Dick Pistons of Wonder

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

You have to rest in your own desire to create.

But, because I see statements like this turn into a sort of general notion of “it’s bad to want validation or attention or engagement”, and to me, that’s not what this means.

It’s perfectly valid to want people to like and engage with what you create. In a general sense, when you create anything, you do it to share with other human beings. Art, craft, food, anything you create is a way to connect with others through our shared humanity.

And wanting someone to like you fanart or read your fanfic is part of that.

Every single person on this planet thinks about dark and taboo things. It's literally the most normal thing in the world.

But here are the facts Wikipedia can tell you:

From the 1600s to the 1800s, Europeans saw and sometimes obtained cats with very long and silky hair that were said to come from somewhere in the Levant/Middle East/Central Asia. Possibly Persia or Khorasan

Khorasan is a region divided by Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. It seems to have some relationship with cats with long silky hair.

As the British colonized India, reports of these cats and how they were even imported into northern India from Afghanistan became more and more frequent.

In London in 1871, the Crystal Palace hosted the first known cat show.

Cats, I hasten to point out, didn't really have "breeds" the way we see them in dogs, horses, or cows. Humans didn't play a huge role in choosing which cats would breed with which in their history. It is, in fact, significantly harder to prevent cats from fucking whoever they damn well want to. Most major differences between cats before the late 19th century were caused by geographic barriers that placed natural limitations on the pool of available feline fuckbuddies. But this was a time when humans had cracked evolution and Mendelian genetics and we were breeding cows and pigs and tea roses of gargantuan size, and apparently we looked at cats and thought, "Why not them too?"

So, 1871. Cats of unparalleled regal fluffiness and an exotic origin story. This was also when Siamese cats made their public début, but the colourpoint/acromelanism gene of Southeast Asia was genuinely unique and rare in Europe. You really did need imported breeding stock for Siamese cats.

But these days we have DNA and can compare relatedness between breeds and feral cat populations, and modern pedigreed Persian cats do not show much genetic interrelatedness with cats from Central Asia, but they are very interrelated with... the British Shorthair. And feral cats of Western Europe.

So I'm not saying everyone in 1871 was out in rural Shropshire hunting farmyards and barns for the fluffiest kitten known to man to win the next year's cat show with, but like... look me in the eye and say that isn't what happened. I dare you.

Persians in the West, being one of the oldest cat breeds, have had a lot of time to develop some really stellar inbred traits like the smashed-in face beloved of the 1950s that makes it hard for them to groom themselves, breathe easily, or make their teeth match without a massive underbite. Breeders are now trying to breed away to a healthier "doll-faced" standard, but they're not winning huge popularity prizes.

Meanwhile, in India... you still have a ton of completely majestic cats descended from the ones that kicked off the Persian craze in the first place. Perhaps actually from Persia, or at least Khorasan. None of whom count as "real Persians" because they didn't get named Wiggles McSnugglebutt III by a woman in Berkshire before being exported to India.

Except you actually do have a fair number of purebred western-style Persians, except hold the Persian part of their ancestry, brought to India and sold for huge amounts of money to win Western-style cat shows.

All of which to say: What the fuck???

So every couple weeks someone from India posts their beautiful fluffy "Persian" cat to the cat breeds forum and gets completely dogpiled because they don't have a documented pedigree and a fucked-up face for their pains, and I'm left struggling in an attempt to communicate that their cat (like every cat) is special and wonderful and also cat breeds are incredibly weird.

(I'm not very good with geography. I should practice more with learning geography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification

Oh, except I didn't leave on the listing for gray. Gray on this climate map is "Polar/Tundra". That's the beginning of the whole Tibetan Plateau just on the map's right edge. So within the map, the big purple swath in Afghanistan comes from the Hindu Kush, which you may not have heard of because it's like Jesus's kid brother in terms of mountains. It doesn't have any of the 14 eight-thousanders, the biggest mountains in the world, the way its next-door neighbour, the Karakoram range does. Though the Karakoram range is the kid brother of its neighbour, the Himalayas, so at least it doesn't get much joy out of the matter.

The Hindu Kush is still plenty high, though. On any other continent, it'd be a total stunner. So in this area you do have hot deserts, but you also have towering mountains packed with snow, and many sub-climates in between them. And overtop everything, a constant aridity and the lack of nearby oceans to stop the temperature from plummeting at night.

https://wheelofnames.com/kch-gkt

this is a really really cool idea! Thanks!!!

You can't do this for a week!

* yes, my phone has both a case and protector

* my phone has a case but not a protector

* my phone has a protector but not a case

* no, my phone doesn’t have a case or protector

* I don’t have a phone

* it’s complicated

* see results

To start off, some facts:

-White wine is made from sweet pulp inside of the grape (minus the seeds).

-Red wine is made from both the skin and the grape (and the seeds and stems…sometimes? Can’t remember).

-Tannin is the substance found in red wines, coffee, dark chocolate. Tannins are responsible for the bitter taste in those foods.

-Tannins are found in the skin of the grape, as well as the seeds and the stems. Therefore, most red wines will have tannins, versus most whites will not have tannins.

-Red wines vary in level of tannins, depending on variety of grape, climate, and fermentation process. Pinot noir tends to be very low tannin. Shiraz/Syrah, choice of poison for our beloved brunette surgeon, is very heavy on the tannins.

-Some white wines (most commonly Chardonnay) are aged in oak barrels instead of metal containers. Oak barrels have tannins, which seeps into the wine during the fermentation process. That’s why Chardonnays tend to be “drier” aka it has tannins.

-White wines like Sauvingnon Blancs are usually fermented in steel barrels (aka no tannins. Aka usually very fruity and light and sweet).

Your ability to taste tannins is genetic.

There is a genetic marker determining whether your taste cells are sensitive to tannins.

Basically two people can drink the exact same wine and have wildly different reactions because: 1. Person A can’t taste tannins, so they taste the actual wine flavor. 2. Person B can taste tannins, and that tends to overpower ALL the other flavors in the wine. Basically all they taste is tannins and none of the wine.

I am super tannin sensitive, so if I drink a wine like Cabernet Sauvignon (very tannin heavy, aka “very dry”, it tastes like bitter ethanol alcohol to me, whereas my best friend can’t taste tannins so the same wine is maybe a little bitter but they can actually taste the grape and different flavors. To her, a wine like Sauv Blanc is too sweet, tastes like sugar water. But to me it tastes good.

So unless it’s the taste of the alcohol or all wines you hate, chances are you might hate the taste of red wine, especially the heavier red wines, because taste the tannin overpowers everything else. And all you taste is bitter bitter ethanol bitter more ethanol. 

More tannin info: -Tannins bind to fat.

-This is why tannin heavy wines are recommended with fatty foods (Shiraz and steak). Whenever you eat food with high fat content, the fat builds up on your tongue. A sip of red wine will bind with the fat on your tongue and clear it away. That’s why the sip of wine between bites of fat heavy foods is considered a palate cleanser.

-By that logic, this is why white wines are recommended with low fat foods, like fish. Salmon is fattier than most fish, which is why Chardonnay (tannin heavy white wine) or Pinot Noir (low tannin red wine) is recommended with salmon.

-People who are sensitive to tannins can drink tannin heavy red wines with fatty food and generally the wine won’t taste gross. The fat on your tongue (from that steak) will bind with the tannin and neutralize the tannin taste. Aka the only time I ever drink Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz is with a steak or heavy, creamy pasta. Aka never bc I don’t often eat either.

-The reason dairy helps coffee taste better is because the fat in milk/creams binds with the tannins in coffee and neutralizes the bitter taste. This is why people who can’t taste tannins can generally drink coffee black without milk (sugar is a different story). It’s also why almond milk in coffee is the worst idea (almond milk is already bitter and has no fat).

More wine facts: -90% of the “aromas” of wine are marketing BS

-You know the labels that say like “cherry with a hint of blackberry?” There’s no real way to infuse cherry or blackberry into grape wine without screwing with the fermentation process. It’s all created by the wine marketing industry to sell you win. Sometimes if you smell cherry before you drink the wine, you might taste it in the wine (because majority of flavor comes from smell). Or if you think there is cherry flavor in the wine, your brain can trick your taste buds into tasting it.

-The only true flavors found in real grape wine are grapes (obviously), oak/earthy flavor (the barrels), vanilla (barrels, oak sticks), tannins. (There are a few others but can’t remember. I think maybe cinnamon?).

-People’s perception of wine often affect how good it tastes to them. Social psychology studies show that people will rate the exact same wine differently if they’re told the wines are different in price. (They rated the more expensive wine as tastier).

(Side note: if you do order a white wine that’s too dry for you, order an accompanying shot of Saint Germaine or other elderflower liqueur and mix it with your wine little by little until you like the balance. This will boost the alcohol content a bunch, so be careful, but it will also sweeten the wine and add a pleasantly floral, fruity overtone. I did this for a friend of mine who only drinks dessert wines when she stopped by unexpectedly and all I had on hand was super dry stuff.)

For a truly sweet wine, look for an ice wine or a moscato - these are wines that actively taste sugary. A riesling or a gewürztraminer will not taste sugary, but neither is it likely to be bitterly dry - riesling is the sweeter of the two and the safer bet for sweet; gewürztraminers are “complex” wines in that they can range from dry to off-dry to sweet depending on preparation. They tend to have a lot going on, flavor-wise, at least in my experience.