This pride month y’all have got to offset your doomposting with some gay fun you’ve had. And if you haven’t had any gay fun then you need to stop doomposting and work on that. I know we’re descending into fascism and there’s always kink at pride discourse and threats of violence and actual violence and hollow corporate allyship. But I only have so much room for that in my brain. I want to hear about the party you went to or the guy you met at the bar or the girl who strapped you within an inch of your life or hell the new clothes you bought. I as a gay person on the gay people website should NOT have to dread the gay month
One of the Pride events I attended last year was outside, with a variety of acts, including a really fun drag queen who did a joyous sing and dance along there in the public park.
And when she was done, and coming off the stage, I saw a pre-teen approach, a pride flag clasped around their shoulds like a cape, a sketchbook hugged to their chest.
“Excuse me. May I draw you?”
It was said with such hope, and such respect, and I winced anyway. The Queen had just put on a hell of a show, and she’d been paid for her skills, and she had to have been exhausted. I expected her to say no, and honestly, I would’ve thought that was her right.
But she looked down at this child, and flicked her hair back, and said, “Honey, for you? I. WILL. POSE.”
And then she did, perched on the edge of a stone wall, in the June sunshine, as a young artist sat in the grass and filled pages of their sketchbook. For 30 minutes or so, she posed and chatted with fans and laughed.
I will never forget that kindness. May we all be so welcome.
alright. in my tepidly professional opinion* here are the actual major red flags with the titanic submersible
first, stuff that people are clowning on that isn’t actually a red flag at all
using starlink satcoms for their overall [surface] communications
i know it’s fun to clown on elon musk but starlinks are like. Fine. they work fine as satcoms. this is not the issue. none of these problems would have been solved if they’d been using KVH or somebody else instead
also these have fuck all to do with the tiny sub, since radio waves physically do not penetrate water enough to be useful for communications lol
the stupid game controller to steer
it’s actually super common to use COTS (commercial off the shelf) parts like that instead of some bespoke steering system.
they’re easily replaceable if they break, they’re designed to be integrated into larger systems, and you don’t have to do a huge amount of design work before you can even steer your thing
that being said. here is the fucked up design stuff that i notice
Where The Fuck Are The Chairs
if you don’t have seats inside your vessel, you don’t actually have a way of securing passengers during rough movement. i suspect that this makes it very dangerous or difficult to ascend quickly in an emergency.
i presume that they mean “messages in the form of text, sent via an acoustic signal”, not “they are literally using cell phones to text each other” because obvs cell phones (and most radio) would not work
it’s actually extremely unclear to me what system the sub and the mothership are using to communicate. idk if this is a “technology reporting hard” issue or if these people are being deliberately cagey. anyway they’re probably using some form of underwater acoustic communications, but what specific form it takes idk
regardless, the fact that they’ve had problems with this system in the past is a red flag
and the fact that their sub has apparently no internal navigation system is also a red flag. “not having GPS” isn’t really, since GPS doesn’t really work underwater (you need radio 😔), but they should have some kind of internal navigation– at the very least “here is my speed and heading and based on that my expected position is here on a map”
in a power failure situation, they would have been SOL
while it is “normal” for structures that are exposed to regular massive changes in pressure to have fatigue (imagine bending a piece of metal in and out over and over, eventually it will break– you want to catch and replace that before it happens), it’s weird to me that
the vessel’s depth rating was downgraded
without any public statement about what repairs were done, it nevertheless went back to the 4000ft depth less than a year later (in 2021)
they obviously have no “black box” system or any way to locate a missing vessel
most boats are required to have this! because most boats are required to be registered with and inspected by various authorities!
these guys deliberately skirted that rule by launching off a boat rather than from a port and therefore avoiding the need to get registered or inspected. lmao!
not that it likely would have helped to save these people if they had been alerted earlier, but it shows a desire to cover up mistakes
and like. obviously. you should get your shit inspected. nobody taking paying passengers anywhere should be allowed to be their own safety inspection authority.
the original sinking of the titanic was what led to SOLAS (safety of life at sea) rules being instituted. they’ve been updated several times since then, but they don’t yet cover submersibles like this, since they are relatively new. it’s likely that this incident will cause a new interest in updating the rules. as they say: every regulation is written in blood
*i’m a mechanical engineer who works in the maritime industry, but not like, a particularly related section of the industry– i do shit with cargo containers mainly. no further info on my credentials will be given since i have no desire to doxx myself on tumblr dot edu. i’ve tried not to say anything too wrong or out of my depth in this post but my opinion is “guy with an engineering degree who reads news articles” level of informed. so take your maximum grains of salt
I’m finding it really hard to view the Titanic submersible nonsense with appropriate gravity because goddamn this was the most avoidably stupid way to die we’ve seen in a while.
Oh it’s an untethered, van-sized tube, steered by an off-brand PS3 controller, that navigates via text messages from the mothership, the texts are transmitted by Musky’s satellites, and it has no hatch, instead being bolted together around the occupants from the outside. The CEO of the company considers “safety” an obstacle, and the vehicle is unregulated and unapproved, so you have to sign a waiver that mentions death three times in the first page to board it. Every single one of those points is a reason to not board the thing.
And to top it off, these dipshits decide to name their ACME-ass submersible the Titan, and take it to the most legendary monument to Man’s Hubris on the planet, 3.7 kilometres into the abyss. Like there’s tempting fate, and then there’s this horseshit.
These MFs paid $250000 for a Darwin Award and a starring role in “Worst ways to die” Youtube videos for decades to come.
Don’t weep for the stupid, you’ll be crying all day.
Your small, otherwise unimpressive, kingdom is suddenly one of the strongest powers in the land. This is due to the sole reason that, unlike other rulers, you’re happy to work with the local orcs, goblins, dragons, and several other races that are usually attacked on sight.
“The first rule of diplomacy,” you say, “is really quite easy. Just be honest and kind.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, that’s it. The orcs that everyone complains about all the time, the roving bands that attack and are so viscous?”
“How did you deal with them? They’ve repelled the Golden Armies of Paladramus!”
You shrug. “I asked their leader what they wanted, we drank a couple of pints of truly hideous orc mead, and I gave them seven hundred acres of land.”
“What? That is almost a fifth of the total land of your kingdom!”
Again, you shrug. “Yeah but it’s largely that barren dessert up north. We weren’t using it, the orcs really wanted it. Apparently they’re almost like lizards and love sunning themselves on hot rocks so the dessert is actually perfect for them.”
“Really? That was it?”
“I mean we have some more complicated trade deals. Water, crops and such in exchange for some stuff you can only really get out of the dessert. There’s a mine over there and most important our northern border is that expansionist jackass.”
“The Golden Army!”
“Yeah ever since Grammark beat the crap out of them a couple years back they don’t want to have anything to do with the orcs. And we’re buddies now so it works out for everyone I think.”
at times when hope is too big of a thing to have, curiosity (even clinical or small) is a very good placeholder
asking myself “why continue” & finding the answer is always, in some form, “i want to know what happens next”, even if that want is tired or detached or outright morbid
I am desperately trying to get out ahead of whats to come. I know some understand the severity of the situation but some don’t. There are TWO major REPUBLICAN presidential canidates (Desantis and Trump) that are running for election. Their supporters are largely the same base with some differentiation. They have been radicalized for the past 2-3 years. They also believe that the election was stolen. They are ANGRY and think they deserve vengeance. Things are going to get bad in the US, most importantly the LGBTQIA+ community. The hate train towards the trans community has already started.
FL S1382
FL S0266
FL S0254
FL H1521
FL H1069
Bills being introduced and past in the red states. Conservatives will feel embolden to harm us.
IT IS NOT SAFE TO BE TRANSGENDER IN A RED STATE.
I’m not exaggerating the same audacity they had to storm the capital the same audacity they will have to harm transgender folks just trying to exist. The smear campaign started last year. Calling us gr00mers. Now it’s a narrative. To the point we have to be on the defensive. Nothing about this is right. That is why I’m begging. I have to be out of Florida before the midterm elections. PLEASE. I need to reach an LGBTQ inclusive safe haven. I put alot of research and concluded Pennsylvania will be the safest place for me to live FREE and just…exist
I am happy to announce I received $20 in donations. I’m extremely grateful . One step closer to my goal.
If 1995 people can donate just $4
If 4000 people can donate $2
I can leave before it’s too late. Thank you for reading this long
Imagine being the last owner of Hanako, that 226 year old Japanese koi that was spawned in 1751 and died in 1977. A fish that outlived 7 emperors. A fish that survived the Second World War. And she dies in your care. I would never recover.
I would find peace in that she felt comfortable enough to finally rest in my company. Fish remember faces and voices of their caretakers. Perhaps she loved the last too much to watch them die before her, too.
On the 28th of April, 2011, Ed Balls got a Twitter account. He decided (as most people under the spotlight do) to attempted to look up his own name. However, all he did was tweet “Ed Balls”. This, for some reason, got retweeted by THOUSANDS of people. On a global scale. And because he didn’t know you could delete a tweet it stayed. Every year since then,the 28th of April is Ed Balls day.
This is the infamous tweet
and here are some gems to celebrate that have followed the years, including last year where they framed the tweet and got him to sign it for charity
There are also LOADS MORE in this article from the Telegraph
Chinese giant salamander (娃娃鱼) a.k.a ‘baby fish’ due to the sound they make that sounds like a baby crying.
The Chinese giant salamander is one of the largest salamanders and one of the largest amphibians in the world. It is fully aquatic and is endemic to rocky mountain streams and lakes in the Yangtze river basin of central China.
The Chinese giant salamander is considered to be a “living fossil”. Although protected under Chinese laws, its population has faced severe declined over the last 70 years and is currently (2022) listed as threatened. There are evidence indicating that the Chinese giant salamander may be composed of at least five cryptic species, further compounding each individual species’ endangerment.
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