I was told there would be cake

[byjove]

I was going to say “they had nothing to do back then” but then I realized someone would be livestreaming this if it happened today

[animeengineer]

This would get the Ever Given treatment here.

[1five1two]

Tomi Ungerer. 1931-2019.

[easy-japan]

Today's beginner Japanese vocabulary is ひまわり (himawari)

ひまわり means sunflower. The name comes from:

Hi (日) = sun

Mawari (回り) = turning, circling

So, ひまわり literally means "turning toward the sun."

But the official kanji is 向日葵 and you might be wondering…

If "hi" (日) comes first in the spoken word, 向日葵 is written with 日 in the middle? That's because the kanji 向日葵 was borrowed from Chinese.

Rather than reading each character individually, Japanese reads the entire compound as ひまわり. In other words, the pronunciation doesn't directly match the order of the kanji.

Interestingly, this kanji isn't commonly used in everyday Japanese. Most people simply write it as ひまわり in hiragana or ヒマワリ in katakana.

Here's another fun fact. Japanese has a tradition called Hanakotoba (花言葉)… The word comes from: Hana (花) = flower Kotoba (言葉) = words, language

So, Hanakotoba literally means "the language of flowers." In Hanakotoba, each flower has its own symbolic meaning and can be us

One of the meanings associated with ひまわり is:

あなただけを見つめている Anata dake o mitsumete iru.

Just as the sunflower follows the sun, I only have eyes for you. How romantic!! Learning Japanese? We have free apps for you! ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-

[nefastidies]

[tsarina-anadyomene]

it really is quite bad for your military to have an image of itself as a warrior class. what you really want is for your soldiers to think of themselves as boring professionals who will fill out a report form if someone gets a little too warrior ethos out there

[gsot]

[drmajalis]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

War is most effectively planned, fought and managed by people who'd really rather be doing something else.

[pmamtraveller]

"Waiting Gradually Eats The Soul"

by A.F. Vandevorst.

[pocketss]

distressing things to say to your friends

[japaneseaesthetics]

Artist: Wakyosai Title: A White Horse with Raised Head Date: 1940–1950 Medium: Color woodblock print Dimensions: 27.7 x 39.7 cm Credit Line: Bruce Goff Archive, gift of Shin'enkan, Inc.

[rudeposting]

Distracted while moving and now I'm coloring this old sketch instead

[dedalvs]

By special request from the LTS Discord…

Who’s more sexually desirable: Scar or Thanos?

No context; no middle ground. Choose your fighter.

Who does it for you?

Scar

Thanos

Voting ended onAug 2

[cogentranting]

Observed today:

Two little girls playing gently with a daddy long legs.

Girl 1: can it die?

Girl 2, in a calm happy even tone: of course. Like all living things it can and must die.

[bisexualwario]

[20th-centuryghost]

sorry this was going to be a tags addition because I only get to use my coated pantone swatchbook like 6 times a year when i have a new enamel pin to design, but...

METALLIC GOLD PANTIES ????

[purlturtle]

[mayfay]

[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

[monstrousdaughter]

can we get him out of x reader hell

[beemovieerotica]

we need a ritual where you can climb into a hole in the ground for roughly 24 hours and just close your eyes and not do anything, and nobody is allowed to look for you or speak your name, and whenever you want to reemerge then you can climb back out and people are forbidden from commenting on your absence. can someone get on this.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

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.

[ariaste]

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

[mandy-lane]

yeah