Let's Learn Together!

Kate’s Masterlist here!

It started small, practically unnoticeable.

“Where are my keys?” Maddie Fenton growled under her breath, searching the kitchen counter. Jack had misplaced them, again, and there was only an hour before the local hardware store closed.

“On the floor underneath the left side of the coffee table.” Danny’s response was instantaneous, he didn’t even look up from his homework.

She gave her son a questioning look when he looked up, eyes wide in surprise himself. There was silence between them, until she moved out of the kitchen.

Sure enough, they were right where Danny had said.

Sometimes, in fandom, we just want to write id-tastic fic that rolls around in tropes that might be viewed as problematic. But we don’t want to address the problematic side of things in this particular fanwork; we just want to roll around and wallow.

It is considered courteous to give readers a heads-up via use of AO3 tags. I propose a tag that signals that a given fanwork is for rolling around, not giving a measured evaluation of anything. The MCU has carved out a space for this sort of fic with the “HYDRA Trash Party” tag, for which I commend them. Trash Party is a bit too specific to cover all of the ground I’m thinking of here, though; I propose “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.”

For those of you not familiar with Arrested Development, Michael Bluth finds a paper bag in the freezer labeled “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.” He opens the bag, finds a dead dove, and reacts as follows:

[gif of a white man saying “I don’t know what I expected” in a deadpan manner]

The “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag would essentially be a “what it says on the tin” metatag, indicating “you see the tropes and concepts tagged here? they are going to appear in this fic. exactly as said. there will not necessarily be any subversion, authorial commentary condemning problematic aspects, or meditation on potential harm. this fic contains dead dove. if you proceed, you should expect to encounter it.”

To everyone that's confused, the planet Venus rotates very very slowly, with a single revolution taking about 243 Earth days, and Mercury rotates slowly, but not as slow as Venus.

We can agree that nebulae are some of the most majestic-looking objects in the universe. But what are they exactly? Nebulae are giant clouds of gas and dust in space. They’re commonly associated with two parts of the life cycle of stars: First, they can be nurseries forming new baby stars. Second, expanding clouds of gas and dust can mark where stars have died.

Not all nebulae are alike, and their different appearances tell us what's happening around them. Since not all nebulae emit light of their own, there are different ways that the clouds of gas and dust reveal themselves. Some nebulae scatter the light of stars hiding in or near them. These are called reflection nebulae and are a bit like seeing a street lamp illuminate the fog around it.

In another type, called emission nebulae, stars heat up the clouds of gas, whose chemicals respond by glowing in different colors. Think of it like a neon sign hanging in a shop window!

Finally there are nebulae with dust so thick that we’re unable to see the visible light from young stars shine through it. These are called dark nebulae.

Our missions help us see nebulae and identify the different elements that oftentimes light them up.

The Hubble Space Telescope is able to observe the cosmos in multiple wavelengths of light, ranging from ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared. Hubble peered at the iconic Eagle Nebula in visible and infrared light, revealing these grand spires of dust and countless stars within and around them.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory studies the universe in X-ray light! The spacecraft is helping scientists see features within nebulae that might otherwise be hidden by gas and dust when viewed in longer wavelengths like visible and infrared light. In the Crab Nebula, Chandra sees high-energy X-rays from a pulsar (a type of rapidly spinning neutron star, which is the crushed, city-sized core of a star that exploded as a supernova).

The James Webb Space Telescope will primarily observe the infrared universe. With Webb, scientists will peer deep into clouds of dust and gas to study how stars and planetary systems form.

The Spitzer Space Telescope studied the cosmos for over 16 years before retiring in 2020. With the help of its detectors, Spitzer revealed unknown materials hiding in nebulae — like oddly-shaped molecules and soot-like materials, which were found in the California Nebula.

Studying nebulae helps scientists understand the life cycle of stars. Did you know our Sun got its start in a stellar nursery? Over 4.5 billion years ago, some gas and dust in a nebula clumped together due to gravity, and a baby Sun was born. The process to form a baby star itself can take a million years or more!

After billions more years, our Sun will eventually puff into a huge red giant star before leaving behind a beautiful planetary nebula (so-called because astronomers looking through early telescopes thought they resembled planets), along with a small, dense object called a white dwarf that will cool down very slowly. In fact, we don’t think the universe is old enough yet for any white dwarfs to have cooled down completely.

Since the Sun will live so much longer than us, scientists can't observe its whole life cycle directly ... but they can study tons of other stars and nebulae at different phases of their lives and draw conclusions about where our Sun came from and where it's headed. While studying nebulae, we’re seeing the past, present, and future of our Sun and trillions of others like it in the cosmos.

To keep up with the most recent cosmic news, follow NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

Adjective

[ lim-uh-nl, lahy-muh- ]

1. of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold: barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response.

2. of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition.

Origin: When liminal first appeared in written use, it referred to something (such as a physical stimulus) which was just barely perceptible, or just barely capable of eliciting a response. This meaning is still in use today in constructions like “liminal auditory stimuli.” The word comes from the noun limen, which refers to the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced. In its most common extended meaning now, it describes a state, place, or condition of transition, as in “the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness.” The closely related word subliminal means “below a threshold”; it can describe something inadequate to produce a sensation or something operating below a threshold of consciousness.

1880–85; <Latin līmin- (stem of līmen) threshold + -al1

My sister, who I live with, thought she couldn't get the vaccine because she doesn't have insurance.

Okay I woke up and heard about Tumblr+ and was not happy :(

So I wrote up this thing in like 3 hours with some crappy art and stuff just to get my thoughts out there of some way @staff can actually get some money without using @postplus,​ as everyone hates it.

If you have some ideas of your own or wanna draw some cursed pins you’d use go ahead!

I am no website engineer so I have no idea how hard this would be to code, so I do doubt whether this would actually be viable. However this is a cool thought experiment and a nice example to @staff​ of what kind of monetization could be implemented which I would be happy to engage in.

I did try and think of the most viable way of making these work without completely rewriting the site but I can’t be sure.

There’s a strike being organised so I encorage you to parcitipate if you’re concerned about this >> https://postplus-protest.tumblr.com/post/657433316725833728/ <<

Also this whole tumblr+ may have been the upper managements fault? I’m not going to completely trust the article however I will take it on in good faith and hope all this backlash causes them to reconsider >> https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-session_f1b2b78b-00a1-435d-a695-4dce9b8a1e02 <<

For anyone worried about giving their cards to tumblr (as they probably should be). I’d say that you could use paypal or a Virtual Debit Card Services so you avoid the chance of your credit info being leaked

Anyway thanks for commenting and reblogging my post. I’ve read all the comments and it makes me very happy that so many people are willing to support tumblr, as long as they do it right :)