Counter point, those machines can make me a peach sprite.
guys did you know the tech in that nefangled machine revolutionized preemie healthcare
yeah the guy who invented them made incredibly precise infusion pumps (as opposed to gravity fed ivs) which not only meant they could give medications to teeny tiny babies safely, it’s also used for insulin pumps and portable dialysis machines. the key element is that it’s a peristaltic pump so the liquid stays in sterile tubing for safety
(unholy drink cloaca uses it to dispense precise amounts of flavored sugar syrup)
dire wolf drama has led me to learning that one of the most major anatomical differences between them and all living canids is that they had Massive Dick Bones indicating their swinger lifestyle
Oh yeah, one of my favorite thing at the tar pits museum was seeing one mounted with its baculum! you NEVER see that in museums, they usually don’t mount specimens with it!
Seriously, the tar pits are the best thing in LA.
Prev, re: your tags…. I want to know about the mastodon having an existential crisis at the la brea tar pits
WHO thought it’d be a good idea to make a statue of a mastodon actively dying in tar while her mate and child look on
WHO thought it would be a good idea to give the baby this facial expression?
The male looks on, impassive. This is not the first wife he’s lost to the tar pit, and she won’t be the last. Such is the way of the tar.
But the baby???
This is his first encounter with death. Nothing is ever going to be the same again. He and his mother scream silently against the LA skyline. They’ve been screaming since 1968, and they will continue to scream until they decay into the tar, collapsing into their inevitable destiny.
Oh. Oh no. I don’t regret asking but Jesus Christ.
I kind of do agree with the decision to have such statues though? Like. Emotional connection to the specimens and the past. Like seeing video of elders when they were young and thinking “wow, we have had overlapping experiences. I recognize myself in this record of you, and this can see myself clearer in your current self.”
Probably trickier to explain that to small children though.
Oh yeah I absolutely LOVE these statues. They’re so incredibly evocative and make you instantly feel things and connect to the dangers these animals faced. And it’s so DIFFERENT than what you typically see with death in paleoart, because it’s so very often at the teeth of another animal.
But this? This is an accident. This could happen to anyone, and the tragedy of that moment kinda sums up like, a lot of the narrative of extinction to me. Until the anthropocene, that’s what extinction was, a series of accidents, right? It was this story of inevitability, but also a story about animals that couldn’t predict it, never saw it coming.
And it also, I think, highlights the tragedy of the human-driven extinction events: we do see it coming. Unlike the Chicxulub impact and other drivers of extinction, we keep having these chances where we could turn back! We could do something differently! But time and time and time again, we choose not to, or rather the powerful people who don’t consult the rest of us when making decisions choose not to. Our march seems inevitable- maybe this time we’ll hit the brakes, maybe this time we’ll make the right decision. Maybe this time we’ll look up and see what’s coming. Maybe one day we’ll be in the service of mammoth, not mammon. Maybe we’re the mastodons. Maybe we’re the tar pit.
BUT THEN ON THE OTHER HAND this is at the same time a very strange decision, because it’s the kind of story that public art usually shies very, very far away from! It’s grief and loss and existentialism all wrapped up in fiberglass mastodons on Wilshire Boulevard! It’s this forced juxtaposition of death and the natural world fenced off in the middle of a city of almost four million people! It’s… man, I don’t even know where I’m going with this, I just think it’s ridiculous and beautiful and moving and a bunch of incredible, contradictory things all at once.
There is a reason I love the La Brea tar pits so much. It’s not just that they’re a cool paleontological site with a fantastic museum- it’s that when I look at the way people think about them, the way the museum educators talk about them, the way the city grew up around them, I think that conceptually the tar pits can represent a lot more than what they are.
I really want to add a gif of the tar pit mastodons from the movie Volcano (‘97) but i can’t find one :(
In Czech, there is a saying that you got lost because you stepped over a magic getting-lost-root.
Idk what root i stepped over back when I first was here in 2022 …
but guess what, I ended up on this trail again, even though I planned to go to the town on the opposite end of the commuter rail network, see the one on the hill in the distance.
Like what the fuck.
They should put some extra warning here, smth along the lines that a piece of your heart might get stuck in the crumbling cliffs, and you’ll inexplicably keep coming back.
I hate the sound of babies crying, but I can’t hate a baby. They’ve been here for like five minutes and approach this situation with an unhesitant attitude of “my needs are unmet and I am going to make it everybody’s problem”, and I respect that.
Something I read years ago and completely agree with, is that human babies are pretty helpless compared to many other species. We can’t walk or run within hours of being born, as many mammals can. We don’t have teeth yet, to defend ourselves. We can’t get our own food for a long time.
But one thing human babies are really good at - often within seconds of being born - is asking for help.
As we mature and gain new skills - vocabulary both verbal and written, gestures, facial expressions, and so forth - the way we ask for help changes. But babies have just one way of asking for help - filling their lungs with air and wailing. And they’re right to do so! Their needs are unmet and they cannot do a damn thing about it except request assistance.
There’s plenty of adults who could stand to take some pointers.
I hate the sound of babies crying, but I can’t hate a baby. They’ve been here for like five minutes and approach this situation with an unhesitant attitude of “my needs are unmet and I am going to make it everybody’s problem”, and I respect that.
googling shit like “why do i feel bad after hanging out with my friends” and all of the answers are either “you need better friends” (i don’t; my friends are wonderful) or “your social battery is drained, you need to rest and regain your energy levels” (i don’t; i’ve got tons of energy, it’s just manifesting as over-the-top neurotic mania). why is this even happening. it’s like some stupid toll i have to pay as a punishment for enjoying myself too much
I actually, genuinely think social event aftercare would fix me. I need someone to put me to bed and say “you were fun today and no one hated you”
Hi, I’m looking for people willing to participate in my BA research. It is a survey about how being in fandom influences motivation towards learning English.
If you have some time to spare, English is not your first language but you are more or less actively involved in any fan activities in English, please take a moment to help me (I would also appreciate it if you shared the link with your friends that could help 😉)
One thing I love about the new Walking with Dinosaurs trailer is this decision on how to make the eyes look, which, especially in this shot is giving massive Owl Is Watching You vibes.
