide if I like that or the soft light version better.

It feels nice to have accomplished something creative. I am struggling so much with boredom as I recover. And doing anything productive is physically challenging. But I've got my birds and now my egg.

I'm making art again and that is really helping.

[dracanthropic]

@quezify

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[carrionthird]

"Stop scrolling and please help me spread the word, because if I've landed on your page you're most likely either a black woman or someone who cares about black women and the simple phrase I'm about to share could help save a black woman's life.

Doctors are to black women what police officers are to black men. That may seem controversial but I believe it to be true and I speak from personal experience.

If you've seen this TikTok you know that a 2016 study showed that 50% of medical students and residents thought that black people couldn't feel pain the same as white people.

And we learned from this video that because of a 1999 study, to this day, there's a black correction factor for the creatinin levels in black people's kidneys, meaning we're less likely to recieve a kidney transplant if needed.

So if you go to a doctor, feel you aren't getting proper treatment or they refuse the treatment you've requested, say to them the following:

I will need you to document on record that you are refusing the treatment (or medicine) I've requested, and the reason you are doing so."

[dovewithscales]

This works. I have used it in other situations. If medical staff have to document and take responsibility and be on the hook legally for doing shady shit they behave much differently.

If you weren’t already going to spread this advice because black women are at risk, then spread it because it’s applicable to everyone else as well, including you reading this.

But particularly women, and especially black women.

[hellowearerats]

A remake of a personal comic I drew in 2020.

[dozydawn]

nimble, a border collie-papillon mix, wins the 12” class in the 2024 masters agility championship. the first time a mixed breed has won at westminster ever.

[ch40s0w1]

context explaining why the announcer is screaming, this is supposed to take a high level competitive agility dog 40 seconds

[sandersstudies]

This video makes me cry every time it’s on my dash and I can’t even iterate why.

Like the dog doesn’t even know it’s a competition and she’s made history. She(?) just is happy and knows she made her owner happy too.

[solely-ashes]

The face of a being with only a wind storm between their ears, moments before unleashing it unto the world

[severeprincesheep]

always a pleasure to see this girl on my dashboard

[millenniallust4death]

I’m paying to force seven thousand strangers to see a photo of my late husband having fun with his dog. Tumblr Blaze is totally worth it. XD

[millenniallust4death]

Thank-you to all of my new Internet stranger friends for being so gracious about having my post shoved onto your dashboards. I loved reading all of your kind tags and comments! Both Martin and Bosco have been gone for several years now but for 24 hours, they felt very present in my life. I greatly appreciate this gift. ❤️

[psycorax]

Reblog to have your dashboard be visited by the spirit of joy that death can end but not erase.

[millenniallust4death]

Thank you to everyone who commented in their tags or messaged me. Indeed, today is “Martin and Bosco Day”. I originally whimsically blazed this photo on 13 July 2022. I never expected Martin and Bosco to travel so far and make so many new friends. The experience has been such a gift for me.

[prokopetz]

You wouldn’t think that flamingoes are extremophiles just from looking at them. It’s like somebody tried to build the vertebrate equivalent of that fungus that lives inside nuclear reactors, and ended up with a gangly pink dinosaur with a spoon for a face.

[calloutnevvegas]

For everyone in the comments asking how flamingos are extremophiles:

Flamingos can survive in low oxygen, high altitude, high temperatures, low temperatures, high alkaline, they can and will drink boiling water and they can be completely frozen at night and still get up the next morning

Don’t fuck with flamingos

[revretch]

….. Didn’t know most of that

[iamthekaijuking]

Huh… so that’s why zoos don’t put them somewhere warm during winter.

[revretch]

Oh yeah, this leaves out what I *did* know about them–they can also survive hypersalinity. That is, water so salty it kills practically everything else–water so salty it burns your skin.

American flamingos just drink that shit

[bogleech]

(animal death) this is a real undoctored photograph (*though the body was stood up for the shot) of a dead flamingo on the surface of lake natron, a lake so salty and so alkaline that it’s naturally carbonated like soda and would eat through your stomach lining if you drank from it.

When this photo went viral years ago, most people assumed this poor flamingo must have been killed by the lake.

It is actually the lake where 75% of its global population are hatched. This is a photo from the same lake:

[assuming-dinosaur]

Some species of flamingo actually subsist almost entirely on a diet of bacteria! In other words, there is a species of dinosaur that eats only bacteria and lives in lakes so toxic they would kill almost anything else—and it is best known to the average person as a kitschy lawn decoration.

[birdandmoon]

What to do if you find a baby bunny.

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