the tiffany problem is a classic but i think my favorite historical fact that seems fake is that almond milk was extremely common and popular in the middle ages
i made a post like this before but I can't find it now. so. I'll just redo it.
What's the first "big news story" you remember from when you were a kid?
It's something I love to ask mixed-aged groups sometimes because I think it's really interesting to see the responses. I've gotten answers from the Olympics of [whatever year] to Watergate to more recent stuff from my niblings.
My first news thing I remember is the OJ Simpson trial. I vaguely remember watching the news with my grandparents before that, but that's the first story I remember, in part because my second grade teacher had us go play so she could watch the verdict š
Hello, I work for a large moderately evil corporation and for at least five years now I have to sign a yearly thing to say I will never ever have one of these devices in the same room as me while I work.
My large moderately evil employer takes it for granted that these things are spying on me at all times, and you should too.
not all of us can live in fantasy 100% the time like i see some people on here do and it's refreshing to learn something new. its been philosophy, essays, and history for me and i feel much more at home on planet Earth for it knowing that people have been struggling and wishing similarly for millenia.
its not that fiction doesnt have its place, its important and healthy to exercise the imagination, but non-fiction can do so much to boost and supplement that. if not for yourself, for your art or for the people you're around
this version of the post doesnt seem to be getting much traction but this is arguably the most important reason why we should be reading nonfiction in addition to fiction
So, I usually like to have a fiction book and a non-fiction book going at the same time so I can switch back and forth between whether the emotional harrowing I'm receiving has real-world consequences. But I also am suffering a lot from compassion fatigue, so I've really been digging into popsci and niche history. Here's my recs (from my goodreads) from what I've read in the last few awful years.
Topics include: disasters, survival stories, parasites, epidemiology, medical history, historical true crime, pop science, linguistics, the satanic panic, human exploitation...
I listened to all of these via audiobook with the Libby or Hoopla apps that connect with my local libraries (you can collect library cards from the counties around you usually, and there are open libraries like the Queer Liberation Library! [making fun of my nerd ass in my own head getting all enthused about collecting libraries like pokemon...]). The audiobooks are all less than 10 hours for the most part, so even the heavy ones don't get too bogged down.
First off, for the Animorphs fans:
Parasites/Diseases
The Woman with a Worm in Her Head: And Other True Stories of Infectious Disease by Pamela Nagami
Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History by Dorothy H. Crawford
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasick
Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures by Carl Zimmer
Parasites: The Inside Story by Scott Lyell Gardner
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry
Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes by Nathan H. Lents
Gory Details: Adventures from the Dark Side of Science by Erika Engelhaupt
The Family that Couldn't Sleep by D.T. Max
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and everything else by Mary Roach
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory and From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
Survival Stories
Into Thin Air and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev
High: Stories of Survival from Everest and K2 by Clint Willis
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman
The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown
Trapped!: The Story of Floyd Collins by Robert K. Murray
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
Disasters and Human Exploitation
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of Americaās Shining Women by Kate Moore
Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs by Jamie Loftus
Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson
Triangle: The Fire That Changed America David von Drehle
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham
Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters by Joan Ryan
True Crime-ish/Satanic Panic
All the Sinners Bow and Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City by Kate Winkler Dawson
Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case by Debbie Nathan
Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt
Misc. Lighter Fare
The Immortal Game: A History of Chess, or How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Art, Science and the Human Brain by David Shenk
The Chess Revolution: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age by Peter Doggers
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
Flim-Flam!: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions by James Randi
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism and Wordslut and The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell
Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts by Andrew Robinson (not that one)
look at the republican calendar and see which animal/plant/item is associated with your birthday ok. if you're born january 14 you get the day of the cat
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! Thatās a big deal! Iāve never thought about it before but now that I have, itās ridiculous to me that thatās not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why donāt we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
Itās July 20th. Thatās the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. Iām ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and Iām going to have a goddamn potluck. Youāre all invited.
āThe police spend very little of their time dealing with violent criminalsāindeed, police sociologists report that only about 10% of the average police officerās time is devoted to criminal matters of any kind. Most of the remaining 90% is spent dealing with infractions of various administrative codes and regulations: all those rules about how and where one can eat, drink, smoke, sell, sit, walk, and drive. If two people punch each other, or even draw a knife on each other, police are unlikely to get involved. Drive down the street in a car without license plates, on the other hand, and the authorities will show up instantly, threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you donāt do exactly what they tell you. The police, then, are essentially just bureaucrats with weapons. Their main role in society is to bring the threat of physical forceāeven, deathāinto situations where it would never have been otherwise invoked, such as the enforcement of civic ordinances about the sale of untaxed cigarettes.ā
ā An excerpt fromĀ Ferguson & the Criminalization of American Life by David Graeber (via actjustly)
since i think many will have had the memory slip with just how many other atrocities have occured in the past 11 years, or are simply too young to remember, the last bit about the sale of untaxed cigarettes isnāt just some hypothetical, itās a reference to the killing of eric garner
this is the origin of the slogan āi cant breatheā, which was revived in the wake of the killing of george floyd.
Okay. I was on my beloved AO3 and I saw something that made me do a double take. So, now I really want to knowā¦
What is your AO3 user ID?
Iām an OG user 5 digits or less
Six figures baby!
Iām in the millionsā¦
Voting ended onJul 27
Iām so curious to see how long people have been on AO3! I know some people have been on there since beta/invite only, but I would love to see what the number is on tumblr!
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
germansingergirl
titsay
vaporwave
ellievsbear
romaincrisis
gracieabrams
