#Taking the first horse and running

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: September 4

“Paint My Face” by The Devil Makes Three

[foccaccia]

does anyone have recommendations for fictional media that has like. actual lesbians in it. not like supergirl Two White Skinny Girls, One Blonde and One Brunette Kiss media, or "its implied lesbianism!!!" but just regular fucking lesbians

[jorvikzelda]

I started reading Lord of the Rings (bought Fellowship of the Ring like… last spring but never got around to starting) and I’d just like to say. Holy fuck what a slow book. You mean to tell me I’m over a hundred pages in and this man is only just leaving the Shire? Sign me up for MORE I love this shit. Tolkien said “I will take exactly as much time as I want to describe things and you will like it”. AND I DO

[m00ngbin]

Uh so there's a baby crying in the background. Btw.

[ratatatastic]

when i say that forsblad ring picture has law firm vibes this is what i mean

[reflectionsofgalaxies]

god, grief hits you at the weirdest fucking times

[afaroffsong]

.

Once or twice a year I am hit by a massive wave of homesickness for America that makes me literally nauseous and almost feverish. Anyway I am metaphorically turning my heart inside out as I think about junky old Lincoln, Nebraska and a mice-infested farmhouse and living off of food stamps.

[peofun1]

let's talk about how I made an "equines" deck (unicorns, pegasi, horses, ect) kind of as a meme deck but it actually goes fucking crazy

Lathiel is the commander and there's nothing quite like playing a lame 2/2 lifelink pegasus, and then a few turns later it's an 8/8 flier and if it attacks I can make it a 16/16

[toonfinatic]

People calling men that are barely below average height "short kings" are WEAK and will not survive the winter much less any season... instead start calling men under 5 foot short kings or die by my blade!!!!!

[cerbreus]

i may be bad at many, many video games. but i am comically bad at rdr2

[sirfrogsworth]

How do you take a photo of time?

I've been watching the track events at the Olympics since I was a wee lad. It was a tradition in our family. We'd gather around our ancient low-definition 19 inch CRT television and watch tiny blobs compete against other tiny blobs and root for our country.

It was a bit like watching YouTube on your phone in 144p.

Several heroes emerged.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee was amazing.

You can't forget about Flo-Jo.

And then the Olympics decided NBA players were allowed in the competition.

Which formed... The Dream Team.

Was this fair?

Well... they won each game by an average of 44 points.

So... no. It was not fair.

Though it became more fair as time went on.

But, umm... yeah. The other teams looked like the Washington Generals and the US looked like the Harlem Globetrotters if they stopped screwing around half of the game.

But my absolute favorite Olympian was a runner named Michael Johnson.

He was cool as heck.

For one thing... gold shoes.

But he also had this crazy, upright, Tom Cruise-ish sprinting style that just made him look like a running robot on the track.

And in the 1996 Atlanta games he just trounced EVERYONE. I mean, it wasn't even close.

Yikes. Those losing blobs are probably really embarrassed.

Last night I decided to invigorate my nostalgia and watch the track events again. And I got to see one of the wildest races in history.

It didn't even last 10 seconds but it was one of the most exciting sporting events I've ever witnessed. Almost every runner won the race.

After I saw that initially, I was like... who the heck won???

Even in slow motion I wasn't sure.

This was one of the closest finishes in history. There has never been a race where all 8 runners were within this margin.

The arena was silent as the winner was being confirmed. The runners just kind of paced around waiting for official word. My best guess was the Jamaican runner, Kishane Thompson. But then the loudspeaker announced Noah Lyles.

The last tiny morsel of American pride burst out of me with a big "Wooooo!"

I forgot what it was like to be proud of my country. I wish it happened more often. But this young man, despite being last place in the first 3rd of the race, turned on the afterburners and won in a photo finish.

And that's when my inner nerd took over.

Because when they showed the photo finish image, it looked super weird.

Why is the track white?

Why do all of the runners look all warpy like that QWOP game?

So I went down a research rabbit hole to figure this out.

Photo finishes are actually fascinating. The first photo finish captured the end of a horse race in 1890. But that was mostly luck and timing. The actual photo finish mechanisms weren't used until 1937.

Originally they would film the finish line through a physical slit.

And the first horsie head that appeared in that slit would be the winner. This technology ended a huge aspect of corruption in horse race fixing almost overnight.

But we have come a long way since then. And I'd like to introduce you to the Omega Scan 'O' Vision Ultimate.

This slow motion camera sits fixed on the finish line of every race. The concept of the photo finish has remained remarkably similar to the 1930s approach. The camera sensor is specially designed to only record a vertical slit.

Only the finish line itself is actually captured.

And because it limits what it records to only that slit, it can capture 40,000 frames per second to get amazing temporal resolution.

So why don't the photo finishes just look like, well... this?

That is because the camera takes a picture of time more-so than dimensional space. I guess it would be more accurate to say it *assembles* a picture of time.

As the runners cross the finish line, the camera combines all of the little strips of pictures into a single image.

It's almost like if you tried to reassemble a piece of paper after it had been shredded.

Imagine each strip of paper is a picture of ONLY the finish line, just at a slightly different point in time.

What if someone stopped on the finish line and didn't move... what would that look like?

Once they got there, the same part of their body would just be repeated.

So the right side of the photo finish picture represents earlier in time and it just assembles the image strip by strip as time passes and you literally get a picture of time itself.

NEAT!

Okay, but how do they determine the winner from the photo finish?

I mean, that shoe looks like it is ahead of Noah Lyles!

Clavicles!

The IAFF rules state the foremost part of the torso must cross the finish line first. And the endpoint of the torso is the outer end of the clavicle.

So if you get this bone across the finish line first, you win the race.

Two more fun facts!

The start of the race is actually just as carefully timed as the end of the race. There are sensors in the starting blocks of each runner.

The starting gun also has an electronic sensor.

They have determined the fastest a human can react to the sound of a gun is roughly 100 milliseconds. So if you start running before 100 milliseconds they know you didn't actually hear the gun, you just got antsy and started running too early.

And the final fun fact...

Did you notice the Omega logo at the top of the photo finish?

That isn't superimposed or added after the fact. That is captured by the camera.

But if this image is composed only of tiny little slivers, how did they get the Omega logo to show up?

That is a little display. And it is synchronized with the Scan 'O' Vision Ultimate to show a little sliver of the Omega logo for each frame captured.

So when the final image is stitched together, it looks like a cohesive logo at the top of the photo.

Pretty clever, Omega!

[snekdood]

this is so true 😩 absolutely 0 survival skills

"if we make america worse and more of a dictatorship that will be even harder to unravel and make it the way we want the country to be, maybe then everyone will join our Glorious Revolution!" bb girl you cant even be in the same room with someone who thinks you should vote, how in tf do you think you're gonna unite people to fight in The Revolution with you? it's gonna be you and your 5 friends, i hate to break it to you.

[kingpains]

i love my catsssss i love my Kitties i love them soooo much

[nezuscribe]

it's been three weeks since arranged!gojo, your husband, the man you're growing to care deeply for, told you he'd be back.

there was some dispute he needed to oversee with the eastern tribes, something about the land that one was fighting for, but he promised, promised, it wouldn't take over a week to settle.

now it's been nearly a month, and there has not been a single word from him.

your maids told you this was normal, but you didn't miss how they spoke in hushed tones, their brows furrowed nervously whenever the name gojo came up.

you can't sleep in his bed, the smell of him overtaking your senses and making you go insane. you go back to your old room, huffing as you turn around each night, not able to sleep. other times you'd pace the floors, picking at your nails until they bled, wondering about what could've happened, not able to shake off your last moments with him whenever you got to thinking too hard.

"i'll be back," he had murmured in your hair, cradling you close to his chest as he said his goodbyes. his strong arms caged you in, and you had no room to fight him off as you tried to nod.

"bring back some eastern sugar," you said, "i've heard it's good for pies," your words were muffled, trying to cheer up the mood. you heard him laugh, his chest rumbling a little bit, but there was a hint of anxiety laced in it.

"i'll miss you," gojo finally whispered, his men in the background shouting for the others to hurry up.

"i know," you mumbled, craning your head to look up at him, trying to crack a smile that just came out wobbly, "but i won't tell you i missed you till you come back."

he smiled, rolling his eyes as his thumb ran up and down your cheek.

"i promise i will."

well now it's four weeks later and you can't sleep at night, your past words haunting you, wondering if you should've just told him what he wanted to hear in case...

but a couple nights later, when you're sitting at your desk, looking out the window, you hear it.

the clacking of horse hoofs, their scattered neighs.

you almost think you've gone delirious from sleep deprivation, rubbing at your eyes as you stumble closer to the windowsill, squinting your eyes as you look in the dark.

but you see the distant torch, the way it's getting closer and closer to the estate.

you have no care for modesty, pulling a thin robe over your body as you run out of your door, nearly falling down the stairs as you skip every other one, your bare feet hitting the stone with such force that you nearly break it.

the maids and servants around you are bustling to get ready for their return, but you don't care, weaving your way through their bodies as you run out through the entrance. you can feel your feet getting scraped up by the rocks, the cold autumn wind biting at your barely clad skin, but you feel like you're not moving fast enough.

his horse is the first one you see, leading the group of tired and aching men. his black stallion is dark as the night itself, and you doubt he can see you.

but gojo does, and when his eyes find the shadow of your body from across the field he's abandoning formation, his feet kicking the side of the horse to make it go faster.

it's rushed, and the closer he gets the more you can see the damage on his body. the bandages around his arms, the ones that peek out from his tunic on his shoulder. his face is littered with scrapes and bruises, but his smile is blinding.

you run to meet him, watching as he mounts off of the animal, his strong arms throwing themselves around you are nearly crushing and almost makes you stumble backward if not for his support.

there's a heavy silence that follows, and you're glad that his men take the hint to go another way, knowing the dangers of leaving you two out alone on a field.

you can't breathe, your arms so tight around his neck that you're worried you might be choking him. the way he lifts you to get you closer to him would make your body heat up if not for the fact that you know he needs you to be almost one with him.

"i thought you died," you say bluntly, your words said wetly into his neck, your scattered tears wetting his skin.

"i know," gojo murmurs, feeling like he can finally breathe for the first time in a month.

he finds your lips in a messy kiss, biting at your plush skin as you moan, feeling like if he didn't have you near to him he'd probably die. he smells your lavender oil dotted on your neck, the lingering sweetness on your lips from something you probably baked to help with your stress.

his hands lift you up further by your hips, his strength, despite his injuries, still unbridled as you wrap your legs around his waist, your fingers weaving into his snow-white locks as you hear him mumble curses beneath you.

"i missed you," you say against his lips, his feverish kisses driving you to madness. the way you say it with a choked-out sob, your tears mixing with his own.

gojo whines, biting at your neck as he tries to hide his face away, the vulnerability that you bring out of him is something that even his enemies would probably gawk over.

"i promised i'd come back," his voice is nearly gone with the way he says it in between his sloppy kisses on your neck, tugging at the fabric that hides the bareness of your chest with his teeth.

you crane your head to look at him, hitting the back of his head gently with an angered look.

"three weeks late," you reprimand him, almost reveling in the stricken and kicked look he gives you with those eyes.

he goes to say something but stops, shuffling your weight onto one of his arms (he had the right to brag about his strength), and rummages around one of the pockets of his trousers, pulling out a bag as he waves it in front of your face.

you gasp, suddenly climbing off of him as you turn it around with your fingers. he pouts at the fact that you detached from him, trying to wrap his arms around your waist to haul you back up.

"is this...?" you look up at him, new tears sprouting in your eyes as you wail, almost dramatically as your head hits his chest with a thump, pulling him into another hug as you seem to sob louder from when you first saw him.

"you cry more over the sugar than me?" he mutters petulantly, his hand still cradling the back of your head as you just limply stand there.

"don't ever leave again." you bite out, pinching his back as he yelps, but still leaving a searing kiss on the side of your face.

"i won't...my lady," he whispers teasingly, and this time, his promise is undying. he'd be a stupid man if he ever willing left this again.

fuck those state affairs. gojo would rather be home with his wife, watching her bake as she scolds him for eating her batter.

[browncesario]

have you ever written a camp rock horse fanfiction tho

no.....i don't think i ever would i don't think those genres blend in my head?? but there was one camp rock horse au on ffn that i think had like two chapters if im remembering correctly

[rinielelrandir]

And it may also translate to "it's possible to live without a car here in some or even most neighborhoods. Others will mysteriously be transit deserts and poor & desperate people will spend over 2 hours one way commuting to/from work via bus. Even in heavily connected neighborhoods you'll definitely wish it was way better instead of severely underfunded."

At least, that's my take as someone who lives in a 3 person/1 car household in Philly. The neighborhood we're in is fantastic in terms of transit, walkability, and bike ability. But we picked it on purpose for those things, because we had the means to and didn't want to drive as much. There are stilll neighborhoods that to get to from where we are take an hour and a half or more via public transit, with multiple transfers, and infrequent routes if the weekend/holiday schedule is in use. Car though will take maybe 30 minutes in heavy traffic. And SEPTA pays its drivers like shit so even in the most well-connected neighborhoods stuff is frequently cancelled bc there just aren't enough drivers.

If a city in North America has “good public transit” what that translates to is “it’s possible to live without a car here but you’ll still wish it was way better”