Show & Tell
shark vs the universe
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
art blog(derogatory)
Origami Around
d e v o n
todays bird
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
pixel skylines
Keni
Cosmic Funnies
EXPECTATIONS
YOU ARE THE REASON
NASA
ellievsbear
Misplaced Lens Cap
will byers stan first human second
untitled
trying on a metaphor
Game of Thrones Daily
seen from Bangladesh
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@sa-buri
“It’s nice in a way, how books change. If the magic and illumination isn’t in the story any more, the magic and illumination was always in you. The story caught a reflection of you at the right time.”
- Sarah Rees Brennan, All Hail Chaos
REMEMBER IF YOU HONK ALLYOU AT ME I WILL HONK HONK IF YOU GET ANY CLOSER U HAVE TO HONK IF IF YOU WILL IF I HONK MYSELF WANT HONK IF YOU HAVE EVER BEEN PERSONALLY VICTIMIZED BY HONK
hey kids did you know that computers didn't used to automatically connect to the internet. it used to make this screaming noise. we should have listened.
the life i have definitely never longed for, fuck you for even implying that
with apologies to anna haifisch creator of the original image
OP: Why couldn’t traditional Chinese Yinpiao银票/silver drafts be forged if they were merely slips of paper? (cr大明宝钞，渐越)
Traditional Chinese yinpiao/silver drafts were paper vouchers issued by private banks starting from the Song Dynasty(960–1279). People could exchange these slips for physical silver at bank branches across the country.
Silver drafts were made in multiple copies with matching serrated seal edges. One copy went to the customer and others stayed at the bank. All edges had to fit perfectly together to withdraw silver. The unique split edge marks were almost impossible to copy.
This mechanism is known as qifeng骑缝 (split-joint seal) in China. It first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC). The Rites of Zhou records that contracts were written on bamboo or wooden slips in duplicate. Notches and marks were carved in the middle before splitting the slips, with each party keeping one half. The two halves would be matched by their notches for verification.
During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BC), this idea evolved into hufu虎符/tiger tally tokens. A military tally was split into two pieces with identical inscriptions carved along the split edge. Troops could only be deployed if the patterns and characters on both halves perfectly aligned, serving as a metal version of the split-joint anti-counterfeiting system.
The technology matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Government documents and private contracts commonly used split-joint seals stamped across the dividing line. The Chinese character "hetong合同" (contract) was written across the middle before the paper was torn apart, so the complete characters would only appear when the two halves were put together. This split-coupon system was later adopted for Song Dynasty (960–1279) jiaozi paper money and yinpiao/silver drafts of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912).
Official Song dynasty paper money (Jiaozi交子) was abolished in 1107. Private silver drafts issued by Qing-era piaohao票行 (ancient exchange banks) vanished completely in 1951, hit hard by modern banks and currency reforms. Nowadays silver drafts no longer circulate as currency. Their collectible value depends on their rarity and physical condition.
Split-joint seals (骑缝章qifengzhang)are still widely used on important paper documents in modern China, an anti-tampering technique passed down from ancient times. They are applied across the edge of multi-page contracts, bidding documents and official archives. If any page is removed or replaced, the broken seal pattern can prove the file has been altered.
OMG I got so excited about this because they used a really similar (though far less refined) version of this for contracts in the European medieval period!
First they were called "chirographs", but later the word "indenture" (in its earliest meaning as just a legal document of any kind between two people) came to be used, originating from the practice of a contract being written twice on a single piece of parchment and then cut in half with serrated edges (as in dent, "teeth" -> indents -> indenture) in order for each party to take one half, so they could later piece them together and verify that there had been no forgery -- same as the Chinese silver drafts!
(Charter of the Clerecía de Ledesma, 1252, showing the serrated indents at the top -- presumably they are cutting rather than tearing because they're using parchment, which I expect is much harder to tear than wood-pulp paper like the Chinese were using)
Delights me when human beings find similar ways to solve the same problem at two different ends of the world. <3
today I learned that in 2008, the city council of florence overturned dante’s sentence of execution if he returned from exile. yes, dante’s inferno dante, who died in 1321.
but the funniest part of this is not that they were debating the exile of a man who has been dead for over 500 years.
the funniest part is that the vote was 19-5. five people voted to uphold dante’s exile.
The objectively funniest part of this is actually that the city that holds his remains, Ravenna, refused to give his remains back. This was a ploy from florence to have his remains moved back for the tourist money and its been ongoing for a long time. Florence had a fake tomb built in the city to trick people into visiting, and have tried to force the return of the remains.
His actual caretakers have been very steadfast in keeping them hidden, moved, or generally out of reach to respect his choice in life to never, ever, ever return to florence, even when he was first offered the chance to return. This is at this point an almost millenium long feud that florence is really, really mad about losing
so basically the five people who wanted to uphold his exile were in the right
I've slowly been chipping away at drawing scenes from that imaginary Muppet retelling of the Princess Bride, figured it was about time to share what I've drawn on Tumblr!
So I do 3D modeling and printing as a hobby, and a few weeks ago I designed wheel guards meant to prevent office chairs from running over cables and clothes... or your pet's tail.
I got the idea from cowcatchers old locomotives used to have.
Anyways, yesterday I uploaded the model to Thingiverse, and just hours after uploading it, the Community Relationship Manager of the whole website left a comment suggesting I enter the model into a competition that's currently being held on the site.
So I did... and now it's in third place not even a day later. First place is $500, but the competition still has a month to go.
Then the Community Manager contacted me again, telling me they want to feature my model in an upcoming design promotion.
Just, what is happening? I mostly made this thing for myself in, like, an hour, and now it's suddenly super popular? This is all a little bit overwhelming 😵💫
Other models I worked on for weeks didn't get nearly as popular. I swear, it's impossible to predict what people will like.
Anyways, if you want to print the wheel guards yourself, you can get the model here or here.
I also made a quiet version you can stick furniture felt pads on.
People love simple, extremely practical things. I hope you win!
this should be the most reblogged post on tumblr before it dies
We need to reblog this so much that the post breaks
Do not like
Keep. Reblogging.
If we reblog enough we could save it
Reblogged at 1.7 M notes
reblogged at 1.8M notes
how did this lose over 5k notes
I’m glad we cost Yahoo 2 billion dollars.
it’s like a perfectly preserved body at Pompei
Finding this on my normal dash is like taking a stroll through the Park and suddently stumbeling upon the Codex Hammurabi just lying there.
Real.
I don’t watch Once Upon A Time but every clip I’ve seen is like
Quasimodo: “And where is the amulet?” Edgar from Aristocats: “Safe and sound I assure you. Isn’t that right, Lightning McQueen?” *the sounds of revving comes out of the shadows*
Commercial break
World Heritage Post
@notsarahgordon your mug's been carved and now it just has to dry!
this mug is based on her art:
sold
so pleased with this one, and excited to get it to its new home
this one is going around again! I just want to add a link to mugs of this ominous reassurance from @scarygorgon ‘s shop
What if we win?
What if the children go to schools unafraid of tear gas and bullets?
What if the birds come back, and the bees are healed, and every species moves from endangered, to threatened, to thriving?
What if the rainforest ADVANCES?
What if every parking lot had solar panels? What if every structure had solar panels? What if we built climbing gyms and terraced gardens in the skeletons of old coal power plants?
What if you baked your neighbor bread, and they shared their home-grown blackberries?
What if every person who needed a home, had one? What if every person who needed healing was healed?
What if every body was treasured for what it was, not what it should be?
What if every trans child's parents attended their graduation, their wedding, their new-name-day?
What if every warehouse became a closed-circle repair station? Goods flowing out, and back, and out again? What if landfills started to SHRINK?
What if the water and air were clean? What if there was enough public transit that the cars dwindled, leaving the streets safe for kids on bikes, evening deer, midnight cats and foxes?
What if we win?
How would you win?
And we've won a lot already, mind you.
The condors are back. The whales are saved. The sea turtles are no longer endangered. The cranes are back. The bees are recovering. The air in LA and Tokyo and London is clean again. The aquifers in the LA Basin are refilling.
Children are kinder than previous generations. Parents are stopping the abuse cycle. Being trans and queer is more acceptable than ever on a ground level.
It's hard to see if you're young, if you don't know how to step back from social media and the news. But remember--bad news sells, and the algorithm knows despair keeps you scrolling. It's a skewed lens.
We are fighting and we are winning against this adminstration's bullying. We are coming together against the bullies and they are running away scared because they don't understand that we will do that.
People are working hard every day to find ways to make sure fewer animals get hit by cars and planes and rockets.
Maker spaces are more common than ever. Solar and wind are more common than ever. Coal plants are shutting down every day.
Unprecedented numbers of acres are being bought back or given back to their rightful stewards, and the world heals because of it. People are working hard every day to learn how to help a forest recover faster.
We are not at zero. We are at decades of effort to heal the world. We've come SO far.
In 1982 there were only 22 California Condors left in the world. In 1992, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), with its public and private partners, began reintroducing captive-bred condors to the wild. In 2001 the first wild nesting occurred in Grand Canyon National Park since re-introduction. In 2002 there were only 8 pairs of wild nesting birds population-wide. In 2008, for the first time since the program began, more California condors were flying free in the wild than in captivity. Today there are nearly 500 – more than half of them flying free in Arizona, Utah, California, and Baja Mexico.
When I was born, there were no condors in the wild. I'm 37 now, and there are over 250 condors flying free.
When my mom was born in 1955, there were days when she wasn't allowed to go outside to play, because of the air pollution. When I was born, that never happened anymore.
When I was born, humpback whales were critically endangered, and people thought they were going to go extinct. Today, they've recovered to exceed their recorded numbers. Other whales too!
We fixed it.
We CAN fix it and we ARE fixing it and we DID fix it.
Since 1990 extreme poverty has decreased worldwide by over HALF.
This is not the narrative media sells us. We have access to more information about suffering now than we used to, but things are getting BETTER overall. Yeah some people are trying to undo this, but we have made SO MUCH PROGRESS. Don't give up.
#when the roast is five years old and aging like a fine wine
LOGAN LUCKY (2017) dir. Steven Soderbergh
The Longer Martin procrastinates the funnier this gets.
it makes me feel mean and like an elitist but every time i hear about a new popular book series i'll read the synopsis and go "are you for real?????" and to be fair i am mean and an elitist, i'm willing to own that. but also. are you for real
"next time, log in faster with fingerprint/face/iris recognition!" how about i keep typing my password like i have for the past 25 years and you fuck off
