Y’all, please listen to this song. This is Mongolian folk rock by a new band called the HU, it’s the only song they’ve got out so far but it is a strong start, holy shit.
According to one of the comments on the video, it’s sung from the perspective of the spirits of the ancestors, who are lamenting that politicians aren’t keeping their word, Mongolians are discriminating against each other over their provincial origin or bloodline, and the traditional wisdom of the elders is being lost. The English translation in the captions isn’t great, but you really don’t need it to enjoy the song. This is going to be stuck in my head all weekend.
Please help donate to my indigenous activist friend who is currently battling Cancer. she’s not only trying to cover her medical bills, but also building a movement to fight against the medical atrocities and neglect that other indigenous women/woc and working class women in New Orleans are facing. Please share her story ❤️
I just saw somebody express disappointment that the new Watch show is intended to be “modern and inclusive”
buddy. friend. pal. half the goddamn series is about Vimes unlearning his prejudices and the other half is about Vimes’s extreme dislike of people who abuse their power. if anything I’m willing to bet they’ll tone it down outof cowardice
Samuel Vimes is the embodiment of “always punch up, never down” and if you missed that I’m not even sure we read the same books
I reserve the right to bludgeon anyone who complains about this with hardcover copies of MonstrousRegiment and Snuff.
Anyone who complains about the show being inclusive is going to get a visit from the ghost of Terry Pratchett, who is going to beat the stuffing out of them
With his meteor sword.
Over the course of the books, the Watch has acquired:
a six-foot-tall cultural dwarf
a werewolf
an ex-‘splatter’ troll (like a bouncer, but hits harder)
a openly female dwarf from a culture that severely frowns on that
an ex-slave golem who set up an organisation to slowly buy the freedom of his people
a friendly-but-determined religious missionary from a desert country named Visit-the-Infidel-with-Explanatory-Pamphlets
a zombified revolutionary a-la Enjolras
a forensic accountant poached from the Patrician
a made-from-spare-parts mad scientist coroner
Nobby Nobbs
Over the course of the same books, it has developed from your standard medieval fantasy gang-of-thugs city guards to an extremely modern police force containing:
an alchemy-based forensics department
an aeriel traffic corps
a coroners office
a forensic accountants department
drug outreach programmes run by the ex-bouncer troll
a general community policing model
It has gone from a three man graveyard of a force to a political powerhouse capable of taking on basically any real or political power on the Disc, and it has done so in large part because of the reputation of its commander as a man who will tackle any crime, at any level, against any opponent, up to and including ancient demons and the gods themselves, or even the commander himself, to protect the rights of any Joe Soap on the street to be an idiot without getting shafted for it.
I mean. ‘Modern and inclusive’ don’t even cover it, you know?
Also given the fourth wall break nature of some of Prachett’s work, I wouldn’t be surprised if Vimes outright took a knee at some point, looked straight into the camera, and held up a sign saying “Black Lives Matter”.
That is the most Goldblumiest thing to say. I believe it.
About 15 years ago, I was at the Helen Hayes Awards in DC. At some point during the night, I was standing at the food tables looking down at it all, getting a snack because awards shows are long, and I start talking to the person beside me. It was nothing brilliant, just a little snark about the food and whatever. We had a lovely conversation over the hors d’oeuvres and we made each other laugh. As we were both walking away from the table, I looked up to wish him a good evening and it was Jeff Goldblum. I have no idea what the look on my face was, but he just smiled at me and walked away.
apparently AO3 will happily archive stuff like fandom meta, blogs, etc! they’ll take any fanwork, including meta, headcanons, rambling, and other non-fic stuff!
they don’t have image hosting yet though (although i read it’s part of the longterm plans)
1. Doctor finds anecdotal evidence that people are passing kidney stones after riding on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney World
2. Doctor makes 3-D model of kidney, complete with stones and urine (his own), takes it on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 60 times
3. “The stones passed 63.89 percent of the time while the kidneys were in the back of the car. When they were in the front, the passage rate was only 16.67 percent. That’s based on only 60 rides on a single coaster, and Wartinger guards his excitement in the journal article: ‘Preliminary study findings support the anecdotal evidence that a ride on a moderate-intensity roller coaster could benefit some patients with small kidney stones.’”
4. “Some rides are going to be more advantageous for some patients than other rides. So I wouldn’t say that the only ride that helps you pass stones is Big Thunder Mountain. That’s grossly inaccurate.”
5. “His advice for now: If you know you have a stone that’s smaller than five millimeters, riding a series of roller coasters could help you pass that stone before it gets to an obstructive size and either causes debilitating colic or requires a $10,000 procedure to try and break it up. And even once a stone is broken up using shock waves, tiny fragments and “dust” remain that need to be passed. The coaster could help with that, too.”
SCIENCE: IT WORKS
Update:
“In all, we used 174 kidney stones of varying shapes, sizes and weights to see if each model worked on the same ride and on two other roller coasters,” Wartinger said. “Big Thunder Mountain was the only one that worked. We tried Space Mountain and Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and both failed.”Wartinger went on to explain that these other rides are too fast and too violent with a G-force that pins the stone into the kidney and doesn’t allow it to pass.“The ideal coaster is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside down or inverted movements,” he said.
I just love this because it’s HILARIOUS and yet also a perfect archetypal example of The Scientific Method:
1. Hypothesis
2. Experiment
3. Results
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
6. GOTO 1 (the scientific method is iterative, don’t forget that part)
was this like… done in cooperation with disney management or did some random scientist go through bag check with a 3d printed kidney and a bottle of piss and start looking for big thunder mountain fastpasses
Of course, the researchers had to get permission from Disney World before bringing the model kidney onto the rides. “It was a little bit of luck,” Wartinger recalls. “We went to guest services, and we didn’t want them to wonder what was going on—two adult men riding the same ride again and again, carrying a backpack. We told them what our intent was, and it turned out that the manager that day was a guy who recently had a kidney stone. He called the ride manager and said, do whatever you can to help these guys, they’re trying to help people with kidney stones.”
Barn Owls are THE BEST. They are in a separate family from all other North American owls, and instead of whoo hoooting they do the TV STATIC SCREAM FROM YOUR NIGHTMARES.
Gotta love the raptor presentations at the state parks! This was at Lockhart State Park tonight at our Master Naturalist meeting. These presenters rehabilitate injured birds of prey through Austin Wildlife Rescue (austinwildliferescue.org), an organization that always NEEDS VOLUNTEERS to help out with the adorable baby animals. If you’re in Central Texas, check them out!
June 18, 2018
The barn owls are members of the family “tytonidae” while every other owl species is a member of the “strigadae” family.
While we typically think of owls like the one in the original post as being barn owls, every species in the family can technically be considered a barn owl.
This includes the various species of masked owls which are relatively similar to your common barn owl
As well as both varieties of sooty owl which are strikingly different than the common barn owl
There are also the grass owls which are behaviorally different than other barn owls in their habits of living on the ground rather than trees
And the two odd tytos out, the red owl and ashy faced owl respectively. Scientists know almost nothing about the former and no individuals have been kept in captivity despite being discovered quite some time ago. Even photographs of it are rare, but it appears to be an orange barn owl with a pink face.
Structurally speaking, barn owls actually have very few traits in common with strigadae owls as their face and beak shapes and proportions are entirely different. There are also differences in their legs and talons, while their similarities are limited to feather composition, ear placement, spinal structure, and binocular vision among a few other internal components.
That being said, barn owls are far from the only family of non-hooting owls as hooting is almost exclusive to larger species, typically genus Strix or bubo. Many other species will trill, screech, and/or hiss.
Barn owls are rather unique in having an incredibly keen sense of hearing, even in comparison to other owls. They can hear and discern between different heartbeats and triangulate the sound perfectly due to their satellite dish-like face shape.
In addition, this barn owl is not actually Tyto alba, it’s a Tyto furcuta, T. alba is the species native to Western Europe while T. furcuta is native to North America.
Many thanks for this owlditional quality content. I give three screams of approval 👍
bay owls (genus Phodilus) are in Tytonidae and they are some of my favorite owls of all time. they can be found in Southeast Asia, and some sites claim central Africa as well but I’m not sure?
they can shut their eyes and look eyeless
OR OPEN THEIR EYES WIDE THIS AND LOOK LIKE DEMONS
did I mention they have the best judgemental faces because of their eye positioning
and babies look like tiny demonic gryphons
last I went looking, not a lot is known about bay owl behavior aside from general Tyto habits. I just know they’re so out there appearance-wise and I love them so much for it.
plot twist: the introverted character who doesn’t like big social gatherings or speaking in front of people is still an introvert by the end of the story because introversion is not a character flaw and it doesn’t need to be overcome
Look, I’ll go on your stupid adventure, but you better leave me the fuck alone when we get back.
Bilbo Baggins.
NOT A GOOD EXAMPLE HE WAS SO INTROVERTED HE USED A CURSED OBJECT TO GET AWAY FROM PEOPLE
are u kidding excellent example 100% relatable big mood
yes correct; retweet if you too would use a cursed object to just get the fuck away from everyone.
A stat that gets me every time: “If current diagnosis rates continue, 1 in 6 gay and bisexual men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime, including 1 in 2 black/African American gay and bisexual men, 1 in 4 Hispanic/Latino gay and bisexual men, and 1 in 11 white gay and bisexual men.”
One of the most important things you can do is get tested and know your status; here’s a tool that can help you find a nearby testing site. Note that the option for selecting your gender isn’t quite right, but the wealth of testing locations in their database is still helpful.
If you’re in a donating mood, you can also support the work of some organizations doing excellent things for those affected by HIV/AIDS, including GMHC, AIDS United, Planned Parenthood, Lambda Legal and amfAR. (And please add your favorites; there are so many!)
We’ve been fighting this fight for upwards of 30 years. We’re not stopping now.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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