Certified Dino Nerd @paladingineer - Tumblr Blog

I don’t like using horses in video games for the same reason I don’t like using cars irl. Gotta remember where I parked the damn thing.

paladingineer

I like to joke that I should have named my main skyrim character, an argonian, "Loses-Her-Horses."

ri5k

the replacement of websites with apps sounds so backwards when you actually describe it. like hmm you have to download an entire program onto your device each time you want access to a portal, where it takes up storage indefinitely. somebody should invent an app where you can "browse" any portal just by typing in its address... 🥴

#i'm so sick of apps #i don't want to download your app

mercifulmother

For all that I've seen a lot of PHM posts that go on about 'patron saint of [blank]' for Ryland Grace, I don't think I've seen any that address what amounts to the scientific version of that: Mother of/Father of.

In order to be considered for the title of Mother of/Father [scientific field], you have to be the first to make significant contribution in that field. You're setting the groundwork in a way nobody else has. This can obviously cause a lot of debate in the end about who gets the title! That said, I think given the leaps and bounds that Grace makes in several fields of science that take them from the more theoretical to the practical gives him some notable options with strong arguments. So we've got options like: Father of Astrobiology (the discovery and study of Astrophage, Taumoeba, several other forms of life on Adrian, and the study of and first interactions with the Eridians; disproving the Goldilocks zone as the only area viable for life; making significant strides in proving the panspermia hypothesis), Father of Xenolinguistics (first person to create working translator and archive of an alien language), and Father of Interstellar Travel (this would be a title held alongside Dr. Dmitri Komorov, likely with Komorov being listed first, and there would be significant debate on if Grace should hold the title at all. I like to think Dmitri would want to share it though).

All workable cases, all real options. Buuuuut I think my very favorite option though would be the one that is the least open to debate and is the one that I honestly think Grace himself would like best: Father of First Contact.

Because on the one hand, yeah, that's a lot he was mostly doing. First contact with Astrophage, with the Taumoeba, with other life on Adrian, and most of all with the Eridians. The first ever intelligent form of life outside of Earth, he made First Contact with. He found ways to communicate, to establish common ground, to work alongside an alien being. He did something no one else on Earth had ever done before and changed the world with it. He made First Contact and saved the world.

But mostly that means there's a whole field of science that Grace's name is attached to forever because he got to meet his friend. Mostly, Father of First Contact is just a fancy way to say "I love my friend."

#project hail mary

ilex-opacus

Not by any means an original thought but Kirk abandoning every person he's ever faintly loved or had feelings for for his career and his mission then repeatedly being like "it doesn't matter just fire me strip me of my command if I lose Spock I'll lose literally everything including my soul don't even worry about it" is immensely important to me

#star trek #star trek tos #spirk

macabro

I don't understand why "Adrian doesn't like Grace at first" is as popular as it is on fanfics.

Imagine for a second you are Adrian surname The Eridian. Your spouse has been missing and presumed dead for around a decade, and suddenly one day an alien spaceship comes into orbit. And you cheer "Yay alien species have realized we have the same problem and have come to either give us a solution or join or efforts, too bad my mate is still gone."

Except he is not actually gone, because the eridian equivalent of a carebear decided to save them. And he doesn't want anything in return, in fact he is well aware that he might die A PAINFUL SLOW DEATH, shortly after fighting just to get the love of your life back to you. But it's ok :) because Rocky (yes he gave them a silly name) is my best friend! Oh- Are you ok-

macabro

No, Rocky is first and foremost a Grace hater (affectionate)

mimic-firstaid

Made a comment….got stuck in my brain; now we’re here. It’s midnight. Enjoy.

#project hail mary

prokopetz

Strictly speaking, "ultimate" means "last", not "best". It's often figuratively employed in the latter sense to suggest that the thing so described is the final word on the subject, after which nothing more need be said, but if we're being real technical, describing a game or movie that was so bad it killed its entire franchise as the "ultimate" is in fact correct.

rabbits-of-negative-euphoria

if they're gonna remake The Princess Bride, it should open with a kid sick in bed scrolling on his phone. his grandpa arrives with a gift--it's a DVD player with a disc already inside. grandpa hooks it up to the TV and presses play. and we all just watch the original 1987 film again.

woundedsoul12

@necromanticsoul

#this might be legit the funniest way to do a remake ever #unironically they should actually do this

weiila

Typical Disney-style story of a kingdom with an anxious new ruler whose inherited chief advisor has a goatee, dresses in black and red, smirks a lot and keeps a snake as a pet.

Every single villanous plot to overthrow the kind and ”weak” ruler fail because the advisor is 110% loyal but his vibes make all the baddies assume he’ll help out in the insidious coup plan so they recruit him, and he absolutely delights in puppeteering wannabe autocrats into digging their own graves. He doesn’t want to rule, he’s having way too much fun being a villain honey trap.

cheeseanonioncrisps

At some point on the journey back to Erid, Rocky gets around to asking Grace exactly why he was so mesmerised by seeing the astrophage in the Petrova line.

Grace describes it as best he can, but all he can really manage to get across to Rocky is that he was surrounded by small floating lights.

Later on, Grace is talking about the stars and how important they've been to human cultures for millennia. “What do the stars look like, question?” Rocky wants to know.

Oh, y'know, they're a bunch of small floating lights.

There's a disco ball on the Hail Mary. Grace says it's there because it “makes me happy”. “How does it make Grace happy, question?” Rocky wants to know.

Oh, it creates the illusion that he's surrounded by small floating lights.

Rocky begins to do some research.

Glitter: a substance invented by humans to make things look like they're covered in small lights.

Human jewellery: mostly involves gemstones or polished metals, designed to reflect small lights.

Christmas lights. Candles. Lanterns. Fireworks. Glowsticks. Glow in the dark paint. Rocky is beginning to notice a pattern here, statement.

It takes Grace a fucking while after getting to Erid to notice that a lot of the gifts he's receiving from grateful Eridians are either a) sparkly, b) incredibly shiny, or c) fitted with lights.

While the last one is obviously a concession for his human light sense, he's confused about the former two. Are Eridian materials usually this shiny? Is there some quality about sparkly or highly polished surfaces that makes them sound better? Or is there something about Eridian geology/metallurgy that makes their materials like this?

He asks Rocky about it.

“Simple. I tell people humans like lots of small lights. Humans are easy to make happy.”

Grace kind of wants to protest that humans are much more complicated than that.

But honestly… it fucking works. Like yeah the polished gemstones, shiny metals and glittery rocks are beautiful. Yes those Christmas lights you put up around the house did markedly improve my mental health, Rocky. Thank you, I hate it.

Grace spends a lot of time trying not to think about whether his species' urge to explore the cosmos (that saved their planet and nearly killed him several times) is tied to the same instinct that made his students like glitter gel pens.

#project hail mary

super-sootica

Pros and Cons of making things

Pro: Thing

Con: Make

alphagodith

you summed up the struggle of all creators ever so nicely

alagaisia

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

alagaisia

It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!

alagaisia

It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.

watermelon-converse

Hey. Hey. Tumblr. Ides of March ppl. We can do this

emi--rose

Hell yeah moon holiday

hello-delicious-tea

Ooh coming up we should celebrate

ariaste

PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)