#14km

[disgustinggf]

just a girl n her 28 609 steps today

[abirddogmoment]

I saw a reel yesterday that was like "top 10 hikes in Canada" and they were, as predicted, 100% mountain hikes in Banff and Jasper National Parks (and not even hidden gems! The ones on tourist brochures!). Someone made a comment like "you need to see more of Canada" and the 🌟influencer🌟 replied that the rest of Canada wasn't worth visiting when there are views like that in Banff.

Anyway here's a phone photo from a hike I drove four hours round trip to do in a part of Canada that "isn't worth visiting" 😂

[newtonsheffield]

Ugh I burned the roof of my mouth on my chicken parmigiana last night because I was too excited to wait for it. The hubris of man is staggering.

[bluedesignwall]

I didn't run so far for my long run today. I am trying to find some different tracks to run on. I was trying to run 10km but ended up on 14 but that's cool. That's the thing about running in a working forest. They cut chunks out of it and you have to start thinking about where you are running. Anyway nice run, no hills, no beach just forrest.

[plangentia]

new shoes gave me a blister 86009 injured 2 killed

[tjerra14]

have a bit of Lake™ from today's bike ride

[muirneach]

its kind of astounding to me how i attend school full time and somehow also manage to ride an entire half marathon in the same day. its not even 5pm yet

[versary]

truly nothing better than the post-run coffee

[stillfruit]

i started doing the kaze tsuyo training plan and it rocks i cannot believe having time to do nice things you want to do improves your quality of life. wild

[light-wrath-paradise]

I'm like that one gif of the guy trying to will pizza to fly in his mouth with the use of telepathy but instead I'm trying to will myself into eating a low-cal protein pudding, however the action is just as difficult as mastering telepathy.

[chechula]

I went to Finnish forest and met this guy, 14km away from the road.

[ordonianhero]

Wait on a goddamn minute….

Warriors: w-wait, wait a goddamn minute….. *squints at a sign*

Wild: *tapping his index fingers together sweating nervously*

Warriors: *points* what in death mountain is that*

Legend: oh a blood thirst lizalfo in 14km.

Everyone: *turns to legend*

Legend: think the picture was made for idiots.

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Ferrari LaFerrari, 2016. On of 499 LaFerraris made, that has travelled only 14km, is being offered for sale. The car is finished in its original Bianco Avus with an Alcantara interior. The F1-derived powertrain features a 6,262cc V12 and a 120 kW electric motor to deliver a combined 963 PS. The car is offered at €3,950,000 which is more than twice the original cost of a LaFerrari.

sales listing

[paskanmarja]

kävin 14km lenkil iha vaan tunteakseni jotain ja kai tää oli onnistuminen koska noh. tunnen janoo nälkää ja nivelkipua.

[alphynix]

Crystal Palace Field Trip Part 1: Walking With Victorian Monsters

The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs take their name from the original Crystal Palace, a glass-paned exhibition building originally constructed for a World's Fair in Hyde Park in 1851.

In 1854 the structure was relocated 14km (~9 miles) south to the newly-created Crystal Palace Park, and a collection of over 30 life-sized statues of prehistoric animals were commissioned to accompany the reopening – creating a sort of Victorian dinosaur theme park – sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins with consultation from paleontologist Sir Richard Owen.

The Palace building itself burned down completely in 1936, and today only the ruins of its terraces remain in the northeast of the park grounds.

The Crystal Palace building then and now Left image circa 1854 (public domain) Right image circa 2011 by Mark Ahsmann (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Six sphinx statues based on the Great Sphinx of Tanis also survive up among the Palace ruins, flanking some of the terrace staircases. They fell into serious disrepair during the latter half of the 20th century, but in 2017 they all finally got some much-needed preservation work, repairing them and restoring their original Victorian red paint jobs.

———

…But let's get to what we're really here for. Dinosaurs! (…And assorted other prehistoric beasties!)

The "Dinosaur Court" down in the south end of the park still remains to this day, displayed across several islands in a man-made lake. Over the decades they've been through multiple cycles of neglect and renovation, and are currently cared for by the London Borough of Bromley (Crystal Palace Park Trust are due to take over custodial duties in September 2023), with promotion and fundraising assistance from organizations like Historic England and the Friends of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs charity.

Just about 170 years old now, the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs represent fifteen different types of fossil creatures known to 1850s Victorian science, with only three actual dinosaur species featured. Although often derided for being outdated and very inaccurate by modern standards, they were actually incredibly good efforts at the time, especially taking into account that the field of paleontology was still in its very early days.

They also just have a lot of charm, with toothy grins and surprisingly dynamic poses.

Unfortunately on the day I visited in early August 2023 most of the statues were heavily obscured by plant growth, both on their islands and on the sides of the paths they can usually be viewed from. Since I'd seen images from about a month ago showing things being less overgrown, this was probably just some unlucky timing on my part coinciding with some explosive summer foliage growth.

The first island on the trail features a few Permian and Triassic animals which were only known from fragmentary remains in the 1850s. These "labyrinthodonts" were recognized as having similarities to both amphibians and reptiles, and so were depicted with boxy toothy jaws, warty skin, stumpy tails, and long frog-like back legs.

Today we'd call these particular animals temnospondyl amphibians, specifically Mastodonsaurus, and we know they were actually shaped more like giant salamanders with longer flatter crocodilian-like jaws, smaller legs, and long paddle-like tails.

———

Somewhere in the foliage beyond this specific "labyrinthodont" there was also supposed to be a pair of dicynodonts, but I couldn't see much of them at all and didn't manage to get a remotely visible photograph.

Crystal Palace Dicynodon when much less overgrown Left photo by London looks (CC BY 2.0) Right photo by Loz Pycock (CC BY SA 2.0)

These Dicynodon are depicted as looking like sabre-toothed turtles complete with shells. That was fairly speculative even for the time, but considering only their weird turtle-beaked-and-walrus-tusked skulls were known it was probably the best guess Hawkins and Owen had. Today we know these animals were actually synapsids related to modern mammals, but Victorian understanding considered them to be a type of reptile.

Modern reconstructions of dicynodonts have a slightly different face shape, along with squat pig-like bodies and semi-sprawling limbs. They may have had fur, but currently the only known actual skin impressions from the genus Lystrosaurus show leathery bumpy hairless skin.

———

Next time: the Jurassic and Cretaceous sculptures!

[why-the-heck-not]

procrastination is an almighty force. ”just going to go for a quick chill run before starting to study to re-energize a bit” vs. 2h & 14km later back at my apartment and everything hurts, just bc I didn’t want to start to study