Umbriss

CFR Title 14, Chapter II, Subchapter D, Part 382, Subpart E, Section 382.67, Subsection (e)

“As a carrier, you must never request or suggest that a passenger not stow his or her wheelchair in the cabin to accommodate other passengers (e.g., informing a passenger that stowing his or her wheelchair in the cabin will require other passengers to be removed from the flight), or for any other non-safety related reason (e.g., that it is easier for the carrier if the wheelchair is stowed in the cargo compartment).”

Source

Now that you know, speak up.

and in case you dont know who this atrocity against humanity is and what hes done (tw for uh. A Lot Of Things):

this one’s a few days late due to having a lot of doctors appointments sorry it’s  just 9 pages, and about some rats… it’s more symbolic than anything really

isn’t he beautiful

listen to the SOUND when he bites

He is NOT, however, either the largest crocodile ever captured in Australia OR the largest ever in captivity.

A slightly larger crocodile has been reported (though not yet comfirmed) to have been captured at 5.58 meters.

And while the famous Brutus of the Adelaide River was estimated to be just slightly larger than Cassius at 5.5m, he was driven out of his territory by a younger and even larger crocodile, who as a result has been given the name, The Dominator.  He is estimated to be just over 6m.

This is Brutus, with an appropriate caption:

It is believed that he lost that arm in a fight with a Bull Shark.  

The Bull Shark lost.

THIS is the crocodile who kicked him out.  The Dominator:

And that’s STILL not the biggest.  

The largest living crocodile ever reliably measured was Lolong, who for the 1.5 years between his capture and his death was the largest crocodile ever held in captivity, at a whopping 6.17 meters (20 feet 3 inches) and 1075 kg (2,370 lbs).  He had been feeding on both humans and very large livestock in the Bunawan creek in Agusan del Sur in the Philippines.  It took 100 people all night to drag him to shore during his capture.

And here’s why:

Since then Brutus developed a habit of hunting and eating Bull Sharks.

Here’s him with a prey.

And if you thought that you’ll be safe if you just stay out of Australia then think again!

Meet Gustave the Nile Croc.

This crocodile became almost legendary for both it’s size and the habit of hunting both livestock AND humans.

So how big is Gustave?

No one is sure. Since he was NEVER captured.

His estimated size is of at least 5,5m  but some give him over 6m.

The terrifying parts are:

1) He is still growing having only about 60 years.

2) Adult crocodiles often perform a gesture of submission to him - something usually done by young crocodiles toward adults - Gustave is just THAT BIG.

3) His sheer size makes it difficult for him to catch agile prey Nile crocs tend to feed on - hence why he developed a habit of hunting either larger prey like Hippopotamus or creatures which are not good at spotting danger in the first place like livestock and humans.

And this is NOT ALL.

Gustave actually has a noticeable scars on his body - he was shot at east 3 times and stabbed with a spear or something similar at one occasion.

He lived to tell the tale - my question is:

What happened to that one dude who attacked Gustave with a spear?

THIS is Gustave:

And he is the PERFECT CROCODILE.  He is the perfect example of what I mean when I talk about (as I do) how the morphology of extremely large crocodiles adapts to the changing physics of their bite.

This is a typical adult Nile Crocodile:

And THIS is a god among his kind:

This is it, folks.  The Final Form.  THIS is what peak performance looks like.

Crocodiles and physics have an interesting relationship.  Crocodiles have, by a CONSIDERABLE MARGIN, the strongest bite of any animal on Earth.  EVER.  Scaled up estimates (based on Nile and Saltwater crocodiles) give the extinct Deinosuchus an estimated bite force MORE THAN DOUBLE the recently updated Tyrannosaurus bite estimates.  Living crocodiles have bite forces measured in the range of 5000 pounds per square inch, for an individual around 15-16 feet.  It is estimated that modern crocodiles in the range of 18-20 feet would have bit forces around 7-8000 psi or more.

That’s a problem.

Because a crocodile’s skull is only designed to handle so much pressure.  Go beyond that limit and the force of impact when those jaws snap shut could literally shatter their own skulls.

But evolution has spent hundreds of millions of years perfecting crocodiles, so PHYSICS ISN’T GOING TO STOP THEM.  What ends up happening in the skulls of these extremely large crocodiles is they will increase dramatically in mass to compensate for the increased forces.  A crocodile’s skull is almost exclusively solid bone, with only minimal space for nasal passages, a surprisingly advanced brain, and some slightly porous looking framework that helps the bone distribute the force over a larger area.  The effect is by far the most pronounced in Nile crocodiles, which most regularly feed on larger prey and need to make use of all that power.

Compare, 26 inch skull:

vs 29 inch skull:

Both of those are Nile crocodile skulls (or rather, replicas thereof).

And just for fun, here are the skulls of completely different (and very extinct species), Deinosuchus:

and Purussaurus:

The bigger the crocodile (within a given species), the more massive the skull needs to be to compensate for that UNBELIEVABLE bit pressure.  This is one way to see from a distance whether you are looking at a normal sized crocodile:

and a truly extraordinary individual:

One of the things about Gustave that’s so impressive is how healthy his teeth look.  A lot of large crocodiles, in their old age, have very worn down and often missing teeth.  They do replace them many times over a lifetime, but when they get very old this slows down.  Gustave, at least in every picture taken of him, had teeth that were in very good condition.

Even crocodiles much smaller than Gustave’s reported size (probably similar in size to Dominator or Lolong) tend to have smaller or more worn teeth:

than the pinnacle of his kind:

Many years and a lot of better fossil material later, this is a better example of a Deinosuchus skull, specifically D. rugosus (from Schwimmer, 2002)

And a more generic, non-species-specific Deinosuchus skull for scale, courtesy of Gaston Design:

(You know you can buy this from them? I mean it’s crazy expensive, of course, but still!)

Also, to dispel any potential rumours, according to palaeontologist Mark Witton, common length estimates of 10 metres for D. rugosus are inaccurate, with a more likely size being no more than 8 metres, which is still FUCKING big. However! There is a second, if much rarer species, Deinosuchus riograndensis, which could have reached 9 metres, and that would have been a sight to behold. Also, the common rumour that Deinosuchus preyed on dinosaurs is not… entirely true. There is evidence that it occasionally ate dinosaurs (though whether that was through active predation or scavenging is unknown), there is far more evidence to suggest it mainly hunted sea turtles, given that many fossils of Cretaceous turtles have been found with Deinosuchus-like bite marks, not to mention that Deinosuchus’s exceptional bite force is far more suited to getting through the bony shells of turtles than the hollow, relatively delicate bones of dinosaurs, which would not require such… excess.

One more thing, Deinosuchus riograndensis, in all its 9-metre glory, is not the largest known crocodilian. That title belongs to the aforementioned giant caiman, Purussaurus brasiliensis, at 10 goddamn metres long.

(Credit to randomdinos over at DeviantArt for this one)

LONG

MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

< Sends her these pics

The fatality rate of attempted suicide with a firearm is 82.5%. 

All six of those people were complete flukes. They’re outliers. We haven’t been able to figure out how to recreate whatever the hell it was that saved them and not anyone else. If you are exposed to rabies, and don’t immediately receive intensive post-exposure treatment, you die. Not “probably” die, not “it’s as good as a death sentence”. You are dead. There is no remote fractional percentage of a chance that you will not die. It’s terrifying and painful and ugly. It’s not a way anyone in this world deserves to die.

If you’re not sure whether something was rabies exposure, go to the fucking hospital to be sure, because by the time rabies symptoms begin to manifest, treatment is no longer an option. By the time you suspect you have rabies, it is far, far too late. By the time you start showing symptoms, there’s…nothing that anyone can do anymore.

At that point, the only option is called the Milwaukee Protocol, which, again….we’ve NEVER created an effective, reliable way of treating rabies once it manifests. In practice, it mostly consists of putting you in a medically induced coma–not in any real hope of saving your life, but to spare you the pain of feeling what happens to you while you die of rabies.

I genuinely have no idea to what extent rabies has become an actual joke on the internet or if it’s just that one guy who so help me god had better be some kind of satire, but…rabies is fucking terrifying. “Possible rabies exposure” is one of the scariest phrases I can think of.

ok so you probably know that pearl’s outfit in octo expansion is based on the notorious b.i.g. aka biggie smalls

what you probably dont know is that pearl’s full name in japanese is “houzuki hime”. houzuki comes from “daio houzuki ika”, which is the colossal squid. hime comes from “hime ika”, the northern pygmy squid. 

this started as a doodle but i havent done any finished pieces in a hot min so…!!!! 

inspired by these posts (i know the originals are twitter but its easier to format a snapchat lol)

off the hook and squid sisters posters are official art from their concerts and the “bitch please i’m a princess” phone case was just something from aliexpress

Not cots in homeless shelters. Not beds in domestic violence shelters. Real, actual, permanent housing, with a door they can lock and the freedom to come and go as they please. 

It seems like a stupidly simple solution to an incredibly complicated problem, but this is the only way we’re ever going to end homelessness for good. Everything we’re doing right now is like flinging thimbles of water onto a house fire, and it’s time to call the fire department. Don’t believe me? Consider that:

Providing free housing is actually cheaper than what we’re doing right now. Even when you factor in the cost of having round-the-clock mental health staff on hand in housing facilities, giving the homeless housing costs about one-third as much as leaving them on the streets. How is that possible? People who sleep on the streets go to the hospital a whole lot more than anyone else. Being homeless is hard on your health - you are more likely to be assaulted, experience frostbite or heatstroke, or fail to manage a medical condition like diabetes. Homeless people are also more likely to get arrested for minor things like public urination or loitering, and it’s hugely expensive to arrest them, process them, put them in prison and put them through court dates. We save so much money and eliminate so many problems by just giving them somewhere to live. 

It’s extremely difficult to get a job when you don’t have an address. There’s a huge amount of prejudice against homeless people, and the same people who shout “get a job!” are the first to toss someone’s application in the trash as soon as they see “no fixed address”. Having an address also makes it easier to vote, open a bank account, keep up with your taxes and obey the terms of your probation. 

Homeless people waste a lot of time standing in line for shelters and services. Shelters have limited space available, and if you want to make sure you have a bed for the night, you need to be there long before the doors open. The same thing applies to soup kitchens. When your whole life revolves around being in line for vital services for hours on end, it’s hard to make much progress in getting your life together. Providing people with housing gives them more time and more flexibility to return to school, find jobs, or reconnect with family. 

It’s virtually impossible to manage a mental health condition or recover from addiction when you have no permanent housing. It’s just not going to happen. Recovering from a mental health issue requires stability, routine and a safe place to retreat to, which are impossible when you live on the streets. Living rough makes it extremely difficult to show up to appointments, hang on to your prescription medications and avoid trauma. It’s more efficient for everyone involved to provide housing to the mentally ill first, and bring mental health services right to their doors. 

It’s hard to make much progress in life when you can’t accumulate possessions. Think about how hard your life would be if you had no safe place to store your things. When you’re homeless and sleeping in shelters, you can only keep as much stuff as you can carry with you, and most of your energy is going to go towards keeping that stuff safe. You can’t take advantage of clothing drives, because you can’t carry too many clothes. You eat a lot of fast food, because you have nowhere to store or prepare groceries. Showing up to appointments, interviews or shifts is difficult, because you have to lug everything you own with you to ensure nothing is stolen. Having a room with a lock changes everything. 

It keeps children out of the foster system. Ending up on the streets often means losing your children - if you can’t provide children with a stable home, that’s grounds to take them away. Families fleeing domestic violence can find themselves re-traumatized when children are placed in foster care due to inadequate housing. Providing stable housing allows families to stay together and minimizes trauma for children and parents, as well as foster care costs. 

It preserves basic human dignity. It’s hard for most of us to imagine how humiliating and dehumanizing it is to be homeless. Imagine not having access to regular showers, or even toilets. Having nowhere to clean your laundry. Having your schedule dictated by a homeless shelter. Sleeping in rooms with dozens or hundreds of other people, with absolutely no privacy. Being chased out of businesses and public places. Enduring the crushing boredom of having nowhere to go. Being treated as less than human. It’s impossible to maintain hope and dignity in those conditions, and no human being should have to endure that.