“I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it.”— J.D. Salinger
9:38 pm 1,481 notes
People on this website be like I am so silly and cute 🥰💞😊 humans were put on this earth to sing songs and eat soup 🥰✨️💖💖 and then they go and literally cheer for reactionary religious terrorist organizations committing war crimes.
11:29 pm 265 notes
“I dare say there still exist longstanding practitioners of any number of occupations, whose main body of activity involves tactile, holistic, time-bound knowledge of this kind. What such experts know, and how they know it, is nigh-on impossible to convey in recipes or formulas. Because of this, it’s generally taught via apprenticeships rather than books. And it’s a kind of knowledge that can be temporarily eclipsed by machines, or by chemicals — but only at a price. Its analogue in human knowledge is the world of touch, practice, faith, good judgement, intuition and dreams. In the name of time-saving, that domain has now been almost completely displaced from food, from farming, and from the educational and professional experiences on offer to children and young people. Our need for it hasn’t been eliminated, though, just deferred — and the costs are increasingly evident.”— Mary Harrington, The curse of sliced bread
2:17 am 10 notes
Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor, giving you the thing you always wanted at the worst time possible.
Lisa Kleypas
1:32 am 10,664 notes
Before we get into black holes, there are a few myths about them that deserve to be addressed.
First off, they don’t “suck stuff in.” They exert gravity on objects the same as anything else with mass. In fact, if our sun were to be magically replaced, instantly, with a black hole of equal mass, our orbit around it wouldn’t change at all!
Second, that they’re black because their gravitational pull is so large that not even light can escape. This one’s more complicated. Around the singularity, there is a region of space where an observer cannot see “in”, which is called the event horizon. If you’re curious, this region’s size is defined by the black hole’s “Schwarzchild Radius” (Rs), which is defined by the equation Rs = 2GM / (c^2) where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the black hole, and c is the speed of light.
In simple terms, let’s say we send an astronaut into the black hole. As they approach the event horizon, they experience time passing normally. From their perspective, they fall toward the black hole, through the event horizon, and observe whatever is happening beyond it. But from our perspective as an observer, the astronaut appears to slow down. Gravity affects spacetime, and the farther down a gravity well one goes, the slower time moves. This is actually something that GPS satellites need to account for, because this difference is observably present even for Earth’s gravity!
So as observers, the astronaut’s progress continues to slow as they approach the event horizon, to the point that their progress appears to just stop when they arrive at the edge of it. This is where the astronaut will appear to be, forever…if we could still see them. Light is also affected: it appears to slow down too and its frequency decreases. This decrease of its frequency is called redshift, and as the light approaches the event horizon it redshifts out of observable wavelengths. So the astronaut, and the light with which we’d observe them, disappear without ever passing the event horizon from our perspective as observers. Remember, from the astronaut’s perspective they’re moving as normal and they pass through the event horizon just fine. So while, yes light can’t escape the event horizon, we’d never see it pass into it in the first place, and that’s why black holes appear black.
The last misconception, which I’m guilty of spreading in my last post, is that all black holes are infinitely dense. This is true in some cases, but supermassive black holes can actually have very low density! When I can find a satisfying answer as to why, I will be sure to share it lol.
This has become another one of my Very Long Posts, so if you would rather absorb this information in video or audio format, PBS Space Time has an excellent video here which I found very helpful in my understanding. All the material I’ve covered in this post is in this video, actually.
(via vulpecuia)
12:49 am 1,315 notes
‘When night fell, I listened to the songs that the moon and stars were singing and I sang with them. The world feels complete and whole, and I, its child, fit into it seamlessly.’
— Susanna Clarke, from Piranesi.
3:42 am 322 notes
remember when you were 10 and you would hang out with your friends in order to Look At The Computer together like you went to their house and experienced the information superhighway together. and then leave
(via kittenbebe)
1:12 am 324,500 notes
sometimes i think abt how if a man from 1942 saw me vaping on my little e-cigarette he would think i looked impossibly futuristic and also like a haunting allegory for humanity’s progressive alienation from itself by technology. “where’s the smoke? the fire? where’s all the goddamned romance?” he’d demand, impassioned
(via orpheuslament)
1:11 am 14,579 notes
summers like. you will feel a loneliness so profound youll fear it has no end but also sometimes God will place their cooling hand on yr forehead & you will feel held for the first time
11:35 am 13,958 notes
I’ve been personally attacked when the Depressed Barbie comes on the screen and the tagline says “she watches Pride & Prejudice BBC 7 times a day”
1:27 am 1,975 notes
100 good questions to ask your friends at 4:02 am when you can’t sleep (can also function as an asks list)
- Are you bothered by your cosmic insignificance?
- Do you mourn for a place or person you’ve never known?
- Do you really think there is somebody for everybody?
- Do you place any value in gender roles?
- Do you have to be related to be family?
- Are your platonic relationships just as valuable as romantic or family ones?
- Are you in love? Do you want to be?
- Do you think you can put love into categories (family, platonic, romantic, etc.) or is it just one general sensation?
- Would you be happy with a life without romance?
- Are you always going to be a little in love with somebody?
- Would you change your appearance if you could?
- Do you have the feeling you’ve lost something you might have had in another life - whether it be a person, a place, a world, a language, etc.?
- Do you believe in reincarnation?
- Would you want to be reincarnated?
- Do you think you’re special, or just another person amongst billions? Can you be both?
- Do theoretical ethical debates have any value? Is it important people discuss ethical dilemmas, e.g. the trolley problem?
- Did you have imaginary friends? Do you still have them?
- Are you religious? Do you think your religion is ‘correct’?
- If you aren’t religious, do you wish you were? Why?
- Do you want a grand adventure?
- Do you have somebody, whether it be a friend or stranger, who you think you could have loved if the circumstances were different?
- How long does it take you to fall in love with somebody?Is the sensation of ‘falling in love’ or ‘being in love’ better?
- Is love about convenience or something more? Can it be about both?
- Do you think you really understand your gender and sexuality?
- How fluid is your concept of gender and sexuality?
- What’s the most life-changing choice you’ve made so far?
- Are you afraid of growing old?
- Would you want to live forever? How about for a billion years, a million, a millennium, a century?
- Do you believe in some form of god/s?
- Are your choices fated or of your own free will?
- Do you have a hunch about how you’re going to die?
- Do you believe in star signs?
- How old do you have to be to be considered an adult?
- Was your childhood happy?
- What are you missing from your life?
- Have you ever met someone who had a very similar personality to your own? Did you get along?
- Do opposites attract?
- Is your life what you expected it would be five years ago?
- Do you know what you want out of life?
- What makes a person ‘good’? Are you a ‘good person’?
- What fundamentally matters do you?
- Is freewill an illusion?
- Do you create art? How do you define art?
- How often do you lie? Is all lying inherently bad? Are you generally truthful?
- Do you want to be remembered after your death? What for?
- Is true world peace ever possible?
- Do you have to suffer to truly understand the human condition? What is the human condition? How can you really experience it?
- Are you free? Will you ever be? Can anyone be truly free?
- Do you hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others?
- What do you expect from a friend or partner?
- What question could you ask to find out the most about a person?
- Do you justify all your beliefs or have you just inherited/absorbed some?
- Which beliefs do you have that is most likely to be wrong?
- Can human really understand the complete nature of the universe, space and time?
- Is a conscious what makes someone a person?
- What do you think about artificial intelligence?
- Do you thinks humans are obsessed with escapism (books, video games, movies, etc.)? Are you looking for an escape? Do you think that’s a bad thing?
- Are we eventually going to ‘run out’ of new combinations for music, art, language, etc.? Is there a limit to human creativity?
- What do you think the next era of music will be like?
- What do you think the next era of fashion will be like?
- Do we live in tumultuous times, or do they just seem so strange because we’re living in them?
- Would you want to meet a clone of yourself? Would you like them?
- How confident are you, really?
- How consistent is your perception of time?
- What age should people be allowed to vote? Should children and teenagers be allowed to vote?
- How do you feel about the idea ‘an eye for an eye’?
- What’s the worse thing a person can be?
- How do you feel about monogamy?
- Can you be in love with someone and still fall in love with someone else?
- What’s the tragedy of your life?
- Would your life make a good play?
- Should people be prosecuted for crimes that weren’t considered crimes at the time?
- Would you fight for your country? Do you feel a sense of loyalty to your nation?
- Do you believe in gender equality in every aspect?
- Do we have a moral obligation to care for others? To what extent?
- Do you crave approval and/or praise?
- Is there comedy in all tragedy and tragedy in all comedy?
- Are you ever going to be satisfied?
- When you are sad, do you listen to music that conveys your emotions or music that makes you happy?
- Is your music organised by mood or sensation or do you just listen to everything at any time?
- Would you marry a friend if they needed you to (e.g. for citizenship)?
- Are you a deep person?
- Given the chance to live your life on Mars, with no hope of returning to Earth but with the promise of scientific discovery and glory, would you take it?
- Are you who people think you are?
- Do you think you would be happier if you had been born a different gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality or religion?
- What’s your toxic trait? Are you trying to improve yourself and fix it?
- Do you anger easily?
- Are you a jealous person?
- If you lost all your memories, would you have the same personality?
- Given the chance to reset your life (with none of the knowledge you currently have), would you take it?
- Is hate as strong as love? Who do you hate?
- Do you speak multiple languages? Which do you dream in? What language would you want to learn?
- Do you draw meaning from your dreams, or do you disregard them?
- How would you describe yourself when you love? Do you love forcefully, unconditionally, gently, quietly, desperately?
- Is unrequited love real love?
- Is your perception of yourself similar or the same to how others perceive you?
- Are you overly analytical?
- Do you ever feel that you are really a terrible person, and only act good out of societal or some other obligation?
- Do you believe in magic? Are you superstitious?
- What belief do you have that isn’t logically grounded, but you still firmly believe in?
3:47 am 58,981 notes