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I can't add the link to my bio, so I'm posting it here:
Making my way through life, 8 frames a second...
It links to all my other social media, plus my Kofi account.
That's all for now...
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

oozey mess
Xuebing Du
Sweet Seals For You, Always

⁂

#extradirty
Mike Driver
One Nice Bug Per Day
DEAR READER
Claire Keane
RMH
will byers stan first human second
occasionally subtle
hello vonnie
todays bird

ellievsbear

izzy's playlists!
taylor price
Game of Thrones Daily
KIROKAZE
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@kitemanx
Blatant advertisement!
I can't add the link to my bio, so I'm posting it here:
Making my way through life, 8 frames a second...
It links to all my other social media, plus my Kofi account.
That's all for now...
Sound on!
So, I suddenly remembered that I have a Tumblr account, so I'm going to use it as another way to inflict my stuff on the unsuspecting public.
(I also post on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, all with the same username.)
Don’t Meep. Meep and you’re dead. They’re fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t meep. Good Luck.
One of our favorite pop culture mashups (previously featured here) has been brought to life in glorious cosplay form. Behold, the Meeping Angel.
If you know who created this super awesome costume, please contact us so we can post proper credit.
[via /r/doctorwho]
omfg
Can I just remind you that peanut butter and banana sandwiches are very much a thing? Made properly, the bread should be wholemeal (toasted in cold weather), and the banana should be just developing brown spots on the skin and mashed onto the bread (I've married a heretic - my wife prefers her banana sliced!). The peanut butter must be crunchy, must not contain palm oil (else every bite would make lemur homeless, and my conscience could not bear that). More than a snack, PBB makes a grand breakfast and decent stomach-liner before a few pints.
Hypnotic...
Delightful Fibonacci sequence poem
Poet Brian Bilston wrote this delightful poem above describing, and embodying, the Fibonacci sequence in which each every number after the first two in a series is the sum of the preceding two numbers. (via @pickover)
https://boingboing.net/2017/07/24/delightful-fibonacci-sequence.html
How to Make an Origami Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter From One Square Sheet of Paper
How Punctuation Disproves Ghosts. :-)
Consider the emoticon :-)
Two dots and two short strokes, and we see a human face, even assign it feelings ("happy"), even when they are tilted to an impossible angle.
That's evolution for you - we developed exquisite pattern-recognition skills that work at an unconscious level, almost as a reflex.
It's a useful development - it enabled our ancestors to catch the smallest glimpse of something between the grasses of the savannah, or the leaves of the forest, and immediately be able to decide if it was potentially dangerous, or potentially lunch.
Unfortunately, it has the side effect of making us see faces and forms almost anywhere (what child hasn't spotted castles in clouds, and trolls in trees?), even when we are not looking for them, and even when we know they should not be there.
So powerful is the ability, we are inclined to think that the shape we saw out of the corner of our eye, in the shadows in the corner of that old brick building, were actually real. In fact, we are still inclined to believe it, even when a simple turn of our heads, or a step forwards, shatters the illusion; we would rather think that the mysterious person simply faded away than consider the possibility that we were mistaken.
That is why so many people "see" ghosts, angels or aliens, and three million years of evolution has made the acceptance of a false positive a survival trait, so it is incredibly hard to persuade people that all they saw was a false construct of their own brain, and not actually the panicked reflexes of our pre-sentient ancestors...
At 12:18 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time on Aug. 2, 1971, Commander David Scott of Apollo 15 placed a 3 1/2-inch-tall aluminum sculpture - an aluminium statuette known now as Fallen Astronaut - onto the dusty surface of a small crater near his parked lunar rover. At that moment the moon transformed from an airless ball of rock into the largest exhibition space in the known universe. Scott regarded the moment as tribute to the heroic astronauts and cosmonauts who had given their lives in the space race.
Forty-six years on, this is my miniature recreation (hence the "2") of NASA’s most controversial work, this time cut from acrylic.
The Showroom Experience
I’d like a new car, please.
Certainly. That will be your life savings, please.
For what??
Your new car. You give me your life savings, I give you a car. It’s a very nice car, best available.
But… where is it?
Oh, it’s here. We keep them out the back. You’ll love it.
Can I have a test drive?
Certainly, right after you buy it.
But… is it new? Is it even safe?
Well, it is one of the oldest models on the road, but we have swapped a couple of the parts, and we’ve painted over the really dodgy parts, but it’s really good. Come on, just your life savings.
Can you even tell me the colour?
Well, we like to sell it as being “white”, but some people say it should be brown.
But… £21,000 for a car you won’t even show me? Can you prove the car is even real? There’s not much space back there to store one.
Absolutely real. You’ll definitely own a car after you give us your life savings.
But what if I change my mind? Can I get my money back?
Oh, no sir. No returns possible.
But what if it doesn’t work? Can I sue?
Oh, no sir, but you can complain about it. We’d hand your case over to the apologies department.
What will they do?
They will accept your apology for not liking the car, and offer easy terms for you to compensate us.
What??
Oh, yes sir – by buying the car, you automatically sign up to being 100% satisfied with the car, and you are not allowed to be unhappy about the car. It’s against both the Terms and Conditions of Sale and the Terms and Conditions of No Sale.
Terms and Conditions of No Sale??
Oh, yes, sir – we consider you to be bound by our terms and conditions, even if you do not buy the car. In fact, the simple fact that we tell you the car exists has, we believe, bound you by all the terms and conditions that would apply if you did buy the car.
What happens if I don’t apologise for not liking the car I haven’t seen and haven’t bought?
Then we hand you over to the Consequences Team.
What do they do?
Nothing pleasant, sir. It’s quite a long and involved procedure, but the final penalty will depend upon exactly which of our Terms and Conditions you broke, which of our salesmen caught you breaking it, and what version of the T&C he happened to have signed up to when he bought his car.
So all your salesmen drive this car?
Oh, yes, sir. It would be silly of us to sell you something we did not drive ourselves! We all drive the very best and most perfect cars available – look (points out at the roadside parking).
They’re all different, and none of them seem to be in good condition. Some of them are missing wheels!
Oh, no, sir, you’re wrong about that. All our salesmen drive exactly the same model, and their cars are all in perfect condition.
I can see them with my own eyes. That one has got blood all over the front grill!
Oh, no, sir, that was not the salesman’s fault – you will find that all road deaths are caused by pedestrians, viciously attacking poor innocent salesmen, alone in their cars. That’s why we’re trying to sell you this car – if you buy it, you will be safe and secure forever. That’s a guarantee carved in stone, sir.
What about fuel? How does it work?
In mysterious ways, sir. Screw up your eyes real tight sir, and wish hard, and the car will run for the rest of your life.
What happens when I run out of fuel?
Oh, that’s your fault, sir. When the car starts, that shows that we provide a perfect service, and have sold you the best car ever. If nothing happens when you turn the key, or it crashes at speed, that’s clearly your fault for not wishing hard enough, or not reading the manual properly. Part of the T&C.
Can I at least see the manual?
Certainly, sir, here you go. We have plenty – you can keep it, show it to your family.
But… this is a box full of random words written on scraps of paper. Some of them aren’t even in English! And why is the punctuation in a separate box?
Oh, no, sir, it’s perfectly clear, you just have to visit the showroom once a week to find out what it says. One of our salesmen will stand at the front of the workshop and tell you what the manual says today, while one of our mechanics pretends to maintain the car (that’s why we call the visit a “service”). Oh, and the service will cost you 10% of your wages.
What? But I’ll have already paid for the car with my life savings!
That’s not a problem, sir. If there’s a short-fall, you can take it up with the Apologies department.
So, let’s get this right; you want me to spend my life savings on a car you won’t show me, and can’t prove is even in the workshop. If I buy the car, I’m not allowed to complain about it, and if the car hurts me, or anybody around me, it’s my fault for not understanding the manual properly, even though nobody can agree what the manual says week on week. And if I don’t buy the car, I’m still breaking your T&C because you believe the car is so good that I should be grateful to own one, which means you still want to punish me for not not liking a car I don’t own and never wanted to own?
Yes sir, that’s right, sir. We can take cash or cheque, sir.
No, thank you, I’ll give it a miss. I’ll find my own way from place to place.
Your own way? What are you? A CYCLIST??
Animal Species Illustration Posters by Kelsey Oseid on Etsy
More like this
Favorite post ever.
I love these hard, though I am a tiny bit sad there are no humans in the primate poster. :D
Wiktor Franko
39 Things Flat Earthers need to explain to be taken seriously.
Why we can see a horizon.
Why objects disappear “bottom first” as they recede into the distance.
Why zoom lenses, telescopes and really hard squinting cannot bring objects over the horizon back into view.
Why the Sun & Moon set & rise.
Why, when the Sun & Moon set & rise, their apparent size does not change.
Why the apparent angular velocity of the Sun & Moon across the sky does not change during the day (or night).
Why the distances physically measured between locations cannot be plotted on a flat map.
Why the distance around the Antarctic is smaller than the distance around the Equator.
Why certain constellations are only visible from the Southern or Northern hemispheres, but not from both.
Why the Moon appears to be a different way up, depending upon your latitude.
Why star-fields rotate in the opposite direction when you cross the Equator.
Where rockets go when they don’t come down.
How to simulate antigravity for several years without a break.
Why my satellite TV points up into the sky.
Why GPS works best in the open ocean, rather than in urban areas with lots of mobile phone masts.
Earthquakes.
Continental drift.
Subduction zones.
Rift valleys.
Volcanoes.
Why subterranean seismic waves arrive more quickly that surface waves.
The S Wave shadow in seismology.
The P Wave shadow in seismology.
What meteorites are.
Where they come from.
The apparent retrograde motion of planets.
The parallax motion of stars
The way that different stars act as “Pole Star” over the centuries.
How Solar eclipses happen
How Lunar eclipses happen
The size of the umbra and penumbra of a solar eclipse.
The speed and track of a solar eclipse.
Why Lunar eclipses are visible globally, but Solar eclipses are not.
The size of the Sun.
The “altitude” of the Sun.
How the Sun actually works.
Lunar phases.
Tides.
The effect we call “gravity”.
Remember – if your model fails to satisfactorily address just one of these points, then your model is wrong.
After my previous post about developing the Paper Castle, I am glad to report that the Instructable is now live!
Totally new nets for the keep and the gatehouse have dramatically improved the appearance of the finished castle, and small tweaks to the stables and the curtain wall have made them easier to build.
As originally intended, the whole thing fits on a single sheet of A4 printer paper (though there’s nothing stopping you scaling it up to an A3 sheet.
The full building instructions are (as usual) on Instructables (click me), along with lots of helpful photos and educational links, and versions of the template in SVG format in case you want to remix it yourself.
So, go, download and build.
Paper castle, v2.0
I’m trying to make a whole medieval castle from a single sheet of A4. Version one never got as far as being completed, and v2 still needs tweaking (my god, that entrance arch is UGLY!), but it’s definitely going to work. The castle itself is smaller than my palm.
So, back to Inkscape to redraw some of the nets. Once it works, I’ll do a full instructable, but in the mean-time I need to think about detailing; should I just add arrow slits and doors? Maybe a bit of stonework?
“Show me an animal turning into a totally different animal”
Some creationists claim evolution is false because “you cannot see it happen – we do not see one animal turning into another”.
At one level, they are right. It does not matter how hard you look, you will not find a frog giving birth to a fish, nor a monkey giving birth to a human. But that’s not how evolution works.
Go stand in front of a mirror with your parents. See how similar you are? Good, you’re probably related. But look at the differences – see the subtle difference is jawline, or ear size? The tiny differences in eye-colour?
Good, because those tiny differences are the scale upon which evolution works – there is no great leap from one species to another, but thousands upon thousands of tiny, shuffling steps get you, eventually, from one species to the next.
You can watch a video of bacteria evolving resistance to antibiotics; https://youtu.be/plVk4NVIUh8
Creationists dismiss it because the organisms at the end are “still bacteria”, neglecting the fact that these new bacteria have totally different biochemistries, with abilities that the original bacteria did not possess, and were not “lurking in their DNA”. Yes, they are still bacteria, but they are now a different species of bacteria, after only a few hundred generations.
These tiny steps cause even more confusing for creationists, because they prevent science identifying the point at which one species becomes another. In the history of Life, “species” is an arbitrary division.
Imagine you have a family photo album, but it magically contains photos of every generation of your ancestors, all the way back for a thousand years. You flick a page to see your parents, and your grandparents, and you can clearly see that they are your family. Now turn all the way to the end, look at the photo taken as the Normans invaded England. You can clearly and easily see that they are not really your family. The differences are huge. But flick that same span a page at a time. Every time you flick a page, you can see the obvious similarities that show each generation is related to the one before. Family.
Eventually you get to that Norman invader again, the one that is obviously not related to you, but at no point in that journey through history could you point at a single person and say “that is where my family stops”.
But this photo album is magic, remember? We can go further. Further and further. Thousands, millions, billions of years, all the way back to the original abiogenetic blob, floating around the edge of a deep-sea volcanic vent, four billion years in the deep past. It is easy to think that there is no relationship between that barely-visible dot and the complex mammal flicking through the pages of the magical photo album, but, just like before, there will have been no photo at which you could point and say “this far and no more, beyond this point they are not my family”. Every single photo is a tiny step, transitioning from one generation to the next.
The evolutionary record is just like that magical photo album, but it’s broken. Most of your ancestors managed to avoid getting their photo taken (fossilizing), and many of the pages of the album are stuck together and the photos remain unseen (fossils yet to be unearthed). In that case, each turn of the page spans many thousands of generations, and it is easy to see how one photo differs to the next. That is where and how scientists define species.
And this evolution goes on. Humans only recently gained the ability to digest milk, and some members of our species have developed a form of red blood cell that resists malarial infection (these differences are so recent, though, that we can easily breed with these new humans, because they are not different enough to be labelled as a different species). We have recently found fish, blennies, that spend most of their lives crawling over exposed rocks with strong, muscular fins, surviving happily in a way that would kill most of their ancestors.
So, go and look in the mirror.
You are looking at a transitional form. You are looking at evolution in action.
Valentine’s Day has been and gone, and my wife enjoyed her gift.
If you appreciated it, I’d appreciate a vote in the contest...
https://www.instructables.com/id/ValentinesHeart/
(The Vote button is at the top of the page...)