Nevertheless

[pangur-and-grim]

[eknippp]

Some of our favorite quotes from Artemis ii so far:

"Copy. Moon joy."

"I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."

"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."

“If you’ve ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up.”

"To all of you down there on Earth... we love you, from the moon. See you on the other side."

"We just went sci fi.

"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."

"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."

“It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll.” (The name of Commander Reid Wiseman's late wife)

"Amaze amaze amaze."

"I said that we do not leave Earth, but we choose it. And that is true."

"Christina has been sleeping head down in the middle of the vehicle, kind of like a bat"

"It's really fun to be floatin' around, it just makes me feel like a little kid."

"Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful."

"'Homo Sapiens' is all of us, no matter where you're from or what you look like. We're all one people."

"We're going to power cycle the toilet from the ground."

"I'm proud to call myself the Space Plumber."

"We were all eagerly awaiting the chorus." (After Mission Control cut off Pink Pony Club early when waking up the crew)

"Copy heart. Copy bracelet." (In response to Wiseman giving his daughters heart hands and showing them the bracelets they made him that he was wearing)

“Welcome back. We are still here. They are in space.”

"Copy. Bubble wrap nominal."

"We have rediscovered the chocolate snacks."

“The truth is, the moon really is its own body in the universe. It's not just a poster in the sky that goes by, it is a real place."

“We will build ships. We will visit again. We will construct science outposts. We will drive rovers, we will do radio astronomy.”

"I've seen a lot of new perspectives, but my perspective has not changed because I launched with the perspective that there is enough for all." (After being asked if they had a new view on humankind.)

"On behalf of all Canadians, we wanted some reassurances of your preferences for maple syrup over Nutella on your pancakes."

"And we have a great view of the moon out window 2. Looks a little smaller than yesterday." (Reid), "Guess we'll have to go back :)" (Mission Control).

[systlin]

"Sys how is your decent into fiber arts hell going"

Glad you asked. I have arrived at 'modern flax is Bullshit compared to what we had in historical textiles, the flax widely available for handspinning is basically the tow that would be discarded from textile creation and used with tar to caulk ships back in the day'

This naturally led me down a hole of 'why is the staple length of this stuff a bullshit 6 inches' and the answer is 'we have bred modern flax more for the oil than the fiber because cotton usurped the place of everyday textile thanks to slavery and the cotton gin'

Anyway, THIS led me to a rabbit hole that culminated in me finding flax seed bred for proper 30 inch tall plants for fiber, sold by some fellow minded nerds on a website that has not been updated since 1998 and you have to email them to buy anything.

Anyway how are all of you doing.

[weeee]

Time shifting

––

I wanted this but the original poster is transphobic

[anarchopuppy]

This is called the "analog loophole" and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. They can encrypt and copy-protect all they want, but eventually the file has to be sent to a speaker and/or screen, and it has to get there in a human-readable form because that's the whole dang point

The simplest way to exploit the analog loophole is just pointing a camera at a screen or a microphone at a speaker, but direct recording is also always possible and always will be. Anything that can be displayed can be saved and displayed again

[anexperimentallife]

[savagegood]

alex newell and j. harrison ghee make history as the first out nonbinary acting winners at the tony awards

[liberalsarecool]

Context.

[guerrillatech]

[lierdumoa]

"If stuff was just handed to me I'd have no motivation to do anything! That's human nature!" No, babe, that's depression. Psychologically healthy people are still motivated to do things even when their survival isn't being actively threatened.

[anxietyproblem]

[machineryangel]

another important thing to remember is 1) u can pick up any hobby at any point in ur life and get outstandingly good at it & 2) the project u've been working on & aren't pleased w the current outcome so far will not be your last. u will draw/crochet/paint/sculpt/write another piece, and another, and you will have many chances to be fully content w your craft. so you should cherish the joy of making art instead of worrying ab the results & think ab how lovely it is that we're all vessels for artistry and we can share the divine act of creation!!!!!

[machineryangel]

gentle reminder that this is ur sign to pick up the hobby you quit bec you thought you weren't good enough at it. making mediocre art is the point of being alive <3

[katie-mcgrath]

Is it all right to hit a Nazi unprovoked?

[nyansense-the-nyanbinary]

also, not to detract from the point

but nazi rhetoric is in itself violence

it is not unprovoked, it is defensive

because nazi rhetoric is inherently violent.

punch a nazi. they’re telling people to do worse to you.

[sosuperawesome]

Toad Bags // Windy Willow on Etsy

[unclefather]

[cannibalchicken]

[liberalsarecool]

Unions work. #WorkerSolidarity

[blacktwitterfunny]

[robotsandfrippary]

My uncle, who grew up a poor immigrant on a pig farm, became a heart surgeon and keeps marrying into wealth.  His third wife is from old money.  She’s very sweet and I do love her to death but she’s completely out of touch with anyone who is not born wealthy.  She told me “Oh you simply MUST rent a villa in Italy for a summer.  It’s so great.”      Bless my uncle, he just started laughing his ass off and said, “Joan, normal people don’t do that.” 

She was so confused.  

[cargopantsman]

Can “Joan, normal people don’t do that” be added to the “Harold, they’re lesbians” litany?

[cipheramnesia]

Seconded.

[headspace-hotel]

y'all ever reach the end of google

[headspace-hotel]

I'm starting to gain insight into why people turn into conspiracy theorists. Some topics are so totally neglected that it looks like they were intentionally and maliciously erased, instead of falling victim to arbitrary lack of interest.

I think it's a vicious cycle; when people don't know something exists, they're not curious about it. Also, people use conceptual categories to think about things, and when a topic falls between or outside of conceptual categories, it can end up totally omitted from our awareness even though it very much exists and is important.

This post is about native bamboo in the United States and the fact that miles-wide tracts of the American Southeast used to be covered in bamboo forests

[headspace-hotel]

@icannotgetoverbirds It already is a maddening, bizarre research hole that I have been down for the past few weeks.

Basically, I learned that we have native bamboo, that it once formed an ecosystem called the canebrake that is now critically endangered. The Southeastern USA used to be full of these bamboo thickets that could stretch for miles, but now the bamboo only exists in isolated patches

And THEN.

I realized that there is a little fragment of a canebrake literally in my neighborhood.

HI I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH THIS.

I did not realize the significance until I showed a picture to the ecologist where i work and his reaction was "Whoa! That is BIG."

Apparently extant stands of river cane are mostly just...little sparse thickety patches in forest undergrowth. This patch is about a quarter acre monotypic stand, and about ten years old.

I dive down the Research Hole(tm). Everything new I learn is wilder. Giant river cane mainly reproduces asexually. It only flowers every few decades and the entire clonal colony often dies after it flowers. Seeds often aren't viable.

It's barely been studied enough to determine its ecological significance, but there are five butterfly species and SEVEN moth species dependent on river cane. Many of these should probably be listed as endangered but there's not enough research

There's a species of CRITICALLY ENDANGERED PITCHER PLANT found in canebrakes that only still remains in TWO SPECIFIC COUNTIES IN ALABAMA

Some gardening websites list its height as "over 6 feet" "Over 10 feet" There are living stands that are 30+ feet tall, historical records of it being over 40 feet tall or taller. COLONIAL WRITINGS TALK ABOUT CANES "AS THICK AS A MAN'S THIGH."

The interval between flowering is anyone's guess, and WHY it happens when it does is also anyone's guess. Some say 40-50 years, but there are records of it blooming in as little time as 3-15 years.

It is a miracle plant for filtering pollution. It absorbs 99% of groundwater nitrate contaminants. NINETY NINE PERCENT. It is also so ridiculously useful that it was a staple of Native American material culture everywhere it grew. Baskets! Fishing poles! Beds! Flutes! Mats! Blowguns! Arrows! You name it! You can even eat the young shoots and the seeds.

I took these pictures myself. This stuff in the bottom photo is ten feet tall if it's an inch.

Arundinaria itself is not currently listed as endangered, but I'm growing more and more convinced that it should be. The reports of seeds being usually unviable could suggest very low genetic diversity. You see, it grows in clonal colonies; every cane you see in that photo is probably a clone. The Southern Illinois University research project on it identified 140 individual sites in the surrounding region where it grows.

The question is, are those sites clonal colonies? If so, that's 140 individual PLANTS.

Also, the consistent low estimates of the size Arundinaria gigantea attains (6 feet?? really??) suggests that colonies either aren't living long enough to reach mature size or aren't healthy enough to grow as big as they are supposed to. I doubt we have any clue whatsoever about how its flowers are pollinated. We need to do some research IMMEDIATELY about how much genetic diversity remains in existing populations.

[headspace-hotel]

You'll never guess what I spent a month frantically researching myself to madness about earlier this year!