jarich

sometimes I write, mostly I read

[the-sacred-now]

I feel like a lot of people engaging in torture are not treating their victims as if they could have blood borne pathogens 🤔

[the-sacred-now]

Is what my wife said apropo of nothing as we were silently drifting off to sleep

[the-sacred-now]

Uh oh

Is what she said when I immediately reached for my phone and opened Tumblr instead of responding

[the-sacred-now]

@everything-you-feel-is-real I know by tumblr tradition that I'm to say "impossible, my posts never blow up like that," or "please don't do this to me."

But I feel in my bones that you are right. If this is to be my wife's moment of glory, I am willing to suffer notification overload, that the world may know she is funny. #MyFunnyWife

[shencomix]

My Fitness Coach is a Dark Wizard [Complete]

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my sanity hairline

[jackiefour]

Okay, so according to this post, @staff says they're listening to us, so...

Sound off, Tumblr! How do you feel about the latest update to the reblog and notes?

Hate it. 👎

Like it. 👍

Voting ended onMar 19

No nuance. Go ahead and reblog the crap out of this.

[hamletthedane]

I think about British Airways Flight 5390 a lot

[hamletthedane]

OKAY STRAP IN because this is one of the WILDEST stories in aviation history.

In 1990, a British Airways BAC One-Eleven, captained by Tim Lancaster and co-piloted by Alastair Atchison, was cruising at 17,000 feet.

Around 15 minutes after take-off, flight attendant Nigel Ogden entered the cockpit to bring the pilots something to drink. One second everything was fine. The next second, the pilot's side window blew out from the force of the pressurized cockpit. Even though he was strapped in, the force of the explosive decompression ripped the captain out of his chair and pulled him though the window.

The flight attendant immediately leapt forward and grasped the captain's belt. The force was so strong - due to the plane's speed - the captain slipped and was pulled almost entirely out of the plane, but the flight attendant caught his leg. The captain laid on the roof, then the side of the fuselage (the above image is an inaccurate recreation - the side window was smashed) and the flight attendant's entire arm was soon outside of the plane, gripping him.

(Recreation from the show Mayday at the point of decompression)

At the same time, the event caused the autopilot to disengage, and the captain's body hitting the flight controls caused the plane to enter into a deep dive. The throttle was set to full power and could not be accessed due to debris, meaning the plane was descending rapidly. The co-pilot, experiencing hypoxia, fought to control the plane's dive while allowing it to continue descending to a level the passengers/crew could breathe at. He attempted to contact air traffic control, but the wind made communication impossible, so he broadcast a mayday signal. Finally, he was able to re-engage the autopilot and level the plane out at a breathable altitude.

Soon, the flight attendant's entire arm was burned from wind shear and frostbite, and his grip began to slip. The other attendants entered the cabin to see what was wrong and took over holding the captain's body. Seeing the blood covering the windows from the captain's severe wind sheer burns and frostbite, the attendants and co-pilot knew he was dead. However, they could not let his body go because it could smash into the wing, horz stabilizer, or engine, and bring the plane down.

For 30+ minutes the co-pilot flew a jet plane with an OPEN WINDOW and his co-worker's body hanging along the side of the plane. Finally, clearance to land from ATC came across over the sound of the wind and the flight attendants were able to dislodge the captain's ankles from the flight controls without letting him go. The co-pilot successfully landed the plane.

(tw below for blood)

(Taken same day as the incident)

BUT HERE'S THE KICKER: when they reached the ground and evacuated, they realized THE CAPTAIN WAS NOT DEAD.

He SURVIVED being outside the fuselage of a jet airplane traveling 550mph at 17,000 feet. His only injuries were extensive - but mostly superficial - frostbite and windshear burns, bruising, fractures in his hand, and shock. He has since stated that he remembers the event and was conscious for much of the time he was outside of the fuselage. The only other injury was the flight attendant's frostbitten/windshorn arm. Captain Tim Lancaster returned to flying five months later.

(Captain Tim Lancaster in bed several weeks after the incident, with flight attendant Ogden (+ Ogden's wife) above him and co-pilot Alastair Atchison to the far left, along with the two other flight attendants)

Why did this occur? Because the plane had received maintenance the day before, and the maintenance supervisor did not check he was using the correct screws in re-installing the windscreen.

(Recreation)

So yeah: you can apparently survive clinging to the side of a jet airliner traveling 500+mph at 17,000 feet.

[hamletthedane]

Wow! Didn't expect this many likes for an aviation post.

Just a note that I was wrong - it was the front pilot's windscreen, not the side-window! I'm used to looking at Boeing windows with different positions :)

If y'all want the full story & more analysis of what exactly went wrong, Mayday: Air Investigations did a pretty decent special on the incident. It's free on YouTube here (and here on dailymotion if you're outside the US).

[desmoscatghost]

Adding some stuff:

The ‘maintenance supervisor did not check the bolts’ is technically correct but ignores the amount of stuff that had to go wrong for that to happen.

1: the supervisor was the one doing the bolts (I think there was a staffing issue) and so did not have to check the work that he did

2: the window was not on the list of vital components that need to be checked by someone else even if the supervisor does it.

3: the parts store where he had to go to get the bolts was badly lit and had bolts in the wrong drawers.

4: the wrong bolts and the right bolts are almost indistinguishable by sight.

5: the correct tool to put the screws in was not available so they had to do some lite bodging to get the screws in. By this I mean it was still a torque wrench and they checked it released at the right point but the correct socket did not stay in place or something like that.

6: any slight differences between the right bolts and the wrong bolts were hidden because of the tool they were using (which would have worked perfectly if they were using the right bolts).

If one of those things had not happened then the plane would have had the right bolts when it took off.

[hamletthedane]

^ absolutely critical edition and a great example of what’s known in risk analysis as the Swiss Cheese Model.

From Wikipedia:

“The Swiss cheese model of accident causation illustrates that, although many layers of defense lie between hazards and accidents, there are flaws in each layer that, if aligned, can allow the accident to occur. In this diagram, three hazard vectors are stopped by the defenses, but one passes through where the "holes" are lined up.”

Accidents in complex systems are very rarely one person’s fault and my original post indeed oversimplified the incident for the sake of telling a straightforward story. This was not the case of one bad maintenance worker; this was a systematic failure. The holes lined up and a tragedy nearly occurred because profit (short staffing, poor maintenance facilities, poor training and tools) was prioritized over safety at several layers. Any additional degree of safety would have prevented this from occurring.

[writing-prompt-s]

You were a god of textiles; respected, but generally considered a minor deity. But everything changed when mortals started regularly describing spacetime and reality as a 'fabric'.

[mage-of-the-small]

Not to get opinionated about the writing prompts blog, but I think anyone who would value a deity of textiles as a minor/unimportant deity is an idiot who deserves to have their pants rip in public and their grocery bags split in the parking lot. /exaggeration

Anyway, excuse me while I tangent a bit in thinking about textiles in our world, and how a textile god ought to be considered, in my unhumble opinion.

But seriously, textiles are wildly important to all human advancement. Unfortunately because it decays so quickly, we don't have much in the way of remaining material culture from prehistoric societies. We have pottery, stone, arrowheads, and wood if we're lucky, but cloth and leather generally doesn't survive.

But we know it has to have been there. Humans were wearing clothes and carrying things, making slings and stringing bows for their arrows to fly from. Fiber, strings, and cloth are fundamental technologies for human development, we just don't think about any of it anymore.

And cloth is hard to make. We don't think about it now, in our age of mechanization (and slave labor), but it takes a lot of work to grow fiber (plants or sheep) harvest it (remember learning about the cotton gin? how revolutionary that was?) then spin it into all kinds of different styles-- thread, yarn, twine, rope-- and then turn that into nets, or cloth, or whatever. And then cut that and maybe re-sew it into something else!

A god of textiles ought to be on the same level as... a god of housing or the hearthfire, if the world was in any way sensible.

A family should pray to them for hardy clothes, a seamster to bless the quality of their craft. A sailor should pray that the sail doesn't rip and the ropes don't break. A mail carrier would need a sturdy bag, a worker a sturdy glove.

I'm not saying that based in reality by the way, just my own opinions; textiles are fucking important and they're so massively underrated, at least among the people that I know.

[jarich]

For a really long time, one's clothing was one's first or second largest asset. Hank Green did an awesome video on textiles. https://youtu.be/e4dYGdjgsz8?si=JiOf5D-miUVG5xWD

[teaboot]

Not pertinent to anything in particular but I do think it's kinda weird that we keep depicting cavemen in media crawling around on all fours covered in dirt with tangled, matted hair, speaking in broken, cobbled-together toddler language when like.

They were us.

Like literally genetically they were US, just like. A while ago.

Like

Would you trust a TV caveman with a baby? Probably not

A real life caveman though??? I think they'd be at least okay at it

[sheilikhal]

This is actually really important and comes up in Anthropology classes all. The. Time.

As long as homo sapiens have existed, we have had the same emotional and mental capacity as you and I do today. You nailed it. They were US. Even Neaderthals existed alongside and had offspring with Homo Sapiens for many thousands of years.

There's much evidence that cavemen would have had complex spoken language, culture (learned information passed down), symbolic interpretation, and I think they most certainly would have been able to handle holding a baby. In fact I have my suspicisions that an ancient homo sapiens mother may be a more present, attentive, and knowledgable mom than I could be today.

Do not let media trick you into believing we are the pinnacle of humanity. Unilinial evolution theory (google it quick I beg) is BUNK, GARBAGE, and the root of so much evil.

We've been human for a long, long time, and we are not inherently better than all those who came before.

[fresne999]

One the most profound experiences of my life was visiting Font de Gaume, which has 12 thousand year old paintings. They use a technique where the horses appeared to run across the wall when seen in flickering firelight. There was a bison the wall staring at us with such attitude, I could practically hear him. I had the most profound feeling of those ancient artists reaching forward to lay their hands on my shoulders. To say, "This was my world." It was a profoundly moving experience.

Some years later, I went to the Orkney islands where we visited a tiny family run museum of artifacts from the chambered tomb at the other end of the farm. They handed me a pestle once held by some neolithci human.They'd worn groves where the thumb and forefinger would be for better grip.

[cymbie8]

One time, in a French history class, my teacher randomly at the end of the class had all of us draw a sketch of a horse. And we were all like ??? Okay???

At the beginning of the next class, my teacher showed us a cave painting of a horse. And then he showed all of our horses, which he had scanned and put into the presentation.

He then pointed out all the ways that our horses looked similar to the prehistoric horse. Same features, drawn from the same angle, etc.

And then he asked us, "Isn't it cool that you draw horses the same way as someone who lived 20,000 years ago?"

Yeah. That stuck with me for a while.

[cuprohastes]

This is all very valid and heartwarming, but my sense of the absurd has just lit up:

If I were distant ancestors weren’t okay to hand a baby, we wouldn’t be here.

And I know that the gist of the post is that the depiction of “cavemen“ is just wildly wrong, but still it amused me.

I actually feel that if it was possible to go back and meet our ancestors from 50,000 years ago, we’d be slightly amazed to find that their fairly well groomed as clean as they possibly can be, and living in surprising comfort, with richly decorated clothing.

Because they’re human.

Or to split hairs, a small variety of humans.

And one thing that you can count on with humans, is that we don’t like to hang around with people who smell bad, and we don’t like to smell bad ourselves. And that if we have any say in the matter, we are going to do interesting things with our hair.

We are also going to decorate every available surface in any way that we know how to, and then we’re going to invent several new ways.

The issue with all of this is not that it never happened, it’s that 99.99% of it just did not survive. There were probably carved and painted pieces of wood all across the world, paths and signs for freshwater and places to sleep made out of organic material

But organic material cannot last.

So we have that tiny fraction that was painted on cave walls using mineral pigments. And there were probably even more paintings that used for example animal fat as an oil paint base.

So I kind of feel that depictions of our ancestors should actually show them with elaborately braided and decorated hair wearing painted skins and woven fabric with plant dyes, surrounded by the things that they’ve carved into interesting shapes and painted with whatever local colours were available.

[jarich]

And finally, may I remind you that *we* are not *humanity*. (See Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.) On this planet today are several cultural paths of humanity. The path my country is on could be doomed without necessarily dooming all humanity. Ditto for other countries. There's a chance that humanity survives even if all of my people die. And maybe there's a chance that my people, and I, survive because of the choices citizens make. Because that's what humans do. We find our way out of hard spots.

As did our ancestors. But we can't keep waiting on the political and predator classes to decide to make decisions on our interests. We must insist that our governments follow the laws at a minimum. Laws are about protecting justice.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

what ao3 would look like with ads. no, you do not want this. support ao3 because it’s one of the last few places on the internet that is not tainted by capitalism bullshit. support ao3 because it’s one of the last few places on the internet that is genuinely about the connection between audiences, artists, their works and the love/passion artists have for what they do

source

[todaysbird]

very cool but also kind of a dick move

[todaysbird]

Stop making Hannibal furry headcanons unless it’s this bird

[reggiemess]

It's apparently only ONE population of this species that does this. Everyone else hunts and caches normally. The other falcons probably talk shit about this fucked up torture family.

[skwerlly-squirrel]

Ooooh that’s even more fascinating. That means it’s a learned behavior they TAUGHT one another.

[righteousgrace]

[emmaubler]

This reminds me of finding about strikes, who like to impale their food on barb wire or twigs and leave them there for days at a time.

Shrikes: Meet the Bird That Impales Prey on Spikes

If you’ve ever found a small animal impaled on a spike, odds are it was killed by a shrike.

[jarich]

So, in addition to humans, squirrels, and foxes, some birds keep a pantry. A different form of tool usage. How wonderful.

One species that won't eat carrion and another who may prefer carrion. I wonder to what extent various birds think about other birds?

**Falcon**: "Food preparation takes too long to do every day, I've got places to be. So I food-prep, all at the start of the week. By stuffing them in rocks they stay put and are fresh when I need them. I am a Freshitarian and only eat stuff I just killed, no carrion."

**Shrike**: "Food preparation takes too long to do every day, I've got places to be. So I food-prep, all at the start of the week. I enjoy a little tenderizing of the corpse, from if spending time in the sun. The joints are easier to pick at, and my stomach can handle the bacteria."

**Shrike and Falcon to each other**: you're eating wrong.

Birds know the difference between their species (or rather the birds they were brought up with) and other birds. For example, 8 week old chickens are pigeon proportioned, but neither a wild pigeon or an adult chicken would ever confuse them.

[artchivary]

[Voice of someone meeting their soon-to-be best friend in the entire universe]: You made a mistake, Murderbot, a really bad mistake.

Animated version of panel 2 below the cut; warning for bright moving lights/eyestrain.

[bedupolker]

The kids learn a new word

[velvetvexations]

Weird Fantasy (1950) #18 written by Al Feldstein and drawn by Joe Orlando, with editor Bill Gaines

[velvetvexations]

So he said it can't be a Black. So I said, "For God's sakes, Judge Murphy, that's the whole point of the Goddamn story!" So he said, "No, it can't be a Black". Bill just called him up and raised the roof, and finally they said, "Well, you gotta take the perspiration off". I had the stars glistening in the perspiration on his Black skin. Bill said, "Fuck you", and he hung up.

Al Feldstein, Tales of Terror: The EC Companion

[iconuk01]

Just to add context for those not aware of the impact of this story.

The reason it was so important for narrative purposes, was that the plot concerns the visit of the Astronaut, in his completely opaque spacesuit, to a planet populated entirely by self-aware robots (originally from Earth) who have built their own society and are petitioning to be allowed to interact with Earth again as equals.

They have a democratic government and free choice of careers etc. as the orange robot serving as guide tells the Astronaut.

The Astronaut notices that there are two different types of robot on this world; the orange ones, who are in charge, gifted access to all information and facilities. and the blue robots, who are seen as more limited in function, have less access to information and resources, and are not allowed positions of power or as wide a choice of employment opportunities. Even transportation is segregated.

The Astronaut investigates further and discovers that the blue and orange robots are actually structurally identical, there is absolutely no difference between their potential or capabilities, and it is only because the orange robots are instructed by their Educator system to consider themselves superior, that the difference exists.

The Astronaut tells the robots they are not ready for re-alignment with Earth, until they come to terms with their own unfairness, and how Earth had had to deal with this issue themselves. When that time comes, the robots will be able to ally with Earth.

Then he leaves in his spaceship, and it's only in that one final panel that we see the Astronaut is black.

Not subtle, nor should it be, but for 1950 this was a breathtakingly powerful statement, perhaps the first of it's kind in the genre.

The black character was not a caricature, or comedy relief, he was a main character in his own right, a human who "simply" was black.

[assortedinsanities]

Ok, but this story is sadly revolutionary even now. That is not just a human who happens to be black, as far as every other character in this story is concerned this is the most important, maybe even the only human they ever see, who happens to be black.

As depressing as that is, but a black person just casually representing the entirety of humanity is a breathtakingly powerfull statement even today, a quarter of a century later.

[tastefullyoffensive]

(photos by Bill Watterson and an octopus)

[transparasite-deactivated201806]

I think this is the best scientist photograph I have ever seen.

[shellysbees-blog]

But people didn’t believe him on reddit. So Watterson made the photo sequence into a gif.

[moonlit-hedge]

Here’s the gif for anyone curious.

[siren-kitten-his-deactivated202]

I had to go through the notes to find the gif. Not because I didn’t believe him but because I wanted to see it.

[illisidifan]

Fantastic

[jarich]

Amazing

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[jarich]

Wow

[monamoni]

Osprey

[jarich]

Wow. 2 fish. What strength.

[imchoccy]

Murderbot Books as Textposts

[abigail-rytel]

Honestly, I feel like I'm old and mature enough these days that I don't need to know what the kids' new funny number is supposed to mean. Hell, when I was a child, I wasn't well-read enough to understand why 42 was a funny number, and I just shrugged and moved on. And, as we all remember from our multiplication tables, 42 is just six se