#“that made no sense...”

[zytes]

this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

[polarsirens]

Blimey.

[orphetoon]

do you think joey knows the word egyptologist

original post:

[yellowvixen]

week 32: transparent!

[wanologic]

and they were roommates

[lbulldesigns]

There's something I've just realised with how Jinx, Isha, and Sevika communicate with each other.

None of them have to actually say words to each other, because they understand what the others saying through body language and looks.

Sevika and Jinx fight seamlessly alongside each other without calling out to each other.

The way they bicker without uttering a word, for example, when Sevika fully takes stock of how her arm look or when the music starts blasting and Jinx just responds with a shrug or a little dance.

Jinx thanked Isha by doing the finger gun towards her and Isha, understanding instantly that it was acknowledgement.

Jinx instructs Sevika on how to operate her new arm by just indicating the motion.

I love dynamics like this because it just shows the level of trust that all three have in each other, even though they know nothing about each other.

Jinx has been isolated from others for the past eight years, Silco has had Sevika work like a horse and, too frustrated with Jinx to really get to know her, and Isha is a new addition and non-verbal. But they still worked together perfectly.

[obiwhat]

[blaithnne]

Live Mel reaction

[deep-space-netwerk]

So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.

It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!

But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!

The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.

It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?

Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.

Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.

Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.

Lotta problems with lens caps.

For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.

This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:

However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[hoodedjelly]

Still Feel by Half Alive

(there is a second of flashing at the start was unsure if i should tag it or not, but this is the warning)

[youtube video link]

[chloesimaginationthings]

New Patreon tier art now FNAF themed,,

[hinamie]

new official illust of them with puppies healed something in me

[i-am-not-a-who-i-am-a-what]

so who else is screaming about everything we learned today

[yuki119]

Balor...my babydoll...my darling 😤

[bbbbbbbbatman]

Gotham has so many rogues and most of them don’t actually cause that much trouble in the grand scheme of things, so other than the really big ones, like joker, news about Gotham rogues can get pretty muddled outside the city which leads the JL to believing that Batman and Manbat are the same person and that their colleague sometimes turns into a giant bat monster but they don’t bring it up bc they think it’s a sensitive topic

Which eventually leads to a scenario like this mid combat when they’re getting pretty desperate:

Green Lantern: I know we’re not supposed to talk about it or whatever, but it would be really helpful if you could turn into a giant bat right now, spooky

Batman, having zero context for this comment, pausing mid fight to look at Hal like he just grew a second head: What the fuck are you talking about, Jordan?

Green Lantern, suddenly much less confident: Um…you know how you…turn into a giant bat?

Batman, utterly bewildered, turning to the other members but finding that he is clearly the only one out of the loop: what is happening right now