overthinking as a strength

hallucinations from an overactive imagination

[holly-warbs]

Sketchbook drawing from a moment in Verőce, Hungary.

[huariqueje]

Cascade - Jeanne Rosier Smith , 2026.

American , b. 1966  -

Pastel  , 40 x 27 in.

[velvetnightgallery]

View of Lake Konstanz with Lantern-Decorated Boats on a Summer Night by Hans Dieter

[without-ado]

Strawberry Full Moon over Ely Cathedral l VeronicaJoPo

[master-john-uk]

29th June 2026. This year's Strawberry Moon was extremely low in the sky, which made it look very large and bright. (A perfect photographic opportunity!)

[officialunitedstates]

I want to be the first person on the moon to shoot a sniper rifle at earth and hit a wasp nest.  my whole life so far is leading up to that moment

[dat-soldier]

[cozza-frenzy]

I know everyone’s seen this a million times, but it’s still SICK.

[xxxtictacion]

The origins of the mission status: sick image

[giragirameganedan]

[melonramune]

2011-11-29

[dappledwithshadow]

Claude Monet Lilacs in the Sun 1872

[kroovv]

Please enjoy this snail measuring tape i got at a garadge sale today

[uroko]

伏見/梅雨の濠川 Fushimi/The River in Rainy Season

[maureen2musings]

Supermoon in Belarus

garikparusov

[huariqueje]

Untitled , 1045 Divisadero St. * - Eileen David , 1978.

American , b. 1952 -

Watercolour monoprint on paper , 12 x 16 in.

*San Francisco

[atrusovaartist]

Acrylic on canvas 50×50 cm + 50×50 cm

“Dance of the Swallows”

Swallows are remarkable birds. We see them almost every day, which is probably why we often stop noticing them. They live close to people, building their nests under the roofs of houses, barns, schools, and kindergartens, as if trusting us with what matters most—their young.

This diptych was inspired by the swallows that have lived for years near my children’s kindergarten. They built their nests right on the children’s veranda, so close that the kids could watch tiny heads appear from the nests and little beaks open wide while waiting for their parents to bring food.

For the teachers, it was not always easy. They had to look after not only the children but also the swallow families. Young children do not always understand that baby birds should not be touched, taken from the nest, or disturbed. Sometimes the best way to help nature is simply to leave it alone.

What always amazed me was the courage of these birds. Despite the noise, movement, and dozens of children playing around them, they kept returning to their nests again and again.

In these paintings, I placed them among the branches of weeping willows. In the region where I grew up, willow trees were everywhere. They grow quickly, create beautiful shade in summer, and become especially magical when the wind moves through their long green branches. And when swallows weave through those branches, an ordinary summer day becomes something unforgettable.

Perhaps the most precious memories are made of moments just like these.

[horreurscopes]

never forget the universal rule of the order of things: People Will Not Read It

[horreurscopes]

signs at stores? émail? menu ?? instruction ? post online ? caption with andswer to question ? group hand outs ??? street sign ??? no. The Written Word Is The Enemy

[lasrina]

#The number of compliments i have gotten for reading a thing

The ability to occasionally Read A Thing will make you a hero in your workplace, especially if it is for example an error message that tells you what you need to do differently, or instructions on unjamming a printer.

[stephaniematurin]

how dare you say we put jam in the printer

[berkelbites]

Ok reblogging this again because story time.

I work in tech, and much of what I do is support sales reps within the company by resolving errors with the software they use.

There is one sales rep who, every single time I send her a message or email with extremely specific instructions that will resolve her issue, does something completely different from what I tell her. Every time. Without fail. It is so glaringly obvious that she has never read even a single word that I have written to her.

So one day, she sends me a message that says little more than "(software) is broken, help"

So I do my standard song and dance of asking her what she's trying to accomplish, and what specifically is stopping her from doing that. And eventually, after much unnecessary back and forth, she tells me there's an error message. I ask her to send me a screenshot of the error message. She does.

The error message basically says, "these two required fields are blank. To resolve this, please fill in these two specific fields, and then click save."

So I take a few deep breaths.

Then I lie to her.

I message her back, saying "hey yeah, for some reason it's not loading that screenshot on my end. Could you type out the full text of the error message for me?"

She does.

I ask her if she still needs help.

She does not respond.

[samueldays]

I have similar story from tech support.

Client is reporting that Some Thing Program doesn't work. I ask if there's an error message with further information about what's not working. Client says "no". I go over and ask Client to open Some Thing. Client double-clicks on the icon for Some Thing, it starts to boot, an error message dialog flashes up on screen, Client closes error message before I can read it, Thing closes after the error.

"What did that error message say?" I ask.

"What error message?" asks Client.

I tell Client to open the Some Thing again and then not click anything else. Client opens Some Thing, error message appears, Client clicks it away again.

I tell Client to stand up, step away, and give me physical control of the computer. I open Some Thing, start looking at the error message without closing it, and Client says "You should close that." I tell Client that I am reading the error message. Client is apparently accustomed to treating error messages as a kind of spam email that should be deleted as fast as possible, and gets agitated that I'm reading it.

I read the error message. It tells me what the problem is. I fix the problem. Some Thing works now.

---

Later, I start thinking about how such an error message might perhaps be engineered to be more attention-grabbing and close-resistant as a way of making people read it. It's not important for some random program here, but there are more important systems (medical, etc) where it would be reasonable to demand the user's attention because people's lives depend on paying attention to the error message.

But then people with a perverted intellect would still be thinking about ways to avoid reading the message, like dragging it off edge of screen or hiding it behind another window. So maybe the dialog box could have an always-in-front feature to override other windows, and the alert could use the computer's hardware "beep" functionality that can't be switched off by muting the regular sound system, and keep beeping... shit, I realize I'm reinventing pain, and get philosophical about it.

[doccyuk]

Story from The Past about My Mum:

She was a computer programmer / analyst, a... Long Time Ago. Called in for a system she'd installed before, the office folk said they kept having problems where it Didn't Work Right (no error, a malfunction)

She investigated, and told them that could only happen if they did 3 specific things in a specific order, which they should not ever do.

So, she asked, did they ever do that?

No! Of course not, was the answer.

So she made a couple of small changes, packed up and said that should be fine, but they should call her if there were problems.

The next week

She had a call saying "We're getting a strange error message on the system, can you help?"

She said, of course, can they tell her the error?

And the message was:

"You Said You Didn't Do This"

[filmnoirsbian]

I love getting unaccompanied minors (kids flying alone) who so clearly just. Don't want to be here lol. Sometimes I get to know a little of their story, like their parents are divorced, or a family member died and they're heading to the funeral, but usually they just don't want to talk about it and that's fine. But I always treat the flight like it's a challenge to make them smile. I offer them snacks and soda but that's never enough, that's whatever, they could get those from an airport vending machine. Chump change. So then I tell the worst jokes. Just the most embarrassing, kindergarten teacher, annoying dad jokes you can think of. And those always get a groan, or a "Seriously??" And that's my in! Now I can say "Why, what's your idea of a good joke? No, come on hotshot, make your best joke, let's see it." And they hem and they haw but of course they eventually tell me their very best joke because kids are little competitive comedy goldmines. And it's always super funny, so I laugh, and that's where they slip up. Because you know what you almost always do when your joke successfully makes someone laugh? You smile. And I'm like. Gotcha. Rookie move. Now you're going to end up having a good time in spite of yourself. I win.

[filmnoirsbian]

Did this with an 11yo u.m. today and he said "What did the ghost say to the other ghost?" And I said "What?" "Nothing. Ghosts aren't real."

[filmnoirsbian]

I'm literally a flight attendant, offering snacks and drinks is my job

[this-is-a-name-dont-worry]

gshsjb

[slowandsweet]

Tamara Ralph Couture Show 2026/2027

[maureen-corpse]

I still kind of think that in fiction where the world has a pantheon of multiple gods including some who are believed to be or implied to be or definitely are hostile to the characters the piece follows it doesn't make any sense to replace moments where many people in our more usually monotheistic world would say "God" as an oath with "gods" because invoking any or all of the gods indiscriminately sounds like a dumb thing to do if some of them have beef with you. You're just asking for trouble doing that. Now if people commonly move through the world without having beef with any of the gods, sure, maybe language would evolve such that people would just casually swear by all of them, but once you have active beef maybe you need to join the cult for your favorite and start invoking that one specifically. Or just say "zounds." One of them has definitely been injured at some point. Possibly the one who is after you, though.