theskyexists

[theskyexists]

[theskyexists]

One of my favorite genres of post

[theskyexists]

hi i’m rlly hungover can i have a mata mata turtle fact 🥺🥺

my favorite mata mata fact!

if you look at them directly head on, they have a lovely smile for you :)

[theskyexists]

not doomed by the narrative but saved by the narrative. yeah i know you'd rather die than keep suffering but the story doesn't actually care what you want. you have to keep going, even when it hurts. even being erased from existence won't stop you from being salvaged from the wreckage of un-being. get up. keep pushing. keep bleeding. keep living.

[theskyexists]

[theskyexists]

😘

[theskyexists]

they really added the lines 'and oz which had been sad and blah / once more will sing a joyous AaAaaAAaaaaaaaa' to the movie just so idina menzel could cameo and do her defying gravity note

[theskyexists]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x08 - “Killing is a Cycle” ↳ "How long were you sidled up with that shifty, self-serving war pig?"

[theskyexists]

‘While bats can only sense the outer shapes and textures of their targets, dolphins can peer inside theirs. If a dolphin echolocates on you, it will perceive your lungs and your skeleton. It can likely sense shrapnel in war veterans and fetuses in pregnant women. It can pick out the air-filled swim bladders that allow fish, their main prey, to control their buoyancy.

It can almost certainly tell different species apart based on the shape of those air bladders. And it can tell if a fish has something weird inside it, like a metal hook. In Hawaii, false killer whales often pluck tuna off fishing lines, and “they’ll know where the hook is inside that fish,” Aude Pacini, who studies these animals, tells me. “They can ‘see’ things that you and I would never consider unless we had an X-ray machine or an MRI scanner.”

This penetrating perception is so unusual that scientists have barely begun to consider its implications. The beaked whales, for example, are odontocetes that look dolphin-esque on the outside—but on the inside, their skulls bear a strange assortment of crests, ridges, and bumps, many of which are only found in males.

Pavel Gol’din has suggested that these structures might be the equivalent of deer antlers—showy ornaments that are used to attract mates. Such ornaments would normally protrude from the body in a visible and conspicuous way, but that’s unnecessary for animals that are living medical scanners.’

-Ed Yong, An Immense World

[theskyexists]

"I’m very concerned about my client’s right to a fair trial in this case.  He’s being prejudiced by some statements that are being made by government officials. Like every other defendant, he’s entitled to a presumption of innocence. But unfortunately the way this has been handled so far his rights are being violated. And as you know, Your Honor, there’s a wealth of case law guaranteeing his rights to a fair trial, but none of the safeguards have been put in place yet here — in fact it’s just the opposite of what’s been happening. 

He’s a young man, and he is being treated like a human pingpong ball between two warring jurisdictions here.

These federal and state prosecutors are coordinating with one another at the expense of him. They have conflicting theories in their indictment, and they are literally treating him like he is some sort of political fodder, like some sort of spectacle. 

He was on display for everyone to see in the biggest staged perp walk I’ve ever seen in my career. It was absolutely unnecessary. He’s been cooperative with law enforcement. He’d been in custody for over a week. He waived extradition. He was cooperative at all accounts. There was no reason for the NYPD and everybody to have these big assault rifles — that frankly I had no idea it was in their arsenal — and to have all the press there the media there. It was perfectly choreographed. 

And what was the New York City Mayor doing at this press conference, Your Honor? That just made it utterly political. And as your honor knows under Loro v. Charles, the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has held it to be clearly established that these staged perp walks to the media unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective is unconstitutional. And I submit that there was zero law enforcement objective to do that sort of perp walk. There’s absolutely no need for that whatsoever. 

And frankly, Your Honor, the mayor should know more than anyone about the presumption of innocence that he, too, is afforded dealing with his own issues. And, frankly, I submit that he was just trying to detract from those issues by making a spectacle of Mr. Mangione. 

And there are consequences to this. 

He has a right to a fair trial. And I just want to put on the record statements that the mayor made publicly about my client. Nothing saying “alleged” for example. And he said “I wanted to send a strong message with the police commissioner that we’re leading from the front. I’m not just going to allow him to come into our city. I wanted to look him in the eye and state ‘You carried out this terrorist act in my city, the city of New York that I love.’” And he wanted to show symbolism. 

Your Honor, he’s not a symbol. He’s somebody who is afforded the right to a fair trial. He’s innocent until proven guilty. And the mayor was talking to jurors — future potential jurors that elected him. Those are the people that elected him that he is talking to and calling this man a terrorist.

So, Your Honor, I just want to make a record of this and put everyone on notice that this has to stop, and my client is entitled to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence."

[theskyexists]

here's a random word generator--whatever word it gives you is now the thing you are the deity of

[theskyexists]

crunching the numbers

[theskyexists]

she doesn't want youuuuu give upppppp

[theskyexists]

So I was watching a video on ptarmigans and it was mentioned that they dig burrows in the snow for shelter and protection. Which, cool! Burrowing bird! Then they showed this picture and

It's perfect

[theskyexists]

old stuff

[theskyexists]

Children of Time (3/5)

It's lucky the uplifted spiders are so instinctually resistant to war and slaughter amongst themselves because they're connected by nanovirus (doesn't REALLY make sense as other species also possess the nanovirus.) because Fabian could have reprogrammed all the ants to attack the females. In fact. It's a mystery why he didn't program them to just STOP and coerce a feminist turn in society. And grab all the big wigs and kill them. And commit a coup. But the spiders seem to really value the web of 'civilisation'. And it seems like a coup has never ever happened or even been conceived of. So it makes sense. It also makes sense for this sci-fi author's distinctly lacking description of the political economy. The ants do all the agriculture and one would think there is no particular limit on the products of their labour except the resources to do the labour on and control them (how cheap!!). So the products and the means can be gatekept and are from banished females and the many unfavoured males. But up until this point no enterprising chemical genius female apparently had the opportunity to seize power over the colonies - probably because reprogramming is such a slow and collective process. For some reason (blah blah the nanovirus) the spiders have never turned the ants on upstart or dominant nest groups as a nest group. As though there is no group think (nest groups! City states!) no competition (explicitly named, and the females have very strong aggressive instincts), and no ego delusions of grandeur (they decorate themselves for status). Even the banished females never seem to raid the communities they're thrown out of, as though they cannot simulate the nest group at a later age. They're doomed to solitary cavespider life. This might be because banishment is no death sentence as these (female) spiders have retained the ability to survive in the wild, the wild hasnt disappeared yet to survive in, either. So spiders don't NEED to fight, but humans dont much NEED to fight either, generally. Yet the first time war becomes a THING so to speak is when god announces herself and the temples start really going into repressing their own and killing other cities - because god is making too many resource demands???? Lol. There were no resource demands before? Are humans unique in wanting more and more and more? It does seem that spiders are less focused on objects and INDIVIDUAL property. Nest property though... We learned at the very beginning that spiders are territorial and can anticipate and will want to resist foreign expansion (stone age spiders!). It makes no sense to me that an oligarchy is only NOW starting to come into existence. In fact, the most baffling thing is that no spider ever thought to coerce spiders to pay taxes. Which is the fundamental deeply defining social relationship for humans in history. Spiders don't seem to THIEVE. Maybe because they have such formidable weapons on them at all times? Those fangs and the venom. They do a fight dance to scare others off for that reason. But back in stone age times they've already developed distance weapons.

The basis of civilisation is argued to be a symbiotic subjugation of other living species - and I am a bit sad to agree. But the other thing I fear, that the subjugation of certain groups of the own species is a necessity for the development of civilisation (because it facilitates the concentration of resources at one point) is counter-argued here. The spiders draw together to benefit from collective infrastructure and accumulated knowledge and for prestige. This is also true for humans. Gotta admit they've got a subjugated ant species doing all the hard work and males doing the logistics. The underbelly of the city are slums of barbarism.. not part of society - a wilderness - and across 'class' lines (this is difficult to say because the author does not drill down into the material reality of (nest) property rights) and gender lines, it's argued that society is wasting potential talent by discarding spiders there. Once again, the question is, why do hatchlings there not form their own nest groups that go on to either torment regular society (theft and raiding) or build out into the wilderness? Because they don't have the ants to do it? I'm thinking about this too intensely.

Holsten is such a mediocre protagonist. All the humans are. It's partly because they have no background - no family, no history - and partly because they're so... quietly miserable (as acknowledged this chapter). Maybe lady god over there is right and these last dredges of humanity arent particularly....human. Because they also don't seem to have dreams, or wishes, or much of any kind of feeling for others or the group they're part of.

This book was promoted as hard sci fi but it's far from that. The suspension is not at all explained in any detail. Somehow they make cell division impossible by freezing people??? How

[theskyexists]

Arcanegifs' Arcane Season 2 (2024) Character Poll 2nd Place: Caitlyn Kiramman ↳ "I am a decorated officer. Leader of House Kiramman. Address me with respect, or keep your mouth shut."