Random

The programming on Voyager was so cutting edge when it was built. Learning about it was one of the most exciting days in undergrad.

Why were they burying barrels of cyanide? How and why would you even compile enough cyanide to fill multiple barrels???

I’m from Goldrush Country and I didn’t know this. All the gold-mining-related historical attractions around here are about good old-fashioned panning and pick-axes. Now I’m incredibly glad I’ve never had any urge to go explore the suspiciously colorful hills left in the wake of various mining operations.

Eek! Please don’t play in tailings piles and outflows folks, they are Bad News. “Oh but it’s lovely sand we want to take our ATVs out on it and let our kids build sandcastles” NO. DO NOT.

Reblogging because some desert-dwellers might not know this. Yes, those pretty hills are probably within ATV driving distance of Amargosa, Ocotillo, Buttercup, Superstition or whatever other recreational area you might be camped out at, but rainbow-colored dirt is usually rainbow-colored for toxic reasons!

Absolutely! And bear in mind too, not all tailings are brightly coloured - the ones in my area are just light grey. “Sand in spots where sand isn’t common” is sometimes the only warning sign.

I’m reviving this post because I’m doing up a Health & Safety protocol for digging near a mining site and folks. I did the math based on some recent soil tests. The tailings near my test site contain enough arsenic that ½ teaspoon of soil (tailings) easily contains a fatal dose of arsenic for an adult. Please stay safe and wash your hands thoroughly before eating/drinking/smoking if you aren’t 100% certain what the dirt is like where you’re digging.

And this is why we found a whole quart of mercury in my grandparent’s basement! Old timey prospectors would really just do shit.

[Image ID: Tumblr reply from highEmpressOfDirt reading: a different kind of Mine Sweeper /End ID]

By the way, this is the right way to change the color of brick. Paint traps moisture... Bricks are clay... Bricks that can't dry out when they get wet turn back into mud... Limewash doesn't trap moisture... Bricks dry out and stay bricky

never thought i’d be saying this as a nepali person but the rest of the world has a lot to learn from nepal when it comes to revolution lol

Stop just asking "is it normal?" and start asking "is it harming anyone?" Lots of harmful things are normalized in this society and lots of things considered weird or rare are completely harmless. Whether something is considered normal or common shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether it's okay

Like a lot of disabled and neurodivergent and mentally ill ways of living and expressing yourself are both not normal and not harming anyone and it's the last part we should focus our attention on

so you’re telling me that “stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni” would be like saying “wrote a G on his belt and called it gucci”

that’s…a pretty good analogy actually

Seeing my notifications get flooded with this every July 4th is the only thing I respect about America

Suzanne Collin’s just said fuck you to everyone who’s ever critiqued the Hunger Games as being a “teen girl saves the day” story. She said oh, Mockingjay didn’t make it clear enough? Here’s a book about how people have been rebelling for decades only to have their efforts suppressed and propagandized. Rebellion takes time and it takes failure and Katniss may have been the spark that ignited the wildfire but she did so standing atop the doused flames of everyone who came before her.