The Internet According to Me

A bookworm's point of view, frequently posting Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, Star Wars, Avatar the Last Airbender, Legend of Korra, Gravity Falls, Lord of the Rings, history, Rurouni Kenshin, movies featuing interesting female characters, Harry Potter, and...

[datasoong47]

[linguisticparadox]

[r5h]

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2609/

[bralsra-deactivated20250108]

theres ALWAYS a relevant XKCD for everything huh

[craicisirish]

reminds me of how artists flip the canvas to make sure their art looks good

Just flip the genders real quick and check if you accidentally made a cult

[mf-dooom]

[yetanothergreyjedi]

that is the face of a man worried he will be next

[ashtraythief]

Good news, he was not next! In fact, she accepted him as her mate, he learned the crane mating dance and now every year, he artificially inseminates her with crane semen to expand the very endangered crane population. True story.

[luulapants]

Sorry, he WHAT? Imagine being this man's boss and having to sit him down like. Listen. Brian. We need you to fuck the bird. You have to act like you're excited about it.

[whetstonefires]

crane husband.....

[roach-works]

this is the diametric opposite of all those awful swan wife stories and i love it.

[alex51324]

(WalWaPo makes you jump through like three separate hoops before you can read the article, so I will share some of the highlights:

Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s.  The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.  

As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.  

It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.  

Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.  

The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.

They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.   

Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.  

Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.  

Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent.  (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)  

It worked!  

Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.  

However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them.  (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)

Chris accepts that he is pretty much married to this bird.  White-naped cranes live to be about 60, and they mate for life, so he knows he can’t retire while Walnut is alive.  (At the time of the article, Walnut was 36, and Chris 42.)  

[thesylverlining]

Legit cannot pick the funniest part of this

she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)

His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)

the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)

"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")

chris sits any potential human partners down, like "my love, you must understand before we wed,,, i am already... Attached" (camera drifts wistfully to the above photo) "Lady Walnut and I have an,, Understanding... the relationship is open, but very committed"

[anais-ninja-bitch]

just had to explain this post to my father bc he thought my stifled laughter was a signal of illness.

well done, everyone, good game. hit the showers.

[largishcat]

[eshlimoriarty]

[lazorsandparadox]

Not only is he 'married' to walnut, this has apparently happened SEVERAL times, so he has MULTIPLE crane wives, none of which know about any of his other crane wives. This man is, for some unknown reason, irresistible to cranes

[queersatanic]

the “this content has been removed for violating Tumblr’s Community Guidelines” notice really adds a lot of flavor to this post and somehow makes it MORE obscene than whatever that actually was

[worldheritageposts-official]

World Heritage Post

[kedreeva]

I regret being the bearer of bad news, but I thought it should be shared that Walnut passed away in January of this year (2024). There's a lot of mixed info about the lifespan of cranes (due to people misunderstanding what a median is...) but the average for most species I know of is 20-30 years (in the wild if nothing eats them/they don't die young), and 30-45 in captivity, with the oldest known white-naped crane having loved to be 46. Given that she was 42, this old gal did good, and I'm certain she will be missed by folks here.

[optimysticals]

Fly on forever Walnut Crane-Crowe

[thememedaddy]

[speedlimit15]

why didn’t gandalf just carry the ring to mordor himself with these tongs

[speedlimit15]

like i’m picturing him being really careful and looking at it and carrying it exactly like this while walking or riding through the woods and across rivers and up mountains and through valleys and he doesn’t drop it even once except at the very end where he tidily drops it into the volcano. frodo sam and the crew and even gollum wholly undisturbed. sauron can’t find him bc of the meditative aura surrounding him which is generated by his immense focus on not dropping it

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

World's most tense egg and spoon race

[green-great-dragon]

this somehow became the funniest thing on earth in my head and I had to draw it so

[whitepeopletwitter]

[ramshacklefey]

No IDs, but these tags got me in a huff:

So ok look. The point is not the flared leg by itself. These cannot be yoga pants. These are, and you have to understand this if you are too young to have worn them, BLUE JEANS. And this was the last years before all jeans were 70% spandex.

They were denim, and they weren't bell bottoms. They hung loose from the knee in a way that would make a wizard envious. We all walked around like we were wearing hakama. And they dragged on the ground. That was important. Ragged cuffs. If your jeans weren't so long that they had ratty cuffs, they were embarrassingly short.

And the thing about denim is that it's a twill weave and it's cotton. So not only does it hold a lot of water, it wicks. Walking around in these suckers on a wet day could get you wet to the knees even if you never stepped in a puddle.

Then you'd go inside and take off your shoes and try to avoid letting your freezing, wet, filthy pant legs touch your skin.

Yoga pants. Hmf.

[elodieunderglass]

people in cold climates would have a tide line of white marks around their knees (if they were normal height) in the winter.

From wicking up road salt.

[taibhsearachd]

The visceral memory of that time is something that never leaves you. Everyone's jeans were many inches higher in the back than the front because you kept stepping on the hem and ripping it off. Your lower legs were so very cold. Every new pair of jeans literally enveloped your entire foot, they were so so long re: leg-to-waist ratio. Walking on a rainy day was a legitimate workout. You have no idea.

[ethanmaldridge]

I AM THAT IS

[tobiasdrake]

My favorite detail about Jurassic Park is that it has a baked-in justification for any and all retcons it might need to make due to paleontology advancing forwards.

Because there is not a single dinosaur that has ever appeared in Jurassic Park.

Not one. Not in the books. Not in the movies. Not ever.

"Now what John Hammond and InGen did at Jurassic Park was to create genetically engineered theme park monsters." ~Alan Grant

Grant says that in a moment of cynicism. It's part of his arc for the film. But it's not inaccurate. What Jurassic Park has, what it's always had since the very first novel, are "Mostly Dinosaurs".

"And since the DNA is so old, it's full of holes! Now, that's where our geneticists take over!" ~Mr. DNA

It's impossible to recover a fully intact gene sequence from an ancient amber mosquito. Cloning a pure dinosaur would have been completely impossible, and so the park filled in the gene sequence with whatever works. Frog. Lizard. Bird. Whatever they need to get the result they are trying to get.

Every single dinosaur is a chimeric beast made up of mostly dinosaur and a bunch of other stuff that some scientists thought would achieve the appropriate dinosaur-like result.

"Nothing in Jurassic World is natural! We have always filled gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals. And if the genetic code was pure, many of them would look quite different." ~Dr. Henry Wu

Which, from a writing perspective, is fucking genius. Because now you have a preset excuse for each and every plot hole your movie has.

Like. Why don't the raptors have feathers? Because of the chimera DNA.

Why do dilophosaurs spit venom? Because of the chimera DNA.

Why do T-Rexes have movement based vision? Oh, they don't. But Rexy does. Because of her chimera DNA.

Why is the Spinosaurus so fucking big? Because of the chimera DNA.

Why are the velociraptors mislabeled? Because Hammond's a dipshit.

Like. I've always marveled at the way Jurassic Park started out by giving itself a blanket excuse to be wrong about every single thing it ever said about the central attraction of its franchise. It's honestly beautiful, and allows the series a degree of immortality well into the era where we know better about its animals.

[thepromiscuousfinger]

[twofingerswhiskey]

"oh food now has so much added to it, past food was so pure and untainted" victorians used to cut bread with chalk and aluminum powder. romans put lead in the wine, which was made from dirty feet mushing unwashed grapes covered in horse shit and road dust. i think our species will survive a few additives in food. our food systems have never been cleaner and safer. it has room for improvement, but we're not putting fucking plaster of paris in the milk

[manicpixiedckgirl]

[theaudientvoid]

There are multiple chapters that are set in hospitals where the characters are attempting to recover from injuries that never fully heal. I must once again stress that my experience in WWI was perfectly normal.

[aro-ace-from-outer-space22]

There is a giant horrible mudplain full of unrecoverable and perfectly preserved dead bodies that the characters have to walk through in a land where the air is poisoned gas, and on a compLETELY UNRELATED NOTE: WWI WAS TOTALLY FINE AND NORMAL!!

[english-history-trip]

[mobius-m-mobius]

Blanc and his Watsons 🔎💕

[pealeii]

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[yamelcakes]

Danish ambassadors gifting every country Denmark’s national treasure, the noble Lego, could be the path to world peace.

[ismenes]

When my son was about to turn two, strangers would offer condolences. There’s a collective cultural dread of toddlers, who get described more like animals than people. Kids in their "terrible twos," I was warned, are illogical, unregulated, and feral. "Good luck," people would say. "He'll grow out of it."

I'm lucky: My son is a very easygoing kid. But I remember the first tantrum he threw for me. He was standing by our front door and asked to go outside. So I opened the door and grabbed his shoes. But as soon as he stepped onto the porch, he pointed back into the house.

"Inside," he said.

"Okay," I said. I picked him up and brought him inside.

But as soon as I shut the front door, he pointed outside.

"Outside!" he said.

You know where this is going. We went back and forth, inside and outside, again and again. He got more frustrated. And I got more frustrated. Eventually he wound up straddling the threshold of our house, sobbing. When I tried to comfort him, he screamed at me. "You go wherever you want!" I said. He just got madder. I felt trapped, convinced he’d concocted the whole episode as a pretext to unleash his rage at me. It was ridiculous. I consoled myself with the thought that he was just being a toddler.

But later I kept thinking about him wailing at our front door, one foot inside, one foot outside. His misery wasn't unreasonable, or trivial, or silly. My son was experiencing the agony of wanting two things that were impossible to have at the same time. What a fundamentally human sorrow! My son wasn't being a toddler; he was being a person. Adults may not walk around howling, but that same pain rages within us. In that moment, as a father, I was powerless to solve my son's problem. I told him he could go wherever he wanted, but of course I was wrong. To be where he wanted was impossible.

Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children by Mac Barnett

[byjove]

I never thought I would be siding with the pope’s involvement in politics and cheering him on. I will say that.

[byjove]

[commonplacefolklore]

Maria Skłodowska-Curie's notebooks are crazy once you think about it. They're so radioactive they have to be sealed in a lead box. Imagine a world where atomic theory is forgotten and a dude just goes "yea there's a book that details the secrets of the universe, the machinations of the creation of existence down to its barest essentials, but if you get close to it you fucking die. The more you read it the more your body slowly disassembles into mush." like wat excuse me

[kaijuerotica]

every time i hear the phrase "lesser of two evils" i respond "lesser of two weevils" and no one ever understands. no one ever remembers...them

[thestuffedalligator]

I’m going to level with you. I have listened to The Devil Went Down to Georgia for most of my life. We were a country music household, this was a staple of my childhood along with Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and that one Chipmunks country album.

I have no idea what “Fire on the mountain run boys run/The Devil's in the house of the rising sun/Chicken in the bread pan picking out dough/Granny does your dog bite no child no” means and at this point I’m too scared to ask.

[dementian]

For once I can be of assistance.

Each of the lyrics comes from an old-time hickory song for fiddles, and is a lyric from that corresponding song.

"Fire on the Mountain" --> "Fire on the Mountain, run boys run"

Fire On The Mountain - Fiddle Player POV

"The House of the Rising Sun" --> "The Devil's in the house of the rising sun"

House of the Rising Sun

"Ida Red" --> "Chicken in the bread pan peckin' out dough"

Ida Red - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

"Granny Will Your Dog Bite" --> "Granny does your dog bite? 'No child, no'."

FTC #149 Granny Will Your Dog Bite

And for your furthered education, The Mountain Whipporwill.

Mountain Whippoorwill (aka How Hillbilly Jim Won the Great Fiddler's Prize)