The Only Thing I Would’ve Understood From That Was The My Immortal Reference

Expect to see a lot more of me now that I’m a TikTok refugee 😭

A little advice from someone studying extremist groups: if you’re in a social media environment where the daily ubiquitous message is that you have no hope of any kind of future and you can’t possibly achieve anything without a violent overthrow of society, you’re being radicalized, and not in the good way.

“this makes me personally uncomfortable”, “this seems in poor taste”, “this is somehow harmful but presumably because you’re misinformed” and “this is actively malicious” are all different things. remember that

There's this sort of anthropomorphizing that inherently happens in language that really gets me sometimes. I'm still not over the terminology of "gravity assist," the technique where we launch satellites into the orbit of other planets so that we can build momentum via the astounding and literally astronomical strength of their gravitational forces, to "slingshot" them into the direction we need with a speed that we could never, ever, ever create ourselves. I mean, some of these slingshots easily get probes hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Wikipedia has a handy diagram of the Voyager 1 satellite doing such a thing.

"Gravity assist." "Slingshot." Of course, on a very basic and objective level, yes, we are taking advantage of forces generated by outside objects to specifically help in our goals. We're getting help from objects in the same way a river can power a mill. And of course we call it a "slingshot," because the motion is very similar (mentally at least; I can't be sure about the exact physics).

Plus, especially compared to the other sciences, the terminology for astrophysics is like, really straightforward. "Black hole?" Damn yeah it sure is. "Big bang?" It sure was. "Galactic cluster?" Buddy you're never gonna guess what this is. I think it's an effect of the fact that language is generally developed for life on earth and all the strange variances that happen on its surface, that applying it to something as alien and vast as space, general terms tend to suffice very well in a lot more places than, like... idk, botany.

But, like. "Gravity assist." I still can't get the notion out of my head that such language implies us receiving active help from our celestial neighbors. They come to our aid. We are working together. We are assisted. Jupiter and the other planets saw our little messengers coming from its pale blue molecular cousin, and we set up the physics just right, so that they could help us send them out to far stranger places than this, to tell us all about what they find out there.

We are assisted.

And there is no better way to illustrate my feelings on the matter than to just show you guys one of my favorite paintings, this 1973 NASA art by Rick Guidice to show the Pioneer probe doing this exact thing:

"... You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. ..."

Gravity assist.

i'm re listening to Wolf 359 and i forgot how different Hilbert used to sound in the beginning

People are wondering why people still enjoy caitvi like Arcane isn’t the first show with a sapphic main character to be widely popular and not be canceled in actual ages… Yes the writing was kinda bad in season 2 and YOU don’t have to enjoy it but don’t attack lesbians for taking what they can get

Guinevere, you’re my stars; Arthur, you’re my night 💫

I’m so glad love won and they all lived happily ever after i say as they drag me away

I haven’t drawn the pendragons in a million years I miss them

Wait is he the one with the really realistic dog costume

One of my favourite parts of tumblr is people learning about human pet guy and then finding out how he got that nickname

*ghost sound*

ooOoooOOOo