It's Weird How Geological Time Works. Eras Start And End Bit By Bit Over The Course Of Hundreds Of Thousands

It's weird how geological time works. Eras start and end bit by bit over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. That sounds like a big uncertainty but that sort of timescale, on which the climate can overhaul itself completely and entire species rise and fall, is instantaneous compared to the age of the earth. Any hypothetical sentient creature would have no idea it was living through a major turning point. The Silurian slid into the Devonian as land plants became A Thing and insects started to wonder if 'pilot' might be a good career path, but there was no one moment when one thing ended and another began. That's not how that works...

... except for the Cretaceous. The Cretaceous had a Last Day and it was probably in April, and then the next day it was the Paleogene.

Oh my god. That was the next county over. That happened just north of here.

Butler County —you magnificent yahoos— you did your best. Now leave it to Pittsburgh and our chief export: medical malpractice!

🎓

Don't you dare keep this in the tags that's so funny holy shit

Imagine washing up on Dinotopia and getting a talk saying "unfortunately, you can't escape this island! You'll never go home or see your loved ones ever again" & then while you're crying they say "I'm sorry, you'll just have to live on the island of dinosaur communism for the rest of your life" and you look up through your bleary eyes and go. Wait what

just had a certified worldbuilder moment

(fake greentext, don't worry guys)

that article going around abt firefox's new ad program is annoying bc it's phrased as though "mozilla has finally TURNED on its people and is SELLING YOU OUT for cold hard cash!!" when. that's not what's happening. it is specifically being implemented to discourage tracking behavior, and literally all the data they are giving to advertisers is aggregate and anonymized, which is like, the opposite of what that post wants you to worry about, lol