Soharu's blog

I dunno

[bunjywunjy]

could I get some cursed biology facts about shrimp please? thank you!

shrimp are normally pretty slow swimmers, using their swimmerets as paddles to cruise slowly through the water looking for food!

but in an emergency, shrimp can skedaddle AMAZINGLY fast, scooting away at about 30 body-lengths-per-second over short distances, which is so quick that they straight-up look like they're teleporting.

[thesassybunnies]

A stray rabbit helping my bf dig a hole in the garden this past spring 

(via)

[is-the-rabbit-playing]

Is this rabbit playing? No, but nothing bad is going on. This bunny is showing familial behavior by digging a burrow in connection to yours :)

[mad-dyspunktional]

?? Stray? There are stray rabbits? Like, domestic rabbits that were set loose and survived?

[madgastronomer]

Yes. LOTS. Because people think it’s cute to buy baby bunnies for their kids for Easter, don’t realize how much care they require or how much work they are, and then let them loose in parks and shit. They’re a serious nuisance some places (like several parks in Seattle, where I live), and an environmental disaster in Australia.

[mad-dyspunktional]

Wow, I always assumed that domestic rabbits let loose wouldn’t survive, especially with that coloring. But yeah, people are shit. Letting domestic rabbits loose is shitty whether the end result is their death or the start of a feral population.

[elisamaza]

good news for this particular rabbit tho, the people involved in this video decided to adopt it!

[mad-dyspunktional]

Aw, that makes me happy.

[malpervobis-deactivated20161004]

[bunjywunjy]

What animal can open it's mouth the widest?

if we're talking pure mouth-to-head-width ration, it's probably down to a battle of the ages between the pelican eel and the sarcastic fringehead!

though the fringehead gets bonus points for style.

[22psyduck]

she loves holdin hands but she’s a little shy

[atiredgemini]

[fcxhole]

people with she/her pronouns do not owe you femininity. people with they/them pronouns do not owe you androgyny. people with he/him pronouns do not owe you masculinity.

[bunjywunjy]

Fruit Fact: Banana flavoring is extinct banana flavor :o

actually, the Gros Michel banana does still exist!

it’s just no longer farmed in huge quantities because unfortunately, the fungus that almost wiped it out and caused its collapse as a cash crop still exists, too. so the Gros Michel cannot and probably will never again be farmed on a large scale, but it’s still produced by small farms and specialty growers outside the Banana Fungus Death Zone!

you might even be able to get ahold of some yourself and experience the forbidden banana flavor if you have a specialty shop near you, or if you’re willing to pay out the wazoo for online shipping.

[microbrkfst]

Advent Time of Modern Madonnas // special thanks to adamosgood

BUY PRINTS

[bunjywunjy]

Cursed platypus fact?

platypus shoulders are real fuckin weird- the scapula is actually flipped vertically so it sticks straight up into the air and there’s a whole extra bone in the joint that no other mammal has!

this arrangement serves as an anchor point for the platypus’s MASSIVE fucking forelimb muscles and has a lot in common with lizard shoulders, of all things! 

but the real takeaway here is this: you know how platypus is shaped like football?

(please do not kick platypus)

that’s all muscle. 

muscle with some flippers sticking out the sides like an afterthought.

just don’t laugh too hard, you’ll hurt their feelings.

[bunjywunjy]

What is, respectively,the best horrible animal design

every living thing on earth is in a neverending game of Chicken with natural selection, staying juuuuust enough ahead of the curve to avoid extinction. this minimum-effort strategy breeds a LOT of weird-but-fairly-effective designs, but the Pipefish is objectively just pretty terrible.

they’re basically just straightened-out seahorses that get the worst of both worlds, lacking the seahorse’s strong grabbing ability while also being such a weak swimmer that they can’t deal with any kind of current at all! 

they SUCK, is what I’m getting at here.

but you know what? they’re also POSTIVELY DELIGHTFUL.

pipefish come in a frankly astonishing array of colors, shapes, and sizes, and I frankly would not want to live in a world without them.

[weirdmageddon]

ok so here’s why the DP remakes look so ..... not good. its not the style of the models. it’s 100% the lighting and shader techniques.

the biggest issue i have is, objects blend too much into the surroundings (there’s no contrast that your brain inherently registers between what is object and what is environment due to lack of model outlines and because of the way the lighting is). like sure barry here stands out...his hair does anyhow. but the shading gradients into basically the same color of his skintone which makes it difficult to separate where his hair starts and ends at first glance. theres no shadows from his hair covering his face; it’s all fuzzy and pillowed.

additionally, the color palette clashes too much; everything is too saturated. the brown of the rocks and green of the grass are the same saturation as the orange and green on his shirt.

and one of the biggest turnoffs from is that the lighting looks like point lights instead of directional light. notice how bright the top of the buildings are but how dark the walls are. also notice how lighting is “spotty”. this might make sense in say, eterna forest, but not in an open city or town. this gives it the effect of being enclosed in a box somehow with a couple of bright light sources on the ceiling.

and the absolute killer is that there is no global illumination.

it’s all shaded with black or some really light color adjacent enough to the base color of the object but doesn’t create a “shadowy” contrast. it’s also very uniform like there’s no verifiable light source.

sorry i just wanted to vent that these are the main problems with the visual aspect of the games, not the models themselves.

we should more talk specifically about the shaders and lighting instead of the vague “i dont like how it looks” because the models themselves aren’t the problem, in fact it’s very faithful to the originals. lighting and shaders can completely change the way a game looks and that’s just what they have to do here

[moongloss]

Fairies at Anna Sui Spring/Summer 1997

[marsupial-deleterings-deactivat]

[jinglyjangly]

I dont want bethesda to ever get rid of how fo4 does cutscenes because there is just something special about talking to someone and having a vertibird kill you both in the middle of it

[falloutuniverse]

I snorted

[the-dubstep-strawberry]

I don’t think there’s a better example of the above than this:

[vkm11-deactivated20220316]

Uh excuse me, how can we forget this classic and masterpiece

[keystoneway]

I still like this one

[renelaru]

How about this old gold

[filiasyth]

@immamotherpugger

[leggywillow]

Every time I see these I just sob with laughter.

[plaguedocboi]

Here it is folks:

My definitive ranking of my least favorite bodies of water! These are ranked from least to most scary (1/10 is okay, 10/10 gives me nightmares). I’m sorry this post is long, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this.

The Great Blue Hole, Belize

I’ve been here! I have snorkeled over this thing! It is terrifying! The water around the hole is so shallow you can’t even swim over the coral without bumping it, and then there’s a little slope down, and then it just fucking drops off into the abyss! When you’re over the hole the water temperature drops like 10 degrees and it’s midnight blue even when you’re right by the surface. Anyway. The Great Blue Hole is a massive underwater cave, and its roughly 410 feet deep. Overall, it’s a relatively safe area to swim. It’s a popular tourist attraction and recreational divers can even go down and explore some of the caves. People do die at the Blue Hole, but it is generally from a lack of diving experience rather than anything sinister going on down in the depths. My rating for this one is 1/10 because I’ve been here and although it’s kinda freaky it’s really not that bad.

Lake Baikal, Russia

When I want to give myself a scare I look at the depth diagram of this lake. It’s so deep because it’s not a regular lake, it’s a Rift Valley, A massive crack in the earth’s crust where the continental plates are pulling apart. It’s over 5,000 feet deep and contains one-fifth of all freshwater on Earth. Luckily, its not any more deadly than a normal lake. It just happens to be very, very, freakishly deep. My rating for this lake is a 2/10 because I really hate looking at the depth charts but just looking at the lake itself isn’t that scary.

Jacob’s Well, Texas

This “well” is actually the opening to an underwater cave system. It’s roughly 120 feet deep, surrounded by very shallow water. This area is safe to swim in, but diving into the well can be deadly. The cave system below has false exits and narrow passages, resulting in multiple divers getting trapped and dying. My rating is a 3/10, because although I hate seeing that drop into the abyss it’s a pretty safe place to swim as long as you don’t go down into the cave (which I sure as shit won’t).

The Devil’s Kettle, Minnesota

This is an area in the Brule River where half the river just disappears. It literally falls into a hole and is never seen again. Scientists have dropped in dye, ping pong balls, and other things to try and figure out where it goes, and the things they drop in never resurface. Rating is 4/10 because Sometimes I worry I’m going to fall into it.

Flathead Lake, Montana

Everyone has probably seen this picture accompanied by a description about how this lake is actually hundreds of feet deep but just looks shallow because the water is so clear. If that were the case, this would definitely rank higher, but that claim is mostly bull. Look at the shadow of the raft. If it were hundreds of feet deep, the shadow would look like a tiny speck. Flathead lake does get very deep, but the spot the picture was taken in is fairly shallow. You can’t see the bottom in the deep parts. However, having freakishly clear water means you can see exactly where the sandy bottom drops off into blackness, so this still ranks a 5/10.

The Lower Congo River, multiple countries

Most of the Congo is a pretty normal, if large, River. In the lower section of it, however, lurks a disturbing surprise: massive underwater canyons that plunge down to 720 feet. The fish that live down there resemble cave fish, having no color, no eyes, and special sensory organs to find their way in the dark. These canyons are so sheer that they create massive rapids, wild currents and vortexes that can very easily kill you if you fall in. A solid 6/10, would not go there.

Little Crater Lake, Oregon

On first glance this lake doesn’t look too scary. It ranks this high because I really don’t like the sheer drop off and how clear it is (because it shows you exactly how deep it goes). This lake is about 100 feet across and 45 feet deep, and I strongly feel that this is too deep for such a small lake. Also, the water is freezing, and if you fall into the lake your muscles will seize up and you’ll sink and drown. I don’t like that either. 7/10.

Grand Turk 7,000 ft drop off

No. 8/10. I hate it.

Gulf of Corryvreckan, Scotland

Due to a quirk in the sea floor, there is a permanent whirlpool here. This isn’t one of those things that looks scary but actually won’t hurt you, either. It absolutely will suck you down if you get too close. Scientists threw a mannequin with a depth gauge into it and when it was recovered the gauge showed it went down to over 600 feet. If you fall into this whirlpool you will die. 9/10 because this seems like something that should only be in movies.

The Bolton Strid, England

This looks like an adorable little creek in the English countryside but it’s not. Its really not. Statistically speaking, this is the most deadly body of water in the world. It has a 100% mortality rate. There is no recorded case of anyone falling into this river and coming out alive. This is because, a little ways upstream, this isn’t a cute little creek. It’s the River Wharfe, a river approximately 30 feet wide. This river is forced through a tiny crack in the earth, essentially turning it on its side. Now, instead of being 30 feet wide and 6 feet deep, it’s 6 feet wide and 30 feet deep (estimated, because no one actually knows how deep the Strid is). The currents are deadly fast. The banks are extremely undercut and the river has created caves, tunnels and holes for things (like bodies) to get trapped in. The innocent appearance of the Strid makes this place a death trap, because people assume it’s only knee-deep and step in to never be seen again. I hate this river. I have nightmares about it. I will never go to England just because I don’t want to be in the same country as this people-swallowing stream. 10/10, I live in constant fear of this place.

Honorable mention: The Quarry, Pennsylvania

I don’t know if that’s it’s actual name. This lake gets an honorable mention not because it’s particularly deep or dangerous, but it’s where I almost drowned during a scuba diving accident.

Edit: I’ve looked up the name of the quarry, it’s called Crusty’s Quarry and is privately owned and only used for training purposes, not recreational diving.

[heaveninawildflower]

Perfume Bottle Case (Etui). 18th century. Possibly made in England.

Tortoiseshell with gold gilt.

Images and text information courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art.