who was the fool who was tasked with naming the galaxy and the only adjective they could think of was ‘mmmmmmmmmmmmilky…’
scientist: (gazing up at space) scientist: ……….. it sure is a milky boy
NO
YOU DONT UNDERSTAND
ASTRONOMERS ARE THE SHITTIEST EVER AT NAMING THINGS I KID YOU NOT.
When it came time to name the two theoretical particle types that might be dark matter THEY INTENTIONALLY CHOSE THE NAMES SO THAT THE ACRONYMS WOULD SPELL “WIMPS” AND “MACHOS” I SHIT YOU NOT
THEY ARE FUCKING TERRIBLE AT NAMING ANYTHING
I just listened to a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson himself LAST NIGHT and he went on about this more than once.
“I’m walking down the street and I’m like ‘ooh pretty rock…’ and some Geologist is like ‘actually, that’s anorthosite feldspar’ and I’m like ‘Nevermind, I don’t want it anymore.’ Any biologists in the audience? [some clapping] Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. The most important molecule in the human body, what did you name it? It has NINE SYLLABLES and it’s so long that even YOU GUYS abbreviate it as ‘DNA’!
But astrophysicists and astronomers? No, man, we call it like we see it. Star made of neutrons? NEUTRON STAR. Small white star? WHITE DWARF. You know that big red spot on Jupiter? Know what we called it? JUPITER’S RED SPOT.”
okay i’m glad you mentioned the biologist nonsense bc their naming methods are the bane of my existence
I see your astrophysicists-are-shit-at-names and raise you Marine-Biologists-Are-Fucking-Maniacs.
See this beautiful creature?
It’s a carnivorous deep-sea sponge that lives off of Easter Island and never sees the light of day, as it’s about 9000 feet down. Those delicate-looking orbs are covered in millions of tiny hooked spines, which latch onto anything unfortunate enough to bump into it, and hold it in place as it is digested alive by the sponge’s skin. Amazing, beautiful and profoundly creepy. They could have given it so many cool names. Could have drawn on mythology (I think Scylla would have been an appropriate reference), the region it was found in, the textured skin, PHAGOCYTOSIS, anything!
You wanna know what they called it?
PING-PONG TREE SPONGE.
Good job, marine biologists.
No this is just an US thing. Even their constitutions and policies are named in acronyms…
I am not a perfect role model. Yes, I often am susceptible to drop a curse word or two irrespective of my environment, but I am fortunate to have a strong sense of purpose: to contribute with value in every moment of my existence. I am also fortunate to have quite a solid foundation now to understand how to accept my feelings and emotions but not enable them to influence my decisions and actions.
However, I realise that having the maturity in being able to separate emotions and personal interest to work in trust of others is not a given trait. In the space of 24 hours, my grit and personality were put to the ultimate test, where I had encountered some of the ugliest human behaviours in my life. I could have never seen it coming from people I once trusted and respected. People I grew up idolising or colleagues I worked with side-by-side (or at least I was lead to believe) began to reveal themselves as their cracks started to show. There was manipulation, hostility, arrogance, anger, greed, selfishness, righteousness - the list goes on. The only thing I could be thankful for was that there was no physical violence or cussing.
If I were to go down the path of being a judge and jury in observation of the drama that unfolded in front of me, I would dare say that these actions are not the example I would set for my children (if I parented any). But the fact that such ugly behaviour did come from parents had me very confused and frustrated.
Save for the bad behaviour and reactions from people, I have also seen the passion, dedication and compassion that is deeply rooted in every human being. I saw loyalty and friendship that I did not know existed. I could not be any more grateful for these relationships. Family, friends and other colleagues who were not very close somehow formed a united stance in the face of conflict.
Over this past week, I struggled to fall asleep at night, as I agonised over how to protect my family, friends, colleagues and the legacy we created together. I mediated, negotiated and facilitated open dialogues with involved parties to best of my ability. And in one week, I became an experienced politician.
When circumstance limited my ability to lead, it gave opportunities for my colleagues to step up to the plate - and my goodness, I could have never expected that from them. I worried so much about shielding them from the brutalities of conflict. But in the latest development, they ended up protecting me and my family and even vowed to protect our legacy together.
The experience so far reminded me of a something I learned about a month ago: The protection of the Mystic Law. A concept of Nichiren Buddhism and adopted by Soka Gakkai International (SGI), it said that if we protected the law - the correct teaching - we cultivate benefits in our lives and in correlation, we protect ourselves. My immediate thought about this concept when I first studied it was the doubt in my current efforts to protect the practice and philosophies of Buddhism. But now I see that my efforts are never wasted.
Benefits ranged from being able to have a courageous dialogue with people I do not necessarily like or agree with, to finding a car park spot and a table at a popular restaurant on a Saturday night in the span of 5 minutes. It sounds silly and naive, but I am 100% convinced that this is the workings of the universal mystic law and the phenomena of cause and effect in the physical and spiritual realm.
When I am steadfast in my faith, practice and purpose, nothing can sway me from actioning what I believe fosters the most value for myself and others.
-Passive aggressive
-Needs attention but pretends I don’t
-Likes to be pet
-Whiny
-Doesn’t know when to stop eating
-Needs to sleep 10+ hours
-Sheds a lot
-Lays on the floor where people are trying to walk
-Screams
I love them so much because they’re about as sharp as a baseball and their anatomy is ridiculous to the point of them literally being classified as plankton for years because they just sort of get blown around by the ocean and look confused, but because they lay more eggs than ANY OTHER VERTEBRATE IN EXISTENCE, evolution can’t stop them
Why is no big predator coming and gnawing on them?
Their biggest defense is that they’re massive and have super tough skin, but they do get hunted by sharks or sea lions sometimes and they just sort of float there like ‘oh bother’ as it happens
Even funnier, because they eat nothing but jellyfish they’re really low in nutritional value anyway, so they basically survive by being not worth eating because they’re like a big floating rice cracker wrapped in leather.
So basically the only reason natural selection hasn’t taken care if them is because they are the most useless fish
yes, they’ve perfected uselessness to the point of being unstoppable
