Vanishing Point

Another one is the verb "perceive" i.e. "don't perceive me" "I am perceiving" "I am being percieved." That's something that feels very specific to tumblr parlance.

There's the thing where people on tumblr have an emotional reaction to something and instead of, or in addition to telling you how they feel about it using emotion words, they will narrate a fictional action in the present progressive tense. "I am gnawing at the bars of my enclosure "I am kissing you on the mouth" "you are going into the soup" "you are getting all of the awards"

I once saw someone use that response format in ... I think it was a restaurant review, or a doordash review, or something like that. It was very unexpected seeing it outside of a tumblr post.

sadly my project is lost due to the website being wiped from the university database after graduation and my then laptop having a major hardware failure. backup your backups people! but the crux of the entire module was that the internet is full of communities using language not only as jargon for specific purpose but also to signal membership in said community. I even wrote a bit about non capitalisation and punctuation useage as a visual cue on tumblr and how including information in the reblog body or the tags indicated different levels of importance or intimacy of thought

My new travel poster for the dark side of the moon! I was inspired by the beautiful humanity the crew showed. If you peek in the window of the Orion capsule, a crew hug, the nations flags, Rise the g-force indicator, and the return home mission patch.

The darkness of space hides the text for these 13 quotes:

"We just went sci fi."

"To all of you down there on Earth… we love you, from the moon."

"Copy. Moon joy."

"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."

"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."

"It's a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll."

"Hey, let's go to the Moon! I think the nation and the world have been waiting a long time to do this again."

"In all of this emptiness… you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together… you're on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live."

"Canada, I am thinking of you, and I am hoping that all of you see your greatness reflected in this journey around the moon. I am just so proud of all of you."

"Nothing but gratitude for the men and women of this great nation. It is time to fly."

"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."

"If you've ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up."

We’re always imagining history as something far away, but

A black man and woman finally part of a crew.
Christina Koch wearing a braid.
Reid Wiseman naming the bright spot after his late wife.
Copy heart, copy bracelet thing.

you can read more about all this here:

I am very deep in my Yellowstone National Park/geyser hyperfixation, so today I am going to tell you a story about one of my favorite geyser basins.

It’s called Biscuit Basin, located not far from Old Faithful in Yellowstone’s Upper Geyser Basin.

It got its name from sinter deposits that looked like biscuits, found along the crater of one of the most stunning thermal features in the park – Sapphire Pool. (Most of the biscuits, sadly, were broken after an earthquake in 1959 caused the pool to erupt.)

(yes, those shadows are me and Real Life Romance Option being terribly cute and romantic about a thermal feature)

Biscuit is also home to some very spunky and personable geysers, Jewel (left) and Shell (right):

And some really fabulous bacterial mats:

However my favorite thermal feature is this gorgeous pool:

Or. Was.

...because in 2024 it blew up. You may have heard about it. If you haven’t, there is some incredible footage of it. No one was hurt in the explosion, thankfully, and it’s an awesome thing to see.

Now, here’s where it gets weird. For me.

The thermal feature that exploded is named Black Diamond Pool. There's just one problem. According to just about every map you can find of the basin, Black Diamond is located in the spot occupied by my favorite pool. But according to all my photographs over multiple visits, the placard for that feature stated it was Wall Pool:

I was…perplexed by this. That stretch of the boardwalk, which is immediately across a bridge from the parking lot, does contain multiple thermal features. Including Black Opal Spring, which is immediately to the right if you are standing on the boardwalk:

I always photograph placards when I shoot thermal features to keep my sanity, but on multiple trips shooting this basin, I never photographed a placard for Black Diamond Pool. Only Wall and Black Opal. But no article I could find even mentioned Wall Pool. So what the hell was happening?! What blew up?! The photos of Black Diamond post-explosion looked nothing like my gorgeous turquoise marvel. The indicator arrow of this map pointed at the far corner of the pool:

...which according to my photos was this feature:

A much smaller, moodier pool at the back of my favorite show stopper.

So… was that Black Diamond? Had it exploded and muddied my beloved Wall Pool? WHY WAS NO ONE MENTIONING ONE OF THE MOST GORGEOUS THERMAL POOLS IN YELLOWSTONE. I was going a little insane about it.

FINALLY. After much googling, asking tour guides, etc., I found this article by Janet Jones, who is now one of my favorite people and has no idea she has saved me from being gaslit by a thermal feature. Which includes a map of all three thermal features along that boardwalk:

And includes this observation:

“In 2011, the NPS workers inadvertently swapped the signs for Wall Pool and Black Diamond Pool, so some reports of eruptions that have come in since then may be listed as Wall Pool but were likely Black Diamond.”

THEY SWITCHED THE DAMN SIGNS. FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. AND NEVER SWITCHED THEM BACK.

All this time I have been in love with a pool by the wrong name.

Biscuit Basin has been closed since the July 2024 explosion, with no word on when/if it might be accessible to the public again. A web cam has been set up on the boardwalk along with monitoring equipment. Most recently, in December 2025, another minor eruption was observed and officially described by the USGS as “kablooey!”