The Pendulum Swings

33, she/he/they, queer. I basically post things that make me laugh or make me think

[basileater]

ive always been willing to die on the hill of cis women being able to beat cis men in sports so nobody will ever ever make me concerned about trans women in womens sports even if i was delusional enough to believe that was a comparable situation. do i think a cis woman could beat a trans woman in fucking pickleball or whatever? Buddy I think a cis woman could beat a cis male bodybuilder in sports. You will not get me

[domsdickey]

this feels too important (and correct!!) to leave in the notes

[catboybiologist]

Why Women Have Beaten Men in Marathon Swimming?

Research has shown that women, due to specific reasons, have regularly produced faster times than men in marathon swimming.

Women often outperform men in Olympic shooting. Is it time for open events?

The sport’s governing body says there is little difference in performance between genders. Should men and women compete head-to-head as indi

Men’s and Women’s Gymnastics: Exploring Differences in Olympic Events

Uncover the unique differences between men’s and women's gymnastics at the Olympics. Explore how these events contrast in style and rules.

Women outperform men in many sports, and in many instances, the men's versions of these sports are rewritten into completely different versions so that they can't be compared.

And if your reaction to this is "well women don't outperform men in skills that we typically find impressive" I would implore you to think about why things women tend to be better at than men are valued less by society.

If your reaction is "well that's cherrypicking examples, its such a small handful of formalized sports" I'd implore you to think of why so many popular sports are structured around the specific set of skills men are better at.

Because the answer starts with m and ends with isogyny.

[ladycliostarr]

Katie fucking Ledecky!

She is an Olympic goddess. Watching her do the 1500m is amazing. She is fast and has amazing endurance. I have seen her finish a race and then we had to wait for several minutes for the 2nd and 3rd place to finally catch up.

Men refuse to practice when she is. She intimidates the hell out of the best male swimmers. None can keep up with her, they get frustrated trying and leave in a rage.

[flootzavut]

It is not a coincidence that you semi regularly see Katie Ledecky being assumed to be trans. Transphobes are so misogynistic, they cannot see a woman fucking dominating her sport and not go "oh well she must secretly be a man" (because they don't think trans women are women) and somehow claim they are protecting women 🤦🏻

(And Katie Ledecky is amazing! 🙇🏻)

[kurganfilledwithbearbones]

i would like to remind everyone smugly using "usamerican" that you are not being woke or reclaiming anything you just don't understand how adjectives or languages work

[kurganfilledwithbearbones]

american - national of the united states of america

north american - individual living in or a national of a country located on the continent of north america

south american - individual living in or a national of a country located on the continent of south america

canadian - definitionally, especially lately, person who does not fucking want to be called an american, because "american" in both canadian and american english has the semantic weight of "national of the united states of america"

and this is not, in fact, limited to english

amerískur - icelandic adjective for american (loanword, more on the slang side, bandarískur more often used)

ameríkani - icelandic noun describing a national of the united states of america

américain - french adjective or noun describing a national of the united states of america

you cannot brute force a sea change in multiple languages simply because you personally misunderstand the difference between etymology and semantics and also assume (in, hilariously, a very american-centric way) that the billion-plus individuals must have a closer connection to the concept of continent than they do to nationality or other regional identities. a catfish is not literally a cat. it is a completely random trick of language evolution that nationals of the united states of america are not called unitans or vespuccians. calm down and stop being irritating

[vinceaddams]

Someone who happens to be filming in a spacious room: "Here's a clear demonstration of how to do this simple sewing technique!"

Some clown in the notes: "Ugh I can't stand these useless tutorials by rich people, not everyone has access to bougie shit like "flat surfaces" and "thread" and "chalk"."

[cosy-crafty-corner]

I use my bed for laying out fabric when making clothes as it's the largest flat surface in my flat. I do worry every time that I'm going to cut through my bedsheets when cutting fabric, but you make do with what you've got.

[vinceaddams]

Ooh, could you get a big sheet of stiff vinyl to roll out over your bed for cutting, to protect it from the scissors? I have some giant vinyl banners I got for free because a lot of mall stores use them for window displays and throw them out when they change the windows, so I saved some from the garbage at work. Worth asking around at your nearest mall!

Back at my previous apartment I was sewing in one end of my very cramped bedroom, and I kept all my clothes in cardboard boxes on my bookshelf because I had prioritized fabric storage and had no room for a dresser. I sewed my patchwork dressing gown in there, and after a certain point the pieces were so big and bulky that I couldn't put them away and had to keep shuffling them between my table, ironing board, and bed.

I also didn't have a wall to film the reveal against, so I filmed it at my parents house and the lighting was terrible, but ah well! Doing the best with what I had!

Having less space and fewer tools and such doesn't make sewing impossible, it mostly just makes it slower.

[babyjanedough]

Already know I wanna send this to people on June 1

[isuckattechnology]

Audio:

Erika, referencing ebenezer scrooge: You, boy! What day is it?!

Brennan, as a young boy: It's Pride, bitch!

[shanehollancler]

2026 canadian screen award winner hudson williams

best lead performer, drama series

[madphantom]

You know what. There ARE less animals around than there used to be. Like. Less than five years ago there were dozens of herons in the rivers by the train tracks. There were wild hogs and deer in the nearby forest. When you were out late in summer you could see hares and owls. I have several fond memories of staying out at night in my late teens and seeing swarms of fireflies. There were frogs, salamanders, occasional lizards if you were lucky. There were so many fucking foxes. And like... I've gone on several evening/night walks in the woods this summer and I haven't seen a single firefly, or heard the call of an owl. There's no hares, no foxes. I haven't seen a fieldfare or a nightingale in years. Biodiversity is dying out completely.

[venndaai]

have you guys heard about the greenland shark. some crazy shit happening there.

[venndaai]

they are sexually mature at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OLD.

their (live!) young gestate for. wait for it. eight to eighteen (??) YEARS. can have up to 10 at a time. good grief.

longest lifespan of any vertebrate, up to five hundred years

toxic flesh

has giant eyes but is usually blind because of a weird little crustacean that's evolved to live on and eat their eyes. this doesn't seem to bother them much.

lives in deep cold water and has the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. just generally lives life in extreme slow motion

largest genome of any shark

eats everything including moose and polar bears

ma'am you are delightfully strange and I'm privileged to share a planet with you

[fluorescentbrains]

this post prompted me to refresh my memory on Greenland Shark Facts and this detail about how they feed goes so hard

just vacuuming up their unsuspecting prey. whole !

[muffinlance]

Good news good news good news! Recent research suggests the eye parasites do NOT blind them!

Eye-opening research: Greenland sharks maintain vision for centuries through DNA repair mechanism

Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk sits in her office, eyes fixed on the computer monitor in front of her. "You see it move its eye," says the UC Ir

I <3 you a normal amount Greenland sharks

[theposhsworld]

[me----irl]

Reblog if you think the person you reblogged this from deserves to be happy.

[ymawgat]

your car: *bounces back and forth, defeated, its hood swinging by a mere thread*

my car: *triumphantly leaps six feet in the air, spraying hubcaps in victorious fervor*

[mousenemy]

What?

[chromatic-king]

[luna-azzurra]

Something nobody prepares you for is that the better you get at writing the harder it becomes. beginners write freely because they don't know enough to know what's wrong. then you learn. and suddenly you can see every single flaw in real time as you're making it and you have to write anyway while your own brain is in the corner going "that's a weak verb. that transition is lazy. you've used that word three times." getting good at this is mostly just getting better at ignoring yourself.

[sadclowncentral]

to me, the cruelest thing that eva stratt does is not the kidnappig itself. it's that she tells grace that he does not even have a dog. dr ryland grace, a man who dedicated his life to the greater good, first to science and then to teaching, does indeed not have a dog. and because of this, he has to spend his last precious moments on his home planet with the full knowledge that while he might be smart enough to save the world, he is not loved enough by anyone on it to be worth saving

[luminouslumity]

[thenaiads]

[animentality]

[mevil]

[radiofreederry]

Cool

[am-josie]

Uhm,, sorry sweatie, but we have no principles and are glad to abandon your human rights for a handful of votes that we're not gonna get anyway bc we don't believe in offering anything to anyone either 😍🥰😘

[quasi-normalcy]

It seems like if you’re concerned about literal fascism, mass demonization and rollback of the human rights of unpopular subaltern groups is something that should the fucking well concern you.

[regicide1997]

first they came for the trans people, but I did not speak up, because I was too concerned with the abstract concept of opposing fascism to actually do anything

[regicide1997]

[questcequecestqueca]

She played bass on 10,000 songs, including the most-played track of the twentieth century. She was paid $55 per session. Her name never appeared on the albums.

Gold Star Studios, Los Angeles, 1964. A woman in a cardigan walks past the receptionist, a Fender Precision bass in her hand like a briefcase. She doesn’t sign autographs. She signs a timesheet.

Her name is Carol Kaye. In three hours, she will record what will become the most-played track of the twentieth century. She’ll pocket fifty-five dollars and head to another studio, on the other side of town, for the next session.

The record label will never put her name on the album.

Between 1957 and 1973, Carol Kaye took part in roughly 10,000 recording sessions. Not as the featured artist, not as a guest, but as a hired hand. She was part of an anonymous collective nicknamed The Wrecking Crew—elite studio musicians who actually played the instruments on your favorite records while the famous bands posed for promotional photos.

The work was relentless. Three albums before the day was over. Stale coffee in paper cups. No rehearsal. The charts arrived minutes before the tape rolled. If you couldn’t read a chart and nail the take in two tries, you didn’t get called for the next session.

Carol could do it on the first try.

She started playing guitar in grimy bars at fourteen because her family couldn’t pay the electric bill. Music wasn’t a romantic dream for her. It was survival. It was a job—factory work with better acoustics and lower pay.

But she was faster and sharper than almost everyone else. She corrected charts in pencil while the producer was still explaining what he wanted. In one session in 1968, she told a famous producer his arrangement sounded like a dying dog. She chose her own line. They kept her version.

That descending bass line that drives the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”? Carol Kaye. The propulsive groove of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”? Carol Kaye. The acoustic-guitar intro to “La Bamba”? Carol Kaye. The iconic theme from Mission: Impossible? Carol Kaye.

She invented techniques on the spot, out of sheer necessity. When the bass sound was too muddy for AM radio, she stuck felt under the strings and used a hard pick instead of her fingers. The tone cut through the static like a blade. It became the sonic signature that defined 1960s pop.

Bassists spent years—decades—trying to crack the secret of the Beach Boys’ gear to get that sound. They were studying the wrong people. They should have been studying Carol.

She received no royalties. No residuals. No gold-record ceremony. No credit on the album sleeves. When “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” hit number one, Carol was already back in a studio cutting a soap jingle.

The biggest bands mimed her bass lines on TV variety shows. New York marketing departments decided a mom in classic clothes didn’t fit the rebellious-youth image they were selling. So they simply left her name off the album credits.

For thirty years, almost no one cared. The truth only began to surface in the late 1990s, when music researchers found the same union contract numbers on thousands of hit records. The very documents meant to preserve studio musicians’ anonymity betrayed them.

Think about it. Every time you heard “Good Vibrations,” “River Deep – Mountain High,” the Righteous Brothers, Nancy Sinatra, or Sonny and Cher, you were hearing Carol Kaye. She composed the soundtrack of an entire generation’s youth.

And yet the records still say nothing. She’s now over eighty. She wrote instructional books. She trained countless bassists. She is finally starting to be recognized by music historians who uncovered the truth about The Wrecking Crew.

But she never got what she deserved: her name on those albums. Credit for the music that defined an era. Recognition that those bass lines everyone associates with the “Beach Boys” were, in fact, Carol Kaye’s.

Fifty-five dollars a session. Ten thousand sessions. The most-played track of the twentieth century.

And the world didn’t know her name.

[clevermanka]

She was admitted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2025 but refused, fuck yeah, Carol. Her official website is incredible.