today is incredibly difficult, largely because it turns out I was a proper dick to a lot of people the other day when I was in a really negi place. sometimes I really really hate my brain
Read extracts from documents revealed by Edward Snowden describing GCHQ’s ‘recent successes’ http://gu.com/p/3gj4a/tw
Politicians calls and emails intercepted by UK intelligence at G20 summit meetings: http://gu.com/p/3gj3n/tw
this just makes me feel less special for being tracked, dammit
sex ed vid about “sex shields”! could have done without the “condom is for penis” thing, but when that’s my main criticism you’re probably doing well…
This is an example of supercooling – the process by which a very pure liquid is chilled to a temperature just below its usual freezing point without actually making the jump to its solid state. Bottled water is perfect for this, especially the kind that’s been purified via reverse osmosis, a process that strips water of all its particulates. This particulates can act as “seed crystals,” or “nuclei,” to which a liquid phase on the cusp of becoming solid can attach, and crystalize around. In this video, a seed crystal is introduced in the form of a cube of already-frozen water. As soon as it’s introduced, the liquid phase rapidly crystallizes and attaches to the solid one, kicking off a chain reaction of ice-formation.Water that freezes as it’s being poured out of the bottle also solidifies upon exposure to a seed crystal, which, in this case, is an already-frozen surface. This is similar to the effect observed when freezing rain, supercooled by its flightpath through sub-freezing layers of atmosphere, comes into contact with an object cooled to a temperature below freezing. The result is a phenomenon known as glaze-ice, which – if you live somewhere cold – you may have seen before, coating the spindly extremities of tree branches.
oh fuck it’s ice-9 we’re dead
(via physicsphysics)
The world’s clearest lake is the Blue Lake – located in the top part of New Zealand’s South Island. Scientifically verified reports show visibility of up to 76 metres – compared with distilled water visibility of 70-80 metres.
The lake is in a restricted conservation area, and entering the lake, let alone diving, is prohibited. It is a 2-3km hike to get to the lake. Working closely with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, photographer Klaus Thymann was allowed to conduct the first ever dive in the lake.
The lake, which in Maori is called Rotomairewhenua, is sacred, and the local Maori tribe, Ngati Apa, was consulted about the dive. Equipment was carefully prepared and a special permit to land a helicopter granted, and on a clear sunny day, the dive was conducted.
Blue Lake is located 1,200m above sea level and receives water from another lake above it. The top lake is above the tree line, meaning its water is relatively unblemished by run-off from overhanging foliage.
From the top lake, water is filtered through a moraine (glacial debris), before finally creating the Blue Lake. The water of the entire lake is replaced around every 24 hours.
fucking woah
(Source: Guardian)
should I talk to my boss about wearing a skirt at work sometimes?
is this a really bad idea? I feel like she’d definitely be supportive to my AMAB “cross-dressing”/non-normative clothes, but if she’s not then I’m basically screwed forever
Transgender people in Greece are now being rounded up and detained in a continuation of the social cleansing of the “undesirables”.
FUCK.
THIS.
Milky Way Shows 84 Million Stars in 9 Billion Pixels
Side Note: The two images shown above are mere crop outs from ESA’s recent hit: The 9 Billion Pixel Image of 84 Million Stars. These two focus on the bright center of the image for the purpose of highlighting what a peak at 84,000,000 stars looks like.
Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile have released a breathtaking new photograph showing the central area of our Milky Way galaxy. The photograph shows a whopping 84 million stars in an image measuring 108500×81500, which contains nearly 9 billion pixels.
It’s actually a composite of thousands of individual photographs shot with the observatory’s VISTA survey telescope, the same camera that captured the amazing 55-hour exposure. Three different infrared filters were used to capture the different details present in the final image.
The VISTA’s camera is sensitive to infrared light, which allows its vision to pierce through much of the space dust that blocks the view of ordinary optical telescope/camera systems.
asdfghjkl space
(via rematiration)
so, I was just on a train with Iwan Rheon
