Parenthetical

"I’m not the freaking savior of the universe. I’m just a girl from Arizona.”

[pwlanier]

Hedgehog-shaped jar, Neolithic period (3500-3000 BCE)

Courtesy Alain Truong

[redscharlach]

I feel you, Neolithic hedgehog. I feel you.

[dreadwedge]

As a transsexual woman 👩 who has had multiple experiences ‼️ I have found 🔎 that the biggest block of cheese 🧀 is usually the one ☝️ that has the largest size 📈

[dreadwedge]

mature content

[parentheticalaside]

I need a specific type of content warning for books, tv shows and movies structured like video games so that I can avoid them like the plague. It's nice when you know ahead of time that it was based on a game because at least it's some kind of warning that you're going to get lots of stupid shit that's going to make you quit halfway through (You actually don't need to go through Kansas City, Joel! And, in fact, you should not!), but the ones that aren't based on a video game and instead are just fiction with the conventions of games shoved into it, I could use a warning beyond "Well, it was written by a man, so."

[parentheticalaside]

It's always been interesting to me how fearful people are of getting fired, considering how incredibly hard it is to fire people.

Even if you set aside all of the HR hurdles involved in many organizations, there's just the natural inclination of most humans to avoid conflict. Like, how many problems have you had with coworkers and you just stifled it because you don't want to have even a single difficult conversation? How many bosses have you had that allowed problems to fester because solving the problem would involve being potentially uncomfortable for some period of time?

This is why I've never accepted the complaint about bad communication or miscommunication from readers in fiction. Oh, the problem in the relationship could be solved with a single conversation, you say? Well, guess it's not getting solved then!

[uhanekahiko]

Polynesians did also rely on a form of a physical map called a stick chart, illustrating the specific wave and swell patterns surrounding different island chains. These were particularly helpful during cloudy conditions when the sun and stars were less useful. To navigate the Marshall Islands, the Marshallese represented ocean swell patterns using parts of coconut fronds and shells as islands. Like a subway map, they don’t so much represent distances as they do relationships. The complex and decorative stick charts were often only understood by the person who made them. They were memorised before a voyage by the pilot who would lie on the floor of a canoe to get a sense of swell movement and often lead a squadron of 15 or more boats.

[parentheticalaside]

There is a whole chapter about these in This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (and Why It Matters) by Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones.

(To be clear, these are not maps that "went wrong" but they go through atomic testing on the Marshall Islands and how the knowledge of using stick charts is basically gone.)

[victusinveritas]

[lavenderpanic]

no offense, but if the pitt was noah wyle's personal pet project designed to aggrandize him and paint him in the best possible light and make his character look awesome and badass and sexy....... have you considered that maybe they would try to make robby more likeable? like, how did you watch fifteen episodes of robby unraveling and lashing out at beloved characters and making obviously poor decisions and your single takeaway was "noah wyle is so vain and wants everyone to love his character" 😭😭😭😭😭

[gonsplode]

[a-book-of-creatures]

Mutuals feel free to pick me up and drop me off in front of prime real estate that’s all mine

I will be scared but I will appreciate it

[emjoy398]

[actualized-animal]

Did You Learn?

you can lie on the floor in your home and the Soft Baby who lives there will approach you. this will increase your chance of contact with Nose Wet by 75%

[vintageeveryday]

In 1995, 44-year-old McArthur Wheeler became the unintentional face of a major psychological breakthrough after attempting one of history’s most bizarre bank robberies.

On January 6, 1995, Wheeler and an accomplice robbed two banks in Pittsburgh. What made the crime legendary wasn’t the loot, but Wheeler’s “disguise.” He walked into the banks without a mask, looking directly into the security cameras and even smiling. When police arrested him later that night after his face appeared on the local news, he was reportedly stunned, muttering: “But I wore the juice.”

Wheeler’s “brilliant” plan was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of chemistry. He knew that lemon juice can be used as invisible ink (which becomes visible when heated). He concluded that if he smeared lemon juice all over his face, he would become invisible to security cameras. To “test” his theory, he reportedly took a selfie with a Polaroid camera. Because he was likely sweating and the juice stung his eyes, he aimed the camera poorly and captured a shot of the ceiling. In his mind, the blank photo was proof: the juice worked.

While the police had a good laugh, the story the attention of Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. They were fascinated by how someone could be so incompetent yet so confident. This led to their 1999 study and the naming of the Dunning–Kruger Effect, which describes a cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge of a task vastly overestimate their own ability.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

It was just called "stupid" before that.

[tarotbyjam24]

[catasters]

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

It's slow going but The Pile CAN be smallened!

[mandy-lane]

I'm Allan. I'm Ken's buddy. All his clothes fit me.

MICHAEL CERA as ALLAN in Barbie (2023) dir. Greta Gerwig

[parentheticalaside]

All of the veterinary professionals that we have spoken to about Bisbee's DM diagnosis are so careful to tell us that there's nothing that's really going to do much for him. Today (at physical therapy intake) they were saying they don't even know how much PT helps, since the disease progresses regardless. The only thing they can do is compare to dogs with DM that don't get PT, and the most they can say is that it might make a plateau longer, but he's never going to "improve" from where he is now (his hind end sinks down so he already can't really stand for long periods, and his rear legs splay out into the splits if he's not on a textured surface. But he can walk still!).

The thing that the vet said that really got me is that the dogs with this don't know they have it, so their personalities don't change. So whenever you put them down, you're putting down a dog that is alert and acting like themselves, except their body is failing them. Bisbee is my bright, happy boy, so it's going to be really hard on that day to see his big dark cartoon eyes looking at me like they always do.

[parentheticalaside]

Bisbee had his first hydrotherapy session today, so here he is on the water treadmill.

After I got the treats out, he did excellent.

[spockwithacat]

The thing about all of Graham Planter scandals is not only do they make him look like a bad person they also make him look like an idiot with bad decision making skills. And I’m just surprised how many people want to vote for an idiot.

[parentheticalaside]

They see themselves in him: A fellow idiot with racist and misogynistic tendencies. And they fall in love with the idea that “someone like me” will finally have some real power… to do the sorts of things that idiots with racist and misogynistic tendencies do.