Frith Chronicles Bestiary Paintings by Ognjen Sporin
styofa doing anything
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

★
i don't do bad sauce passes
Claire Keane
DEAR READER
NASA

titsay
Show & Tell
Today's Document
todays bird
Jules of Nature
One Nice Bug Per Day
$LAYYYTER
Cosimo Galluzzi
cherry valley forever
Sweet Seals For You, Always
KIROKAZE
occasionally subtle
Three Goblin Art

seen from United States

seen from United Kingdom

seen from Ireland

seen from Mexico

seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
@duskdragon39
Frith Chronicles Bestiary Paintings by Ognjen Sporin
“Springtime” (Pierre-Auguste Cot, 1873)
…but make it hualian
What the gold rush means to most people: Prospectors! Dusty mine cars on tracks in the wild west! Gold nuggets!
What the gold rush means to an archaeologist: Hmm, where on this 100-acre plot of land covered in contaminated mine tailings do I think these clowns might have buried barrels full of literal cyanide?
How dare you leave this nugget hiding in the notes!
Why were they burying barrels of cyanide? How and why would you even compile enough cyanide to fill multiple barrels???
My friend let me introduce you to the terrifying process of cyanidation, wherein finely crushed ore containing traces of gold is made into a slurry by adding water, then transferred into vats known as “slime separators,” where potassium cyanide is then added to leach the gold into a liquid. Slaked lime is used to prevent the cyanide from going into full Murder Mode as hydrogen cyanide. The gold is then separated from the cyanide through one of a series of processes that I’m not really qualified to explain, but I think there are a few websites that talk about them if you want to google them.
But the key point here: from what I can tell, cyanide has been the main method of getting gold out of the ground for the last 120 years. (Yes, this process is still used today.) Before this technology came along, instead a thin coating of mercury was spread onto a copper plate, and the ore was allowed to wash over it. The gold stuck to the mercury, creating an amalgam, and then the amalgam was scraped off the plate and the mercury was boiled off (urk) to leave the gold behind.
And when processing mills shut down historically, why bother to dispose of your leftover deadly chemicals properly, when you can just bury them in your local tailings pile, which is already contaminated with mercury and arsenic? The known case of this happening in my local area was revealed through a bloom of “Prussian Blue” (ferro cyanide) on the surface of the tailings. Luckily, this is a fairly stable form of cyanide. Unluckily, geologists are crazier than archaeologists and they went ahead and dug a sample test unit right next to it, even knowing what it was, because science.
When I said to myself, “I’ll be an industrial archaeologist. It’ll be cool,” I did not foresee the terrifying knowledge it would unleash upon me.
I’m from Goldrush Country and I didn’t know this. All the gold-mining-related historical attractions around here are about good old-fashioned panning and pick-axes. Now I’m incredibly glad I’ve never had any urge to go explore the suspiciously colorful hills left in the wake of various mining operations.
Eek! Please don’t play in tailings piles and outflows folks, they are Bad News. “Oh but it’s lovely sand we want to take our ATVs out on it and let our kids build sandcastles” NO. DO NOT.
Reblogging because some desert-dwellers might not know this. Yes, those pretty hills are probably within ATV driving distance of Amargosa, Ocotillo, Buttercup, Superstition or whatever other recreational area you might be camped out at, but rainbow-colored dirt is usually rainbow-colored for toxic reasons!
Absolutely! And bear in mind too, not all tailings are brightly coloured - the ones in my area are just light grey. “Sand in spots where sand isn’t common” is sometimes the only warning sign.
I’m reviving this post because I’m doing up a Health & Safety protocol for digging near a mining site and folks. I did the math based on some recent soil tests. The tailings near my test site contain enough arsenic that ½ teaspoon of soil (tailings) easily contains a fatal dose of arsenic for an adult. Please stay safe and wash your hands thoroughly before eating/drinking/smoking if you aren’t 100% certain what the dirt is like where you’re digging.
And this is why we found a whole quart of mercury in my grandparent’s basement! Old timey prospectors would really just do shit.
[Image ID: Tumblr reply from highEmpressOfDirt reading: a different kind of Mine Sweeper /End ID]
Thanks for the image description!
Since I’m seeing a few people tagging or commenting with the assumption that this post is about US history: this is a Canadian blog, based on my experiences in Canada, and this mine waste phenomenon is, unfortunately, a problem in much of the world. Nova Scotia, for example, had three separate “gold rush” phases from the 1860s to the 1930s.
Also, bonus content for those who are startled/fascinated by the arsenic concentrations, here’s a sample page from the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) report by Mike Parsons et al., showing arsenic concentrations at Mooseland, which isn’t a site I’ve worked on, but is noteworthy because one soil sample was over one-quarter arsenic. The site I worked at with the “tablespoon to kill six people” calculation was less than half of that.
[Image ID: A map showing soil sample locations and numbers along the Tangier River in Nova Scotia near a historic gold mining stamp mill. The highest concentration is 256,000mg/kg, or 25.6% arsenic. To the south, a huge number of abandoned mine shafts are also shown in red.]
Breath on breath. Gravity slipping behind
Nigerian Pride 🏳️🌈🇳🇬
I meant to have this out yesterday. Happy belated pride. :)
Tumblr Advisor Board
I think it could be cool to put together a board of the top Tumblristas in the world, that could see previews of what's coming up and advise on strategic direction. Who should be on it?
Okay, look. We're gonna do it like this, Matt. I used to work in market research. This one is free, next time I expect a month of free premium and if there's a third time I expect a job.
TO EVERYONE ELSE:
A series of ten reblogs is about to follow, since you can only have one poll per reblog. Please answer all ten polls. If you don't see them all, check the notes (this shouldn't take me long so if it's more than like, fifteen minutes since I posted this one they should all be there.)
1) What is the PRIMARY thing you do on Tumblr?
I mostly reblog others' posts
I write original posts
I make/post memes
I make/post images or gifs
I make/post videos
I run a poll blog
I run a gimmick blog
2) how long have you been here?
Under twelve months
1-2 years
3-4 years
5-6 years
7-8 years
9-10 years
More than ten years
I don't remember
3) how old are you?
Under 18
19-28
29-38
39-48
49-58
59-68
I'm one of the Tumblr grandparents
4) thinking about the recent Tumblr feature release/rollback, what did you find most frustrating?
There was no communication before the fact
I felt like the feature didn't take Tumblr users' wants and needs into account
I felt like the feature showed a lack of understanding of Tumblr culture
I felt the feature would hurt Tumblr culture
I felt the feature would hurt Tumblr artists and small makers specifically
I wasn't bothered by the change
It happened so fast I didn't even know until it was all over
5) thinking about the recent Tumblr feature release/rollback, what satisfied you most about the response?
Tumblr staff responded quickly
I felt like we were heard and listened to
It was nice to see our concerns were understood
I wasn't bothered by the change
It happened so fast I didn't even know until it was all over
Other
6) thinking about features you use on Tumblr, what would you like to see improved?
The recent UI changes to reblogging are too confusing
I'd like tagging to be easier
I'd like to see the tagging system overhauled
I'd like to see the reporting/adult tagging system improved
I'd like a separate page for my communities
I'd like to be able to mark posts as for my followers only
I'd like to see the blocking system improved
I'm happy with Tumblr as it is
Other
7) with the understanding that Tumblr needs to attract new users or convert more current free users to paying users in order to stay online, what do you think of Matt's "top tumblrista" idea?
Absolutely not--this is very famously the influencer-hating site
Absolutely not--this site is too diverse for that to work
Absolutely not, for other reasons
I'm actually liking this poll method
The poll method is clunky but something similar would be great
I think the panel of "top users" would be great
I have no opinion on this
8) if you don't currently pay for use of a Tumblr feature, why not?
I have paid Tumblr features
The price point is too high for my wallet
The price point is too high for what's offered
There's nothing offered that I want
I wouldn't pay even if something I wanted was offered
Other
In the following question, "pre-social media" refers to platforms like LiveJournal, forums, alt.net boards, early MySpace, and similar spaces.
9) thinking about the given definition of "pre-social media," how much do you agree with the statement "I think most tumblr users I know would prefer pre-social media to modern platforms like Facebook and X"?
"Strongly agree" is not strong enough
Strongly agree
Agree
Kind of maybe agree?
Neutral/I don't know enough about pre-social media to say
Kind of maybe disagree?
Disagree
Strongly disagree
"Strongly disagree" is not strong enough
10) do you think Matt should just hire me to do this so I don't have to squeeze it around my break at work?
Yes, this was awesome
Sure, you're not perfect but this was way better than what they've done til now
No, but someone should do this
Honestly I'm just sad you didn't give us nuance/bald/vanilla extract/tickybox
The drama! The skill! The cinematography! It's ART! IT'S ALL ART!!
maybe going to the library will fix me
i have to say it was really bold and innovative for maggie stiefvater to say. in my YA romance series centered around a dark prophecy of a girl being destined to kill her true love. the girl and her true love will actually end up being in a throuple with another guy who has absolutely fuckall to do with the prophecy. who without warning just sort of showed up when no one asked him to one day. sat in between them. and very seriously said. scoot over. i love yall.
me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit
mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters
me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU
Hey OP? What the FUCK does this mean?
decay exists as an extant form of life
That’s a terrifying answer, have a nice day
THE ORIGINAL?!?!!!!!!!!;!!!!!!!!???
On my dash!??!
Please hold
i might well have published a novel by now if everything I thought I knew about storytelling didn't keep getting existentially destroyed
I thought that intellectual property laws created the idea of "fanfiction."
But actually, it is not true: Intellectual property laws created the idea of original fiction. Fanfiction is the one that has always been there the whole time.
It seems possible that the idea of originality is stunting or damaging to storytelling. If there is a compelling idea or a cool character, we have to make it seem different, like we came up with it ourselves. But this means characters, worlds, and concepts are effectively siloed in their creator's work, and people who seek to write a story have to pretend to assemble these things from scratch, concealing and de-emphasizing the ways that they are derivative.
One result of this is that many "original fictions" are extremely shallow and have little iconicity or enduring capability. Characters who are "everymen" with few distinctive characteristics or abilities and not much depth or complexity proliferate. Instead of building upon what is already built, writers have to re-invent their own version of that which is iconic and compelling, and it rarely if ever is actually iconic or compelling, because someone else already "took" so many iconic or compelling ideas, and yours has to be "different from" those ones.
But, I think, building an iconic and truly captivating character, world, or idea is not easily done by a single individual.
Essentially, lots of original fiction is mired in a swamp of being required to re-iterate the basic framework of a story, instead of building a story from a collectively created framework that already exists.
I love that Jules Verne asked the question "What kind of person could circumnavigate the world in 80 days?" and decided that the answer was not a groundbreaking explorer or genius inventor, but a guy who's really, really, really obsessed with train and boat schedules.
my final paper for my CS degree was literally "how can we algorithmically optimise for the fastest possible circumnavigation route on commercial flights?", which incidentally required me to adopt a very good working knowledge of what flight options are available at what times (and also led to me accidentally memorising several hundred airport codes)
incidentally the fastest possible route seems to be about 51 hours, if you're working from 2022 schedules like i was. if you use current schedules and are very optimistic about how quickly you can transfer between flights, you can maybe get it down to around 48 hours (also known as 25 millivernes).
The very best thing about tumblr is that you can make a post about a 154-year-old novel and get responses like this.
Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?
Well, have I got the html for you!
Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!
Second kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/tHMjbb6/second-kudos.png" alt="second kudos">
Third kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/52bggQH/third-kudos.png" alt="third kudos">
nth kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6y7qGtC/nth-kudos.png" alt="nth kudos">
yet another kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/wKtcj0s/yet-another-kudos.png" alt="yet another kudos">
It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):
Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)
So happy to see people enjoying these and spreading the love 💖
UPDATE with some suggestions from the replies! And bonus: cookie kudos.
HTML codes under the cut.
let me tell you, I got a ‘kisses your forehead’ kudos and it absolutely made my day
Francine Van Hove (1942-2025) — The Sphinxes and the Dictionary [oil on canvas, 1985]
WELCOEM TO MY FUCK HOUSE
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
this post is still good even without the glitch that’s how good this post is
for those who forgot about the hellhole that was the 2015 tumblr glitch:
it’s been 10 years since WELCOEM TO MY FUCK HOUSE
why do you draw?