Musings of a nerd

Just a nerdy human. Blogging about life, inspiration, funny stuff, educational things, and various fandoms. She/They

[starlit-meadow]

i miss when subscriptions didnt really exist and you could just pay one time to buy an app or some software, and then just.. have it. without ads. without recurring costs. without more paywalls. it was just yours forever.

[rocktheholygrail]

Hannibal (2013-2015)

happy pride! 🌈

[tenephre]

[dranikkitoo]

warrior princess

[nat-20s]

You can replace [ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY] with [SCROLLING] but watch out. This sucks bad 👍

[nat-20s]

Some things about this post since getting quite a few notes:

1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!

2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.

3. I think there are times where scrolling is fine. Right now, for example, I'm being connected to a machine for two hours to donate plasma and platelets. Yes this is a brag but it is also a time where scrolling is one of the few things I can do. (Though I will probably also read or watch something on phone lol)

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

hmmm, this seems to be some kind of curse breaking spell… be free ye reader

[comradeclodius]

Very bold of us all to assume Gandalf has a gender and adheres to the modern gender binary

[curse-you]

pippin at 3am: pretty fucked up that we assume gandalf is a man. they’re a maia. merry? wake up merry. listen. they’re sexless.

[teaboot]

gandalf at 3am: I identify as Tired, peregrin took

[whattheforkdude]

please unmute this

[failbag]

I’ve never seen high school musical and now I never need to

[beccar]

Basketball basketball we love basketball

[tropiyas]

[pnglove]

STAINED GLASS LAMPS ♡˚₊⟡‧₊

[plaguedocboi]

I remember when I was younger, anytime I watched a movie where the characters have to kill a scary monster/alien, I always thought the act of killing it was intended to be part of the horror. Like there’s this amazing creature that we’ve never seen before, and maybe under different circumstances we could’ve coexisted with it, but it’s trying to attack you and you have to defend yourself, but by destroying it you also destroy the ability to ever understand it and that’s sad and is supposed to make you feel conflicted.

It was not until well into my adulthood that I realized most people do not have complicated feelings about movies where people have to kill a scary alien monster, nor is that necessarily meant to be part of the narrative (unless it very obviously is). They just want the scary thing to die because it’s scary. I don’t have a real conclusion to this I just started thinking about it for some reason.

[plaguedocboi]

1. This reply is two words and they managed to misspell both of then

2. Yeah. Duh.

[yorgen-sh]

The Chinese shoe manufacturer decided to demonstrate the indestructibility of their shoes

[invenusworld]

Illustrations by Norman Lindsay and Frank Frazetta

shatabhisha sun and mercury respectively

both have purva ashadha mars

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

i get so freaked out by like. pictures of really big rope

[clintwaffle]

I’d like to say that’s normal but I’m a frayed knot

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

i’m so fucking annoyed at this, just for that you don’t get photos of the rope

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

i changed my mind, this is just too horrifying not to share

it’s called a Hawser and is the thick cable or rope used for towing/mooring a ship

in conclusion, i have nightmares beyond description

[arithmeticanimaniac]

NO it would NOT be cool

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

well i fucken disagree

[goeswiththeflo]

@scumrunner do you have any cursed facts about hawsers to share ?

As a fiber nerd, i am personally very enthusiastic about them….

[scumrunner]

Ohhohohoho DO I EVER. Meet the “snapback zone,” not an area with cool hats, but instead the unintuitive range at which a hawser can kill you if it breaks under tension.

[cloud-and-proud]

What if we kissed in the snap-back zone? 😳 😳 😳

[talus-the-broken]

I don’t think you guys understand how much force this is, a tow rope used to move a 20 foot boat snaps under tension with enough force to dent metal, shatter glass and seriously injure anyone in its way. A Hawser on the other hand… Well I’ve seen a concrete pier with a chuck the size of a sedan ripped out of it by a line failure, and anecdotally, I’ve heard of a 2 ton heavy cargo forklift being skidded sideways, then knocked over. These lines snap with enough force to noticably dent the hull armor of navy ships.

This is a line designed to hold in place a moving object that can be easily in excess of 10000 tons. AND THEY CAN BREAK FROM THAT TENSION ALONE.

THESE THINGS ARE TERRIFYING RUBBER BANDS FROM HELL.

[butch-of-the-blades]

Nope Rope

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

NOPE ROPE

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

I’m once again reminded of its much smaller cousin, the haywire.

You’ve heard of the term, “Going haywire,” right? Ever spared a thought to why that term exists?

See, time was there was a prototype automatic hay-baler. But this was in that magic period juuust before we really got into standardized sizes. So calibration of the machine was handled manually - a mix of guessing and learning from the results of guessing. If you’ve read Raising Steam by Sir Terry Pratchett you know that many people don’t get to learn from the results of their own guesses, due to being dead.

A poorly calibrated hay-baler had the mechanical strength to smush the hay into a tight bundle, wrap the wire around it, and tie that wire off to maintain the bale’s form. But the pressure of the over-packed hay was a constant outward force. Each bale made by an over-tight baler was potential energy in physical form. We have a word for “potential energy in physical form” and that word is “bomb.”

So sometimes, a man would toss a hay bale and it would land with a twang and the man who’d been reaching down to pick it up where it landed was dead.

And that is what “haywire” means.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

oh nice. i knew hay bales occasionally spontaneously combust, didn’t know they used to have an explosion factor too

[marlynnofmany]

I am learning multiple things today

Normally I’d expect wet plant matter to be less likely to go up in flames, but not hay bales! Those pesky bacteria really like to party in damp conditions. And by party I mean “create heat.”

[lauralot89]

And now it's time for my Dracula adaptation hot takes:

Renfield is inevitably the best part of any Dracula adaptation because his actor is the only one they allow to have fun with it

I do not judge Dracula adaptations on their accuracy, but rather on the level of homoeroticism and/or campiness

With that said, the following things need to be featured in more adaptations:

Quincey. You have the opportunity to put a cowboy in your Dracula movie and you don't do it? For shame

Dracula running around doing chores at super-speed

Dracula wearing Jonathan's clothes (they do not fit and he looks ridiculous)

Dracula's stupid unfashionable hat

Mina geeking out about phonographs and traveling typewriters

The shovel

Seward getting annoyed about the amount of insects. Not disgusted, just annoyed.

Dracula opening the door to SURPRISE WOLVES

Dracula's trip to the zoo

Quincey shooting at bats

There just needs to be a scene of Van Helsing going on one of his endless Van Helsing monologues while everyone else zones out in their own distinct way

[sawed-on-shotgun]

the human body when you use it and exist in it

[oscarjamesleigh]

Tumblr is a fate driven website. You can't find posts through the search function, you see them when you're meant to.

[betsmusings]

As Pride Month comes to an end, I just want to remind you that July is Disability Pride Month and there's a flag and everything!

Charcoal Grey: Mourning for people who have died due to ableist violence, abuse, suicide, and illness

Red Stripe: Physical disabilities

Gold Stripe: Neurodiversity

Blue Stripe: Emotional and psychiatric disabilities

Green Stripe: Sensory disabilities

White Stripe: Undiagnosed and invisible disabilities

[systlin]

Getting down on my knees and thanking the humans who invented dishwashers and washing machines.

[ihonestlydontknowwhattocallthis]

InsNe that dishwashers are more efficient and easier than just washing them manually but they also use less water. It’s a win win situation

[systlin]

They ALSO sterilize dishes, due to operating at a far higher temperature than human hands could ever tolerate. It's a win every way.

[systlin]

Made this post about 15 minutes after the repair guy who fixed the pump on my dishwasher packed up his tools and left, as the dishwasher was whirring along doing my dishes from that morning.

He said the exact same thing, which I did not know before that, so spreading this knowledge.