Sunset On Mars

I’ll have to look into that next time I’m near Lantern!

just woke up from one hell of a nightmare i need a distraction…

The Fly (1958) is a very good and intelligent movie. Its characters are realistic and it’s an engaging and thought-provoking story (and the practical effects are good). [I’m going to spoil it now, but i really do recommend you watch it yourself.]

I take issue with the doctor’s reaction to his test results- not in how it was written, but with the man himself, fictional as he is. His motivations are not incomprehensible, and he’s not really in his right mind towards the end- I can even comprehend (though I wouldn’t do the same) wanting to destroy oneself rather than lose all agency. Having another conciousness take over your body is frightening (though I do think an imperfect solution could’ve been found with help). But the burned notes are a scarcely-addressed tragedy. The destroyed lab equipment, a nearly perfect teleporter, gone, seems to be the Fly’s doing, assuming the audience can judge this based on which arm acts. That is a great tragedy, but Doctor Delambre seems to be in control again when he burns his notes and his reasoning behind it is chaos! As if destroying his work would prevent the same thing from happening to a future scientist! He didn’t need anyone else’s input to make that mistake, so why should the next person need his? If he had the good sense to leave his research intact, it could be learned from, because that’s how science is supposed to work! You can’t publish results you know are wrong, and you can’t withhold results because they’re not the ones you wanted! What I’m saying is Andre singlehandedly (pun intended) deprived his world of teleportation technology because he had an accident. What a brilliant moron.

“[…] all things are one thing and that one thing is all things—plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time.” — Ricketts and Steinbeck, The Log From The Sea Of Cortez

ASTONISHING, said Death.  REALLY ASTONISHING.  LET ME PUT FORWARD ANOTHER SUGGESTION: THAT YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS. Fighting for breath, the philsopher managed to say, ‘Don’t be silly.’ THE REMARK WAS NOT INTENDED AS DEROGATORY, said Death.  UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, YOU HAVE ACHIEVED A GREAT DEAL.

Terry Pratchett, “Death and What Comes Next” (A Blink of the Screen) (Tired of dealing with philosophers but never tired of humanity as a whole.)

Something for my dad from the nature trade - a piece of Precambrian-era petrified wood! I thought he would enjoy it and he does, it’s a truly lovely little piece.

no seriously at what point do we stop saying dinosaurs and start saying prehistoric birds?? is it a matter of time?? a matter of species??? SCIENCE SIDE OF TUMBLR PLEASE HELP

:)  <o)   ( <- watermelon bagel, which catches the drips of watermelon juice so they don’t get on any important mineralogy notes)

Also being a scientist pretty much gives you a free pass to be as eccentric as you want like you’ll be at a conference and it’s like “is that guy wearing socks and sandals and plaid pants???” “Ya but he was on the team that discovered gravitational waves let him be”

hi! this is very random, but i found your tumblr just now and decided just to go for it and ask you a question about studying anthropology. I am kinda new to the whole subject, but I am interested in social studies, linguistics and the whole process called evolution. I know that the subject is so so so much more, but perhaps you would like to tell me how did you know that it was THE THING you wanted to pursue and maybe what qualities should an anthropologist have?

Hi!! You’re not random at all. It’s always good to ask questions, and I’m happy to answer any that I can! (: 

So, I think I need to start by saying that people can choose anthropology for SOOOOO many different reasons, because there are really endless things you can do with this subject (your interests are right on point though!). Personally, I originally was drawn to it because of forensic anthropology, and my love for bones, dead things, and solving mysteries. When I decided to study anthropology to go into forensics, my reason for doing so was because it was the one thing I’d studied that really…lit me up inside. Like, it felt like my neurons were firing at a million miles an hour whenever I was learning something about biological anthropology or forensics. As it turns out, I get that same feeling when studying cultural anthropology too. I ended up switching gears from forensic anthro to cultural anthropology because it is very important to me that what I do help people, and make a difference in the world. I felt like the best way to do that while still getting that ~crazy neuron party~ feeling was to study cultural anthropology and help people through my research. So…I guess the short answer to your question is that I knew it was THE THING because of how it made me feel, the way it woke up this intense curiosity in me. No other subject makes me want to devour it the way anthropology does, and I am a very curious person, so that’s saying something. It also is the perfect subject for a curious person, because you can have a bunch of different interests and somehow they all fall under the field of anthropology, so you aren’t limited by much. 

As far as the qualities, it definitely depends on the subfield, but here are a couple I feel might be most important overall:

have an interest in studying SOMETHING about humans. anthropology is literally the study of humans so that’s number one. 

be open-minded. part of studying anthropology is learning to see the world in a completely new way, and you have to be able to get out of your own head and away from your own biases to do that.

enjoy studying other cultures. no matter what you end up doing with anthropology, you’re going to need to value and enjoy learning about other people/cultures in order to be an anthropologist.

be ready for graduate school. i’m not saying you HAVE to go to grad school to be an anthropologist, but…to do most things in anthropology you’ll at least need a Master’s.

enjoy traveling. this depends on your subfield for sure, but a lot of anthropologists spend months or years at a time living in other cultures, or at dig sites, etc. because we are all about understanding things first hand.

I’m sure there are more, but those 5 seem like a good start. I hope this was helpful, and I definitely encourage you to keep looking into the field more! Don’t worry about exactly what you would want to do with it, just try to get an understanding of what anthropology is overall. If you’re in college, take a couple introductory courses that can also satisfy your gen eds. And I’m happy to answer any other questions you might have!

Linguistics takes on the “Is this a pigeon” meme.