Once in a blue moon I'll post some art, fic, or a photo... But let's be real: 99.9% of this is re-blogs, and I usually don't even add any commentary.
(Photos in my header/icon are by me. Ask permission if you want to use them.)
June 7th, 1942: Edward Hopper completes his best known painting, the seminal Nighthawks. When asked by a Chicago Tribute reporter about the philosophical meaning behind the diner having no clearly visible exits Hopper responded, “Shit. Fuck. I did it again. Goddamnit. Fuck. Not again. I did it again. Shit.” and slammed his hat on his leg.
this morning NASA abandoned their mars rover Opportunity (aka Oppy) because it (she) got hit by a storm on Mars and it knocked her camera and wheels out and her last words to the team were “my battery is low and it is getting cold”. I know she’s a machine but I’m devastated. Oppy is the one who discovered water on Mars. RIP oppy ily space baby
I have a stupid moon question. When we see like a crescent/half moon, why dont we see the rest of it?
Or how exactly do phases of moon work?
that's not a stupid question at all!
so, if you live on earth and have looked up at the sky several times in your life, you're probably familiar with the Moon, Earth's single orbiting satellite.
the Moon changes its appearance ever so slightly every night, going through a cycle from light to dark and back again in roughly 28 days!
but the reason behind this lovely night sky phenomenon has less to do with the Moon itself, and more to do with our local solar tyrant:
see, the Moon is tidally locked, meaning that no matter where it is in its orbit, the same side of it is ALWAYS facing earth. this is the side we see looking up while standing on Earth's surface!
and though this familiar face never changes, the angle of the light from the Sun hitting it does. and as the Moon travels through its orbit, this angle changes relative to Earth's surface.
this sounds kind of complicated, but you can easily simulate the effect yourself by tying a sibling to a chair in a dark room, then shining a flashlight on a basketball and walking in ominous circles around them.
as you circle around the ball, the flashlight lights up its surface in a very familiar way when viewed from a single point!
as for why this process takes almost exactly 28 days, it's because the Moon is a slowpoke and that's how long it takes for it to complete a single orbit around the Earth.
you see the moon every night, sure, but that's because the Earth is spinning madly like a top while the Moon arcs slowly around it, meaning that the Moon will flash through your personal field of view almost thirty times before it actually gets back to the orbital point it started from!
A new study released by the Entertainment Software Association has revealed that adult women now occupy the largest demographic in the gaming industry. Women over 18 made up a whopping 36 percent of the gaming population, followed by adult men at 35 percent.
Teenage boys, who are often stereotyped as the biggest gamers, now lag far behind their older female counterparts, making up just 17 percent of the gaming demographic. (x)
So on my posts about racism or transmisogyny, I often see tags that basically say “I don’t understand this but I’m going to reblog it anyway.” If you see a “social justice” type post that you want to reblog but don’t understand?
Don’t.
I know this goes against everything you’re used to hearing on this website, but listen. Reblogging posts you don’t understand is basically the equivalent of blindly repeating whatever you’re told. Even if you’re right, if you don’t understand why you’re right, you could be spouting utter bullshit and you wouldn’t even know it.
When I see “I don’t know what this means but I’m gonna reblog it anyway” it sends a lot of messages. It says that you care more about seeming right than being right. It says that you want good ally credit without any of the work of being a good ally. It says you’re on my side because I can make a post sound good, not because you actually agree with me on anything beyond the surface level.
So instead of just reblogging that post, save it for later. Like it, draft it, bookmark it, whatever. Go to the op’s blog and skim through a couple of pages, see if you can find some context. If the post is old, you could try asking for context in a non-condescending way. “Is this post referring to something specific?” is a lot better than, say, “Does this even happen? I’ve never heard of this.”
If that doesn’t help, do some more research. Google, search tumblr tags for recent posts on a subject, ask people who have EXPLICITLY stated they are willing to educate. Maybe in the process you’ll find more posts with a similar message to the original, but in easier to understand language. Maybe someone else already added a reply that adds useful information onto the op.
And maybe all of that takes a long time. Maybe, by the time you finally understand what the post was talking about, it’s months old and no longer relevant. Maybe you don’t even want to reblog it anymore. Who cares, fuck that post. You learned and grew as a person. That’s more important than looking good on a blog.
Hi friends! I worked with my mom to put together a digital book of her Mexican recipes to help raise money for my parents while they’re out of work + my mom recovers from surgery soon! $11 for 11 recipes ❤️