Eldritch Elf

Paid service with no ads: Well, if they're not funding it with ad revenue, they need to charge us something.

Paid service with ads: Well that's bullshit.

Tiger found caged in abandoned home gets second chance at wildlife sanctuary: ‘He seems to be so happy’

The estimated 350-pound tiger was transported to the facility, an affiliate of the Humane Society of the United States, on Wednesday afternoon, and is settling in well, Almrud said. There, he will have the chance to roam in enclosures of up to three acres.

Almrud, who estimates him to be about 2 years old, described the moment he first walked onto the grass at the sanctuary as remarkable.

“It was just amazing to see him walk out on grass and to see him explore and have that freedom of movement,” she said. “It was just such a reward and fulfilling to us.”

Now, he spends his days rolling around the grass in glee, Almrud said.

“He comes right up to the fence every time a staff member is present,” she said. “He seems very amenable to our presence.”

The tiger is eating well – a combination of chicken, humanely raised non-processed beef and whole prey complete with organs and bones. It appears that he was being fed chicken, which is what owners of exotic cats often feed them, but chicken alone does not provide the complete nutrition they need to thrive, Almrud said.

In addition, caregivers are tasked with keeping the tiger mentally stimulated by creating “pretend hunting” games and rotating him through different areas so he has access to new smells and environments to explore.

“He seems to happy and content,” Almrud said. “Our staff is just falling in love with him.”

His name is Loki now! In June he celebrated his 7th birthday at the sanctuary where he lives and thrives. Here’s a few pics of the boy:

He escaped his cage

Yes

YES

The tiger is out

if we assume that Train Murder Mysteries applies solely to train passengers or employees then a 300% increase would range from "still zero" to "30 people per year"

Don't get me wrong- everyone should read new books. There's so many incredible pieces of fiction in the world, and I'll recommend my favorites day and night.

But Percy Jackson and Discworld and Earthsea and Broken Earth and Singing Hills and Murderbot and Teixcalaan and Wayfarers simply will not make you feel the way Harry Potter made you feel when you were 13.

Because you aren't 13 any more.

You will not find the Fandom community that wraps around you and helps mold you into the person you will become like Harry Potter did when you were 13.

Because you aren't 13 any more, and you never will be again.

And it sucks that Harry Potter is irreparably tainted. It sucks that all the things Harry Potter meant to you has been taken from you, and you cannot get them back. It sucks. Be angry about it. Be sad. Be disappointed and betrayed.

And, honestly if you really go back to HP, you'll find it isn't actually all that good. Youll find that it carries a lot of assumed bias and mean spirited callousness and British classism. Plot holes and lazy status quo reinforcement and haphazard world building.

Not even Harry Potter NOW can be to you what Harry Potter was to you THEN.

And if you spend the rest of your life reading new books because you want to find the book that will be what Harry Potter was to you when you were 13, you will spend your life being disappointed.

So.

Read new books. Read new books to find new experiences, new thoughts, new feelings. You won't find a replacement. You won't find a book to be what Harry Potter used to be to you.

But you could find Discworld, and Murderbot, and Singing Hills, and Wayfarers , and Broken Earth, and Teixcalaan, and Earthsea *right now.*

I am consistently late to work. Because I am sitting on my bed, picking at my legs or watching videos or just staring at the floor.

I do not want to be late to work. I do not want to be late to doctor's appointments. I do not want to be late to things I volunteered to do for fun. I do not want to leave work two hours late because I was just sat at my desk, staring at my phone, unable to convince myself to get up and leave even though my work day was over. I do not want to be sat in my car, doomscrolling for half an hour as my car loses heat to the literal freezing temperatures, because I'm just incapable of making myself move.

But I am! I am always late to things! I am so incredibly bad at getting to things on time and it's partly executive dysfunction and partly a bad sense of time and partly just. Something deeply wrong with me.

In 1990, a British Airways BAC One-Eleven, captained by Tim Lancaster and co-piloted by Alastair Atchison, was cruising at 17,000 feet.

Around 15 minutes after take-off, flight attendant Nigel Ogden entered the cockpit to bring the pilots something to drink. One second everything was fine. The next second, the pilot's side window blew out from the force of the pressurized cockpit. Even though he was strapped in, the force of the explosive decompression ripped the captain out of his chair and pulled him though the window.

The flight attendant immediately leapt forward and grasped the captain's belt. The force was so strong - due to the plane's speed - the captain slipped and was pulled almost entirely out of the plane, but the flight attendant caught his leg. The captain laid on the roof, then the side of the fuselage (the above image is an inaccurate recreation - the side window was smashed) and the flight attendant's entire arm was soon outside of the plane, gripping him.

(Recreation from the show Mayday at the point of decompression)

At the same time, the event caused the autopilot to disengage, and the captain's body hitting the flight controls caused the plane to enter into a deep dive. The throttle was set to full power and could not be accessed due to debris, meaning the plane was descending rapidly. The co-pilot, experiencing hypoxia, fought to control the plane's dive while allowing it to continue descending to a level the passengers/crew could breathe at. He attempted to contact air traffic control, but the wind made communication impossible, so he broadcast a mayday signal. Finally, he was able to re-engage the autopilot and level the plane out at a breathable altitude.

Soon, the flight attendant's entire arm was burned from wind shear and frostbite, and his grip began to slip. The other attendants entered the cabin to see what was wrong and took over holding the captain's body. Seeing the blood covering the windows from the captain's severe wind sheer burns and frostbite, the attendants and co-pilot knew he was dead. However, they could not let his body go because it could smash into the wing, horz stabilizer, or engine, and bring the plane down.

For 30+ minutes the co-pilot flew a jet plane with an OPEN WINDOW and his co-worker's body hanging along the side of the plane. Finally, clearance to land from ATC came across over the sound of the wind and the flight attendants were able to dislodge the captain's ankles from the flight controls without letting him go. The co-pilot successfully landed the plane.

(tw below for blood)

(Taken same day as the incident)

BUT HERE'S THE KICKER: when they reached the ground and evacuated, they realized THE CAPTAIN WAS NOT DEAD.

He SURVIVED being outside the fuselage of a jet airplane traveling 550mph at 17,000 feet. His only injuries were extensive - but mostly superficial - frostbite and windshear burns, bruising, fractures in his hand, and shock. He has since stated that he remembers the event and was conscious for much of the time he was outside of the fuselage. The only other injury was the flight attendant's frostbitten/windshorn arm. Captain Tim Lancaster returned to flying five months later.

(Captain Tim Lancaster in bed several weeks after the incident, with flight attendant Ogden (+ Ogden's wife) above him and co-pilot Alastair Atchison to the far left, along with the two other flight attendants)

Why did this occur? Because the plane had received maintenance the day before, and the maintenance supervisor did not check he was using the correct screws in re-installing the windscreen.

(Recreation)

Just a note that I was wrong - it was the front pilot's windscreen, not the side-window! I'm used to looking at Boeing windows with different positions :)

The ‘maintenance supervisor did not check the bolts’ is technically correct but ignores the amount of stuff that had to go wrong for that to happen.

1: the supervisor was the one doing the bolts (I think there was a staffing issue) and so did not have to check the work that he did

2: the window was not on the list of vital components that need to be checked by someone else even if the supervisor does it.

3: the parts store where he had to go to get the bolts was badly lit and had bolts in the wrong drawers.

4: the wrong bolts and the right bolts are almost indistinguishable by sight.

5: the correct tool to put the screws in was not available so they had to do some lite bodging to get the screws in. By this I mean it was still a torque wrench and they checked it released at the right point but the correct socket did not stay in place or something like that.

6: any slight differences between the right bolts and the wrong bolts were hidden because of the tool they were using (which would have worked perfectly if they were using the right bolts).

From Wikipedia:

“The Swiss cheese model of accident causation illustrates that, although many layers of defense lie between hazards and accidents, there are flaws in each layer that, if aligned, can allow the accident to occur. In this diagram, three hazard vectors are stopped by the defenses, but one passes through where the "holes" are lined up.”