Lovely Day / Horrible Robot

[systlin]

My asshole son (Muffin the cat) has been on a diet, on account of him being overweight. I've been losing my fuck damned mind because he is not losing weight, even when sticking to the vet reccomended diet.

Found out that the dickhead (affectionate) has figured out that the food is in the utility room cupboard. He has figured out how to hook his claws into the door, pry it open, and get into the fucking cupboard at night, where he then shoves his head in the bag and eats as much as he wants.

He then exits and closes the fucking cupboard like the genius little goddamn prick he is.

[systlin]

Update; my fluffy 25 pound dickhead of a Maine coon mix Disapproves Strongly of the child locks on the food door. Loudly. Is now attempting to figure out how to work a child lock with his enormous crime paws.

[waspdaily]

Have you done one on oriental hornets? They are so cool !!! Literally partially photosynthetic!!! And they have built in heaters in their bodies!!!!

Today's wasp of the day is the oriental hornet (Vespa orientalis)!

Credits: photo 1, photo 2

Uniquely adapted for sun and sand, these wasps can be found in desert regions across Central and Southwest Asia, the Middle East, Northeast Africa, and Southern Europe.

It takes a lot of energy to dig underground nests; and when you're underground you don't have the sun to give you that warmth and energy you need. So these crafty wasps have found a way to take the sun's bounty with them. That yellow belt they sport is basically a solar panel. The pigments of their yellow band are specialized to absorb sunlight, and the melanin found in the surrounded cuticle is designed to keep that energy in. That way, V. orientalis is able to bring a store of warmth and energy with it as it toils away in the mines.

Another interesting adaption is with their diet. As scavengers, V. orientalis often makes use of food that is less than fresh. Studies have shown that V. orientalis has an incredibly high tolerance for alcohol and can consume fermented fruit with no side effects. In fact, these hornets even carry yeast as part of their microbiome to purposely ferment their food so that it becomes less attractive to competitors.

Bonus image: the peaker

Credits

[ssaalexblake]

now we have to have a tv movie where doctor billie piper is gunned down and promptly killed by the american healthcare system, only for her to regenerate into slutty paul mcgann again.

[holy-leapin-splits-batman]

[psychoticallytrans]

Here is a skill that many of us are going to need for survival: how to tell if someone is offering to let you lie.

The tip-off phrase is "If [circumstance] was true, then we/I could do [helpful thing.]" This is not a guarantee that the person is offering, but it should tell you "I am being informed of a way to improve things."

Your confirmation phrase is "What documentation would that require?" This is essentially asking them "if people come asking me to prove this, will I be able to? Or will they not come at all?"

The answer you are hoping for with the confirmation phrase is "Just tell me if it's true, and I'll put it on the form." Note that this is not a direct instruction to lie, because they can't tell you that.

If they didn't mean to extend an offer to lie or this is a situation where they can't, then they'll list off something like your paystubs or your birth certificate. Your response back in that case is "Thanks, I'll tell my friends who qualify." This clears you of any concerns that you may have been considering lying.

The more complex answer is when they answer by giving you a form on the spot. Your job, in this case, is to scan the form and see if what they are asking you can be meaningfully verified by an official source.

Things that can be verified by an official source include, but are not limited to, your age, legal sex, income, veteran status, and place of residence. It's not generally a good idea to lie about these on official documents.

Be smart, and be practical. Do what you need to in order to stay alive, and keep an ear out for the people offering to help you do so.

[ulysses-but-somehow-more-transer]

im having trouble understanding this in the abstract, could someone give an example of a hypothetical situation this would apply to?

[time-travel-toke-up]

"This medication is covered for FREE if you are quitting smoking. Are you working on quitting?"

*me, thinking about how I quit smoking in 2018 and it is now the year of our lord 2024* "Oh yeah, still working very hard. You know how those cravings can hit."

*please note, how I omitted the truth in the example. I didn't ANNOUNCE it been 6 years SINCE I ALREADY QUIT. I said that I was working hard because cravings are still a thing (6 years later not said out loud). The fact I haven't have a SINGLE one in 4 years [I was Weak during lockdown but could not finish a cig anymore] is irrelevant. The doctor asking me was *nudge nudge wink wink* pointing out that labeling my cig use as "not quite quit yet" would cut some costs on medications.

Sometimes the 'lies' you are being an opportunity to nod along for are just ommissions of truth. Like- still being an active smoker for easier access to other treatments or random pains being worse than YOU personally find them. "If X is true, Y could be an option for you" is a way to allow you to snip off details to make X TECHNICALLY true. They are asking you to be a VAGUE fuck- not a pedantic one. For BOTH of y'all's plausible deniability.

"So these symptoms prevent you from doing [X, Y, Z] activities?"

Even if YOU think you are mildly inconvenienced at best, 'OH YEAH- the generalized fatigue/nagging pain/light headed feeling just makes it so hard to [whatever activity you just find more choresome in those circumstances]!'

I have also had it happen at random coffee shops. Or vape shops.

"How much cash do you have on you? Conveniently this is on sale RIGHT NOW for you for 5 dollars less than that IF it happens to be your birthday. It's your birthday... RIGHT??????"

Is the exact same concept. "You have a coupon right?" "And you saw the BOGO deal and remembered to mention it, RIGHT? Cuz mentioning it before I complete the transaction will make these BOGO..."

[sunspotpony]

You may ask, “why would someone ask me to lie?”

You all ever seen that scene in the Incredibles where Mr. incredible basically tells this little old lady to get her stuff approved? It’s a cartoonish example of what happens all the time in real life.

You ever seen a cashier conveniently forget to ring up baby formula for a single mother, and then wish her a lovely day?

Sometimes, people look out for each other. Pay attention and let them. The world is spooky out there; we’re all in it together.

[earsandtailsarefeet]

This is a good read and worth paying attention to. The human urge to help out other beings is strong, and people are prone to trying to indicate things like this to you.

This post gives some good steer on tasting if that's what is happening, a good read.

[dancing-crow]

My partner needed my signature on a thing for the insurance company. I was out of the country. The nice lady looked at him and said "you should go check in the parking lot" and he explained that I was Out of the Country and she shook her head and said again (more patiently, and enunciating clearly) "you should CHECK in the PARKING LOT" and nodded at him, handing him the form and a pen.

He finally understood.

[aiyexayen]

this is the number one reason i miss being a cashier. helping people and sticking it to the man at the same time, in tiny little ways every day. 😌

[westiec]

Important addendum:

If somebody does this for you, and you are at any point in a position to give Feedback On Your Experience — no they didn't. Don't tell Yelp, don't tell the customer satisfaction survey, for the love of fuck don't tell their boss, even if you mean it as praise. "Employee was friendly, knowledgeable, and professional" end of review.

Don't accidentally narc on someone doing you a solid.

[miraclemaya]

if you're fucked up enough even hugging someone can feel predatory

[necromancelena]

Die temu ad die

[necromancelena]

Hmm. Accidentally looks like latin.

[chef-boy-ar-girl]

It accidentally is latin

[saanah]

Accidental latin is my new favourite thing.

[santapau]

Found this in the margins of a medieval manuscript.

[qqueenofhades]

This is a very charming illustration and I do approve of Accidental Latin, but unfortunately, that is not what this (Fake) Accidental Latin actually says. Google Translate seems to think "temu" is identical to "timor" (infinitive, "to fear"), which would then be conjugated in first-person singular as "timeo" ("I fear"). "Temu" is not a word in Latin. So that is a very weird leap on Google Translate's part to turn gibberish into... something vaguely etymologically similar sounding? Hmm.

Next, "die" does mean "day," though nominative singular is "dies," i.e. "dies irae." It could be conjugated "die" if it was in ablative or locative case, but "die ad die" would mean something more like "day to day." "Ad" is in a "to" direction and "ab" is from, i.e. "ab urbis," and ablative case is used to indicate the movement of a thing. In short, "by" is not really a way to translate "ad"; we might want "per" here? (Through, by means of, etc.)

Not to mention, it would be weird to put one "die" at the start and another at the end The verb also usually goes at the end in Latin sentences, just for that extra bit of fun. So yes, in short, this is not actually Latin, and Google Translate is very bad at Latin in particular. Nonetheless, still charming.

[nudistcat]

@theshitpostcalligrapher

[sekkitsune]

Agree, @qqueenofhades, except on the matter of breaking “die ad die” apart. It’s a common structure in poetic and oratorical Latin to jam one phrase in the middle of another. I can’t think of an example exactly parallel to this construction, but I could believe a Roman poet would write it!

[qqueenofhades]

Ah, that is true. My Latin is of the reading-medieval-documents (particularly charters and/or chronicles) variety, where the sentence and usage structures are often more formulaic and there is less poetic license to move words around. There is obviously far less fixity for word order in Latin, since the conjugations explain how they grammatically relate to each other rather than placement in the sentence. (Coincidentally, this is why I used to say that the best feeling in the world was walking past a Latin classroom and not having to go inside it. Ahem.)

So yes: true that poetical Latin might be more at liberty to split the "die"-s up that far, though "timeo" (verb) is still more likely in most cases to go at the end, which would place them together anyway ("die ad die timeo," "day to day I fear" if translated in strict word order, which would make sense to an English speaker and sound more poetic anyway). Keep in mind, however, that my Latin is a) fairly rusty and b) mostly used for said formulaic legal document reading rather than freeform verse, so don't super-hard quote me on this.

[sekkitsune]

I saw that ablative “die” and that final -u on “temu” and thought of the ablative supine (as in “mirabile dictu”) but as you observe, there isn’t a verb that “temu” could be, and then also, the ablative supine requires an adjective, as far as I know.

But perhaps “temu” is a hapax legomenon (in which case we would need the rest of the text to gloss it) or a scribal error for temeratu, from temero, “I defile or disgrace”. In that case, and in true Tumblr form, I might translate it as “daily I disgrace, in the manner of the day”, with some errors attributable to the scribe.

[qqueenofhades]

....oh my god. You might be a genius. Because what else does Tumblr do but daily disgrace [itself, oneself, and/or numerous others] in the manner of the day, and make numerous scribal errors.

[laurenthemself]

how dare you say we error on the scribes

[jtimu]

this is what happens when you buy your latin on temu

[winter-wise]

Me: gosh I sure am having a nice day with all my blood inside my body

The villainous vampire:

[tieflingkisser]

[lesbianslimefriend]

here's where to find it on windows 10

[the-tiny-dragons-tea-room]

Ugh, it was in mine. It's off now.

[the-tiny-dragons-tea-room]

IT GETS WORSE

I had to turn this off, but it's something that allows Windows and anyone using your device to generate text/images.

LOBOTOMIZE YOUR MACHINES

[marougus-the-dragon]

AI is a freacking plague, I share this for any windows user.

[ghostfiish]

Not only was I the only one who ended up getting a ticket for my particular screening of the Backrooms... but also, besides the concessions staff, the entire theater was completely empty

I think I may have had the most appropriate viewing experience possible

[slayerbuffy]

I've gone. Not one for goodbyes, I thought it best to slip out quietly. Love to you all, Giles.

Rest in peace, Anthony Stewart Head (1954 – 2026)

[litafordvsferrari]

that makes me curious

do you think you could beat up your blorbo in a fistfight if you had to

yes

no

nuance i guess?

Voting ended onJun 11

[teaboot]

“Why are you scared of dating” I’m not scared of dating, I just haven’t found anyone’s company to be more enjoyable than my own. And also I don’t care

[justlightmeonfire]

I just don't want anyone to steal my very cursed amulet

[teaboot]

Also the amulet

[whimsicalmayhem]

Is that you talking? Or the amulet? Are you SURE a new hand doesn't want to touch the beacon?

[teaboot]

The amulet and I are not currently looking for a third

[madeofklay]

I saw this perfectly in my head and had to recreate it

[teaboot]

Holy Shit

[duckbunny]

reblog if you are currently hunting me for sport

[maudit]

[profeminist]

RIP Marjane Satrapi, author of the amazing graphic novels Persepolis about living during the fundamentalist revolution in Iran in the 70’s and 80’s. She also created the animated movie based on the graphic novels, which is where these gifs come from.

Gifset source

[sapphling]

the more time you spend in active recovery from any given self destructive behavior or addiction the more you understand the common conception of the "relapse" as defined by a broken "streak" to be, like, so bad for one's own well-being that it would be funny if it weren't resulting in just a lot of misery and death

[the-peoples-puppy]

I told my girlfriend to think of quitting vaping as training her endurance by seeing how long she can run before she gets tired, then doing it again and hoping to go further next time. She said it really helped her.

[fullmetalfisting]

Tbh germ theory DOES sound crazy. Like if you told a regency-era nobleman that tiny creatures lived on the surface of everything and THAT’S what causes consumption, they’d be like “ah, I see you are a lunatic. Would you reside in my hermitage? Rantings and ravings do so amuse my guests”

[mysteryteacup]

But if you told a Medieval person this they would probably go "Ah, so when the miasma settles on surfaces it gains evil life. I understand."

[alarajrogers]

Yeah, actually, it would probably be pretty easy to explain germ theory to a Medieval person as tiny evil spirits that live on everything, but they can be purified by soap and water, or by alcohol, because that is why God has granted us those things. And because they can float in the air, if you cough or sneeze after they have infested you, that can cause them to infest others. And when you are sick, the angels God has deputized to defend the bodies of His beloved children are at war with the evil spirits, and, sadly, sometimes they lose, but the best way to help your angels win their battle is to rest, drink plenty (this would probably be small beer in this time period, not water, because the water was also infested), stay clean, and for the sake of God do not allow anyone to let your blood, for the angels need that blood in their war against the evil spirits. Bloodletting is good for some types of illnesses but not the kinds caused by the tiny evil spirits.

[chekhovs-raygun]

boiling as a sterilization measure is also easy to explain. water returns to the air when heated and it rises as steam back up to the floodgates of heaven; we know God created the world in seven days, He's not up there making more water every time it rains. it circulates. the returning of water to heaven also purifies the water of unclean and malign influences. you know wormy water from a muddy puddle will kill your kid. you know you wouldn't wade into a bog and have a slurp. water that remains in the low places of earth absorbs all that is unclean from our waste and it may also sponge up new diseases from hell, we're not totally sure about that one, but it seems likely. God set up the heavenly water cycle so that the earth's waters wouldn't totally fill up with gunk.

what does this have to do with boiling your surgical tools? well look, the boiling water releases bubbles of steam which carries the malign influences up to heaven. you boil a knife, you send all the miasmic particles off with the steam to heaven. if you rinse the knife off in a bucket the water isn't hot enough, the particles go into the water and then right back on to the knife. you gotta boil it to get the particles all the way away. how can a tool or rag or a bed have miasmic particles on it when you can't smell them? humans have a lousy sense of smell. look at your dog on the hunt. are there no rabbits in the woods just because you can't smell them? we know that miasma is carried on the air, and is what makes stench so dangerous, and we know that humans can't smell worth a damn compared to dogs cats horses etc. a dog can smell if a rat died in a corner of the room last week. you can't. do you think licking the spot where the rat died is going to go well for you? luckily, what humans lack in snout we make up for in brains. we have extra brains where our sniffers should have been. God set that up for a reason.

and why does a rinse with wine spirits work? man, look how fast alcohol evaporates. my guess is that because wine contains a lot more vice than water, it evaporates a whole lot faster, in sort of an equal and opposite way that a rock falls faster than a feather. if you want the miasmic particles to get off there FAST, you dunk it in something that's going back to heaven at a gallop.

what's up with honey? it just preserves things against corruption. doesn't clean them off. honey doesn't evaporate at all. probably because bees don't sin. it's not good for ridding a tool of particles-- it's sticky-- but fine for preserving anything you don't want to go to heaven OR hell. this is why you wash the wound with wine spirits or purified water FIRST, to sluice the miasma out, then slap the honey on AFTER. and boil the damn bandage, too. you wouldn't put a rotten door in a sound doorframe and expect it to keep out bandits, would you? cmon.

[nekogirltail]

@changelingfangs