oh of course

"Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its..."

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 08:19:28 -0600

“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”

- Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices (via volumexii)

its-teatime: happiness

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:54:41 -0700

its-teatime:

happiness

ragbag: raynor ganan signature masala™ one of my 2012 goals is...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:05:09 -0700

ragbag:

raynor ganan signature masala™

one of my 2012 goals is to create a raynor ganan signature masala™—a sekrit spice blend that people will want to flavor everything from their eggs to their popcorn with. to do so, i’ve been scouring the local spice markets for exotic ingredients from far off corners of the globe. i have a rudimentary concoction right now but i’ve come to a very important realisation: namely, while i know what spices i like, i have no idea how spices go together. to help me better understand the synergy among turmeric and thyme and coriander and cream of tartar, i developed this chart which breaks down established spice blends into their (sometimes) shared ingredients. and now i am one step closer to inventing the next ranch seasoning.

__

on another flavor note: if you have any advice for me about what ingredients should go into the raynor ganan signature masala™, i would really really like to hear from you. perhaps you know of a rare local spice that the international flavor market overlooks. maybe you grow a special aphrodisiac mushroom in your basement and want to tell me how tasty it is. perhaps there was a fictional spice in a science fiction novel that you want me to investigate. let me know!

Visual reference!

ragbag: theory: type specimen books were the @horse_ebooks of...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:43:30 -0700

ragbag:

theory: type specimen books were the @horse_ebooks of last century.

3liza: lordsteeb: “how much should we care about the social...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:34:39 -0700

3liza:

lordsteeb:

“how much should we care about the social rights of bees” is basically the kind of question you would ask a disguised android to trick it into attacking you

it’s also factually incorrect, unsurprisingly. turns out whichever idiot tumblr teen scribbled this pile of garbage took exactly zero seconds to verify any of this, which i will now do because i hate myself

Wing clipping is generally not practiced because clipped queens will be recognized as “damaged” by the hive and replaced with a new queen. This is because during swarming (the activity in which the queen leaves the hive with a swarm to start a new colony) the queen is driven around the out of he hive by the workers, she in no way “leads” them. If she is unable to leave the hive, they kill her and get a virgin queen to do it.
Source: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?249047-Queen-bee-wing-clipping

Drones always die after mating. Painfully. They have no function other than to inseminate queens, and will die after having their penis and associated organs ripped out of their bodies when a copulating couple separates.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_(bee)

Beekeepers only replace elderly queens rarely, in order to prevent the colony from dying out completely over the winter, and this is only when the queen is not destroyed and replaced by her own workers.
Source: http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/2011/02/lesson-95-when-to-replace-your-queen-in.html

Bees are a pillar of literally every kind of agriculture, and wild bees are not sufficient to keep us fed, even if we’re all vegans.
Source:http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/science/bee-importance-bees.html

Colony Collapse Disorder means beekeeping is even more important now than it used to be. CCD’s cause is unknown but we need more bees and we need them ASAP.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder

Waggle dance, social structure, etc. Bees rule, but that’s not a good reason to not eat honey. The statement that bees are “social” is disingenuous at best, as colony insects function far more like individual cells in a single living organism than they do like mammals.
Source: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/07/swarms/miller-text

AND FINALLY, YOU FUCKING MORONS, If you’re concerned about eating “animal” “products” produced by insects then you should probably stop eating altogether. The FDA allows up to an average of 75 insect fragments per 50 grams of wheat flour, and you’re shoveling that down with every bite of whole grain whatever. See also: gut parasites, eyebrow mites, dust mites, fleas, houseflies, fruit flies etc. — all part of the Kingdom Animalia and so, by your logic, it’s not fucking vegan to pluck your eyebrows or deworm yourself.
Source: http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceManuals/CompliancePolicyGuidanceManual/ucm074610.htm

Eating less meat or no meat is a good dietary and environmental decision, and more people should be eating less meat. That’s not really up for debate. There’s just absolutely no need to fuck it up with this kind of false equivalency and transparently unresearched moralism.

Photo

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:03:26 -0600

adagioteas: Earn your blending black belt Simply reblog this...

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:55:33 -0600

adagioteas:

Earn your blending black belt

Simply reblog this post for a chance to win all of the 148 teas we use in our signature blends. We can’t guarantee that winning will make you the next Cara McGee, but it will definitely up your tea geek cred.

HOW TO WIN:

You may reblog this post once a day for the next few weeks. We’ll randomly choose a person on August 15th and the winner can begin rearranging their kitchen cupboards.

bingofuel: Super Manatees

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:26:33 -0600

bingofuel:

Super Manatees

Maclean's 50 Shades of Eh

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:09:22 -0600

Maclean's 50 Shades of Eh:

He pulls the leather strap tight against my left wrist. I wince.

“Sorry,” Christian says. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’ll loosen it a bit.”

“Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Honestly, it’ll just take a minute.”

“It’s fine, Christian.”

I gaze upon him with my intrepid eyes. My mouth,…