WhiteTiger94things @whitetiger94things - Tumblr Blog

fascinated by this screenshot where they took out the poster's username and replaced it with a very small picture of alex the lion

edwad

wait a minute

that's me. that's my post. what is this

anarchblr

evildilf2

herpsandbirds

Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), LEUCISTIC, family Picidae, order Piciformes, northern CA, USA

Photograph by Thy Pygmy Owl Tour

elodieunderglass

Thank you @bcauseofreasons what a beautiful woodpecker - and a lovely pattern designer too!

the-punforgiven

You say something really weird to the headless horseman and in response he just stares at you fully maintaining eye contact as he grabs a second pumpkin out of one of his saddlebags and carves a confused/mildly offended face onto it and then replaces the first pumpkin head that's been staring at you the whole time with it

mayra-quijotescx

I got inspired

encryptidarchivist

count dracula? uhhh ok. one

zamczysko

WRONG! searching "dracula" on letterboxd alone gives almost 600 results! and that's just movies! thousands of draculas are upon us

kozlarz

cmon they just started… give it some time

encryptidarchivist

thank you.

two

onemilliondraculas

Keep going

theunfairfolk

in elementary school i figured out how to customize the classroom desktop's autocorrect to make Word change whole sentences. this made it appear almost like the computer was responding to you. you could, for example, type in "where did i put my keys", hit enter, and watch it switch to "you put them under the couch". this was before chatbots, and we were all 9 so i considered it closer to a magic trick than a tech one.

i immediately scripted out a dialogue exchange between me and a girl who had died by the swings (classic). i invited another student over and told them i had found a ghost, then proceeded to type out the pre-scripted exchange. i was immediately pulled into the counselors office. the kicker was that none of the adults could figure out how i did it. i had to show them the menu and everything.

theunfairfolk

important detail i forgot to add: the swing ghost wanted blood sacrifices from the students. in my defense it was "only a few drops".

slyandthefamilybook

why did they start breeding busses to have flat faces. they can't breathe

slyandthefamilybook

if you think this

looks better than this

you're part of the problem. I'm so tired of all the excuses like "oh they look cuter!" "why do you care?" THEY CAN'T BREATHE. People intentionally breeding these vehicles to give them health problems because they "like how it looks" makes me so mad

the-starlight-papers

Actually, flat faced buses can breathe fine! This is a case of convergent evolution, but the two types of buses are not genetically related.

Pointed nose buses are decended from trucks, and have their engines located in the front. This requires the larger nose in order to provide the space for the engine as well as adequate ventilation.

Meanwhile, flat nosed buses are actually descended from city buses (which in turn descend from trolleys), and were domesticated due to their greater maneuverability and capacity.

Contrary to popular belief, flat nosed busses typically do not experience breathing problems. Their engines are located in the back of the bus, with a large breathing vent located in the rear.

These buses also have a different structure to accommodate this change, typically including doubled back tires, a different weight distribution, and a change in location of the emergency egress door from the back to the left side.

stormy-nights-are-best

If only pugs could breathe through their butt too :((

happy anniversary

Oh, hey Charlie, sorry you didn’t make it to the 8 year anniversary

whitebisexual

The concept of being 4 months clean from ai...

sleepytabbycat

idc what you guys think I'm proud of him

astronomical-bagel

Several AI services (chatbots 🫩) are purposely addictive, the same way people can become addicted to gambling or shopping. We’ve literally seen in real time how ChatGPT has caused psychosis and delusions in people; it can have a huge affect on someones’s mental stability. Just because it isn’t substance-based doesn’t mean that doesn’t count as an addiction, and shaming people who are trying to move on and improve themselves is counterproductive. Im proud of that dude and his 4 month mark!

astronomical-bagel

AI chatbots can fuel emotional dependence and blur boundaries. Emerging research highlights significant mental health risks. Here are import

Large language models often prioritise agreeability over truthfulness to the detriment of users

AI addiction includes the overuse of AI chatbots and companions, often leading to adverse psychological effects.

Some articles to back my statements, and this isn’t even mentioning about the predatory chatbots who do this on purpose

oh-morrow

Then I'll mention the predatory chatbots who do it on purpose! Character.ai is one of many AI chatbot websites that're designed to be addictive.

None of the signup methods require a password. It only takes email and birthday. Minimizing time on the signin or signup screen makes it harder for people quitting to avoid relapse.

"Characters" on the website will send messages "on their own" (prompted by the site) to try to invite inactive users back after as soon as 1 day of inactivity. This is likely to force FOMO, or make users feel more like they owe the bots a response. Unhealthy attachment stuff.

Account deletion is an essential part of every service that should go smoothly, right? Right? Wrong. It takes 1-2 weeks for a Character AI account deletion to be finalized, and account deletion requests have a high chance to not go through if you're not using the app.

Rephrasing: People leaving Character.AI are pushed to download the app in order to delete their accounts, if they haven't already. This makes it harder for people to quit and stay gone. Failing to quit an addiction makes it harder to quit successfully in the future, so this feels like a feature, not a bug. On top of that, the delete account menu reads like this:

Tell me THAT doesn't sound like a bad ex. It's a carefully crafted yet hostile environment to those who are already addicted to the technology. I am so so SO happy, downright delighted that they've managed to quit, and I wish the best for others in recovery spaces or considering quitting as well!! While AI addiction is an emerging condition, there are already therapists and other mental health professionals trained to help people plan to quit and do so a bit easier. (If anyone seeing this is in need of them, there are several tumblr Communities here devoted to quitting, too. They provide a mix of advice, venting spaces, and proof that you aren't alone.)

natalieironside

I think the aversion in our society to coming up w/ utilitarian answers to ethical questions (my favorite hobby) has caused us to cede way too much ground to the assholes of the world in the vein of "Evil will always triumph because good is dumb," as Dark Helmet put it. Like.

Laypeople (and also a concerning number of scientists) have often got the idea that unethical human experimentation is some sort of ultra-effective super science that would fix all the disease and discover all of the medicine and we only don't do it because it isn't nice (see: every science fiction show ever). No! Jumping straight from abstract theory to human trials is a terrible way to do science. It produces incoherent results and useless observations and nonsensical conclusions. We have pages and pages of historical precedent demonstrating this.

And lots of people have got the idea that totalitarianism is some sort of magic super-government that does all the government stuff really effectively abd efficiently and we only don't do it because it isn't nice. No!!!! "Let's put one idiot in charge and do whatever dumb shit they say" is the worst way to organize any project at all, let alone an economy and a political machine. Fascist regimes are models of corruption, waste, and inefficiency.

And so on

itsabear

mengela discovered nothing. 731 discovered nothing. Residential school trials discovered nothing. Unethical medical trials are just cruelty by mediocre people. None of the doctors in these unethical trials were outstanding students or notable doctors. We dont need science fiction we just need history and honesty.

natalieironside

In addition to its being niceys, ethics is a form of rigor. Someone who disregards ethics is (1) Doing It Wrong and (2) just as likely to disregard any other forms of rigor they decide they don't like.

felixcloud6288

If they could get away with it, Capcom would totally put every game of theirs over 3 years old on a perpetual 75% discount. I'm looking at some of their games on SteamDB and the discount cycle runs like clockwork.

I'm going to call it right now: The next sale period will be May 18 - June 1.

felixcloud6288

As if to mess with me, Capcom decided to do a special Devil May Cry franchise sale from May 11 - May 25 and as a result, there is no general sale at my predicted time.

felixcloud6288

By the way, the general pattern seems to be they put their games on sale for 2 weeks every 30 days. But if the sale start period would fall on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, they push it back to the following Monday.

The last general sale was April 1 - April 15, but all the Devil May Cry games only went from April 1 - April 10 specifically so they could have this big franchise sale.

felixcloud6288

Assuming Capcom decides to wait until all its games can be put on sale at the same time, the next window for a sale will start June 25th, which happens to also be when the Steam Summer Sale begins.

viktor-sbor

A 50-kilogram anvil floats perfectly on the surface of mercury, because the density of the steel from which it is made is almost half the density of mercury.

e-102

damn that shit is light lmfao

telltaletypist

vienna1954

Fun fact! Many lighthouses with especially large fresnel lenses would have huge fucking tubs of liquid mercury in the lantern room because it’s a super easy way to make these giant lenses rotate quickly!

Shockingly, however, spending most of your time in close proximity to 500 pounds of liquid mercury is Not Great For One’s Health and tons of lighthouse keepers started to go crazy from the whole. Mercury poisoning thing. Hence why there are a lot of “haunted” lighthouses or wickies that lose it and maybe do a bit of manslaughter.

Anyway, people saw a bunch of lighthouse keepers go crazy and get sick and got empirical evidence that it was in fact related to the 500 pound mercury bath they have to visit every day and then they decided nah it’s fine actually. So we’ve kept the liquid mercury thing and I think that’s beautiful

ben-the-hyena

I love how it is so dense it does not "wet" the anvil, the drops all run and leave with nothing behind them unlike water, oil, sauce... it's super satisfying it's like in cartoons

macleod

In a letter written on April 19, 1825, Augustin Fresnel proposed the use of mercury to reduce the friction in revolving lenses. His statement follows: “I propose to float our rotating devices, of the first order, in a bath of mercury, instead of placing them on rollers. This project won't present many difficulties; nevertheless, as I have not put it into execution, I won't require you to adopt it for your first lighthouse.”

Fresnel’s plan for mercury flotation was not put into practice until 1890 when Monsieur Leon Bourdelles, Chief Engineer of the French Lighthouse Service, designed and built a workable mercury flotation system. The mercury bath allowed the lens to operate in an almost frictionless environment and, additionally, allowed the speed of rotation to be dramatically increased.

Lens Rotation by Thomas Tag | United States Lighthouse Society

sashaforthewin

Ah to be a sailor in 1890 who has to turn to his fellow men and ask "is it just me or are the lighthouses flashing faster?"

asteroidtroglodyte

They had been slowly getting faster for decades.

It mattered for optics reasons.

Under less-than-ideal conditions, you can only see the beam when it’s pointed more or less directly at you. In-between beams you would not be able to see anything. One solution to this was to create multiple beams, and the lenses Mr Fresnel designed usually created 8 beams. But, even still, duration between flashes could be as long as one minute in the old mechanical roller systems.

The nearly frictionless operation of the Mercury suspension system allowed the lenses (large pieces of precisely ground glass weighing several hundred pounds in some cases) to rotate fast enough that they could be redesigned to create fewer (usually 3) beams. Fewer beams from a similar light source will be proportionally brighter, and the gains in speed were sufficient that duration between flashes could still be reduced to as little as 10 seconds.

This was a big upgrade. It didn’t just make the lighthouse signal faster, it allowed them to completely overhaul the lens and derive more visibility from a light source.

What’s a little Madness, in the face of Progress?

asteroidtroglodyte

You. I like you.

sandmandaddy69

bonefarm

They’ve never had to answer an e mail….

rhythm-of-lesbianism

i hate the part of depression that’s like all the things that bring me joy are empty and i can’t do anything. like come on bitch i know you love book can you just be happy about book :/