Madeline's Ramblings

artofmaquenda:

loverinstinct:

findersfeeders:

tlirsgender:

tlirsgender:

tlirsgender:

You ever think about how crows are acting not unlike how early humans probably did and you’re just like. Oh ok

I saw a Thing one time about how the earliest sign of civilization is a healed femur because that shows that we were taking care of each other because if we Didn’t a broken leg would mean you Die because you can’t. Do things

And I was thinking about this and I remembered also seeing an article about this one mated pair of crows where one of them broke its beak and thus couldn’t properly feed itself on its own. So the other one helps

So basically I have connected the two dots (“you didn’t connect shit”) I’ve connected them

And also they not only use tools but teach each other how to construct them, so uh

Really makes you think

Realistically I know immortality would kinda suck but I’d love to see where crows are going with this

Fun fact, there is little info on crows (as far as species of interest go) because they’re so good at evading human tactics for collection and observation. I had a friend who studied them in grad school. Not only do they describe humans to each other (so crows you’ve never seen before will avoid you), they also learn the precise distance of net cannons (for trapping and tagging) after 1 encounter and then stand at that distance the entire time (making naive researchers think maybe they can juuuust caych em). So basically you need to befriend them (a common strategy), or find a murder that’s never seen you before (researchers wear presidents masks to throw them off, but then they remember and describe the cars). In this case, you have one chance to collect enough in the group to get good data. Whatever crow you catch once, you probably will never catch again, ruling out biosensing devices (like they use with other birds and turtles n junk).

The latest big finding about crows is that they have a grasp of knowledge breadth, meaning they “know what they know” meaning they are conscious (self aware), have subjective experiences and can reflect on their knowledge. (Source) This also implies they have an understanding of the unknown.

Look up Andreas Nieder and Jon Marzluff’s work if you want the deep skinny.

@todaysbird

Love corvids so much

(via flaccid-rats)

thedeathdeelers:

the goncharov tag rn

theblackknightofworcestershire:

thestuffedalligator:

Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail that’s stuck with me this time is the set design.

The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but it’s all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Truman’s life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic they’ve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesn’t the modern day suck? Let’s go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.

And it’s a lie. Truman’s life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia they’ve presented is a lie. It’s an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory that’s comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but it’s also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. It’s a lie. It doesn’t exist.

I don’t know. I’m spitballing. I’m biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but it’s very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.

Let me tell you a story.

Earlier in the summer, I went to Florida with my friend. We decided to visit a town nearish to where we were staying called Seaside, as we had heard it was a cute place. What I did not know at the time was that Seaside is the place where they filmed The Truman Show. It was a “master-planned community,” constructed in the 80s to be the perfect beach town.

Seaside, FL

Seahaven

And yes, it really does look Like That. Not just in their tourist-agency photos, in real life it looks like that. Arguably the irl Seaside is even prettier than movie Seahaven, because the the office buildings where Truman works don’t exist; the town is 100% cutesy homes and little shops.

Keep reading

(via iamwestiec)

liberalsarecool:

Use tax dollars to feed children/students who, by law, have to attend schools.

(via wilwheaton)

ohboy-herewegoagain:

hemi528i:

androgynouscollectivekingdom:

Get you one who can do both 😍

(via bihexualwitch)

gmailminte:

(via kdazrael)

sixth-light:

words-writ-in-starlight:

listen I expected literally Nothing from the D&D movie okay, like I can’t make it clear enough that I expected the most soulless money grab with a good cgi budget imaginable, I went in having already gone through every stage of grief and landed on acceptance and LISTEN

I fucking CRIED during this dumb RPG movie. it wasn’t just “not terrible” it was objectively good with a clever plot and compelling characters and sincere emotional beats. this movie loves D&D so fucking much and it NAILS the “a bunch of goobers try to be cool and accidentally discover The Power Of Friendship And Also Great Violence” classic D&D party vibe. their barbarian’s last name is fucking Kilgore and my entire family cried in the theater.

I hope they make twelve of these motherfuckers.

#this was to dungeons and dragons as galaxy quest was to star trek (@glorious-spoon)

THAT’S IT THAT’S THE VIBE

(via vaspider)

lowkeiloki:

unfortunately, given its popularity and status as a cult classic, goncharov getting a souless corporate remake was bound to happen

moonshinemagpie:

mllecosettefauchelevent:

“Authors should not be ALLOWED to write about–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot

“I only read YA fantasy books because every classic novel or work of literary fiction is problematic and features–” you are an anti-intellectual and you are robbing yourself of the full richness of the human experience.

“you are functionally a conservative” is such a good and clarifying insult

Literally right after I saw this post, I saw another post in a discord chat for BOOK EDITORS in which an outspokenly liberal editor talked about how Nabokov should have never been published because he wrote about p*dophiles and described women’s bodies in ways that made her uncomfortable. She described his writing as “objectively terrible” and said she wanted to burn his books. And other editors were bringing up classics they didn’t like and talking about how they wanted to throw them in the trash. This wasn’t like a light “unpopular opinion!” conversation. This was actual book editors talking about how books should be destroyed and censored.

There is something so scary and toxic in global culture right now. The revival of fascism is influencing everyone’s mindset and approach to art, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.

I see far more books being censored today than when I was a kid. Librarians handed me The Catcher in the Rye, The Sexual Politics of Meat, and Animal Farm when I was literally 8-11. My mom would never have taken a book away from me. I read everything from the Tao Te Ching to the Qur'an to atheist texts under my desk at school. Teachers thought nothing of it or encouraged it. Books seemed universally acknowledged as sacrosanct to me.

Now I can’t find any adults who don’t hesitate or want to make exceptions when it comes to censorship. Even the most liberal social activist librarians I know go, “well except for book X…”

Functionally conservative. It’s so important to have the language to express that.

(via dr-dendritic-trees)