toreblogallthethings

[toreblogallthethings]

what the fuck why would anyone call it that

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In Memory of Peter Morwood

My deepest condolences to his friends and family.

I did a small artwork about things that he brought to lives of many internet strangers, me included.

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I just spent so long trying to understand that post about glass. As somebody who thinks glass is extremely cool but doesn't know a whole lot about how it's made, we're you saying that clear glass is entirely colorless by definition? Also do you have a good resource to learn out clear glass being invented in the 15th century? If not I'll Google it. I'm a history nerd so this is right up my ally. Thanks for reading all that I hope to hear back from you if it's not too much trouble.

So, for clarity’s sake (heh), I’ll start off by pointing out that photons of Visible Light do not go through glass in the same way that Radio or Microwave photons do. The scale of Visible Light is small enough to meaningfully interact with the crystalline lattice of most stones, glass included. In order to be optically clear, a piece of glass must transmit the signal coherently through its bulk mass, and emit an image out the other side. Clear glass, in response to Visible Light, behaves more akin to how an electrical conductor (like wire) interacts with electricity than an absence or void would. This is, incidentally, why we can make optical devices like lenses and glasses and telescopes out of clear glass.

Glassmaking in the Mediterranean owes much to a few key events. Firstly, there was a tradition of artistic glass working in Byzantium many centuries ago, a descendant of Glassmaking traditions from Rome and the Levant, which peaked in the 10th century.

Many families knowledgeable in such things would eventually flee the fall of that empire west, into Venetian territory. Unfortunately for the wood-framed-building-inhabiting people of Venice, the glassworks would often spark municipal fires, so in the 13th century the Doge of Venice banished them to a mist-shrouded island prison set them all up on the island of Murano, under guard, creating an Artist’s Colony of Glassmaking families.

This arrangement worked out well for all involved for several centuries. Although the Glassmakers were not permitted to leave, they had access to all the raw materials of a far-flung trade network, state protection, wealth, and prestige; and Venice had an in-house luxury export that constantly evolved as the various families of craftsmen flexed on each other, trying to one-up each other with innovations in color, hardness, and form.

The far-flung trade network was important, as it allowed for very pure samples of a wide variety of chemically active minerals to be made available to these workshops. Critically, these ingredients included pebbles of very pure quartz, and Alume Catino, a form of soda ash from the Levant.

Ultimately this culminated in the 15th century invention of Venetian Cristallo: a perfectly clear synthetic Rock Crystal Glass. This cemented Murano as center of the Glass-making world in the west for 2 centuries, until the English discovered that adding Lead Oxide to the process also produced a clear glass that was cheaper to make and easier to work.

The ability of these, and later, clear glasses to be ground into optical lenses, and the resultant invention of telescope and microscopes, would kick-start scientific elements of the Renaissance, and the relatively inexpensive and high-quality mirrors and spectacles produced would kick-start the symmetrical Renaissance in Philosophy and Moral Theory.

To circle back to your question:

Glass is a transmitter of light. A photon hits a spot in the crystalline lattice and sets off a chain reaction of vibrations in the atomic lattice of the glass, which, upon reaching the far side of the glass bulk, release an equivalent photon. In optically clear glasses, this is done in such an orderly and coherent manner that actual resolvable images emerge. That said, I reiterate for clarity: photons are destroyed and created by this process. What emerges is not what went in.

The inclusion of metal oxides such as Soda Ash and Lead oxide is necessary to furnish particular metallic ingredients into the crystalline lattice of the glass. This provides forms of long-range order conducive to signal transmission. Remember, glassy materials are defined by a variable degree of long-range order in their lattice structure. No order; you get scattering; and the light that emerges is a hazy white color. Choose particular metals to also dope your molten glass with, and the glass will emit particular frequencies: this is what we call colored glass, or stained glass. The reasons those dopants resonate at those frequencies of light are Electro-Chemical and Quantum, and beyond the scope of this post.

Glass is one of the Foundation Stones of modern, technologically advanced Civilization. Modern glass is nothing less than a Miracle of Artifice, crafted by skilled hands across dozens of generations. Our Ancestors worked very hard to give us this. It is good for us to tell their stories.

Hope that gave you a good place to start! Enjoy your journey! There is much still to learn!

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They’ll never do a Hitman level set in a Furry Convention because gamers would absolutely ruin it but imagine. like the target isn’t a furry he just owns a hotel that happens to have one every year but you can disguise yourself in a fursuit and some guy will ask you “what species is your sona” and 47 would be like “a wolf. i always felt a connection with…hunters.” and then diana would be like “let’s see if you can sniff out some information, furrty-seven” and then he comes to my house and kills me for writing this

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i wish there was an easier way to tell the difference between an "if it sucks hit da bricks" situation and a "sometimes being an adult means doing things that you dont wanna" situation

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I've been bedridden for the last 6 months, unable to work as I try to get a surgeon and insurance lined up for my operation to let me work again.

If you could send a couple dollars, it'd really help. Time isn't on my side here, and waiting is very expensive.

Thanks!

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Peter Morwood

I am so sorry to have to tell you all about this. None of you, I suspect, will ever have any idea how sorry.

I am in utter shock and terrible pain to have to inform everyone that our friend, my dear husband and creative partner of nearly forty years, Peter Morwood, passed away suddenly early this morning after a brief illness that as late as yesterday (when his doctor saw him) had seemed to be on the mend.

I'm not in any position to say much more about this situation now, as you'll understand my current mental state is not up to the task. (I keep expecting to wake up from a bad dream, but it shows no sign of breaking.) I will let people know more about this in coming days.

There will be a postmortem shortly to determine the exact cause of his death. I'll share what details of this are appropriate as they become clear.

Meanwhile in the short term I'm very much going to need assistance with the expenses that in the days that follow will inevitably surround what's happened. For those people who want to assist, please feel free to use the Ko-Fi account here, and simply tag the associated messages, etc, "P expenses".

My love will wait for me, I know, however long it takes. He's never minded waiting. (the saddest smile) My job now is to make sure he's not forgotten while I go on.

Meanwhile, can I just say to all of of you: I thank you all ahead of time for all the support and fondness for Peter that I know so many of you will express. He'd blush over it, I know. (He always did.) Please forgive me for being unable to do much in the way of answering messages, just now, in the wake of having to get to grips with this sudden and awful change in my world.

But also let me say, so urgently: Hug your loved ones now, while you can. Eventually a day will come when, expected or not, your opportunities end.

Thanks, friends.

--DD

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Imagine having been born in 1905... And all your life it doesn't fucking stop. The Great War, the Spanish Flu, and then you go out of your mind for 7 years. Everyone is traumatised and nothing matters. Then another crash. And then the rise of fascism, and the War to end all Wars didn't and it's 1945 and you're just about still there. You may have fought or ferried the boys from Dunkirk or sabotaged the Nazi occupiers or worked in the factories and put out fires during the Blitz and you're lucky to be alive, because not all your friends made it. But you are and finally, fucking finally, it stops. It stops. You are tough as nails and you can put that strength to work into building something and you do, and people have cars and can buy icecream and you have a pension fund and the kids have money of their own and no nightmares.

I want that for us. I so want that for us. I want to be the generation that has seen fucking everything and is like a MRSA bug and unfazed and when that Cheeto finally dies, I want us to. Plant the gardens and clean the seas because we can and we want to and we remember some joy, some time of trust even when it got broken and we can say to the 20 somethings "let us show you what we can build, how it can feel."

And maybe Gen beta will take it all for granted like the boomers did, but we can give Gen Z and Alpha some peace because we, and Gen Z and Alpha have seen the Dark Times and fuck that noise.

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One guard lies. One guard tells the truth. One guard thinks he's telling the truth but operates from deeply unsound epistemological principles that were inculcated by his elders to steer him to specific predefined conclusions, he's not lying but nothing he says is as actionable as he thinks it is. One guard is honest but he's got that thing where he keeps confusing your left and right with his left and right, and even when it's just him he's always got to stop and think for a second to remember which is which, and long story short he's never once said the correct door on the first try. One guard says whatever the first guard to speak says because he's afraid of being left out. One guard claims the opposite of whoever was first to speak because he's a contrarian. One guard does that fuckass postmodern "what is truth" song and dance because he doesn't actually know which door is the correct one, he lost the briefing packet and for obvious reasons he can't pick a door to check in person. Defeats the whole point if you can come back

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Because of its explosive nature, not all applications of nitrocellulose were successful. In 1869, with elephants having been poached to near extinction, the billiards industry offered a US$10,000 prize to whoever came up with the best replacement for ivory billiard balls. John Wesley Hyatt created the winning replacement, which he created with a new material he invented, called camphored nitrocellulose—the first thermoplastic, better known as celluloid. The invention enjoyed a brief popularity, but the Hyatt balls were extremely flammable, and sometimes portions of the outer shell would explode upon impact. An owner of a billiard saloon in Colorado wrote to Hyatt about the explosive tendencies, saying that he did not mind very much personally but for the fact that every man in his saloon immediately pulled a gun at the sound.

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For sale: ship of theseus

Condition: used, like new

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i love pitting classically trained magic users against self-taught magic users in sci-fi/fantasy but it shouldn’t be snobbish disdain for them it should be terror

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I swear I saw a tumblr post on here that said ‘horses have over 4,000 bones’ and i don’t know where it came from because its totally wrong, they have 205, but what kind of fucked up horse has this person seen out there because I’m absolutely terrified of it 

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One for sorrow Two for joy Three for a girl Four for a boy Five for silver Six for gold Seven for a secret never to be told

Eight for a wish Nine for a kiss Ten for a chance you must not miss Eleven for a wasp Twelve for a bee Thirteen for a coffee Fourteen for tea

Fifteen for a pencil Sixteen for a pen Seventeen to hear these options once again

Eighteen for pepper Nineteen for salt Twenty for an accident in which you were not at fault

Twenty one for Jerry Twenty two for Tom Twenty three - where are all these magpies coming from?

Twenty five no seriously Thirty this is weird Forty eight from where have all these magpies suddenly appeared?

Sixty two stop counting Seventy just run Ninety nine the revolution of the magpies has begun

Two hundred no more sorrow Five hundred no more fears One thousand for how long the empire of the magpies will last in years

(John Finnemore)

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Thanks for your parenting posts lately. I really appreciated you calling out the Parenting Hyenas who are so excited to tell one how much worse everything is about to be. I'm at the end of first trimester; I feel my bones are made of tangible weariness. It's a huge struggle to meet basic requirements of adult life; all I want to do is sleep and to not feel hungry for goddamn once. If things are this bad when I have unbroken sleep and both hands free, will I really be able to survive with a baby?

well TBF the first trimester of pregnancy is SHIT. it’s where you probably feel absolutely awful, but you don’t get a seat on public transportation because you don’t have a visible bump, so people won’t give you one. And if you take one then a lady with a cane looks at you pointedly and probably goes home and writes a thinkpiece about entitled millennials and you’re like “I’m pregnant,” defensively, head spinning, except you’re not supposed to tell anyone yet.

I mean, yeah, that sucks hard. It might get better. If it doesn’t, I have faith in you. If it gets to a point you can’t handle then trust your instincts, and get whatever partner(s) you have to help you, and get yourself to a medical institution of some sort and scream.

Many people have an experience where the first trimester is a challenge because of the hormonal and physiological and immunological fighting, but they have a nice experience in the second and/or third trimesters. Apparently one may get a “burst of energy” and the fabled “glow.” It’s when some birthgivers claim to become particularly interested in sex, and take photos of their cute little bumps, and take up pregnancy yoga or a childbirth class or some other thing that makes them feel excited/expectant/proud. I can’t promise you’ll feel any of that, but hopefully that’s something for you to feel curious about.

As for the end result, having the baby will be an entirely different country, but once you have it, you’ll be in that country! And before then, you can’t control it! So you may cultivate some serenity, or you may panic, or you may quietly arrange for paid help to come to your house for the first few weeks after the baby is born, to take care of you.

If you have the money I do recommend doing that. I didn’t have the money, but I had really planned to do it, because I didn’t have a scrap of family or anyone to come round and help, and I didn’t think I could do it. But the baby came early and I didn’t have the money but it turned out I could do it so it all worked out. I also had a very good birth partner in Dr Glass, who cooked me a steak that I still think about today.

If I’d had the money I would also have hired a doula. A doula is an experienced person, usually a woman, whose job is to be calm and comforting and wise and supportive for you during pregnancy and labor.

There are also many books on the topic, written by Actual Authorities on pregnancy and childbirth. They are authorities and I am not. “What to expect when you’re expecting” is a classic, and surprisingly, when you open it, it doesn’t just say “sickness pain, unending horribleness and pain and grim shit, THAT is what to expect, fuck off.” It’s actually an entire book about what you might expect! And it says things like “you may have a burst of energy.” So that can be nice. That book is like an antidote to Parenting Hyenas and their General Uselessness (“Expect to feel awful! Forever! Hahahaha”), although it is just full of Heterosexual Humor and stupid wordplay that made me feel violent. There are also books that get into the Science of Pregnancy, and they can be comforting.

I don’t know if you find The Science of Pregnancy comforting, but here is some to explain what you may be feeling, but there is a content warning for Pregnancy Loss. So if that feels too sensitive, then please stop here, and go with my best wishes. Send me another ask in a few months and tell me how it’s going, ok?

DO YOU KNOW ONE REASON WHY YOU PROBABLY FEEL SHIT, it’s because your body is at war with the fetus, testing it for weakness. If the fetus wins the fight, then it gets to develop. If it doesn’t, the pregnancy ends. Your body quite naturally has a tendency to regard the fetus as a foreign body, and the uterus is actually a harsh and unforgiving place, designed to flush out impurities (including flawed embryos) in a monthly blood sacrifice. The fetus, meanwhile, is fighting back hard. “There is literally a foreign body inside us,” says your immune system suspiciously.

“Fuck offfff,” says the fetus, disabling any system that looks at it funny.The sperm donor’s DNA is roiling and boiling and fighting hard: “KEEP MY DNA ALIVE AND INSIDE YOU,” it roars at your body.

Your own DNA contribution to the fetus is going “Calm down, body, this is one of ours, it’s totally part of us! Also, fetus, let’s not grow too big or too fast - we don’t want to harm the birthgiver.”“GROW BIG AS FAST AS POSSIBLE TO MAKE IT SAFELY PAST THE FIRST TRIMESTER,” says the sperm donor DNA inside the fetus.The sperm donor DNA is invested in the survival of the fetus, hoping to shape the best possible fetus. The birthgiver DNA is invested in the survival of the birthgiver. The birthgiver’s body will terminate threats if it identifies them in time. Somehow, in this competition, a human fetus is prepared. The first trimester - the window in which most pregnancies are lost - is a battleground.The fetus and your own body are dashing about flipping switches. Your body is running a checklist of checks and balances to protect you from wasting investment in carrying a “flawed” fetus, or allowing the parasite to deplete your resources too much. The fetus is running about trying to flip all the switches back, trying to pass every test, and redirect all of the life support systems to itself.Morning sickness is associated with stronger fetuses that are less likely to miscarry. By destroying your appetite, the fetus protects itself; you won’t be eating any bitter herbs or dangerous shellfish if you’re too sick to eat.“But we can’t destroy our health,” your body shouts, fighting it. “We need food to live.”“Live on your fat stores,” the fetus says sweetly, if it’s a powerful fetus, doing a manual override if it’s REALLY powerful, and preventing you from being anywhere near any form of meat. “That’s what they’re for. Me.”“That’s not sustainable,” your body says, taking systems abruptly off autopilot and frantically trying to put passwords on them, so that you feel like shit and catch a horrible cold.“It doesn’t matter if it’s sustainable,” says the fetus, “All that matters is my survival. I don’t NEED siblings,” it adds, changing the password for your immune system.“What I DO need is all of your blood,” it goes on, politely putting in a request for increased blood supplies, with your own signature forged on it. The bureaucracy of your body glances at it and signs it off. You feel extremely faint, and take a seat on public transportation without actually meaning to, because it is already occupied. The lady with a cane sneers at you pointedly. And maybe you write to me. If it is of any comfort whatsoever: you are host to a battleground, at the beginning of a war. It is a war all of your foremothers - and you - won. Most gloriously.

and it is a LOT! It really is a huge amount, for something that is right now so very small. These are big feelings.

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