Reflections of an incompetent genius

30's. Florist. Geek. Gardener. Desisted/ex-trans. OSA Radfem. Everything in moderation, including moderation.

[kosmogrl]

Dont blame yourself for not having known a lesson only time could teach

[zechery-deactivated20220114]

Send me to Mars with party supplies before next august 5th

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

No guys you don’t understand.

The soil testing equipment on Curiosity makes a buzzing noise and the pitch of the noise changes depending on what part of an experiment Curiosity is performing, this is the way Curiosity sings to itself.

So some of the finest minds currently alive decided to take incredibly expensive important scientific equipment and mess with it until they worked out how to move in just the right way to sing Happy Birthday, then someone made a cake on Curiosity’s birthday and took it into Mission control so that a room full of brilliant scientists and engineers could throw a birthday party for a non-autonomous robot 225 million kilometres away and listen to it sing the first ever song sung on Mars*, which was Happy Birthday.

This isn’t a sad story, this a happy story about the ridiculousness of humans and the way we love things. We built a little robot and called it Curiosity and flung it into the star to go and explore places we can’t get to because it’s name is in our nature and then just because we could, we taught it how to sing.

That’s not sad, that’s awesome.

*this is different from the first song ever played on mars (Reach For The Stars by Will.I.Am) which happened the year before, singing is different from playing

[shadows-ember]

This is humanity

[siawrites]

Happy Birthday, Curiousity.

[labelleizzy]

Happy birthday, Curiosity.

[the-cimmerians]

Happy birthday, Curiosity.

[icarus-suraki]

Happy birthday, Curiosity!

[lesnby23]

Happy birthday, Curiosity!💕

[emmathefanficgal]

Happy Birthday, Curiosity

[stevishabitat]

The rover is still operational, and as of August 4, 2026, Curiosity has been active on Mars for 4974 sols (5111 total days; 13 years, 363 days) since its landing (see current status). Via Wikipedia

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[sevserez]

Soup incident

[intolitude]

That's amazing, girl. ❤️

[mycroft-valentine]

Y'all will never guess what Wikipedia page this is

[dogpuppy]

[pocketss]

distressing things to say to your friends

[blckgirlacid]

I need my weird alone time or I will explode

[flaminhotcheetobeard]

my cat has a habit of meowing from other rooms when he wants me to go to that room and hangout with him (usually predetermined by which room currently has sun exposure)

lately though he’s made the frustrating development of climbing underneath furniture and then crying because I cannot join him. sorry buddy but I cannot go under the bed because unlike you I do Not Fit

[flaminhotcheetobeard]

photo of the baby uncomprehending why I won’t visit his very good fort

[wolfmons]

[insomniac-arrest]

hell yeah brother

[chalroe]

eva stratt online shopping coping mechanism

[scarlct-vvitch]

grace, who has been alone for five minutes: oh my god. an alien! im not alone anymore! i hope he wants to be friends :)

rocky, coming up on 50 years of solitude, imprinting on grace in ways baby ducklings can only dream of: if you leave me to sleep where i can't watch your heart beat i am blowing up this tunnel with us both in it

[magnetictapedatastorage]

while reading for pleasure is great, its not the only reason to visit the library. when you have a gap in your knowledge, its a really great place to patch that up by taking out a single book on it. you won't be a top expert, but you'll be far ahead compared to if you'd just watched a few videos or something. you'll also absorb much more information because reading with your eyes is a different skill compared to listening to a video, and it's a good workout for your attention span.

i would highly encourage trying this if you're an adult and feel that your education was subpar or left you with embarrassing ignorance. going back and fixing it yourself can really help your self confidence. another thing to note, in case you're nervous, is that you won't be under pressure to read quickly. even if you have the book for the maximum amount of time, you can simply renew your borrow and keep reading it.

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[weirdchristmas]

That’s one way to get ‘em off your lawn.

[severalbadpunslater]