Mating Habits of the Skybound Electric Snake

Hey, so, summer is coming up fast, especially for those of us here in California (and other typically warm locales, I’m sure). Given that, I thought I’d share some ways to cool off.

All of them require water so we Californians are unfortunately still SOL

1. Run a tap over your wrists, let them air dry Your circulatory system is closest to the surface of your skin at your wrists, so cooling your blood off there will be the most effective way to cool off the rest of your body.

2. Hold a damp cloth or cool water bottle to the back of your neck Similar to the above, your circulatory system is also close to the surface in your neck. You can also throw them in the freezer for a bit to get them even colder – during the worst parts of summer, I sometimes keep two washcloths in the freezer so I can have them ready to go.

3. Get a bucket or storage tub, fill it with water, and soak your feet in it This one takes the most work, but will also cool you off for longer than the other two. The more water in the container, the longer it’ll stay cool. Just be careful you don’t drop anything important in the dang tub while you’re relaxing, and don’t spill water all over your floor. (As a side note, yes, it so happens that your blood tubes are near the surface in your feet and ankles).

Basically what this boils down to is: Cover your veins with water. Whatever way you have to do that, it’ll probably work.

While I’m here, remember that eating cold things will cool you off immediately but ultimately make you feel warmer (because your body is compensating for the sudden temperature drop). Fans are not very good at cooling off overall environments (if you can, try to create a crossbreeze through your home with them, otherwise aim them directly at yourself and hope). Open your windows when the sun sets and close them when it rises. Keep hydrated!

I’m not a thermologist, so the why on some of this might be wrong – but I’ve used this information to survive 110F weather, so I can tell you from experience that it does all work.

One comma can make a lot of difference. Language is ambiguous – but in some very specific ways. Here’s how.

The second of the five Language Files videos that I co-wrote with Tom Scott. True facts: I own a pin that says “I love ambiguity more than most people.”

I don’t know if this post has been made yet but I just want to warn everybody that if someone stops you in a parking lot and asks you if you’re interested in some perfume and hands you a paper to smell, PLEASE DON’T SMELL IT.

i repeat, DON’T SMELL IT.

The scenario described above isn't a real danger.  No one has reported having been robbed in this manner, save for one woman in 1999 whose claim was suspect (for reasons we discuss below).  This legend doesn't even describe a plausible scenario because, despite what books and television shows may depict, rendering a person unconscious from a mere sniff or two of some substance is not easy to do.  Ether is nasty, volatile stuff that requires a great deal more than a few brief inhalations to knock a person out.  In fact, it's hard to think of any substance that could produce the instant unconsciousness described here.

BIKES ARE FRIGGIN’ AWESOME

it’s summer, let’s all ride bikes, let’s all ride bikes forever

Ditch the like button

No, seriously. If you don’t have money to help out an artist financially, the second best thing is to reblog all the things you like. While liking it does tell the artist that “hey I really like this!” It does jack shit because the only ones who will see that are me and you.

Why do you think there are so SO many posts made by people that are literally summed down to “please reblog my artwork I need the notes!”? Because no one reblogs artwork. Unless you’re a ridiculously popular blog with thousands of followers, you’ll only end up getting 1 or no reblogs.

That’s not what’s happening here. Yahoo is running test advertising platforms to determine what users on tumblr will respond to the best. In case you haven’t noticed, there have been several versions of ads running across here recently, with increased turnover in regards to ads testing. This is tumblr and yahoo working to determine what we’ll respond to. 

The problem they’re facing is that, unlike platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where each post looks the same as the next post, tumblr posts have an almost infinite variety, due to the fact that this is essentially supposed to be the back end dashboard to our own completely customizable blogs/websites. 

(Truthfully, we probably were never meant to spend so much time on the back end, but that’s what tumblr has evolved into.)

So what that means is tumblr has a problem in that they need to get ads to us that people will respond to, and they need to do it in such a way that’s not assaulting to the end user (us). Yet, advertisers don’t want to have to create hyper-customized ads that will flow better on a platform like this. They want tumblr to create a template that they can fill in with their ad specs, and be done with it (we ad/marketing people are just as fucking lazy as everyone else).

So, what this ends up meaning for us is lots of ads we hate, and ads we won’t respond to, because we want tumblr to stay streamlined the way we like (see: all hate spewed at every update ever), and that can’t happen if yahoo wants to make money off of their gagillion-dollar deal. They will keep testing ad variations on us to figure out what works, which none of them will because every ad they integrate is seen as an ‘interruption’ by us. Oh, and it doesn’t help that tumblr users are some of the most viscous people in social media. You give us an ad that gets in our way, and we’ll tear you four new assholes. 

“Fawkes is easily the best follower, hands down.”

“You are music…”

[x]

Sure, it’s easy to find the Doctor in WWII London by scanning for him, but he visits there so often there’s no guarantee that you’re going to find the right Doctor. 

Likewise, if you’re scanning for alien tech during the Blitz, you’re going to turn up one or two surprises. First of all, you’re going to suddenly discover that the air everywhere is filled with nanogenes, thus solving the mystery of the gas mask people an episode and a half early, which is good news, because you don’t have to spend all that time hanging out with Rose and the Doctor, developing a moral compass and eventually getting killed and unkilled for the rest of your life! Pluswise, you’re also going to find daleks, Chronosteel, Spitfires with the potential for spaceflight and a robot who thinks he’s a man.