Mr. Charles @soft-fluffy - Tumblr Blog

I just love barking so I really couldn’t give a fuck if this is the right tree or not haha

went on a walk and spent five minutes meowing at this random cat until i realized the owner was standing right there in his yard

alexanderwales

Salt was hugely important before refrigeration, and one of the ways of getting salt was from the sea or from brine springs. There were a few ways of doing this, which depended on the natural resources available in the area. You could put the saltwater into a large, flat pool and wait on dry air and the sun to do evaporation until there was no water left and you just had the salt, or you could boil saltwater using enormous quantities of fuel to get rid of the water.

But in places where big pools weren't feasible, they did everything in their power to reduce the amount of fuel required for the production of salt, because fuel takes a lot of time and effort to collect and drives up costs.

Enter the graduation tower!

The idea is that you take some source of salty water, pump it up to the top of a wooden tower filled with brushwood (typically blackthorn), then let it trickle down, which greatly increases evaporation by maximizing surface area and exposing the water to the wind along the way. When the saltwater reaches the bottom, it's saltier than it was, and you can send it through again until it's reached the point of saturation. If you do this with ocean water, you can reduce the amount of fuel needed by a factor of ten.

Plus it looks and sounds awesome - these were sometimes called thorn towers.

And at the start of the 20th century, when other forms of salt production had skyrocketed in efficiency, the graduation towers began to be used for healthcare, because as you might imagine, the air next to the graduation tower is very salty, more than it is next to the seaside. From what I can find it seems like the main thing it does is thin mucus, though there are a lot of other health claims.

There are still a few working thorn towers that you can go visit, mostly in Germany or Poland, but they're either historical curiosities keeping a tradition alive, or health and wellness centers, distilling down a brine spring for supposed special properties.

monstersovka

🌱 the peacemaker spirit 🌱

the auction takes place here 🍃

poughkeepsietapes

i’m never gonna stop laughing about this. it debuted on tumblr in 2017 and i think of it OFTEN.

dragon-png

black--stars

Hey, when you talk to children, you know you can explain things to them right? thats theyre capable of comprehension? In fact you should be explaining things so they understand comprehension better?

Earlier my little sister slammed her closet and room door-- not out of anger as far as im aware, she just pushed them too hard. I yelled at her to stop it.

she said she would, but it was clear from her tone she just said so out of obligation and was annoyed. i tell her to stop making loud noises a lot, so she probably assumed this was just another example of that.

realizing this, i explained her the reason: our rooms are right next to each other. When she slams doors, the wall shakes. When the wall shakes, my mirror shakes, and if it shakes too hard it can fall and break

after the explanation, she apologized genuinely and actually understood the reason instead of just thinking im nagging her or just want quiet. the fact that she knows the reason means shes more likely to remember, and she can apply the knowledge in different ways: "even if my older sibling isnt home, their mirror could still break, so i still shouldnt slam the door." She knows im not just trying to annoy her or assert dominance over her like a lot of rules and demands we give to children do- i just dont want my mirror to break. It helps her understand cause and effect.

Would this result be the same if i had just screamed at her or spanked her? Or did it make more sense to just explain? After all, it was a simple mistake. I could see my parents doing the same thing-- when you close a door, youre not usually thinking about the walls in the other room.

Children are humans, humans use logic. Use logic with children. Its simple.

blignick

teaboot

BESPOKE

raccoonmilf

I don’t have a raccoon daughter because I’m a raccoon biologist. I have a raccoon daughter because I moved to South Africa because I had what I thought was a “prophetic dream” (I had scurvy and also an evil psychiatrist prescribing me the wrong meds) where I was in South Africa and there was billboard with a woman on it in a lab coat holding a red fox and a raccoon that said “Dr Foxy: This Could Be You!” And then in the dream I looked across the street and saw a billboard the said “Come Visit Hooters in South Africa.” And I woke up and was like “I know what I need to do” which was not “go to school to study native wildlife” but instead was “visit Hooters in South Africa.” But I didn’t want to go for just a little while because it was expensive and I didn’t like the idea of the long flight, but I knew I HAD to go to the Hooters in South Africa. So I figured it would be more economical to just go and finish art school there. Except COVID happened and I literally got trapped there and the hooters in the city I moved to had apparently been closed for years and also I got a concussion and when I went to the doctor they said I had scurvy. So I had to do intensive eating treatment where I drank a lot of fruit juice and also learned to eat macaroni that was shapes other than SpongeBob. And after listening to my yapping about raccoons, my therapist, who had never met a raccoon, told me I should get a raccoon to help me keep fresh fruits in the house. And so when I got back to America I found someone trying to get rid of one Facebook because it was apparently evil and bit her toddler and then I did.

And now I’m a raccoon biologist.

derinthescarletpescatarian

#thats exactly what id expect from anyone who's made it big post dashcon

I love how the phrasing of this politely obscures that raccoonmilf made Dashcon. Like a newcomer could come away thinking you mean "someone who made it big after Dashcon happened." But no.

pitchburgh

i wish you could laugh react eBay listings. that's not worth $250. you fucking asshole. lmao

pitchburgh

you should also be able to do this to job listings

i-am-a-fish

don't be mean to yourself that's you

i-am-a-fish

you live there

animusbell

you can't come to my birthday party? aw dang, (remembers it's bad to guilt trip people) this doesn't matter to me at all (remembers to demonstrate that i am affected by you to affirm your positive presence in my life) but while you're away i will die (remembers not to guilt trip again) unpreventably. unrelated to you. don't worry about it. (remembers to express care through actions and not just words) you're in the will.

bestiolin

nakkusu

plaguedocboi

ITS GREAT LAKES AWARENESS DAY!!!!!

On this excellent day, be aware that this is the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world, covering over 95,000 square miles and reaching depths of over a thousand feet. They are beautiful freshwater seas.

Also when you die in these lakes, the very cold, oxygen-poor conditions at the bottom preserves you perfectly for all eternity. You will not rot and nothing will eat you. You will exist for as long as the Great Lakes do. Many shipwrecks still have the crew on board. Be Aware.

bunjywunjy

that last paragraph only applies to Lake Superior, the northernmost Great Lake! to be fair though, Superior is bigger than all of the other Great Lakes combined.

and that's not to say that the other Great Lakes aren't equally dangerous! each of these things earned the 'Great' descriptor for a reason, and the only reason they aren't all classified as inland seas is because they're not salty.

Lake Michigan in particular is really good at creating waterlogged corpses and hiding them in weird places, and every single Great Lake is full of shipwrecks and ghost stories.

and you know what? 10/10 I would let these things eat me anyways.