this guy is my new hero

At the risk of sounding stupid, I just found out how long the stone age lasted. In my head it's about as long as other historical time periods, a couple thousand years before ancient egypt, and conceptually looks like a bad car insurance commercial. Nope! Dead wrong! The stone age lasted for 3.4 MILLION YEARS.

Okay wow i would not have guessed millions. Maybe in like the tens of thousands? But definitely would have way undershot.

I told my wife and they said "Yeah, modernity is a recent and strange invention"

Oh yes! Hello I am wife. And these are the oldowan tools:

The first image is my favorite, the iconic oldowan hand axe, but you'll note there's a wide range of other tools crafted for everything from crushing nuts and stones, to awls and engraving devices. There is some evidence, albeit hotly debated, that these tools MIGHT have been used in ancient burials. Maybe. This is up for debate because these tools are THREE MILLION YEARS OLD. They pre date homo sapiens and homo erectus. They pre date the ice age. Hell, they pre date the fucking ice caps. We don't think humans were burying their dead as we understand it today, but maybe?? These were made by homo habilis, or the "handyman", so named for their invention of tools.

It makes me feel very small to look at these, like looking up at a starry sky.

You ever see something innocuous, minding its own business on the clearance shelf at Michael’s and before you know it, it takes over your life for a few weeks?

So it was with this desktop greenhouse.

I took it home and after taking an appropriate time to “season” my idea in my mind (read: a month or two) I set to make my vision of a mini botanical garden a reality.

I started by removing the heavy glass panels and building a raised floor above the latch. I wanted to use the base as a foundation on the building.

I wrapped the foundation in plastic stone textured flooring (meant for Christmas villages) and built a pond at one end of the same. I then gave it a more realistic paint job and designed a rough layout for my plants and displays.

I also knew I wanted to make the ironwork significantly more intricate, but I wasn’t sure how just yet…

Up next - PLANTS! I went wild making all kinds of plants. Some were specific species and some were more conceptual.

I made several trees with polymer clay and moss, cacti out of beads and flocking, cattails out of raffia, hot glue and coffee grounds, and giant monstera leaves out of paper and wire.

This part should have taken me a long time, but it really came together fast. I loved finding ways to replicate natural shapes and patterns using bits of this and that.

I did make adjustments to my plans as I went like eliminating benches in favor of a simpler overall design.

Then I needed to fill my pond with water. For this I used resin. Lily pads were added to the top layer, and I wired in simple LED fairy lights. The batteries are kept in the box under the foundation.

In a weekend frenzy I added more plants, metal (paper) steps, new (plexi)glass windows, a roof, wrought-iron vines (paper again), doors that open, and a hose reel disguising the latch. Suddenly, a project I thought would take months was finished…

I love my desktop botanical garden. Right now it sits on a simple lazy Susan in my office. But I’d love to get it a proper display box to protect from dust.

Thank you for coming on this little journey with me. This piece packs a lot of joy into a tiny space. I always love building miniatures, and I’ll be doing more in the future I’m sure.

This is my new favorite clip

They're besties your honor

Gif credit to @waltonghoulgins

(guys I don't mean to be that person but this wasn't a shipping post 😭 I genuinely meant that this was a purely platonic interaction lol)

FALLOUT - The Demon in the Snow

FALLOUT - The Demon in the Snow

I have reposted this before but I am always impressed by how well-thought out every spot is. There is no good place to sit. “Oh, Eomer’s cool, I’ll sit with him” but then you will have to listen to Gollum and Bilbo the entire flight. “I’ll sit with Sam!” Pippin and Merry will be turning around the entire flight to talk to him. Sure, you can sit with Elrond, but you’re going to deal with him staring down Aragorn and Arwen. You may love Legolas and Gimli, but will you love sitting BETWEEN them? Just when you see a spot that seems okay, somewhere behind or across the aisle is a terrible option. This is so good. No good seats on the LOTR plane

collecting these

HOW could i forget this classic

So I followed my hair dye instructions to the letter but instead of turning my hair copper colored it seems to have just turned it a darker shade of blonde.

L’Oréal Paris has failed me. A pox on their house.

Ea-nasir is branching out, it seems.

Today's xkcd is going to be another hit with the boat crowd. [x]

@verecunda which ones did Ram try

asfgjklsjal

Any of these seem like good contenders - Unclassifiable Chaos is, after all, basically his middle name! - but Oops All Spinnakers just has that Ram vibe, y'know? XD

like whack a mole

official they can't win against us all post

notice how they pause instead of all-out running? rat want grab-toss. they are playing a game! and pausing to make sure human has time to grab them and gently toss like the football!

If I was a rat I would enjoy this too

LiveJournal refugee

Last week I asked my dad if he remembers sneaking me into the cinema to see Deep Rising in 1998. He said he thought so but didn't remember which cinema it was. He was stunned that I not only remembered the exact cinema but also the time of day and the shirt I was wearing.

Today I forgot what someone told me over the phone even though the conversation ended 3 seconds ago.

“My memory is like a chalkboard and someone else has the eraser while another someone else writes random things in permanent marker instead of chalk.”

-Actual quote from be before I even imagined I might be ADHD.

Would you like to hear about my girthy sizeable Henry headcanon

my corner store guy is a 50 year old man who's my best friend in the world and recently he was like "you're too pretty to be single I have some nephews you should meet. very handsome!" and I was like "a niece might be more up my alley" and he just got more excited and said "ah even better! I was overselling my nephews but my nieces are very beautiful"

OP the tags!!

reverse gaslighting where i pretend to know exactly what you are talking about