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the linguistic shift from "avatar" or "icon" to "pfp" is bad actually. bring back the implications of ritual significance. cowards.

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it's crazy that you used to be able to look up specific clips from a tv show on youtube. now regardless of your search terms you get 6 unrelated promo reels from the show's official account, 6 unrelated clips of literally anything else youtube thinks you might click on, 6 unrelated promo reels from the network's official account, 6 more completely arbitrary recommendations, 6 show trailers and publicity videos of the actors by content mills called 'pop glutton' and 'comedy chunk' and finally raw gameplay footage of a mobile freemium slots game and a video essay called Liberals Can't Belive It: 10 Times Hitler Was Shockingly Woke

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i hate being east of the cascades. What if the yellowstone supervolcano erupts? no protection :/

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you've been salmonsharked reblog to salmonshark someone else

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the finches nesting in the monastery have evolved tonsures

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Alphabet soup, password protected

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"this is DEFINITELY written by AI, I can tell because it uses the writing quirks that AI uses (because it was trained on real people who write with those quirks)"

c'mon dudes we have got to do better than this

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today in pedantry born of extreme annoyance and doesn't-anybody-go-to-school-anymore grumpiness:

the term "sound barrier" has absolutely nothing to do with how loud something is.

a powerful singer does not break the sound barrier. a loud crowd does not break the sound barrier. if you hear an opera soprano belt out an aria and you say she broke the sound barrier you sound like a fucking idiot. that is not what it means.

"but it's just a joke why should i car--"

no. sit down. THAT IS NOT WHAT IT MEANS.

"sound barrier" refers to the increase in aerodynamic drag that occurs as a moving object approaches the speed of sound.

it's called a "barrier" because when the first aircraft starting reaching high enough speeds, they would shake so much pilots were afraid they would get torn apart. it was perceived as a real physical limit, but that perception was false. there is no actual barrier. there is only engineering; it was the drag on the aircraft making them feel like they were shaking apart. turns out if planes are built well enough and go fast enough, they can break the sound barrier just fine without falling apart. the first time this happened was in 1947, in a plane flown by US Air Force pilot Chuck Yaeger.

this means that "breaking the sound barrier" applies to things that are moving very fast, not to things that are very loud.

please read that sentence again to make sure it sinks in. fast, not loud. read it again because tiktok has been lying to you and you need to unlearn what you have learned.

(that also means it applies only where there is a speed of sound, which is not everywhere in the universe. but let's not complicate things by thinking about a pure vacuums or the extreme low density of space.)

the speed of sound varies depending on the density of what it's moving through, but at sea level on Earth it's about 770 miles per hour. once an object is going faster than the speed of sound, it is supersonic--and, again, that refers to speed, not volume. bullets break the sound barrier even if they are muffled at firing. a bullwhip can be snapped fast enough that the very end breaks the sound barrier, even if the noise they make is a sharp crack and not unusually loud.

but people standing still and shouting or singing do not, because nothing that is standing still can break the sound barrier. so unless you are sharing a cool vid of a soprano getting yeeted out of an operatic cannon at >770 mph, she has not broken the sound barrier. and if that is what you are sharing, she breaks the sound barrier whether or not she's singing her aria.

there can be a very loud noise associated with objects moving so fast they have broken the sound barrier. that noise is called a sonic boom, and it happens because the object is generating shock waves as it travels. it's not a single boom; it only sounds like that because when you hear it you are listening at a single point. it is in fact a continuous, traveling shock wave that happens as long as the object is moving faster than the speed of sound. it's just that you only hear it when the shock wave passes directly over you, so it sounds like a finite noise. it's also not necessarily a boom. it can be a crack or a snap or a clap or whatever. it's just called a sonic boom because the ones generated by supersonic aircraft are big fucking booms.

in conclusion please stop saying loud noises break the sound barrier.

🚫 wrong kind of hyperbole: "wow that man shouted loud enough to break the sound barrier!"

✔ right kind of hyperbole: "wow that man ran fast enough to break the sound barrier!"

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Being a fish in highly oxygenated water must feel so fucking good

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my ancestors seeing me shrug off a diarrhea session

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Look.

This is a super easy litmus test.

If you are ever talking about someone in the context of human health and nutrition and they make a recommendation for fluoride-free toothpaste, you can dismiss their perspective on all other subjects relating to human health and nutrition.

If someone wants to improve human health but they're willing to profit off of fluoride-free toothpaste, they're either totally unaware of what they're talking about and are therefore not worth listening to, or they're a scammer and are therefore not worth listening to.

Lead Safe Mama sells a bunch of bullshit through Amazon affiliate links, but the easiest one to see right away as the sign of someone who cares more about their money than your health is fluoride-free toothpaste.

"Lead Safe Mama Says" is not a good reason to do anything except ignore whatever instructions follow.

There is definitely reason to be concerned about the lead concentrations in cassava flour, there are a few products that, if consumed daily, would put you at risk of having higher lead levels than recommended by the FDA.

But Lead Safe Mama doesn't bother with the FDA, the difference between the presence of lead and exposure risk, or the way that lead is actually tracked by people who are looking to prevent heavy metal poisoning.

Lead Safe Mama says "there is no safe level of lead according to the WHO." What the WHO means when they say that is is that there is no known safe level of lead in your bloodstream. What LFM means when she says that is "all lead is scary and coming to turn your children into autism zombies."

Lead Safe Mama was also the one who raised a huge stink about lead in Stanley cups and other thermoses a couple of years ago. There is lead in some of those products - it's present in the solder used to seal things and isn't bioavailable. Lead Safe Mama was also the one who was scaremongering about vintage plates. She tests for lead in paint using dubious techniques then over-states the risk of exposure and possible outcomes from exposure. There was a whole tumblr shitpost that went viral about it.

So this post (descriptions in alt):

Is entirely based on reporting by a lady who believes that childhood lead exposure is being misdiagnosed as autism, and claims that explains the current high rate of autism diagnosis. A lady WHO RECOMMENDS NATURAL CHELATION for autistic children when they are too frail for CHEMICAL FUCKING CHELATION.

There's a similar post by the same blogger circulating about this Consumer Report's survey of lead in cassava flour that says that Bob's Red Mill is showing lead levels that is 2343% higher than the Consumer Reports recommended .5 micrograms per adult per day (that .5 microgram number is itself modeled on California Prop 65 standards).

So that's got to be a ton, right, like a crazy amount of lead, right?

Nope. It's 11.715 micrograms.

That is below the 12.5 microgram per day reference value set by the FDA for people who are pregnant or could become pregnant, but definitely higher than the 3microgram per day value set for children. Probably your child should not consume a cup of cassava flour from Bob's Red Mill per day.

One point I'm making here is that actually Bob's Red Mill and Pamela's are actually probably fine with their CA65 warning labels - there's not an absurd risk of high blood lead levels from eating their cassava products.

The other point I'm making here is get this fucking autism mom and her bullshit bad science and her child chelation recommendations and her fluoride free toothpaste off my dash.

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not to be disabled on main but have you ever fucking noticed how every god damn thing requires both time and energy

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I can 100% guarantee you that more than anything else they have ever done, game freak regrets creating spinda

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Qaylie went up the mountain to talk to Granddad.

Before Qaylie was born, Granddad would come down from the mountain to the town when he was needed. But that was over ten years ago; now he stayed in the mountain, and those who needed him went to him instead.

Qaylie liked to go before it was dawn. The sky was brightening now, a hazy shade of midwinter grey. Wisps of windswept snow had covered the well-worn path, and sat on the pines in grey, sullen lumps.

Icicles glittered around the mouth of Granddad's cave, turning the crevice into a grinning, toothy mouth.

She grinned back. She cupped her mittens around her mouth, and shouted, "GRANDDAD!"

The winter air echoed the word. And then the sound began, the low, grinding, scraping noise of metal on stone. It sounded huge. It sounded heavy.

It sounded old.

It was.

Granddad pulled his head out of his cave. Things tied into his horns - jewelery, bottles, skulls, tied together with fishing nets and bits of rope and lengths of yarn - clinked and clattered and clanged against each other in a ghoulish windchime.

He was missing a tusk. The other had been carved into scrimshaw depicting a valley full of fire, the flames twisting into awful, leering faces.

He pulled himself out of the cave. His neck was a carpet of wrinkles. His talons pulled his bloated, scarred belly across the stone. His fleshless wings hung limp at his sides. He was the colour of cold iron, and he was the shape of a nightmare.

He wore spectacles. One of the lenses was a round stained-glass window from the church back in town.

Qaylie held out the pack. "O Great And Terrible Baradir The Red!" she recited. "I Come Bearing A Tithe, In The Awful And Desperate Fear That You May Not Yet Snuff Out Our Fleeting Lives."

The dragon hummed. Pebbles and little bits of ice vibrated with the sound. "And I accept it," he rumbled. "And may you live to grant me more tithes, you tiny, ill-born, insignificant insect."

The two stared at each other, refusing to let a flicker of emotion cross their faces.

Qaylie broke first. She sprung, laughing, and wrapped her arms around Granddad's snout.

"Happy birthday, Granddad," she said.

Granddad laughed. Under the cool, black scales, Qaylie could just feel the furnace glow.

***

"Tolma made you some more string art," said Qaylie, pulling out the awful webby thing from the pack.

"She's getting better at it," said Granddad, hooking it on the end of one massive talon.

"And Burk's made you some more jam - he's trying stonefruit again, he knows you like it."

"Oh, lovely."

"Granddad?"

"Hm?"

"There's another dragonslayer in town."

Granddad didn't say anything. He was staring in apparent fascination at the string art.

She wondered how well he could actually see these days. His black eyes glistened with so many glittering cataracts that they looked like windows into a sky full of stars.

"Dad's seeing how long they can stall him," said Qaylie. "They want to hold it off until after today at least."

Granddad carefully hung the string art off one horn, where it hung alongside a cuckoo clock and the skull of an elf.

He smiled at her. "I'll be sure to send him packing then," he rumbled with something like fierce pride. "Just like all the other ones, eh?"

Qaylie pursed her lips. "Packing" wasn't the right word for it. Qaylie had seen four dragonslayers come to the town over her life. They came in gleaming armor, and they swaggered like the weight of the world made their legs wobble. Then they'd come back down from the mountain, looking embarrassed and rather thoughtful.

Most of them left after that.

But... but there had been some trouble with that last one.

She began tracing a looping shape in the snow with a stick. "Granddad?"

"Hm?"

The words were treacherous and refused to leave her heart.

If she was able to, she'd say something like: "You're getting very old, and eventually there's going to be one dragonslayer who won't care that you're just a silly old crocodile who likes terrible string art and always lights the midwinter bonfire and always tells the terrible dirty joke about the gryphon and always-"

"You know the funny thing about that horizon?" Granddad rumbled.

She blinked, and realized that tears were starting to form in the corners of her eyes. She rubbed them away angrily. "Sorry?"

"There used to be a mountain there," he said, squinting his night sky eyes at a bare patch of horizon. "I remember it well. It was shaped like a - well, it had a very memorable shape.

"But it's not there now. I can't remember what happened to it."

She stared at him. "Isn't that odd?" he said. "A mountain. It should've been there forever. And now that I'm looking for it, I can't see it any more."

He shook his head, his decorated horns making little clattering noises. "Humans think that the world will never change. That tomorrow will be like today, and that old dragons will always be there. Like mountains should be.

"But the world is always changing, Qaylie. Once you get to my age, it never stops changing. The mountains roll and crumble and fold in on themselves. The rivers split and disappear, and new rivers come and carve canyons across my valley. I've watched more empires than you can count form and try to take this valley from me."

He grinned at the images playing in his mind. "Oh, how they burned. The world is always changing, but that sound is one thing that never does. And then someday..."

He sighed. He looked somehow even older than before. "Mountains disappear."

He stared at that empty spot on the horizon.

He said: "Don't use your sleeve."

"Sorry, Granddad."

He unhooked what might’ve been an old battle flag from his horns. "Here's a tissue."

There were some soggy noises.

"I don't want it to change," Qaylie muttered through the fabric.

Granddad butted her with his snout. She looked up into a sky full of stars. "Ah, but that's the special thing about dragons," he said. "I am Baradir the Red, and this valley will never forget my fire."

And then the dawn broke - creeping over the mountain ridge with the dull, inevitable pace of a glacier, and trailing red light across the clouds, the frost on the pines blazing with orange light -

Like little glowing embers.

And as Qaylie watched, the valley below was filled with silent, gleaming fire.

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crazy that it's literally 80y since liberation of auschwitz with all these commemorations over and over again every year and still you gotta tell supposedly progressive ppl that nazism is about killing jews, that antisemitism is the core of nazism.

"but the institute for sexual science in 1933-" institute founded and lead by a jewish gay man, who also founded in 1897 first ever queer rights organization. institute that was heavily centered around queerness, which was considered by nazis a symptom of jewish disease rotting the world, as literally everything that nazis didn't approve off. everything that nazis viewed as wrong was the fault of evil jews.

words have meanings, if you mean "fascism", say "fascism", if you mean "ethno-nationalism", say "ethno-nationalism". "nazi" is not an umbrella term for every bad guy.