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Ramblings of a Mad Scientist

@palaquinn / palaquinn.tumblr.com

HI! I'm Palaquinn, a current Ph.D. in adult education, specifically science education. This blog is really a bunch of random things. Truthfully it began so I could ask some folks questions and just kinda ballooned from there. No idea where it will go now, but you'll find me randomly commenting on crap at times.

A regular part of my job is trying to reach out to people who have been quietly trying to make their community a better place; the volunteers, the teachers, the fucking. People who rehabilitate injured wild owls in a Quonset hut in the woods, and to a one this is the kind of person who immediately reviles at recognition. The kind of person who immediately says that they never got into this to get praise for it, and that they’d infinitely prefer to quietly plug away at this anonymously forever.

And from this I’ve always drawn two conclusions:

  1. To always distrust Mr. Beast and his ilk who always want their acts of charity done on film, because the people who really want to do good and have no motives to do it besides the doing it never want recognition for it, and
  2. That there are, in the dark, in the quiet, always people who are doing good, and the reason you don’t hear about it is because they’d rather die than receive recognition for it, but they’re real; they do exist. And you are never alone

The result of getting rid of DEI is these people.

Remember, if you ever feel dumb as shit at work...

Somehow these people (stupid fuckin idiots) get paid more then people who can flip burgers (an actual, delicious skill)

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Reblogged

And Pygmalion prayed to Hephaestus, Coppersmith, Renowned Artificer, god of the forge and stonecarving, and prayed that his ivory sculpture may be brought to life.

But Hephaestus, Cunning, Clubfoot, stayed his hand; “I will not allow this,” he said. “To destroy thine handiwork would be contrary to my nature. For great craftsmanship shall last forever, while flesh will falter in time. In stone, she will have beauty that is everlasting, endless and immortal.”

Then Pygmalion prayed to Aprodite and said, “Can you please bring my sculpture to life? Your husband said no,” and lo; Aphrodite had the chance to do something hilarious.

And henceforth, the king Pygmalion was cursed: he lost all talent with his hammer and chisel, and was as unto a novice with his skill.

And it was said that the priests of Hephaestus, He Who Toils In The Volcano Of Catania, heard the words of their god muttering, “Go over my head wilt thou, you little asshole.”

there’s that “propaganda I’m not falling for” trend going around on tiktok and I’ve seen SO MANY list “going to college” as propaganda because it’s “just networking opportunities for your job.” no babe, you’ve fallen for anti-intellectual propaganda, that is literally not what college is about at all!

I feel like 90% of "ancient curses" are probably adequately explained by the fact that the self-proclaimed adventurers who ostensibly fell victim to them were, as a class, a bunch of dipshits who engaged in frequent international travel in an era before antibiotics and vaccines. Like, the list of novel pathogens these guys were risking exposure to on a regular basis was effectively "all of them". That's gotta leave a mark.

@mytheralmin replied:

The other 10%, well let’s just say the sand got them

Quite likely, if by "the sand got them" we mean "they got mesothelioma from inhaling tomb dust".

if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with the pharaoh's curse

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fellow wisconsinites!

Look at the fucking hailstones we were getting in the Northwest of the state! (Teenager for scale) It sounded like we were in a rock tumblr!

Sadly, there was a casualty....

A HAILSTONE FUCKING OBLITERATED ONE OF MY GARDEN GNOMES

HIS FRAGILE CERAMIC BODY WAS EXPLODED

RIGHT NEXT TO HIS SLEEPING BROTHER????!???!???!?

Holy shit!! MAN DOWN!!!

Smote by God for gno good reason

One of my favourite bits in Thud! is when Detritus shouts at Vimes about how he treats trolls.

“What you doin,’ Mister Vimes? Why you go on askin’ questions? Wi’ the dwarfs you have pussy feet, must not upset ’em, oh no, but what you do if dey was trolls, eh? Kick down der door, no problem! Mr. Shine bring you Brick, give you good advice, an’ you talk like he bein’ a bad troll! I’m hearin’ now where Captain Carrot, he tellin’ the dwarfs he the Two Brothers. You fink that make me happy? We know dat lyin’ ol’ dwarf lie, yes! We groan at it lyin,’ yes! You want to see Mr. Shine, you show humble, you show respec,’ yes!” [...] “Should I take anything, Sergeant?” The troll thought about this. “No,” he said, “but maybe dere’s some finkin’ you could leave behind.”

It feels like it's not just Detritus pointing out that Vimes doesn't respect trolls, but also Pterry acknowledging that he hasn't shown much respect to trolls, either. Dwarf culture has been extensively built up, we've dived into the lives and perspectives of werewolves and vampires and feegles and golems and anthropomorphic personifications, but despite being present in the series from the very beginning, there's no troll book.

A few pages later, I once again feel like Mr. Shine is talking to the reader as well when he tells Vimes how little he really knows about trolls.

“You really know very little about us, Mister Vimes. You see us down on the plains, shambling around, talkin’ like dis. You don’t know about the history chant, or the Long Dance, or stone music. You see the hunched troll dragging his club."

This little bit fills me with so much longing for a troll book he never wrote! I want to know about the history chant! I want to see the Long Dance and read about stone music!

We're told frequently that the trolls in Ankh-Morpork are operating at a slower processing speed but that they thrive in the icy mountains, and I'm so sad that we never got a book set in a troll cultural centre.

UNUSUAL HOARD commission for robin - it stands to reason that more than a few dragons thatre revered as forest guardians are just hoarding the dang trees

“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

SPIDERS GEORG ON ONE MILLION CREEP GUYS

“average post on tumblr has a thousand notes” factoid actually a statistical error. average post has 3 notes. Spiders Georg, who escaped containment & got over 1,000,000 notes, is a statistical outlier adn should not have been counted

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personsonable-deactivated201908
me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit
mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters
me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU

Hey OP? What the FUCK does this mean?

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personsonable-deactivated201908

decay exists as an extant form of life

That’s a terrifying answer, have a nice day

THE ORIGINAL?!?!!!!!!!!;!!!!!!!!???

On my dash!??!

Please hold