i posted this old as balls gifset ten years ago today
Happy anniversary old as balls gifset
@meme-conservation
We are pleased to note the continued survival of this meme to the point that it, too, is Old As Balls
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Sweet Seals For You, Always

ellievsbear
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH

Discoholic 🪩

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will byers stan first human second
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

if i look back, i am lost
Monterey Bay Aquarium

tannertan36
Mike Driver
KIROKAZE
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Not today Justin

Andulka
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Kiana Khansmith
RMH
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@kiraofthefunk
i posted this old as balls gifset ten years ago today
Happy anniversary old as balls gifset
@meme-conservation
We are pleased to note the continued survival of this meme to the point that it, too, is Old As Balls
everybody here's my tiny crochet coelacanth <3
I think about British Airways Flight 5390 a lot
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.
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).
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.
^ 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.
Wouldn’t leave my mind sorry
The story of Cats is that in the 1930s, the famous poet T.S. Eliot wrote a book of cutesy little cat-themed poems for his godchildren
And then 40 years later, Andrew Lloyd Webber found a lost cat poem that T.S. Eliot had cut from the cat book for being too sad for children, and ALW was like “woahhh. A cat….that’s sad. That’s deep, man. I wanna make a musical out of this”
So the producer assigned to the project was like “okay, I guess you could maybe read these cat poems as a satire of 1930s British society? We could probably do something sort of interesting with that, I’m thinking a cast of about 5 and–”
And ALW was like “no. Forget the satire. Also I want a cast of dozens and the most advanced special effects technology ever seen on stage. I’ve taken out a second mortgage on my house to fund this”
And the producer was like “wh– you– wh– do you even have. a plot”
So ALW got a bunch of actors and writers and artists together and they holed up and did cocaine workshopped for 5 weeks, and at the end of it they emerged and said “the plot is that a bunch of cats are having a dance contest for the right to take a ufo to cat heaven :)”
and then it made 2 billion dollars.
You know how the best genre of rock song is “There’s a Wizard”? CATS is good because it’s two and a half hours straight of “There’s a Cat”, which shares a lot of the same musical DNA.
Though curiously, the “There’s a Cat who is a Wizard” song is actually the worst one in the whole play. It’s not great on its own, but it’s REALLY not done any favors by the song right before it, “There’s a Cat Who Has Done Every Crime Ever And Everyone Is At Least A Little Horny For Him.”
Trail cam videos of a fox climbing a tree to rest in an abandoned bird's nest:
After discovering this grey fox in an old bird nest I returned to leave a trail camera for a little over a month. In that time it returned about once a week spending a few hours resting before setting out again. In the first clip you can see a second set of eyes already in the nest as the one fox climbs up. I'm curious if it's more than one fox using the nest. I plan on returning with another camera or two to try and capture some more footage. Codylooman on r/trailcam
Today on "I didn't know they could do that"
Kingfisher and Great Egret lined up just right
@notsospiteful I like the way you think
Hey can you guys reblog Cheeseburger so he can take a sunbeam nap on lots of blogs. No other reason I just want you guys to see him.
Sometimes you try to write one research paper and your subjects inform you that you will be writing an entirely different one.
w h i m s y
Chocolate Guy's Wario
did i tell you guys i failed at being sexually harassed at work today?
okay so, guy at work, who i find out afterwards is famous at this place for being a sex pest, comes up and starts with what i also learn is his favorite opener to conversations where he’s going to be a sex pest, namely: “Do you know where the term ‘blow job’ comes from?”
and here he made his first fatal error. his moment of hubristic sex pesting. because of course i know where the term blow job comes from, i love learning about sex and the history of sexual terms! i know so much about oral sex that i could write a book on it!
Like two years ago I ran into a salamander biologist in the woods who complimented my ability to 'walk quietly in the forest while causing minimal disturbance to the leaf litter.' Still goes to my head.
I had to get my kidneys imaged a few years ago and the urologist somewhat breathlessly told me "you have absolutely beautiful kidneys." and tbh I've never felt hotter.
first rule of Cite Club: tell everyone where you learned about Cite Club
invizigothx. (2026, January 30). first rule of Cite Club: tell everyone where you learned about Cite Club [Text post]. Tumblr. https://www.tumblr.com/invizigothx/807189844216446977/first-rule-of-cite-club-tell-everyone-where-you?source=share
“Vicious” Leopard seal tries to keep national geographic photographer alive by feeding him penguins.
@maculategiraffe tags
normal brain: playing pokemon B/W as a nuzlocke or efficient playthrough proves N right because you turned your pokemon into tools for your own personal gain
galaxy brain: playing pokemon X/Y without using mega evolution proves Lysandre right, because you are presented with a scarcity scenario with the mega ring and you use your strength to selfishly decide that nobody should have or use one
universe brain: Resetting pokemon D/P/Pt proves Cyrus right because you have full control over the game’s universe and can freely remake it in your image on a whim.
Nothing proves Archie and Maxie right because they are morons.
Pokemon Heritage Post
people think 'no children' by the mountain goats is exclusively about a bitter divorce but i think a compelling reading is the relationship between you and your randomly assigned project partner in a college class
like it's due tomorrow and you haven't added your part to the doc or replied to my texts for a week. i do hope you die. i hope we both die.