oh my goodness, one of dian fossey’s first close up observations with gorillas happened when she was trying to climb a tree to see them better, but so badly that by the time she’d gotten up the entire group had come out of hiding to look at her: “Nearly all members of the group had totally exposed themselves, forgetting about hiding coyly behind foliage screens because it was obvious to them that the observer had been distracted by tree-climbing problems, an activity they could understand.”
hello, fellow apes
The lead up to that sentence is gold:
[Image transcript: porch. The group had been day-nesting and sunbathing when I contacted them, but upon my approach they nervously retreated to obscure themselves behind thick foliage. Frustrated but determined to see them better, I decided to climb a tree, not one of my better talents. The tree was particularly slithery and, try as I might, no amount of puffing, pulling, gripping, or clawing succeeded in getting me more than a few feet aboveground. Disgustedly, I was about to give up when Sanwekwe came to my aid by giving one mighty boost to my protruding rump; tears were running from his eyes as he was convulsed in silent laughter. I felt as inept as a baby taking its first step. Finally able to grab on to a conveniently placed branch, I hauled myself up into a respectful semislouch position in the tree about twenty feet from the ground. By this time I naturally assumed that the combined noises of panting, cursing, and branch-breaking made during the initial climbing attempts must have frightened the group on to the next mountain. I was amazed to look around and find that the entire group had returned and were sitting like front row spectators at a sideshow. All that was needed to make the image complete were a few gorilla-sized bags of popcorn and some cotton candy! This was the first live audience I had ever had in my life and certainly the least expected.]
imagine some freakish not-a-human alien THING has shown up out of nowhere and is trying to get into your office building to study you. but it has no idea how to get past a revolving door. it tries for three hours. by the time it finally understands the concept of a revolving door and squeeze into the building everyone in the office is crowded into the lobby to watch and call helpful suggestions. it’s conclusively determined that the alien is definitely not a threat, except maybe to itself.
Addition approved
Homeownership Rate in China: 98%
Homeownership Rate in Laos: 96%
Homeownership Rate in Cuba: 90%
Homeownership Rate in Vietnam: 89%
Homeownership Rate in USA: 65.7%
[source]
truly one of the most demoralising things about being in the job market atm is "only successful applicants will be notified" is practically a universal standard. so you spend hours, sometimes days filling out applications, writing CVs and cover letters only to be ghosted as the only form of communication. Not even a "thank you but this time you've been unsuccessful" email. You're in a constant state of "did I not get it or have they not contacted me?" and you just have to eventually conclude you were unsuccessful without so much as courtesy, "sorry, but thank you for your application." A literal thankless cycle for months and months and months. You'd think with all the ways to automate these processes they would at least have the time, means and decency to acknowledge your submission and let you off the hook, but no. You're just in limbo in every possible way in the name of "efficiency". Solidarity with everyone going through this because it is truly dehumanising and demoralising to work so hard on putting yourself forward constantly without acknowledgement or useful communication of any sort for long periods of time, and most ppl simply will not have any compassion for what that's like.
I just watched somebody watch Doctor Horrible on youtube (do not judge my cringe viewing choices) and I'm crying, this guy cannot understand the ending. He calls it "bizarre" and "doesn't get it". He kept talking about how Doctor Horrible should resurrect Penny with mad science and become a hero and watched the credits expecting a bonus scene with a true ending in it because he could not comprehend the extremely fitting and well-placed stock-standard tragic ending. Man does not comprehend the idea of a tragedy. You can dislike Dr Horrible's ending (if you have no taste) but how do you not understand it? It is. Such a comprehensible story. It is not subtle or twist heavy. There are zero points of confusion.
Dude had decided so hard that he was watching Megamind that deviations from the plot of Megamind simply did not compute.
#he has fallen for the propaganda that the 'good guy' always gets the girl in the end#and cannot comprehend the fact that Billy could have HAD the girl he wanted if he just stopped deciding he needed to be something he wasn't#he destroyed her with his actions in an attempt to impress her but it was never really about her#he never saw her as a person only a prize to be 'earned' and that's why he lost her#it's been years since I watched it but I'm pretty sure she liked Billy just fine and only went to Captain Hammer when Billy rejected her#or at least was clueless that she was interested/flirting#but yeah people that claim Penny was unfairly fridged Do Not Get It the whole POINT is that Billy destroyed his own happiness
No, Billy never rejected her and she met and started dating Captain Hammer mere minutes after meeting Billy. But Billy, now that he was finally talking to her as a person instead of creepily watching her from across the laundromat, quickly developed a friendly rapport with Penny that had the potential for friendship or romance, while her relationship with Captain Hammer quickly soured because he's a self-obsessed manchild. She was very clearly fed up with Hammer by the time of the homeless shelter opening and probably would've dumped him very soon after. Had Billy just let things run their course, he would've come out of the situation with a good friend and/or girlfriend, depending on how romantically compatible they turned out to be.
What Billy did instead was to stop hanging out with her or with any of his other friends, because he was too busy working on his death Ray to get revenge on Captain Hammer. Both Captain Hammer and Billy were treating Penny as a prize in their slap fight and Billy could've come down to Earth but he didn't. He chose his pride over human connection. He decided that he could get his revenge on the guy who had "stolen" "his girl" and become a notable supervillain in one swoop, and devoted his efforts to that instead.
And he succeeded. And all it cost him was a single Penny.
There's also the fact that the epilogue makes Penny's death about everyone except Penny herself ("World Mourns Whats-Her-Name"), so it's not just Billy falling prey to his own flaws, but a whole systemic thing. There was no way for that story to end any way other than it did because of the people and setting.
#dr horrible's sing along blog#dr horrible discussion/analysis in the year 2025?? I'm thriving
I don't think it counts as analysis to just summarise the plot. Dr Horrible is a fun story with fantastic music that still holds up surprisingly well today despite the shifts in nerd culture (except for one rather unfortunate use of an ableist slur that certainly wouldn't have made it to screen if it were written today) but it's a little difficult to really analyse unless you're putting together a lesson for a Filmmaking 101 course or something, there's not a whole lot to really dig into that isn't just right there on the screen. It is not a story that contains multitudes. Very single tude story.
It’s also 42 minutes, and on YouTube. Here it is:
Bridesmaid to a waiter: What a beautiful wedding
Waiter, about to reveal that the poor groom’s bride is a whore: Oh you haven’t heard?
the number of people making comments on this post about how there’s nothing wrong with being a whore is far too high like i’m not trying to shame people who are promiscuous or sex workers this is a fucking reference to a song and if you dont understand the reference dont reblog with some idiotic trying too hard to be progressive shit its literally a joke about a lyric from a song it was never, and never will be, that fucking deep. if you dont get the reference literally just shut up and dont reblog this post oh my god
by fall out boy
I dont know what’s funnier the people getting offended because they don’t get the panic reference or the people getting offended because they don’t get the fall out boy joke
voter suppression against black people is reaching Jim Crow era levels in the US so please get registered to vote now, learn who's going to be on your ballot in advance, try to talk some sense into your conservative relatives or coworkers (diplomatically), and, when November rolls around, vote to make Republicans lose as many seats as possible. there are many other things to do, of course, but the midterms will have a massive impact on the future of civil rights.
The next three elections are incredibly critical to turning back the fascist wave.
2026 - Make the Republicans hurt for all the ways they're trying to strip people of their votes and put a check on Trump. We can flip the House and maybe even the Senate and actually put some of the checks the Constitution intended back in place. SCOTUS is still fucked and not a lot will get passed over Trump's veto, but we can stop the bleeding.
2028 - Get Trump, Vance, and all the fascists out of the Executive Branch. It's also the only way to start on SCOTUS reform and getting back on the right track. This is also the president who will be overseeing the next census that controls which states get how many Congresspeople.
2030 - State legislatures will be the absolute MOST important races this cycle. These legislators are the ones who will be drawing the maps for the next 10 years of elections. Republicans used 2010 to completely rewrite maps across the country; Democrats need to do it in 2030.
If anyone has any questions on elections, voting, or registering to vote, I have a huge resource list that includes detailed info for every state!
Aleeady enrolled? Nice!! Remember to periodically check that youre still enrolled. In the lead up to the last election people who'd been enrolled for years were finding out last minute that they suddenly were no longer on the books.
Get enrolled if you're not already, and randomly check that youre still enrolled in the lead up to voting --- and vote in every single election possible.
I'm sorry but vaccines are so fucking cool. You're telling me that I just need to drop by my doctor, feel a pinprick, maaaybe feel a bit off for a day and then I have statistically significant, incredible chances of either completely avoiding getting a certain illness or at the very least have a pretty string guarantee my body will kick its ass swiftly??? Fucking magic potion.
The United Kingdom's water industry regulator has advised Muslims in the country to use less water for religious ablutions - the act of washing or cleansing the body - and Asian communities to reduce water use when washing rice.
The advisory comes as part of the project by the “water efficiency in faith and diverse communities” programme funded by Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority.
One of the project's recent initiatives was a partnership between South Staffordshire Water, the University of Cambridge's divinity faculty and the Cambridge Central Mosque, Britain's first eco-friendly mosque, as well as other organisations and water companies.
A pilot of the initiative in Cambridge encouraged local Muslims to use only one litre of water to perform their "wudu" (ablutions) before prayer.
According to Ofwat, which is a non-ministerial government department, the pilot found that using a one-litre bottle could save up to 55 litres per day per person, since many people use up to 12 litres of running water to perform their ablutions five times a day.
[...]
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
There are approximately 3100 golf courses in the United Kingdom. This makes the UK the country with the second highest number of golf courses in the world, trailing only the United States and being near Japan. Golf courses consume a combined total of roughly 40 million to 65 million litres of water PER DAY during a standard summer and this only increases during droughts. But no, Muslims cleaning their bodies and Asian people making food is the problem
The article also mentions research showing that a fifth of the total water pumped through England and Wales' pipes, 2.87 billion liters a day, is lost due to leaks in the infrastructure. The ablution pilot in Cambridge is estimated to save 5900 liters per day.