World Of Wonder

[harperhug]

Video of a kitten at a vet’s office protesting loudly as it’s scooped from the floor. Another kitten turns around the corner and walks up to the camera, also protesting loudly for its friend. From here.

[borderlands-disorder]

[famouspainterwombat]

[voidfishersong]

#i HAVE to include context as a classical musician who is *almost*in these spaces #this is from the schleswig-holstein music festival #(presumably faculty????) #which is probably The most selective classical music festival in the goddamn world #these people are some of the best you will ever hear on their respective instruments #this was literally posted originally by the goddamn schleswig-holstein music festival #these are their dudes #classical musician me is being shocked by seeing them on tumblr #y’all don’t even know how insane this is #y’all are just enjoying chickens playing saxophone and cornet (via @clockworkouroboros )

[betterthanabortion]

“My body, my choice” only makes sense when someone else’s life isn’t at stake.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Fun fact: If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be ILLEGAL to FORCE me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.

See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon. 

Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy. 

To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died. 

You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies. 

[albinwonderland]

reblogging for commentary 

[generalmaluga]

But, assuming the mother wasn’t raped, the choice to HAVE a baby and risk sacrificing their “bodily autonomy” is a choice that the mother made. YOu don’t have to have sex with someone. Cases of rape aside, it isn’t ethical to say abortion is justified. The unborn baby has rights, too. 

[fandomsandfeminism]

First point: Bodily autonomy can be preserved, even if another life is dependent on it. See again the example about the blood donation. 

And here’s another point: When you say that “rape is the exception” you betray something FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN about your own argument.

Because a fetus produced from sexual assault is biologically NO DIFFERENT than a fetus produced from consensual sex. No difference at all.

If one is alive, so is the other. If one is a person, so is the other. If one has a soul, then so does the other. If one is a little blessing that happened for a reason and must be protected, then so is the other. 

When you say that “Rape is the exception” what you betray is this: It isn’t about a life. This isn’t about the little soul sitting inside some person’s womb, because if it was you wouldn’t care about HOW it got there, only that it is a little life that needs protecting.

When you say “rape is the exception” what you say is this: You are treating pregnancy as a punishment. You are PUNISHING people who have had CONSENSUAL SEX but don’t want to go through a pregnancy. People who DARED to have consensual sex without the goal of procreation in mind, and this is their “consequence.” 

And that is gross. 

[thekaraokeninja]

^ THIS. This is this this THIS THIS THIS. THIS!!!!!

[updatepls-deactivated20180722]

This is probably the strongest and well worded/supported argument for abortion that I have ever read.

[kaijuno]

In highschool I wrote a story about a middle-generation of stellar travelers. Their parents were born on earth and left as children, and the middle generation will not live long enough to see their destination. They live their entire lives on the ship and I wrote about them trying to find their place in everything. They will never know blue skies and warm beaches and open fields with warm breezes. They’ll never know birdsong or crickets or frogs. They’ll never hear the rain on the roof of a dreary day. I never could find the right way to end the story. I wanted it to be a happy ending, but I didn’t know how to do it.

I realize now that it was a book about me dealing with depression before I even knew it. Looking back at how blatant the projecting was, it’s obvious now. It wasn’t then.

In the story, the middle-generation people are lost. They’re apathetic. They’re just a placeholder. The only job they have is to keep the ship running, have kids, and die. As the middle generation of people began becoming adults, suicide rates were skyrocketing. Crime and drug rates were jumping. This generation was completely apathetic because they felt that they had no use.

In the story, a small group of people in the middle-generation create the Weather Project. They turn the ship into a terrarium. They make magnificent gardens and take the DNA of animals they took with them and recreate them and they make this cold, metal spaceship that they have to live their entire lives on into a home. They take what little they have and they break it and rearrange it into something beautiful. They take this radical idea and turn the ship into a wonderful jungle of trees and birds and sunshine.

And I realize now how much it reflects my state of mind as I transitioned from a child into an adult while dealing with depression. You always hear “it gets better” and “when you’re older things will be easier” and I was so sick of waiting for it to get better. I was in the middle-generation stage. And I was sick of it. I was so sick of waiting.

When I was in highschool I didn’t know how to end the story. I didn’t know how to have a happy ending. I didn’t have the life experience then to finish the story in a meaningful way. I didn’t know how to make it better for these middle-generation characters.

But now that I’m older, I’m learning. That if you sit and wait for things to get better, it never will. You have to take your life and break it apart and rearrange it into something beautiful. You have to make the cold metal ship into the garden that you deserve. You have to make your own meaning. You have to plant your own garden.

You have to teach yourself that being happy is not a radical idea.

[kaijuno]

God you guys I never thought this would become so popular 😱 I was gonna name it The Weather Project after the art installment that inspired it

By Olafur Eliasson

[kaijuno]

This is the most important post that I’ve ever made. Its for screaming out with every fiber of your being that you’re worth something. You’re worth everything.

[sweetcardamom]

Wow.

Also, YES.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

more people would exercise if this culture didn't make it absolute hell

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

I teach martial arts. we play games with the little kids. they swordfight with noodles and throw foam balls at each other. in the summer, we take them out into the parking lot with water guns. in the winter, we have snowball fights.

the teenagers get swords and staffs and practice knives. we teach them moves from marvel movies that they ask about. they get squirt guns and snowball fights too. we let them goof off and climb the support beams and charge directly at each other in padded suits.

sometimes parents say they miss doing things like that. I tell them, "stay for an adult class. just try it out." we build obstacle courses and let them mess around with training rifles. they chat while sparring. we scream and cheer for them when they're in the middle of a circle. and then we send them out to the parking lot with squirt guns and snowballs.

it's exercise. it's healthy. it's an important life skill. and it's fun as fuck.

[sailor-kaiju]

This is one of the forgotten but imo super harmful symptoms of diet culture-exercise being relegated to weight loss rather than jist enjoying using and being in your body.

Don’t like the gym? Ok, go find a line dancing club. A Tai Chi class. Play Just Dance every day. Arrange a tag football team. Go to a trampoline park.

Using our bodies shouldn’t be a chore assigned in shame.

[thesoftboiledegg]

[v9z-deactivated20201221]

rb this with ur opinion on this shade of pink:

[inkwingart]

This is magenta, and not pink. Unlike pink, magenta doesn’t actually exist. Our brain just invents magenta to serve as what it considers a logical bridge between red and violet, which each exist at opposite ends of a linear spectrum.

TL;DR this color is fake (and also I hate it)

[achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily]

w

what

[achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily]

im

[pococurantina]

[shaaknaa]

Wait til you learn about Stygean Blue

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Your brain is a badly-designed hot mess of bootstrapped chemistry that will tell you that all kinds of shit is happening that has no correlation to physical reality, including time travel. It just makes things up. Your brain is guessing about what’s happening when your eyes saccade, what’s happening in your blind spot, and what the majority of the visible light spectrum looks like, and you don’t know it’s happening because it doesn’t aid your survival to become aware that a lot of what you see is fake.

The human eye only has three types of color sensitive cones, which detect red, blue, and green light. Your brain is making up every other color you perceive.

Let’s have a little fun with that thought. This is the visible spectrum of light.

You will of course note that yellow is on the chart. Yellow has a discreet wavelength, and is therefore a distinct physical color. But we can’t see it.

“Sorry, what the fuck?”

What we call yellow is just what our brain shrugs and spits out when our red and green cones are equally stimulated. We have light receptors that can pick up on the physical spectrum of light we call yellow: that’s why yellow things don’t just look like moving black blocks to us. But your brain has no fucking idea what the color yellow looks like. 

Some animals have eyes that can perceive the color yellow! Goldfish have a yellow cone in their eyes. If they could talk, they could tell us what yellow looks like. But we wouldn’t be able to understand it.

What your brain actually sees of the color spectrum:

We can measure the wavelength of light, so we know that when we see ‘yellow,’ we are seeing light in that 550-ish nanometers range. But we don’t have a cone in our eyes that can pick that up. Your brain just has a very consistent guess about what color that wavelength of light could be. We decided to name that guess ‘yellow.’ We can’t imagine what yellow really looks like any more than a dog can imagine the color red.

Here’s the funny thing: your brain is never perceiving just one photon of light at a time. Something like 2*10⁸ photons per second are hitting your retina under normal conditions. Your brain doesn’t individually process all of them. So it averages them out. It grabs a bunch of photons all coming from the same direction, with the same pattern, and goes, “yeah, that cup is blue, fuck it, next.”

That’s how colors blend in our eyes. So sure, if a photon of light with a wavelength of 550 nanometers bounces into our eyes, we see what we call “yellow.” But if we see two photons at the same time, coming from the same object, one of which is 500 nms and the other of which is 600 nms, your brain will average them out and you will still see yellow even though none of the light you just saw was 550 nms.

So how does magenta factor into this?

Well, as we’ve just established, when your brain sees light from two different slices of the visible light spectrum, it will try to just average them together. Green plus red is yellow, fuck it. If it’s more red than green, we’ll call that ‘orange.’ Literally who gives a shit, we’re trying to forage over here. There are bears out here and it’s so scary.

What happens if you take the average of blue and red light, which we perceive to be magenta? What’s the centerpoint of that line?

Fucking green.

Hey, that’s not gonna work? We live on a planet where EVERYTHING IS GREEN. If something is NOT green, that means it’s either food, or a potential source of danger, and either way your brain wants you to know about it.

So your brain goes, WHOOPS. Okay - this is fine. We already made up yellow, orange, cyan, and violet. We’ll just make up another color. Something that looks really, really different from green. 

And so it made up magenta.

So, physics-wise, is magenta “real?”

No; there’s no single wavelength of light that corresponds to magenta. But you’re rarely seeing only a single wavelength of light anyway. And even when you are, every color other than RGB is a dart thrown on the wall by your meat computer. This is the CIE Chromaticity Diagram:

Explaining this thing is a little more than I want to take on on a Saturday morning, but I’ve included a link above that goes into it a little more. The point is that only the colors that actually touch the ‘outline’ of the shape actually correspond to a specific wavelength of light. All of the other colors are blends of multiple wavelengths. So magenta isn’t special.

Given that color is just a fun trick your brain is playing on you to help you find food and avoid danger, is magenta real?

Yeah, absolutely. Or at least, it’s just as real as most of what we see. It’s what we see when we mix up blue and red. It would be disastrous from a survival standpoint to perceive that color as green, so we don’t. Because it’s not green. Light that’s green has a wavelength of around 510 nm. Stuff that’s magenta bounces back light that is both ~400 and ~700. Your brain knows the difference. So it fills in the gap for you, with the best guess it has, same as it does with your blind spot.

The perception of color exists within your brain, and your brain says you see magenta. So you see magenta.

[atopfourthwall]

[humanpersonface]

So I googled Stygian Blue and…

Yall.

FORBIDDEN.

[the-aro-ace-arrow-ace]

HOW TO SEE THE FORBIDDEN COLOURS

[bunjywunjy]

Hyperbolic Orange is the color my soul is

[crittizen]

Dark tumblr show me the forbidden colors

[simonalkenmayer]

We are back on this again.

[ladyruetha]

My brain hurts.

[professionalchaoticdumbass]

i fucking love the human brain, it’s like if bethesda made an animal

[after-fear]

Overly Honest Methods in science.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

ooh this version has some ones i haven’t seen before, priceless

[wanderingandfound]

  #we chose macrocystis because every other kelp was rotting at that time of year    #we kept the crabs 12 to a sea table because we were sharing the space and couldnt use more    #the crabs were subject to a non-natural light cycle because other researchers kept leaving the lights on overnight (via Dicrocoeliumdendriticum)

[poepower]

Archaeologist. We sometimes choose places to dig because our gut says “this is nice, I’d settle here”. I’ve had field directors say “this has paleo energy” about areas. Often we see big hill in our dig area, we dig on big hill. 

Most recently, I’ve found two sites because I was walking to my next hole and saw some petrified wood I wanted. Started picking up pieces and saw a half buried biface lmao. 

Other site, I was walking and imagined a little native girl running along the ridge. I had a gut feeling to dig like 5m from where the hole was. Found a utilized petrified wood flake. Could’ve written it off as a plow fact, but due to all the pet wood I’d been collecting throughout the area (I’m a greedy little thing who wants pretty rocks), I knew the was it was broken was inconsistent to how the pet wood naturally breaks. 

What sealed the deal for me was cleaning the mud off, and it cut me so, yup, definitely utilized. 

[megalunalexi-aesthetic]

So glad you commented this because I was looking for the term for “people saw a pretty rock and took it with them” forEVER now and couldn’t find it. Fuckin love manuports

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

eternal human urges:

shiny rock!!

throw object in body of water

big hill. climb.

not come in to lab on weekend

[ultrafacts]

In the cave mines there are tenfold less bacteria in the air than in the most sterile room in a hospital, so it also helps people with skin problems. Again, 300 meter deep, but the temperature here stays pretty much the same the whole year round – around 22 Celsius.

For decades, hospitals have sent patients suffering from asthma, hay fever type allergies and various bronchial blockages to spend time in the dark and humid galleries of the mine, where the salt-permeated air is believed to have decongestant and curative qualities.

(Fact Sources: 1 2)

Follow Ultrafacts for more facts

[inahiddenplace]

I love kids they’re all like.. “when i grow up i’m gonna be an astronaut and a chef and a doctor and an olympic swimmer” like that self confidence! That drive! That optimism! Where does it go

[alexundefined]

It gets destroyed by adults not believing in you and telling you to pick a realistic career. And by society creating all these obstacles to the point that you’re too tired to try.

[thechargrey]

But they’re not really unrealistic, SOMEBODY is going to be an olympic swimmer and it might as well be you.

[thechargrey]

Actually I want to talk about this a little more than I did, because olympic swimming is incredible and works perfectly to talk about attaining goals.

I used to be a varsity swimmer, and I was damn good, but I was forced into it by my parents and completely lost my love for it and therein my drive. But in high school I was swimming against such talented swimmers like Olympic Swimmer Missy Franklin. I’ve met her, and the main difference between her and me was that I was strong but had no passion, but she was strong BECAUSE she had passion. 

And I could have been good, really good, maybe even Olympic good. I even have the predisposition for it, been swimming since I was 2 years old, have a mom who was almost an olympic swimmer. Missy didn’t have either of those things, she just wanted it, loved it, had been doing it for a long time, and decided she was going to kick ass at it.

Right, that’s great and all, but I completely missed my opportunity to be an olympic swimmer, yeah? and can never achieve those dreams I had as a kid? No, not even though. There was this whole thought that female athletes peak when they’re 17 years old and lose their skills quickly after that, and male athletes peak around 19. But then Olympic Swimmer Dara Torres shows up. She was an olympic swimmer when she was 17, 21 and 25. Pretty normal age for retirement. She had a few kids. She kicked butt at being a mom. 

And then at 33 years old she decides she’s bored or something gets back in shape and kicks so much ass at the trials that she lands herself on the Olympic Team ONCE AGAIN. And then 8 years later, she decides, heck I’m 41 now, no one has ever made the olympic swim team as old as I am, I want to get in shape yet again and teach these children how sports work.

And she still has the record for oldest US Olympic Swimmer, not even any men have beat out that record.

So basically what I’m saying is you could be an olympic swimmer, you really could be. And there are obviously a lot of things stopping you and trying to get in your way: your brain, society, too much chocolate cake for example. But if you really dedicate yourself to it and love it with all of your heart you could, you really could.

And lets say olympic swimming isn’t your jam? That’s cool too. There isn’t a single skill in this world that you can’t learn if you absolutely love it and want to. Any skill you want is going to take time. There are countless famous people who started learning a skill after 20, 30, 40, or even 50. Not a single person has even been president under age 35 (most likely because you’re not allowed to be, but there’s a reason for that). Whatever you want to do you’re probably going to be bad at first, and I’m talking really shitty.

Van Gogh got started in his 20′s and was thought to have no artistic talent at first and was forced to sit in the back of classrooms where the worst artists in the class sat. So yeah you’ll probably be bad, like really bad and everyone including you will think you’re bad. If you stick with it though, if you’re willing to work for years and years, if you keep loving it after all the pain it’s given you, 

then you might just paint Starry Night.

[ooksaidthelibrarian]

#looks like there’s still time for me to learn how to draw … YES. As someone who started drawing at 35 and who always was like: ‘eh, I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life, but I would love to be able to’ this is near and dear to my heart. If you want to draw, start drawing. Keep drawing. Be shit at drawing at first. Keep it up, doodle things on scraps but also draw stuff you don’t think you can draw. Challenge yourself, you will be surprised what you can do. It will be frustrating at times, but it will also be awesome. It is SO much a matter of practice and dedication, not talent.

[arialerendeair]

This applies for writing, too.  

Don’t ever think for a second that it doesn’t!  Want to start writing?  Then write!  You will get better the more you write, the more often, and you will improve, all of the time, as long as you dedicate yourself.  

[lauraannegilman]

The worst lie we tell ourselves is “it’s too late.”

[boodlesandtonicplz-deactivated2]

[adriankyte-writes]

Talent is a pursued interest.

Human’s are pursuit predators.

Be awesome.

[crtter]

The final boss of “learning social skills” is seeing someone online say something about a special interest of yours that’d be the literal perfect opportunity for you to talk about it but deciding not to do it because the person made the comment so long ago it’d be kind of weird to reply now. If you can restrain yourself, you’ll be awarded the “King of Acting Normal” prize on national television by the president. Or so I’m told.

[crtter]

I COULD tell you why cartoons from the 30s have more fluid animation than modern 2D cartoons, YouTube user ѕᴡeettree675. I could tell you better than anyone! In fact, I want to do it so badly I could eat my own hand! But I won’t because you’ve said this a year ago in the comment section of this rather mid Electro Swing song and it’d be a little off-putting of me. This is how Jesus felt on the cross, btw.

[crtter]

THANK YOU!!!

Alright! There are two aspects in which most of today's 2D animation and the 2D animation made in the 30s differ from each other and those are method and purpose.

Method is rather straightforward. I think most people know that cartoons used to be animated in paper, inked and painted on transparent acetate sheets called "cels", and then photographed. This process was somewhat automated during the years in various small ways but, at its core, it remained the same since its invention in 1914 up to the 1990s! Here are a few scenes from a 1938 documentary showing how Popeye cartoons were made, in case you’re not that familiar with traditional animation:

These days, though, you can make cartoons without using any paper whatsoever. They’re made digitally. And it was through animating digitally that a new method of animation that cut back significantly on the amount of drawing needed was created: puppet animation, also known as rigged animation, popularized by the well known digital animation program Flash.

In puppet animation, not unlike in 3D animation, a character is rigged with movable joints and changeable body parts is created. Then, a bank of expressions, hands and certain poses is made for it. After that, the artist only needs to change them around instead of redrawing everything from scratch, as if they were posing a doll. Frame by frame animation never really fell out of usage and there are many cartoons that still employ it, but puppet animation is very popular at the moment due to being an efficient way of cutting costs and production time without a significant drop in quality in the final product. A lot of cartoons nowadays are fully animated this way, especially those aimed at younger children. If you’ve ever watched, say, Peppa Pig or Bluey with a younger relative, you’ve watched something 100% puppet animated!

As you can see, puppet animation doesn’t necessarily look less dynamic than frame by frame animation. However, having to adhere firmly to the character models doesn’t leave much room for stylistic deformation, which can make the movement look a little “stiff” at times, especially if we’re talking about simpler character designs. So, while it’s not a hard rule, if you compare a current puppet animated cartoon to a cartoon made in the 30s, the latter might look more fluid, even if only on account of having been animated frame by frame.

But you’ve probably noticed that even current frame by frame animation isn’t as “bouncy” as 30s cartoons were. Animation made in the 30s had a knack for making things look elastic and rubbery and unable to stay still and that’s where the purpose comes in. Simply put, we don’t highlight the same things we used to do back then in cartoons nowadays because… the public doesn’t watch cartoons for the same reason it did back then!

You see, animation was created in the 1890s, but the 1930s were when it truly blossomed as an art form! Cartoons went from being made entirely by a single person from being made by a group of artists, each taking care of different aspects of the animation process. This allowed cartoons to become longer and the animation more refined. 24 frames per second became the norm. Designs that looked the best on screen were established, which gave us the so famous half-dressed animals with black fur and white masks characters that we still associate with cartoons nowadays. This meant that animation went from looking like this:

Joys and Glooms (1921)

to looking like this:

Bimbo’s Initiation (1931)

in the span of a decade! Did you ever notice how 30s cartoons usually don’t have much in the way of a plot or dialogue and are mostly mainly animated to a song? Ever wonder why even the background elements were animated? That’s because people didn’t really watch cartoons for the plot back then. They watched them because they were drawings that moved to sound! Both animation and the ability for film to have sound were so new, the appeal was that it existed in the first place! So the focus was on maximizing movement and synchronization with the background music.

It’s been almost 100 years since then, though. The public isn’t AS impressed by the fact you can make drawings move in of itself anymore (unless they’re a little unwell about cartoons like I am, that is), so now animation focuses more on interesting plots and exploring different art styles rather than on just making sure everything is ready to dance. That’s why we don’t see things in cartoons like buildings randomly coming to life as much anymore. A pity.

[solosprincess]

Not to get emo on main but you ever think about how the troop sang about their dreams of finding “a girl worth fighting for”, and they think their girl worth fighting for is one of romance, but the song abruptly comes to a halt when they find a different girl worth fighting for.

A tiny girl that had been killed at the hands of the Huns. A child too weak, too small to have any chance of withstanding the murderous invaders. That is their girl worth fighting for.

[xxstar-bluesxx]

This is fucking horrific

[gay-jesus-probably]

It’s also worth noting that ‘A Girl Worth Fighting For’ is the last song in the movie. Up until here, it’s a fun movie, and the imminent invasion feels like it’s just there to keep the plot moving, and to provide a little bit of drama to spice things up. None of the soldier’s are quite taking this seriously yet; sure, Mulan wanted to save her father from the draft, and on some level she was aware that he would die if he went to war, but beyond that she’s interested in not being caught, and not shaming her family. Her motives are good, but they’re entirely self centered. All the other soldiers are more or less in the same boat - they want to get tougher, they want to impress girls, they want to be cool soldiers. Shang’s easily the most serious of the bunch at first, and even then it’s just because training bad soldiers will reflect poorly on him, and important people are paying attention.

The abrupt ending of ‘A Girl Worth Fighting For’ is the wake up call. The soldiers and the audience get slapped in the face with the realization of what’s really at stake here. China is being invaded. Villages are burning, civilians are dying, and this isn’t going to stop until the country is conquered or the invaders are defeated. This is not a fun musical, this is a major crisis.

Mulan is such a good movie for so many reasons, but the abrupt tone shift is such a major reason why. It’s an excellent commentary on the reality of war, and it being a kids movie just meant they had to make their point without showing any actual gore, which I’d honestly say makes it that much more poignant.

[taraljc]

That moment, when they come over the rise and see the razed village is one of the best scenes in film. Period. Somehow, instead of giving me tonal whiplash, it took my breath away, and that’s one fuck of a balancing act.

[thegaymertrainer]

I’ve been mesmerized by this. I love all the details each artist put in. I highly recommend watching the full video. It really inspires me to write.

[thememedaddy]

[the-final-sif]

So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or

Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.

[ultrafacts]

He is Prince Leonard of Hutt, the absolute monarch of 18,500 acres of farmland in Australia’s sparsely populated wheat belt, about a five-hour drive north of Perth. His kingdom is the Principality of Hutt River.

His wife Shirley, styled as “Princess Shirley”, has passed away on 7 July 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River

Source For more facts follow Ultrafacts

[inahiddenplace]

I love kids they’re all like.. “when i grow up i’m gonna be an astronaut and a chef and a doctor and an olympic swimmer” like that self confidence! That drive! That optimism! Where does it go

[alexundefined]

It gets destroyed by adults not believing in you and telling you to pick a realistic career. And by society creating all these obstacles to the point that you’re too tired to try.

[thechargrey]

But they’re not really unrealistic, SOMEBODY is going to be an olympic swimmer and it might as well be you.

[thechargrey]

Actually I want to talk about this a little more than I did, because olympic swimming is incredible and works perfectly to talk about attaining goals.

I used to be a varsity swimmer, and I was damn good, but I was forced into it by my parents and completely lost my love for it and therein my drive. But in high school I was swimming against such talented swimmers like Olympic Swimmer Missy Franklin. I’ve met her, and the main difference between her and me was that I was strong but had no passion, but she was strong BECAUSE she had passion. 

And I could have been good, really good, maybe even Olympic good. I even have the predisposition for it, been swimming since I was 2 years old, have a mom who was almost an olympic swimmer. Missy didn’t have either of those things, she just wanted it, loved it, had been doing it for a long time, and decided she was going to kick ass at it.

Right, that’s great and all, but I completely missed my opportunity to be an olympic swimmer, yeah? and can never achieve those dreams I had as a kid? No, not even though. There was this whole thought that female athletes peak when they’re 17 years old and lose their skills quickly after that, and male athletes peak around 19. But then Olympic Swimmer Dara Torres shows up. She was an olympic swimmer when she was 17, 21 and 25. Pretty normal age for retirement. She had a few kids. She kicked butt at being a mom. 

And then at 33 years old she decides she’s bored or something gets back in shape and kicks so much ass at the trials that she lands herself on the Olympic Team ONCE AGAIN. And then 8 years later, she decides, heck I’m 41 now, no one has ever made the olympic swim team as old as I am, I want to get in shape yet again and teach these children how sports work.

And she still has the record for oldest US Olympic Swimmer, not even any men have beat out that record.

So basically what I’m saying is you could be an olympic swimmer, you really could be. And there are obviously a lot of things stopping you and trying to get in your way: your brain, society, too much chocolate cake for example. But if you really dedicate yourself to it and love it with all of your heart you could, you really could.

And lets say olympic swimming isn’t your jam? That’s cool too. There isn’t a single skill in this world that you can’t learn if you absolutely love it and want to. Any skill you want is going to take time. There are countless famous people who started learning a skill after 20, 30, 40, or even 50. Not a single person has even been president under age 35 (most likely because you’re not allowed to be, but there’s a reason for that). Whatever you want to do you’re probably going to be bad at first, and I’m talking really shitty.

Van Gogh got started in his 20′s and was thought to have no artistic talent at first and was forced to sit in the back of classrooms where the worst artists in the class sat. So yeah you’ll probably be bad, like really bad and everyone including you will think you’re bad. If you stick with it though, if you’re willing to work for years and years, if you keep loving it after all the pain it’s given you, 

then you might just paint Starry Night.

[ooksaidthelibrarian]

#looks like there’s still time for me to learn how to draw … YES. As someone who started drawing at 35 and who always was like: ‘eh, I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life, but I would love to be able to’ this is near and dear to my heart. If you want to draw, start drawing. Keep drawing. Be shit at drawing at first. Keep it up, doodle things on scraps but also draw stuff you don’t think you can draw. Challenge yourself, you will be surprised what you can do. It will be frustrating at times, but it will also be awesome. It is SO much a matter of practice and dedication, not talent.

[arialerendeair]

This applies for writing, too.  

Don’t ever think for a second that it doesn’t!  Want to start writing?  Then write!  You will get better the more you write, the more often, and you will improve, all of the time, as long as you dedicate yourself.  

[lauraannegilman]

The worst lie we tell ourselves is “it’s too late.”

[boodlesandtonicplz-deactivated2]

[wizard-email]

hey, don’t cry. one half flour one half yogurt knead into dough and fry for easy flatbread and dip in balsamic vinegar, okay?

[rudjedet]

After three batches, my findings so far:

I use full fat Greek yoghurt and self-rising flour

Ratio by weight

Add a pinch of salt

Knead until no longer sticky, adding more flour if necessary

Roll them with olive oil instead of flour and fry in an otherwise unoiled, preheated pan (medium heat) (trust in the lord; it will seem like it's going to stick to the pan at first but they'll unstick in about 15 seconds)

Roll them thin but not too thin; mine take about 45 seconds on either side

Serving with garlic butter is also a very good option

[strangeducks]

I’m gonna be eating these for a month

[alex51324]

This actually works?? Two-ingredient bread??

I gotta try it.

[bitletsanddrabbles]

That's...naan.

That's naan?

*runs to Google*

HOLY SHIT THAT IS NAAN! HOW DID I NOT KNOW NAAN WAS THAT EASY TO MAKE?

[ed-longshanks]

important psa

[soundlessdragon]

Awh, I always thought they were so pretty and had no idea they could be harmful

[christianmarvel]

Can someone transcribe this? The water is really loud.

[petit-bon-homme]

“Hey everybody! Here we are in the southern Appalachian mountains. We have a pristine Montane stream ecosystem, as you can see all around us here. I thought I’d make an educational video this morning. It involves this practice right here [gestures to rock pile]. As our national parks and national forests fall victim to human pressure, more than ever, this is something we’re seeing more and more of. Hopefully we can make this video go viral. This stream, as you can see around us right here, is a breeding ground for North America’s largest salamander, the Eastern hellbender. They can get up to 2.5-3 feet long. It’s part of our natural heritage in the eastern United States. When people do this right here - what they consider to be art - they’re actually destroying the breeding ground for the Eastern hellbender salamander. The Eastern hellbender will use flat rocks such as these to make nesting sites in these streams. So here’s what I would like everybody to do. If you care about our Montane stream freshwater ecosystems like this one around us here, when you see something like this, this is what I recommend doing: [kicks down rock pile]. Take the rocks, throw them back into the stream. The Eastern hellbender utilizes rocks like this. It actually feels pretty good to do this! [walks to other pile] This is not actually art, okay? This is destruction of our freshwater ecosystems. So I would like to encourage everyone: when you see this [gestures to second rock pile], do this! [kicks pile] I’d like to return our streams to their natural state for the organisms that live here. Thanks, and have a good day.”

[cassiefisherdrake]

PSA from a forest ranger who is instructed to knock these down:

Not only are they harmful for river/stream habits, they can cause hikers to get lost! Cairns are meant to represent the correct path for a trail. We’ve had hikers get lost by following incorrect paths marked by cairns people set up “for fun/art.” Not only do we want 0 hikers to get lost, we want them to stay on the correct path for erosion control and ecosystem protection. Cairn-building “for fun/art” has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, so we keep finding more and more to knock over.

If you want to set up a cairn “for fun/art,” do it in a dry, very rocky area. Don’t take rocks from rivers or streams! But when it’s a bedrock site and there’s lots of rocks sitting around? Sure, fine, whatever. But please please PLEASE knock them down after! Don’t be the reason we have to deploy Search & Rescue for a lost hiker!