#The Disaster Tourist

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

After her Cooking Trailer went VIRAL, 🎉🎉 she's back with Meghan Markle: Royal Disaster Tourist

Click the link to LIKE and don't forget to SUBSCRIBE via YouTube & Instagram

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jillian Hatsumi (@jillianhatsumi)

[trexalicious]

Justine Bateman called them Disaster Tourists-- It made the news...🤣

[badolmen]

hey you guys know that even if the people inside that submersible are rich billionaires, dying in that metal tube at the bottom of the ocean is a horrific way to die right. like. yeah stupid choices were made by the people in there signing off on a waiver that says the sub is not approved by anyone and they could die. but it’s the fault of OceanGate for knowingly putting people into a Home Depot DIY sub rigged up with an Xbox controller all to make a profit on people’s curiosity.

[memenewsdotcom]

Hawaii wildfires

[gwydionmisha]

I hope they find them.

[ukdailymail]

Tourists run in terror as waterspout tears through beach resort

[abookishshade]

So January, 2024 was a productive reading month for me.

I read 7 books in all, of which, I read:

🔹️2 audiobooks

1️⃣▫️The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eyn, tr. Lizzie Buehler- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (lit fic, thriller, contemporary)

I had not known about this aspect of the tourism industry before reading this book. So it was quite fascinating to me.

2️⃣▫️All Systems Red by Martha Wells- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Sci-fi)

This is, I think, the first pure sci-fi that I have read, and I enjoyed being inside the head of a robot.

🔹️1 series continuation

3️⃣▫️Sweep of the Heart by Ilona Andrews- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (fantasy, romance)

Finally I'm done with the Innkeeper Chronicles. While this was still a comfort read, it was also a slow read. There was a lot of political intrigue involving characters I didn't much care for so this one wasn't as fun as the previous books in the series.

🔹️2 rereads

4️⃣▫️The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (middle grade, greek mythology, urban fanasy)

It was also my first read of the month. The recently released show got me interested in this again. I have made another post on it.

5️⃣▫️The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (middle grade, greek mythology, urban fanasy)

It was also as much fun as the first Percy Jackson book, especially because I have forgotten everything from my first read. Came across the character Circe in this one, and couldn't help myself from wanting to know her pov next before starting the 3rd book in the series.

🔹️2 fresh reads

6️⃣▫️Circe by Madeline Miller- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (greek mythology, feminist retelling)

The Sea of Monsters made me want to read Circe. And this was my favorite read of the month. I loved the character development of Circe. I loved the witchy vibes. I loved the depiction of her solitary independent life on the island. I loved the critiques of patriarchy. What I didn't like was the ending.

SPOILER AHEAD

I understood Circe's loneliness but I didn't like that the powerful witch Circe ended up needing to spend her mortal life with Telemachus and bear his children to get her happy ending.

SPOILER OVER

7️⃣▫️The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (historical fiction, mystery)

I buddyread this one, and enjoyed reading it even though it was a slow read. Buddyread definitely helped in going through with it. There were two timelines. Sometimes the transition from one timeline to another felt like an interruption but at the end both the timelines added to the substance of the story, especially the past timeline was important for the characterization of our protagonist. I loved the various little details including those pertaining to the setting, the law and the architecture and also those pertaining to the various characters and their dynamics with each other. I also enjoying making speculations about the killer. I also liked how it touched upon some of the societal issues of the time period through the lens of a woman.

[victusinveritas]

The good news is Asheville approved a renovation package of $38 million in July for the field. The less good news is that they might really need it (though in a cursory search I haven't been able to find anything either way so maybe it is fine?).

[laurentrvls]

Virgin Voyages : Adriatic Sea and Greek Gems Part 2

If you haven't read "My Curse" I would scroll down a few entries and have a read but basically just about every trip I have been on something goes wrong.

Greece was no different.

The morning of our trip my Fiancé and I packed up our car and headed to my mothers house to drop off our dog and carpool to BOS (Boston Logan Airport).

We got to my Mothers house where she was packing away the last of her things. We talked about whose car we were taking and whose car was staying at the house. since the driveway was narrow I offered to move the cars out to get to my moms car and then r3e organize the cars back into the driveway. I tasked my brother and fiancé with bringing the bags to the car we were taking with us.

I move the cars when my mom asks me to pop the trunk. I stayed in the drivers seat as i heard them loading the car up. They came around and sat in the car "Is that everything? Ok lets go!"

We technically drove to my sisters house which is right outside of Boston and took an Uber to the airport since the parking is expensive and we hate driving into the city. I parked and booked the Uber and suggested that while we wait we take out the bags to not waste the Uber's time. I opened the trunk,

Brother's black rolling backpack gets pulled out.

Fiancé's Black rolling backpack gets pulled out.

Mom's Black rolling backpack gets pulled out.

My Mom was white as a ghost as my brother and fiancé didn't notice.

"Lauren, where is your bag?" she said, I thought she was joking.

"It's we all have black rolling backpacks, check that the one in your hand is yours" I said as they checked their tags.

They forgot my bag.

My mom said "OK, do we have time to go back?" as the wave of realization came over me, "No we have perfect timing." my mom responded "ok do you have your passport?" I knew I had it in my purse as you would never pack it in your suitcase, but in that split second I didn't know what I still had on me. Luckily I found my passport, wallet, phone and charger all in my purse and was relieved. Did I go clothes shopping specifically for this trip - Yes. but with a passport and credit card the rest can be figured out I reminded my party of that as the Uber pulled up.

It was a quiet ride to the airport as I was texting my sister who was already in Greece what had unfolded in front of her house. She couldn't believe it. we tried to think of people that would be willing to grab my bag from my Moms living room and would be able to drive it to Boston in time but we were seriously making perfect time with traffic and the airport lines (thank you Global Entry/Precheck). As soon as we found our gate my Mom said maybe I could start shopping there. We joked that every port I will have to purchase a shirt (which I did). We walked around the airport but I really didn't want a sweatshirt with "BOSTON" in huge font when heading to Europe, but I found a cute shirt of the Boston Tea Party that i purchased. Went back to my family "one down... more to go" Virgin Voyages offers laundry service so we knew we did not need an actual week and a half's worth of cloths. We got on the plane had a meal and everyone started to fall asleep. Not me. I was stressing. I am not a big collector of souvenirs (a fridge magnet here and there) and plan most of my budget for food. No one wants to start their vacation having to go on a mandatory shopping trip especially since by European standards I am large and they might not have clothes that fit me. I cried a little knowing that this was not only stressing me out but now my family is stressing for me too. I felt like I had already ruined the vacation that hadn't even started yet.

[mbat]

sometimes i remember last year when i went on my first trip far from home alone, and just how long, and how lonely, the train ride was from my home city to my destination. ive had so many lonely nights in my life, ive had times feeling so, so deeply alone. and yet that 11 hours where i was alone in the train stop, on the train, and on the bus to my destination... it was the loneliest hours of my entire life. not to mention me almost missing the bus and nearly getting stranded in chicago, i was so fucking scared.

and i dont know i dont have a point here, i just think about it sometimes. i had always wanted to ride a train, but i didnt think it would be alone, and that i would be so unsure as i was sitting there. going alone hours from home by myself was just... terrifying. everything was fine, but it really couldve not been, and i dont know. i even remember when i was lost in chicago that my friends, who were also there to switch transportation to the destination, tried to find me, but i had luckily found my bus by then, and i just remember seeing them outside the bus wishing i couldve got to go up to them, latch onto the only people i knew for several hundred miles.

it just kinda sucked. it was a good thing in the end and i dont regret most parts of that trip (but the parts i regret arent relevant to the train), but that truly was just... damn.

at the least, on the ride back home, i was so tired that i slept through most of it.

[sophiamcdougall]

I am never going to complain about Greek Duolingo again

I mean, I am. But still.

So, as some of you know, my family has been coming to this tiny Greek seaside village for several years. Just over a week ago I came out here with my mum, under the impression that early September, after the height of the summer heat, would be a good time to have a holiday. ANYWAY Storm Daniel had other ideas about that. Locally things are improving (I'm actually really pissed off about the disaster-porn tone of most English-language media coverage, but that's another post). The power is back on, there's running water most of the time, and though the latter is not drinkable, a truck from the government came and handled out free bottled water yesterday. But we are currently kind of stuck. Can't do tourist things. Can't go home. There aren't any local flights out until Saturday and the road to Thessaloniki is still closed.

So this evening, feeling kind of aimless and depressed, I go down to the nearest beach with a couple of binbags and start cleaning up in an effort to at least do something positive. I always try to do this at least once out here and obviously, after the storm, there's a lot more plastic and rubbish than usual.

At some point I find this large, round bit of metal - some kind of machinery part, I think -- that's too big for the bag, so I take it to the bins on its own, leaving the rubbish bag on the beach. And when I come back for it, something among the stones beside it moves.

Specifically, it pulls its head sharply inside its shell

So, meanwhile I've been trying to learn some Greek with the help of Duolingo.

I currently have a 33-day streak and... I have questions. Shouldn't I be able to use the past or future tenses by now? Shouldn't I be able to say "x is like y"? I can't do those things. But one thing I absolutely can say all day long is έχω μια χελώνα : I have a turtle.

This is far from the limit of Duolingo Greek's turtle-related content. "An obsession with turtles" is my mother's characterisation. I can inform you that the turtle is not a bird, and, improbably, that the turtle is drinking milk. I can introduce you to a turtle in company with a horse and an elephant. As far as Duolingo is concerned, it really is turtles all the way down.

Now this, you may be able to see, is not a turtle. It has claws rather than flippers. It is a tortoise. I know there are wild tortoises in Greece: my aunt once rescued a pair of them shagging in the middle of the road -- but that was up in the mountains. I've even seen one myself, but it was also on a road and very dead.

I am 95% certain they don't belong on beaches. There's nothing for it to eat, except, unfortunately, a lot of plastic. Even if it gets off the beach it will immediately find itself on a road where it could get hit by a car. I'm pretty sure it must have been washed down by the floodwater and has been just sitting there, dazed, ever since.

Now obviously the first thing I want to do on encountering this unusual animal is to go and tell my mummy, so I do. The tortoise immediately brightens her day. She agrees that the tortoise is not happy on the beach and needs to be taken somewhere safe. it gets surprisingly wriggly when picked up so we put it in a carrier bag with some grapes and cucumber and go looking for somewhere to rehome it.

We find a path leading up between the houses towards a likely-looking field, but before we get very far a dog in a yard goes berserk and a man's head pops over a fence and demands to know what we're doing. He does this in English, as evidently we're just that obviously tourists.

"I found a tortoise on the beach!" I explain. "We want to find somewhere to put it."

"A what," he asks.

"It's like a, you know," I begin and then to my astonishment I find myself saying... "μια χελώνα"

"Oh! A turtle!" he says.

"But from the land. δεν είναι χελώνα", [it is not a turtle,] I say, as I am worried he will tell me to put it back near the sea where I found it. As it turns out it actually IS a χελώνα, Greek does not distinguish between turtles and tortoises, but I don't know that; I can't even name the days of the week or identify any colours other than pink yet, give me a break.

The man's entire demeanour changes and thaws. He does not worry about my turtle-that-is-not-a-turtle conundrum. He knows where οι χελώνες come from and where η χελώνα μας belongs. He leads us through a gate into a courtyard area.

"[somethingsomething] μια χελώνα," he explains to the assembled onlookers, of whom there are, suddenly, a surprising number.

"ΜΙΑ ΧΕΛΩΝΑ!!!" crows the throng of delighted small children, who are, suddenly, everywhere.

"μια χελώνα!" I agree, accepting that at least for current purposes, that is what it is.

"Μπορούμε να δούμε τη χελώνα σας; [can we see your turtle?]" asks an adorable little girl, shyly, and I understand??

The children fucking love looking at the χελώνα and showing it to them is kind of magical?

I finally put the tortoise down on the grass of this wild area off to the side of the courtyard, and marvel aloud that it is weird that I barely know any Greek except how to say μια χελώνα.

"I think she will soon run off," a kind lady called Aspasia assures me, seeing I remain slightly anxious about its fate. "I don't know why I'm saying 'she'. I suppose because χελώνα is feminine in Greek."

"Yes! I know that!" I exclaim, thrilled.

"Well done!" she says. And also she asks if we are OK for drinking water after the storm and if we need any help with anything and is just generally incredibly lovely and now we know more of the neighbours!

So "μια χελώνα" has just become, by a long way, my most-used and most understood and all-around most conversationally successful phrase in Greek. So I guess I have to admit I was wrong to doubt Duolingo's wisdom: it is correct to be obsessed with turtles. And I concede that prior to learning how to count to ten or to distinguish right from left, the simple ability to yell the word TURTLE over and over again is, it turns out, a crucial element of the responsible traveller's social skills.

(I am pretty fluent in Italian and turtles haven't come up in conversation even once?)

[elodieunderglass]

Oh these are ALL giving serious “useless wizard father of seven whose wife unionises against him” (derk) energy

Started rereading Dark Lord of Derkholm for the first time in about 16 years a couple days ago and I started thinking about how I'd go about drawing Derk now. Started with how he'd look towards the start; I'm partial to the face on the top left, though the one with wavy hair does have some interest for me too.

edit: additional Derk doodles

[jinjeriffic]

DCxDP Crack Prompt

Danny is the Ghost King apparent. What he doesn't know, is that anyone who has died and come back to life is inexplicably drawn to him. Not necessarily in a sexual way, more like they subconsciously want to bask in his presence. And coming back from the dead applies to a lot of heroes. Basically, Danny is a catnip mouse tossed into a room full of bored cats.

Now the Danny gets dragged to a gala and meets the Bats is a classic setup, but also consider:

Danny at a tech convention, with various undercover heroes there to keep an eye out for potential mad scientists or inventions that supervillains might want to steal.

Adult Danny as the newest engineering hire on the Watchtower.

Tourist Danny at the Hall of Justice.

The heroes trying to figure out why the hell Ra's/Vandal Savage etc. are suddenly so interested in this random teenager.

Paramedic/firefighter etc. Danny at a disaster scene.

Danny at a superhero fan convention, where some heroes are present for a meet and greet/panel etc.

Meanwhile Danny is trying to figure out why he's suddenly so popular and any hero who hasn't died is trying to figure out wtf is wrong with everyone around them.

[takeshitakyuuto]

I know that Yona of the Dawn is set in fake Korea but it still threw me for a loop starting a book translated from Korean and immediately coming across a character named Yona

[memenewsdotcom]

Maui wildfire deaths rise

[secretmellowblog]

On the subject of the Titanic ‘submersible’ that was lost in the deep with all its wealthy tourists— it’s so insane/eerie in hindsight to read this article from the Smithsonian that interviews the CEO Stockton Rush long before the disaster.

Despite the Smithsonian supposedly being an organization that cares about science and truth, and the fact that there were SO MANY obvious red flags from the beginning and so many people criticizing the company…..the article is a puff piece uncritically glorifying the CEO’s obviously terrible submersible project. It compares him in glowing terms to Elon Musk. It is an article about how private ventures like those of Stockton Rush and Elon Musk can and should be the future of the world.

We’ve obviously learned now that there were whistleblowers at the company who were warning for a long time that Stockton Rush’s submersible was unsafe— only to be fired and then sued. It makes sense the submersible was so unsafe, because the CEO in this interview is open about how he has no background in underwater engineering and is annoyed by quote “regulations that needlessly prioritize passenger safety.”

Soon after, the private [submersible] market died too, Rush found, for two reasons that were “understandable but illogical.” First, subs gained a reputation for danger. Working on offshore rigs in harsh locations like the North Sea, saturation divers, who breathe gas mixtures to avoid diving sicknesses, would be taken in subs to work at great depths. It was the world’s most perilous job, with frequent fatalities. (“It wasn’t the sub’s fault,” says Rush.) To save lives, the industries moved toward using underwater robots to perform the same work.

Second, tourist subs, which could once be skippered by anyone with a U.S. Coast Guard captain’s license, were regulated by the Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993, which imposed rigorous new manufacturing and inspection requirements and prohibited dives below 150 feet. The law was well-meaning, Rush says, but he believes it needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation (a position a less adventurous submariner might find open to debate). “There hasn’t been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years. It’s obscenely safe, because they have all these regulations. But it also hasn’t innovated or grown—because they have all these regulations.”

The fact that Stockton Rush (who was piloting the submarine when the disaster happened) is on record complaining about the evils of regulations that prioritize people’s safety, and the Smithsonian uncritically regurgitated that rhetoric in their glowing puff piece about how rich tycoons like Elon Musk and Stockton Rush are going to save the world is just…..in hindsight of how everything ended it’s just so much horrible black comedy? It’s like a satire about the dangers of uncritically worshipping the rich.

It is mentioned in the article that Rush chose to make his submersible in a different shape, and with a different (cheaper) material than is usually used for submersibles. The article frames this as a result of daring innovation, and not of negligence/ignorance. This passage in particular, which in context is supposed to portray Rush’s critics as joyless naysayers who were proven wrong by the noble tycoon, is pretty foreboding in hindsight:

Rush planned to pilot the sub himself, which critics said was an unnecessary risk: Under pressure, the experimental carbon fiber hull might, in the jargon of the sub world, “collapse catastrophically.”

And then!!

The exact problem that happened to Titan this weekend, happened on Titan’s very first test voyage to the Titanic! The experimental carbon fiber hull had an issue and it caused communications to break down!

The dive was going according to plan until about 10,000 feet, when the descent unexpectedly halted, possibly, Rush says, because the density of the salt water added extra buoyancy to the carbon fiber hull. He now used thrusters to drive Titan deeper, which interfered with the communications system, and he lost contact with the support crew. He recalls the next hour in hallucinogenic terms. “It was like being on the Starship Enterprise,” he says. “There were these particles going by, like stars. Every so often a jellyfish would go whipping by. It was the childhood dream.”

Both Rush and the article writer treat this as a fun quirky story, instead of a serious safety failure and red flag with his experimental macgyvered regulation-flaunting submersible.

Other highlights from the article include:

Stockton rush saying that if 3/4 of the planet is water, why haven’t we monetized it?

Stockton saying we will “colonize the ocean long before we colonize space”

Lots of weird pro colonialism stuff in general??? This article loves colonialism and thinks it’s cool

Rush saying he plans for this to eventually help find more underwater resources for the US to exploit and profit from

Elon musk comparisons. The article writer does not mention that Elon Musk’s rockets explode and therefore it would be a bad idea to get in one of them, because that would imply it’s a bad idea to get into the submersible

Stockton rush seeing himself as Captain Kirk

The article writer comparing the tourists who plan to join Rush to Englishmen who went on colonialist journeys to Africa as if that’s like, a good thing. So much pro colonialism stuff in this article

So many sentences about Stockton Rush being handsome when he literally just looks like some guy

The article beginning with an editor’s note from years later disclaiming that the extraordinary submersible they’re advertising in this article is uh. It’s now uhhhh

But yeah it really does just bring home how so many organizations that supposedly care about scientific truth or journalistic integrity are willing to uncritically platform propaganda for wealthy CEOS. It’s frustrating how easily people fall for the fake myths that careless wealthy people invent for themselves, and even more frustrating that supposedly respectable institutions will platform irresponsible lies that end up getting people killed.

Rush is such an obvious and simple example of this, and his negligence is “only” killing five people including himself. But to me it feels like a cautionary tale to bear in mind when it comes to uncritical puff piece media coverage of similar “daring tycoon innovations” by people like Bezos or Musk.