toebeanz asked:
I googled chaperon hats and that is a garment I simply do not understand
iwilltrytobereasonable
missionlameturtle
glumshoe answered:
You don’t need to understand it. You just need to accept, uncritically, that large, decorated masses of fabric perched upon the head are a superior fashion choice that we ought to bring back at once.
it’s evolved from what happens when you have one of those hoods with the long tail and the big shoulder covering section all dagged and trimmed, and instead of wearing it correctly you stick the facehole over your head and wear it like a hat. Not even kidding. The late middle ages were a wild time.
Here’s a quick video about it!!
iwilltrytobereasonable
animate-mush
I’m watching Jurassic Park and dreaming of a remake where the dinosaurs all have feathers.
NO BUT THE BOOK EXPLAINS WHY NONE OF THE DINOSAURS ARE ACTUALLY PROPER DINOSAURS BUT NOBODY READ IT
Okay okay okay so the book explains that the whole park was a terrible idea basically from the start. The genetic engineer (or like the rich nut in charge) once made a super tiny elephant as a pet and it was awful. Just an ill-tempered bald corgi of an animal. Just bad.
Now, the dinosaurs in the park aren’t exactly ‘clones’ of the DNA in the mosquito- in fact, the DNA in the mosquito isn’t really a big player. The book says that the dinosaurs aren’t really DINOSAURS as they existed, but essentially homemade animals built from scratch to Look and Act the way we think a dinosaur Should. Like glorified toys. They could have just as easily made one eyes one horned flying purple people eaters, and it wouldn’t have mattered.
Which is actually quite clever, seeing as it sort of bakes in an excuse for any factual inaccuracies in the movies, no matter how up-to-date the critters are at the time of production.
They don’t look the way dinosaurs ACTUALLY DID because their designs are BASED ON INCOMPLETE DATA, not solid and complete genetic samples taken from real life.
They had one line in Jurassic World to explain all that:
Henry Wu : “Nothing in Jurassic World is natural, we have always filled gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals. And if the genetic code was pure, many of them would look quite different. But you didn’t ask for reality, you asked for more teeth.”
Took four movies, but they explained it.
Frog DNA was mentioned in the first movie, it just took beating people over the head with it.
Fluffy T-Rexes Eating Capitalists.
That’s all I want.
My favorite Jurrasic Park theory is that none of the creatures have any real dino dna at all. That the whole “mosquito in amber” story is a lie to make it believable; those animals are just chimeras of frogs and iguanas and emus and crocs and whatever the fuck to make them look “right.” Total fabrications.
After all, why invite an archeologist to the park and not, say, a zoo manager?
Because the archeologists arent there to evaluate safety at all. They are there to see if these chimeras can fool even an expert.
Relevant.
Omfg
iwilltrytobereasonable
animate-mush
itsachristastrophe asked:
Okay okay okay but like. why is Barrett's Privateers a meme? It's...a legitimately good song with a catchy chorus. I like seeing it around but it isn't like. Chicken on a Raft levels of ridiculous, so I don't get the joke. What am I missing here?
animate-mush answered:
Because it is in real life. There’s no joke, per se, it’s just fun to sing
There’s a couple of things. One is it’s got that nice “oooooooooohhhh” right at the beginning, so it comes to mind easily in these sort of situations. I also tend to go there because I know that people on my dash (particularly Franny) will sing along, and what’s the point otherwise? Like, I considered doing a proper shanty like “Leave her, Johnny, leave her” but I don’t know the words as well and I couldn’t be guaranteed a chorus
The other thing is… apparently if you start singing Barret’s Privateers anywhere in the Maritime provinces, people around you will just start singing it too. It’s an IRL meme. I don’t know why, except that it is catchy and Very Canadian
…and for that reason, it was featured in a famous (infamous) episode of Due South - the same episode where the leads first punch each other in the face and later kis- er, sorry, engage in “buddy breathing.” At one point, to cause a distraction, the lead just starts singing Barret’s Privateers and everyone on the boat immediately stops what they’re doing and joins him. It’s doubly notable because by and large the music in that show is…terrible. So the Due South fandom loves the song, almost as much as they love Northwest Passage, the only actually good musical thing to happen in the entire show (sorry team). So that definitely contributes to it being the go-to singalong as well
I have genuinely managed to get people going with Barrett’s Privateers in San Jose in public before.
discworldtour
“Tell me, Mr. Lipwig, would you like to make some real money?”
Moist gave this some thought and then said, very carefully: “What will happen to me if I say yes?”
“You will start a new career of challenge and adventure, Mr. Lipwig.”
– and other normal, non-suspicious things like that |
Terry Pratchett, Making Money
good-omens-fanart
onlyinankhmorpork
thehistorymonks
Little Discworld Things
You know the joke in Men at Arms about the billiard balls? They’re made of “elephantless ivory” by the alchemists, but they have a nasty habit of exploding when used.
This was an actually real-world thing.
Owing to the high price of ivory (and, y’know, the over-hunting of elephants to the brink of extinction), in 1869 a billiards supply manufacturer offered $10,000 to whoever could make a synthetic ball that met the same specifications as ivory. A guy named John Wesley Hyatt came up with a nitrocellulose ball – nitrocellulose being both the basis of celluloid film and certain kinds of rocket fuel. Hyatt’s balls were extremely flammable, and even hitting them together too hard could cause a small explosion that sounded like a gunshot.
(Yes, in hindsight, that sentence was hilarious.)
So Discworld’s exploding alchemical billiard balls had a Roundworld equivalent, albeit not as dramatic. God damn it, Pterry.
knithacker
micromultiverse
deepintheshadyglen