The Exalted Plains, from Dragon Age: Inquisition (note the dramatic mesas rising above the fog):
The Titanic Plains, from Risk of Rain 2:
The Plains of Erathell, from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
The “plains” biome, in Minecraft:
Now, let us compare the example of other locations with “plain” or “plains” in their name.
The Great Plains of North America:
The Wallachian Plain in Europe:
The West Siberian Plain in Asia:
Hmm. Something about those video game locations seems off. Could it be, oh, I don’t know, plains are supposed to be fucking flat? Could that be, in fact, what the word “plain” signifies?? Terrain lacking dramatic changes in elevation over short distances??? From the Latin planus, meaning “level” or “even”??!?! Could it be that if you have a zone in your video game with the relief profile of the fucking moon, as if it had been pelted with meteorites for four billion years and never had so much as a drop of water or breath of wind fall on it, that maybe you should not call it a plain?? That there are dozens, if not hundreds, of RPGs and open-world video games that have all sorts of environments that are engineered to both cleverly guide the player around, prevent them from stumbling out-of-bounds, and to resemble real-world locations, without naming themselves after things they clearly are not?
Don’t toss me in a desert and call it a water level. Don’t put me in a cave and talk about how bright the sun is shining. And don’t drop me in a fucking canyon and call it a plain!
If you are trying to think up a plains-adjacent-but-got-other-stuff-going-on landform, check out dual lands
Were there any breeding attempts that produced breeds the breeder just gave up on? Like they looked at the offspring and went "well, those suck and this idea was stupid"
one of my favorite pieces of dog breed trivia right here
The aesthetic of using ‘discontinued” in relation to living beings is always some real edge, accounting ledgers signed off on in blood; absolutely hits it.
Although labeled as “Pure White” Snow, the highly fibrous material inside this vintage carton is actually beige; reflecting the fact that it is primarily amosite, amphibole asbestos (also known as “brown asbestos”).
Many films shot in the early 20th century, including the likes of The Wizard of Oz, featured their actors being sprinkled with fake snow. Little do viewers realize, this effect was created by showering performers with chrysotile asbestos fibers, small snow like particles that were once used on movie sets, in department store displays, and even in private homes. Everybody wanted to get in on the fake asbestos snow action. And why not? From the mid-1930s to the 1950s, asbestos was seen as a versatile and harmless substance.
To date, it’s difficult to know the hazard that was presented by asbestos-based fake snow products. Most asbestos products involved some quantity of the fiber being used as part of a chemical compound that bound the fibers together, making them difficult to inhale until the material was damaged. But fake snow, often used in displays or in family homes, was simply pure white asbestos fibre piled up in drifts. Anyone who had any contact was inhaling deadly fibers in quantities normally associated with those working in asbestos mines.
Thankfully, you can safely shop for fake snow this Christmas knowing you won’t be exposed to asbestos…but spare a thought for the innocent workers and householders of the past, many of whom are still living with the consequences of the 20th century’s addiction to asbestos.
Dragging a bin of leaves behind me yesterday, switched arms when the right got tired, apparently worked the left to the point of now being swollen sore and muscle-building. I must have gotten higher levels of testosterone, it’s like steroids. Or rather that the idea of steroids all along was they work like testosterone that way.
Suddenly realizing one of my funnier traits is that I’m reasonably effective altruist-adjacent but not actually effective altruist such that i could see myself charitably supporting the scene but not the causes, like, I might totally endow a Bay-area bedroom or sponsor a Vienna Teng show but I honestly do not care about bednets
Another of my periodic “you don’t realize how good you have it” posts. I became aware in the 1980s.
Groceries were more primal and limited in selection. Much less was directly edible, more were ingredients requiring some preparation and cooking process. “Prepackaged” foods were often a powder combining several ingredients which would still require the addition of further fresh ones and cooking. Microwaves didn’t exist; instant “TV dinners” were heated in the oven, popcorn was made directly over stove heat in a way that burned many kernels. Sandwiches, toast, eggs, bacon, and canned soup enjoyed more prominence as low-preparation foods.
Fresh produce now available year-round was only available seasonally; seasonal foods had narrower windows of availability. More fruit and vegetables were purchased frozen, canned, or otherwise preserved.
Meat and fish available at a supermarket was more often fattier and less fresh; independent butchers, fishmongers, and bakeries were more of a thing. Supermarkets did not house banks or even ATMs, but could give you cash for a check. Credit cards, UPC scanners, and automatic conveyor belts were still novel.
Power windows and cupholders became standard in cars over the 80s, airbags and antilock brakes in the 90s. Cruise control had still been somewhat novel when I first paid attention. Car fenders used to be metal that would absorb impact by deformation. In the reverse direction, cars were first designed with front “crumple zones” to absorb impact through deformation, rather than transmitting it to a passenger compartment it would try to shove the engine block through.
Clothes were more expensive, they would tear, fade, stain, and wear quicker. Their fabrics stretched less (and thus fit worse off the rack or required custom fitting) shed moisture worse, and were more uncomfortable against the skin. Warm clothes breathed worse and overheated, light clothes were less insulated and chilly, there was more necessary layering. For that matter warm clothes weren’t even as warm. A narrower range of dye colors were pragmatic; dyes would fade or bleed into other clothes in the wash. Home washing required more specific procedures and products to be satisfactory, more clothes required dry cleaning.
Basically, the clothes available for sale to you were whatever your local store had picked up. If you were in a city you might have some selection; people took yearly day trips or even vacations to cities to buy clothes for that year. If you were in the suburbs you would have satellites of your local city’s department stores, maybe even a related discount outlet (ours was Strawbridge & Clothier’s “Clover”) and the small stores that filled in the malls they anchored. Those stores were transitioning from replacement-for-downtown independent shops to chains, The Gap was big. If you were further out you would have whatever Main Street storefront, maybe a Salvation Army and KMart. Since the original Sears catalog, much clothes shopping was done by mail.
A major advance in my age were clothes (and draperies, and furniture) that were less flammable, my generation found it odd that we were instructed so intently (stop, drop, and roll!) on how to deal with our environments or persons catching fire.
Men still wore leather shoes that required custom fitting and the regular artisanal replacement of worn-out soles. Athletic shoes/“sneakers” were less stylish, less supportive, bulkier, offered poorer traction, and often audibly squeaked while walking.
The old personality mostly cried at inspiring things, which included spaceship takeoffs, combat set to music, valorous stands, and heroic sacrifice
(accordingly Interstella 5555, the Leiji Matsumoto full-album music video anime movie of Daft Punk’s Discovery, got me bawling)
It wasn’t a sad cry but not particularly a happy one, more a relieving one. Anyway, glad to report that Landsailor establishes it’s a happy one now
Thinking about how after 9/11 there was a brief burst of interest around “escape” parachutes but the Lower Manhattan Financial District is probably one of the worst places on earth to try and land a parachute in
And that’s before the crazy updrafts from burning buildings
Prior to the human mass production of salt, where did the salt in terrestrial ecosystems come from? Did it all originate in the ocean and get transported long distance by chains of predation? Is there enough salt in the soil or something for plants to uptake in sufficient quantities?
I think it comes from rocks sometimes? I saw a nature documentary once and deep in the rainforest there was a salty rock outcropping that animals would congregate near and just spend minutes at a time licking. It was a treasured resource, like a watering hole in a savanna.
An accelerationist handbook being shared among extremist Telegram
channels calls for shooters to bypass softer targets in favor of causing
chaotic blackouts by emulating on a broader scale an unsolved sniper
attack on a California transmission substation.
The cover of the 14-page PDF features a depiction of a masked and
hooded gunman wielding a semiautomatic handgun with a suppressor affixed
and wearing panoramic night-vision goggles. In the branches of a
swastika behind the gunman are depictions of acts of violence including
three people being hanged, a group of buildings ablaze, and a police car
on fire next to a figure holding an incendiary weapon.
The document begins by asserting it is not a text aimed at
radicalizing new adherents, as the author(s) assume that readers are
already committed to “doing what you can to strike a blow to this
system.”
While lauding with racist language “noble acts of violence”
perpetrated by white supremacists, it brands the mass shooting in May at
a supermarket in a Black area of Buffalo, N.Y., as “treating symptoms
of the cancer, not the cause,” and argues that attackers should choose
targets “that do the most damage to the system and spark revolution and
chaos.”
Recent attack had me remembering the metcalf substation shooting, yup still unsolved but there was this piece in July of 2022
I wonder if some of these might be like arsonists where they just do it for the thrill. Apparently some nontrivial fraction of major wildfires in California are started by arsonists, and the cops and courts encourage the newspapers not to report it on the front pages or name the offenders when they’re caught, so as to not give them notoriety and breed copycats.
everytime I see this I read it as “Anarchist Style Guide Calls For…”
