Is there a purpose?

I'm beat if I know. But it's fun.

[robertreich]

This story from @guardian_us was mind blowing to me. What are your thoughts?

[jcrewguy]

[unpretty]

In a statement to The Post, a spokesperson for NBCUniversal claimed the tree work is simply an annual ritual at this time of year. “We understand that the safety tree trimming of the Ficus trees we did on Barham Blvd. has created unintended challenges for demonstrators, that was not our intention. In partnership with licensed arborists, we have pruned these trees annually at this time of year to ensure that the canopies are light ahead of the high wind season,” they wrote. “We support the WGA and SAG’s right to demonstrate and are working to provide some shade coverage. We continue to openly communicate with the labor leaders on-site to work together during this time.”

[laughingcatwrites]

If those trees were pollarded annually, the cut areas would NOT look like that. There would be big knobs of old growth at the trimming sites. Not seeing any of that here. The way those trees were topped (not pollarded, which is a very careful process that has to begin when the tree is immature) is excellent way to kill them due to loss of hydration, open sites to infection and parasitism during the best time of year for both, lack of nutrition due to so little greenery and new budding growth being left, sunburn and other exposure damage, and a myriad of other possibilities. Plus, if they were topped annually, they would not have the lovely drooping branches seen in the other picture but would have tons of vertical suckers instead.

This is what an annually pollarded mature tree should look like:

If this was done by the city, the public works arborists should be protesting in front of city hall and screaming their heads off right now. I'm not hearing about that, so... Tree law!

[vaspider]

The Studios: *speak*

Botanists and other Tree Experts:

[sparkletindi]

Update and confirmation of Imminent Tree Law:

He mentions later in the thread that not only do they not trim the trees annually, they’re trimmed at best once every 18 years. Supposed to be every five, and only in dormancy, which even my layman’s ass knows about tree trimming.

And yes, Universal can probably eat the fine. But it’s gonna be a whopper even if the trees survive (which is as mentioned kinda unlikely), California is a triple damage state for tree law, and it may increase dramatically if there were nesting birds in the trees.

All this to be a Captain Planet filler villain to some writers. And yes, it’s currently just the writers officially picketing there; SAG-AFTRA recommended against it for petty bullshit like this and the suddenly necessary sidewalk construction.

[givemeadecentusername]

A follow up on that tree law SAG AFTRA post. I hope the city fines their socks off. (and that the writers and actors win the strike)

[st-pam]

[piratepolls]

[commodorecliche]

[hypokeimena]

told my parents i miss archaeology and my mom was, very sympathetically, like: “do you want to dig holes in the garden?” and i was like. yes. i want to dig holes in the garden.

[ruffboi-mags]

my wife, after reading this to me aloud: It’s your people! …do you want me to break a clay pot for you to put back together?

me, burying my face in my hands: Maybe…?

[mycroftrh]

These are both moods, but unfortunately I am primarily a bioarchaeologist. (IE, I specialize in digging up old human skeletons.) And, uh, home-made bioarchaeology is tragically discriminated against by law enforcement.

[autie-girl-power]

Only if you get caught

[messymindpalace]

This whole post took an unexpected turn

[thatdisasterauthor]

Out of work paleontologists can take a page out of the Girl Scouts handbook and eat a chicken, clean the bones, encase them in a mud and plaster mix, then chip it back out. Which is legitimately how Girl Scouts earn their paleontology badge.

[strixus]

… I rebuilt my chicken by modeling muscles back onto the bones using clay, then putting skin on it and making it look like a dinosaur…. 

[thatdisasterauthor]

Perfect. Exactly the right way to add a part 2 to this project.

[wyrmzone]

enrichment

[artificial-father]

How do I explain Plato’s allegory of the cave to quarantined archeologists?

[saint-batrick]

::wheeze::

[funnytwittertweets]

[doubleclutch]

[glumshoe]

has anyone in the universe aged as radiantly as Nichelle Nichols

[majokkomaimun]

WAIT THIS IS A PICTURE????????????? I THOUGHT THIS WAS LEGIT ART FOR SOME GODDESS, WHAT THE ACTUAL DIVINE SHIT IS THIS

[glumshoe]

she looks like that IRL too

I saw her at a distance at a convention a few years ago and she like... shimmered in a way that made her seem more real than real

she was very pretty as a young woman, but so are lots of people—as an old woman, she stopped me in my tracks like a human traffic light

[algorithmist]

[petermorwood]

Hailing frequencies closed. :-(

[nyotas]

NYOTA UHURA Star Trek (1966) 

[nerdymomstuff]

‘creative captions for old-timey books’ by SnideOctopus

[oneironmaiden-deactivated202111]

This is pure gold

[thechanelmuse]

Black Cowboys and Rodeo around America photographed by Ivan McClellan 

[sandmandaddy69]

[ironelkarchive]

Today my art history professor gave some words of wisdom:

Nude is when your clothes are off. Naked is when your clothes are off and you’re up to something 

[thcrin]

TOLKIENWEEK 2022 Day 8: Courage

[i-just-like-commenting]

Text: decoupling pregnancy from femininity means accurate and more inclusive language and treatment, but it also allows cis women to refuse motherhood without refusing womanhood, which is great for feminism and terrifying for misogyny.

–THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS. As a sterile cis woman who doesn’t want to have children anyway I feel this is every ounce of my being. “Define woman” types tend to do so in a way that excludes me too, so I got to stand with my trans sisters.