"When John and Paul got down to their earlier collaborative songwriting sessions together, Mike would be bribed with “a couple of bob to go to the pictures” so that he didn’t interfere."

— “The Other McCartney.” Beatles Book Monthly Magazine, No. 263 (March 1998)

UK Politics, 26/05/24

And now Sunak has said he wants to re-introduce national service, conscripting our 18-25 year olds into the (checks notes) enormously underfunded and slashed-in-numbers armed forces or into compulsory community service say, in the NHS.

We have more admirals than warships in this country, and as in favour as I am in an improved sense of community, I'm not convinced that a large number of unqualified 18-year-olds can fix the problems the NHS has, what with the MASSIVE UNDERFUNDING the NHS has been experiencing. I'm also not convinced that unqualified 18-year-olds should build us some more warships, which I know isn't what's being suggested here, but I would love to see the results!

hc that law has an accent because of where he lived

Maybe the north blue has its own dialect, which is shared in majority due to the colonisation Vinsmoke's conquest of the north 400 or so years ago, making it so the countries share the same language but develop different sub-dialects around it

Anyways, law has a freakish accent that nobody knows how to bring up, he personally though he had no accent until shachi and penguin mentioned it, and everyone decides to just generally not speak about it because it has a sense of... taboo? forbidden topic in conversation?? nobody knows, man.

Except Robin. Because robin in an omnipotent being who, as a historian, at least knows a small bit about flevance and the general accents of the north. True genocide victim besties ngl

Zuko trying to comfort Sokka

"Boiling Rock Part 1":

Zuko: I'm really sorry, Sokka. Sokka: So we came all this way for nothing? I failed ... again. Zuko: Ah, [Holds his chin in thought.] what would Uncle say? [Cut to a frog-view as he looks up at the sky.] Sometimes, clouds have two sides, [Walks over to the railing.] a dark and light, and a silver lining in between. It's like a silver sandwich! [Close-up of a disinterested Sokka; voice-over.] So ... when life seems hard ... [Sokka glances to the side.] take a bite out of the silver sandwich!Sokka's eyes widen when he notices something; close-up of his cheerful expression as he gets up. Cut to a frontal shot of Zuko while Sokka runs up to grab the railing next to him, excitedly looking down to the yard below. Sokka: Maybe we haven't failed after all! Zuko: That's the spirit! [Folds his arms.] I can't believe that worked. [Looks down.] I didn't even know what I was saying. Sokka: No, what you said made no sense at all. But look ... [As he points, the camera shifts to an overhead view of the yard, before rapidly zooming in on a dejected-looking Suki.] It's Suki!

So this is just about the only scene where we see Zuko try to comfort someone else in ATLA (there are a couple other partial exceptions but they're partial), and he sucks at it and has no idea what he's doing. Zuko evidentially has very little experience comforting people. I doubt he ever tried much when he was younger.

Azula and Mai are two characters the Avatar fandom generally looks upon as "evil," "unfeeling," unemotional," "psychopaths," etc. However, interestingly, when we see them try to comfort people, they've pretty good at it. They're not perfect, but they know what they're doing. Evidentially Azula and Mai, unlike Zuko, have a significant amount of experience comforting people.

Tree roots following the pattern of concrete footpaths

Scientists once thought that ADHD symptoms were always present. But previous research from Rapport, who has been studying ADHD for more than 36 years, has shown the fidgeting was most often present when children were using their brains' executive functions, particularly "working memory." That's the system we use for temporarily storing and managing information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning and comprehension.

Here’s full study: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/478386

If you enjoyed this post, please give it a ❤️ and check out @scienceisdope for more science and daily facts.

A brutalist arcade in New Zealand.

HETEROSEXUAL CIS-PEOPLE LOOK HERE

Snaps my fingers at you as you scroll past this post

Look at me. Listen.

I'm not the best at serious posts, but that article up there reminded me of how important it is that people like you stand up for us. So hold on while I try to get this out of my mushy end-of-work-day brain.

We could fight this fight ourselves for decades trying to reach the equal laws, gender affirming trans healthcare that doesn't have a 2-5+ soul-eating years of waiting time, medical care with equal knowledge of lgbtqia+ bodies, and, what is often forgotten, inclusion in the little everyday areas of life like our way of speaking or things being set up or designed with the existence of queer people in mind.

But you joining in could get us there so much faster.

The power you have as a hetero cis person is that you set the standard for what is seen as the average way of treating us among other hetero cis people. You have been given the power of deciding what's "normal" and I'm begging you to use it.

Richard Green is a great example of to what extent your actions can help our situation, and smaller ways of support still add up to a great impact on society, and could make the days of the queer people you interact with.

Educate yourself before you speak up, but don't be silent.

NASA Data Sonification: Black Hole Remix

In this sonification of Perseus. the sound waves astronomers previously identified were extracted and made audible for the first time. The sound waves were extracted outward from the center. (source)

2,300-Year-Old Plush Bird from the Altai Mountains of Siberia (c.400-300 BCE): crafted with a felt body and reindeer-fur stuffing, all of which remains intact

This artifact was sealed within the frozen barrows of Pazyryk, Siberia, for more than two millennia, where a unique microclimate enabled it to be preserved. The permafrost ice lense formation that runs below the barrows provided an insulating layer, preventing the soil from heating during the summer and allowing it to quickly freeze during the winter; these conditions produced a separate microclimate within the stone walls of the barrows themselves, thereby aiding in the preservation of the artifacts inside.

This is just one of the many well-preserved artifacts that have been found at Pazyryk. These artifacts are attributed to the Scythian/Altaic cultures.

Currently housed at the Hermitage Museum.

👀👀👀👀

Solar Eclipse Shadows

These solar eclipse shadows form due to the distance between the sun and the leaves on the trees. The distance and the proximity of the leaves to one another cause for a "lensing" type effect, making the eclipse shadow clearer to the human eye.