[lobstabear]

To my 25 - 35 year olds, you've reached the age where people around you are starting to give up on themselves because they think it's too late. Don't let that energy rub off on you. It's not too late.

[knittingontheroad]

I became a tattoo artist at 49.

Married the love of my life at 50.

Got my Class A CDL at 59.

You've got time.

As long as you're breathing, you've got time.

[doubleca5t]

I would argue that the two most perfect critiques of Harry Potter come from a pair of 4chan posts, which take opposite approaches to their critique but reach equally damning conclusions

[musashi]

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.

[znj]

[inbabylontheywept]

my wife's hours are bonkers right so, and its been messing up my sleep a little because im not used to sleeping without her around. so i only got about four and a half hours of sleep last night. and then today i came home and i wanted a snack and i sort of accidentally ate an entire large deli container of bleu cheese crumbles + a mangesium vitamin gummy + a melatonin before realizing that the last time i went to sleep after eating Extraordinary Amounts of Psychoactive Cheese i met the ghost of my grandfather who told me that he wasnt upset at me for not being there when he died. and i am not actually in a headspace to deal with that right now. but im also not really able to stay awake. so im just kind of talking to the one crumble i have left like, hey, man, i know i kind of fucked up here, but take it easy on me. im. im scared. no ghosts this time. it actually meant a lot to me last time but i dont want two ghosts in one year thats way too many ghosts. maybe just make this one kind of wacky. nevertheless. not my will, but thine, be done.

[inbabylontheywept]

yeah no i dont think this is a genre of post i think this is a very specific problem for me.

[toastyglow]

okay look I do get not liking the altered hades 2 ending because it feels out of character for mel to switch up her whole deal so fast. I really really get it.

HOWEVER ALSO, you do get how if the story hasn't set up for the protagonist to be the one who makes the decisive choice that ends the conflict peacefully and instead it makes more sense for her brother to simply go and do it explicitly against her wishes, and that's narratively framed as the ideal ending, that is also bad writing, YES? like yeah it's more in character for zag to do that but mel and zag aren't autonomous entities, they exist in the context of a story that mel is ostensibly the main character of!! YOUR pov character!! and it just leaves you feeling like...oh okay so nothing I was doing really mattered, this is zag's story again and I was just the elaborate setup for his big moment.

"well she did have agency, chronos gives her the option to kill him afterwards and she doesn't do it--" shut. SHUT. it's a scripted conversation. they didn't actually literally give you the opportunity to destroy chronos and end the game there, so I don't want to hear it!!

but anyway I think the altered ending is as good a patch job as sgg could've done without going back to change a lot leading up to it and following it, and I appreciate it. my feelings on characters' side quests and the broader story are a whole other can of worms, but it was enough to allow me to enjoy playing the game again, and it is a damn fun game to play regardless of story

[zegalba]

Plastic Chair in Wood by Maarten Baas (2008)

[keynes-fetlife-mutual]

I'm obsessed with this chair. The artist takes a flimsy hunk of injection-molded plastic that's been cost-cut to hell and back, and insists that we look at it with fresh eyes and understand its beauty. And they went about it in the most labor-intensive way I can think of.

Absolutely nothing about this design is convenient to execute in wood. Every piece is curved, most have compound curves. This is artisan craftsmanship: it's inherently slow, manual, and skilled. Notice, also, that most features of this chair must be thicker and heavier than on the plastic chairs being imitated. Injection-molded chairs can be produced in this shape in a matter of minutes with far less material at very low cost.

If these flowing, organic curves are so beautiful in polished wood, perhaps they are also beautiful in the mass-produced chairs that are far more accessible. Perhaps we should remember to admire designs that succeed enough to become ubiquitous. I don't know about you, but I'll never see injection-molded chairs the same way again.

[transhuman-priestess]

@puppygirllaika

[puppygirllaika]

I agree with all of this, but YOU HAVE HIT UPON A FORGOTTEN TRUTH OF PLASTIC CHAIRS!!!!!

The standard one-piece injection molded plastic chair is referred to as a "Monobloc", literally just describing it as a single piece. The history of this chair is fascinating, and it all starts back in 1946, with the D.C. Simpson Monobloc.

Douglas Colborne Simpson was an architect mostly active in the 40's and 50's, designing a lot of classic mid-century style buildings in Vancouver, Canada(1). In 1946, as part of a government project to find new uses for materials developed for WWII, he and engineer James Donahue developed the design you see above, simply called the Monobloc(2). Unfortunately, we don't know a lot about this chair as it was only ever a prototype, and no modern examples have survived, nor have most of the records surrounding it(3). To my knowledge, we don't actually know if this was technically injection molded, or crafted some other way. We can't even be sure if it was technically the inspiration for the designs that followed, but no matter the case it has lent its name to the entire genre.

Plastics technology was simply not what it is today back in the 1940's. Most people would have had very little plastic in their homes, most likely just a few pieces of Bakelite (the first commercially viable plastic, made from a formaldehyde based resin in a Bakelizer, the best name for any industrial manufacturing equipment ever). Over the following few decades, however, as a wider variety of plastics were both developed and came down in price to the point of commercial viability, the concept of the plastic chair was revisited, and the first folks to revisit it were Helmut Batzner, in 1964, and Joe Colombo, in 1965.

This, is the Bofinger chair, Batzner's design:

The elements of D.C.Simpson's Monobloc were pretty alien compared to todays mass-manufactured plastic chairs, but here we start to see some more modern elements come into play. The first thing you probably notice is the front legs, which have that characteristic visible 90 degree bend in them for added rigidity, plus a much more comfortably leaned back and slightly scoop-shaped seat. We also see much more support in the back rest, with broad triangles allowing for a more efficient use of materials without losing back support.

Similar to Simpson, Batzner was not an industrial designer, but an architect, and this chair had a very specific purpose. Batzner and his team designed it as part of a project to build a new theater in Karlsruhe, Germany, which required a large amount of additional seating which could be easily packed away into storage or distributed around the theaters rooms by the staff (4). As such, it was designed to be both lightweight and stackable, so several of them could be moved by one person, and they could be stored compactly. This piece of furniture was a huge hit a the theater, and was so popular that 120,000 units would ultimately be manufactured and sold around the world, with each one taking just 5 minutes to produce (4).

Around the same time, Joe Colombo enters the scene with this:

Colombo was an artist in several mediums who, after taking over his families appliance company in the 50's, made the shift towards architecture and interior design, and started designing a wide array of trend-setting furniture(5). The chair shown above is known as the Universale (sometimes referred to as the Chair Universal 4867), designed in 1965. This chair differs pretty greatly from the ones that came after it, it many ways it represents a different path that could have been taken, but it's also very widely referenced as an inspiration for what is broadly considered the origin of the white plastic chair the world over.

Enter: the Fauteuil 300

This is, arguably, the first iteration of the white plastic chair we all know today. Designed by Henry Massonnet in 1972, the Fauteuil 300 and it's imitators are, collectively, the single most widely used piece of furniture in the entire world(6). Before that, however, it was something else entirely: works of art.

What might be hard to recognize in hindsight is that all of these chairs described so far were not everyday objects. They were on the forefront of modern design, they made use of brand new materials and manufacturing processes, and at the time they were each made, they were slick, stylish, and fairly expensive. Despite the speed at which they could be manufactured, these innovative, high-end chairs rose sharply in cost up through the early 1980's due to the sheer demand for them. They weren't cheap spare seating you stuck in the garage, they were placed at dining tables and on fine patios, and they were a wildly popular talking point. That's not to say their expense justified their artistic value, but rather that their expense and popularity was a product of their status as highly contemporary and boundary-pushing designs.

With the price of plastics declining after the 70's, the increasing accessibility of injection molding to manufacturers, and the widespread popularity of these designs, copycats proliferated rapidly, and eventually drove the price down. This era, in the 80's and 90's, is when these chairs became cheap an ubiquitous, and where they became manufactured the world over.

And here is where we reach this piece, "Plastic chair in wood", by Maarten Baas, and a piece of the history I've left out so far. The Monobloc was designed to be made out of wood. Like the the other chairs designed by Joe Colombo, like the chairs that predated the Simpson, the Monobloc was designed with the intention of using laminated plywood, but as the artists and designers behind them began to experiment with new materials they fell in love with the idea of making them from plastic, and so they did. They redesigned and redesigned until they made something that would be impossible to make in wood at a price most people could afford, but which could be made from plastic in mere minutes. The organic curves and thin profiles would take so much time, so much waste material, so much skill and effort to create if made of wood that they could never be furniture, they could only be art. Baas' chair is a perfect, beautiful reflection of that.

That, in brief, is the history of the design of the white plastic Monobloc chair, but it's not all there is to know. In fact, it's kind of just the start. I've linked my sources below, but I would strongly recommend checking out the German documentary Monobloc, by Hauke Wendler. It goes over the history, but it's far more interested with what the Monobloc means, and what it's place is in our world today. The impact it's made, the better and the worse, and what it says about us. It's fascinating, and well worth your time.

sources below.

(1) https://www.greggsimpson.com/DCSimpson.htm (2) https://www.greggsimpson.com/Furniture.html (3) https://www.cnn.com/style/article/history-of-plastic-chairs-karim-rashid/index.html (4) https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O372075/bofinger-chair-stacking-chair-rudolf-baresel-bofinger/ (5) https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AT2686/full/2200,/0/default.jpg (6) https://www.design-museum.de/en/exhibitions/detailpages/monobloc-a-chair-for-the-world.html

@keynes-fetlife-mutual tagging you because your reblog about Baas work makes me think you would appreciate this.

[butterfly-sapphic]

Always fun to learn about a tumblr friends surprise special interest

[cryoverkiltmilk]

We all hear about the hatemail and PVP, but this site is also unmatched for activating a trap card.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

did anyone else read that in miranda priestly's voice

[hunybody]

please read this substack about pantone choosing cloud dancer for color of the year 2026

[three--rings]

No really, you should read it.

[kayceae]

I've only read this one post so far but I think I'd die for John Paul Brammer

[psalidodont]

paleozoic menagerie

[barghest-land]

a lot of feelings that are more than words

[themeeplord]

Saw some pictures of hooded crows playing in the snow and wanted to redraw them as silly little dromaeosaurs.

The pictures are under the cut!

Fully inspired and referenced from these three pictures taken and posted on Instagram by Satu Liljeqvist.

Link to post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DRXfQQqCH_r/

[makairodonx]

Here’s a Diplodocus clay model I’ve made, inspired by this recent paper on the discovery of fossilized melanosomes preserved in some skin impressions from a few juvenile specimens of this sauropod which came out more than 10 days ago: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/12/12/251232/364075/Fossilized-melanosomes-reveal-colour-patterning-of

Fossilized melanosomes reveal colour patterning of a sauropod dinosaur

Abstract. Integumentary fossils have improved understanding of dinosaur physiology, appearance and ecological niches. Fossil melanin and fos

[dreamlightasafeather]

IF YOU NEED TO CALL 911 BUT ARE SCARED TO BECAUSE OF SOMEONE IN THE ROOM, dial and ask for a pepperoni pizza. They will ask if you know you’re calling 911. Say yes, and continue pretending you’re making an order. They’ll ask if there’s someone in the room.

You can ask how long it will take for the pizza to get to you, and they will tell you how far away a dispatcher is.

Here is an example video

[t-pose-to-assert-gayness]

Reblog to literally save a life

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

I’ve done this.  I’m alive because of this. 

My flat-mate’s date for the night was almost as drunk as her.  She had passed out in her room and locked the door.  He refused to leave because he wanted to have sex.  He also demanded food because he was dealing with “whiskey dick”.  He didn’t like the lack of food in the fridge.  I called 911, did the stuff stated above, and he was getting PISSED about how long the “order” was taking.  He took my phone, demanded they “hurry the fuck up”.  Police arrived two minutes later, arrested him, and helped me file a police report.  Pressing charges wasn’t necessary because he had warrants on him from THREE different states for the very thing he planned to do to me.  Several months after this happened one of the officers informed me he was charged with two felonies because he crossed stay lines, and will be serving no less than 35 years in prison.  The officer ripped into my flat-mate about her bringing home complete strangers, while drunk, knowing full well this shit could happen. 

This was 14 years ago.  

Do the pizza order, do it as calmly as you can.  The dispatcher I spoke to said things like this:

“If he’s drunk say you want mushrooms.”  I said I want extra mushrooms.

“If he’s threatening you with sexual assault say you want onions.”  I said I want onions.

She went like this with different toppings and sauces for a description of him, like pineapple if he’s blonde, black olives if he’s tall, extra large if he’s tall, etc.

They’ve heard this sort of coded call before.  They’re trained for it.  They will understand what you’re saying.  Order the pizza.

[torios]

Really though. I’m in training for dispatch and this was one of the first things they taught us. Pretend you’re talking to a friend or relative, pretend you’re ordering pizza, we’ll figure it out. We’ll word questions so you can answer in an easy, casual way. Please, just make the call and we will do everything we can to help you.

[skelatal-remains-deactivated201]

Reblog to save a life

[mouse-named-minerva]

Why the fuck is this not more widely known?

[talerano-deactivated20190106]

SIGNAL BOOST THIS PEOPLE

[jinglyjangly]

Also if anybody is interested Josh Gonzalez did mention how it’s a strange feeling to see characters he’s written in a show and not get any credit (which he understands isn’t necessary)

Fallout: New Vegas lead writer says it's "very odd" to see characters he created in the Prime Video show with "no credit" and "no residuals"

"In some ways, I think doing narrative in video games is a little akin to doing comic book work"

I think this is why I have such a hate for it, because essentially this is just canon fan fiction. It has nothing to do with the original writers for the game’s lore it’s changing. Not even a nod or cameos or anything for the game writers who created and worked on the franchise. Just completely disregarding them and making their own shit up.

Which they’ve accepted, when you work for a company you don’t own anything and there’s nothing you can do really, and that’s that. But the lack of any acknowledgement feels…off

[strange-aeons]

Woah. Some freak named Teya[citation needed] was birthed today.

[strange-aeons]

It's that day.

[draculabackward]

ok wait just googling to confirm and

STRANGE JONES???

[strange-aeons]

Everyone start spreading even more misinformation about me RIGHT THIS INSTANT

[lilbittymonster]

Potion time

[lilbittymonster]

Spell of Banishment of Winter Feelbads

[lilbittymonster]

It smells so good in here

[lilbittymonster]

There's a certain poetry to finishing this right as it's getting dark and blue outside.

(This came out so fucking good I will definitely be making this again.)

[lilbittymonster]

Certainly!

I was loosely following a wassail recipe I found but made some substitutions, and this might be closer to a mulled cider than a true wassail, but either way it's delicious.

Ingredients:

-64 floz (~2 litres) of apple cider

-5 mid sized oranges

-1 regular or 2 small lemons

-1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

-3 or 4 cinnamon sticks (I used three since one was chonky)

-fresh ginger root (or 1/4 tsp ground ginger)

-15 whole cloves or 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

-1 Tablespoon of honey

Optional: your choice of rum or brandy

Preparations:

Juice four of the five oranges and your lemon(s). Slice the fifth orange and poke the whole cloves into the slices.

Thinly slice the ginger root. I ended up only using one of the two pictured, and each of those were about 4 inches long or so.

Add all of the ingredients to your cooking vessel and bring to a medium heat. You want to see a bit of bubbling in the liquid (not a rolling boil) and a froth/foam will form on top. This is fine!

Reduce to a low simmer (around a 3 out of 10) for 30-40 minutes. Stir everything in the pot in about five minute intervals.

Storage:

If you aren't going to drink it all immediately, you can pour it back into the original cider container or any air tight container and keep it in the fridge.

[lilbittymonster]

Yearly reblog of my wassail recipe with the addendum that you DO NOT need fresh ingredients for this.

I've opted to use a 1/4 teaspoon of all four spices, and got a single serve thing of Simply Orange orange juice and grocery store lemon juice instead of freshly juiced citruses the last couple times I've made this. If you want to just buy a bunch of things, toss them into a pot together, and simmer them you absolutely can do that.

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

This is getting a lot of notes again and is reminding me that I should try to get out for more walks in the nice autumn weather