This. This, This, This. That's Why I Said Kayaks. Avoid The Water When You Can, But If You Absolutely

This. This, this, this. That's why I said kayaks. Avoid the water when you can, but if you absolutely MUST cross it, use something that floats. Don't try to drive through it, and for the love of anything you hold sacred don't put your BODY into it.

I know I joke about hurricanes, because I am a Floridian and that's what we do. But that's because they're Normal, and so all Floridians know the Hurricane Rules. We know how the song and dance goes. West Coasters don't know the Hurricane Rules. You've never needed to know the Hurricane Rules. You guys know the Earthquake Rules, because that's Normal. But because of climate change, Hillary and her cousins are probably going to be a more common occurrence for the southwest. So here are the Hurricane Rules, straight from the Floridian's keyboard.

1: Assume the forecast is going to be wrong, and reality is going to be worse. Get your water jugs and batteries, get your Hurricane Cake, stack the sandbags, board the windows, and put your electronics on a high shelf. And if the NOAA says "category 5" and "landfall" in the same sentence without a "will not" in there, you pack your bags and get the fuck out.

2: Do not fucking go outside. There's surprisingly little lightning in a hurricane, but that's not the problem. It's the wind. The wind will knock you off your feet, either outright or by flinging heavy debris at you. You will not get back up again.

3: If the wind doesn't get you, the water will. Even after the storm has passed, stay the hell away from moving water, both on foot and in a vehicle. When the the flooding has settled down, then you break out the flat bottoms and jet skis and kayaks. Don't fucking swim in it, okay? Don't. The southwest may not have alligators like we do, but all the same you do NOT want to know what's in there. (It's mostly sewage.)

Also, your soil isn't built for inundation, and you've got hills there. Mudslides are going to happen, so be careful of mountain driving in the week or so after the storm comes through.

You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?

guys i just found out about this site that does a daily guessing game, it’s phylogenetic wordle- so fun!!!

40,000 years ago, early humans painted hands on the wall of a cave. This morning, my baby cousin began finger painting. All of recorded history happened between these two paintings of human hands. The Nazca Lines and the Mona Lisa. The first TransAtlantic flight and the first voyage to the Moon. Humanity invented the wheel, the telescope, and the nuclear bomb. We eradicated wild poliovirus types 2 and 3. We discovered radio waves, dinosaurs, and the laws of thermodynamics. Freedom Riders crossed the South. Hippies burned their draft cards. Countless genocides, scientific advancements, migrations, and rebellions. More than a hundred billion humans lived and died between these two paintings—one on a sheet of paper, and one on the inside of a cave. At the dawn of time, ancient humans stretched out their hands. And this morning, a child reached back. 

HEY WAIT WAS ANYONE GONNA TELL ME THAT PUBLIX ISN'T DOING HURRICANE CAKES ANYMORE

C'MON MAN THAT'S A STAPLE TRADITION

Love the contrast between the Americans’ “Apollo” and the Soviets’ “Sputnik.” You got the Americans naming their rocket after a Greek god trying to communicate the grandness and importance of this rocket. And you got the Soviets naming their rocket “fellow traveler.” Like a friend you go on an  adventure with together. This rocket is our little friend lol