why are straight white guys so obsessed with world war 2
like i’ll talk about my interest in history and i’ll have guys be like “yeah i’m a history buff too i love world war 1 and 2″ like cool i was talking about ancient history. like the conversation was literally about ancient egypt.
my fave thing is replying “oh, cool. i just can’t get into it. i like everyday life and religion and art. personally, i find war boring.” and let me tell you it’s a journey to watch them try and understand that killing thousands of people indiscriminately doesn’t hold my attention.
yup it’s always the “oh you’re just not into history” and the response of “yes i am im just into ancient history” and you’re ready to throw 38 greek myths at them just to shut them up about the kinds of bombers the britsh were using in the second world war
except like. they really dont give a single fuck about wwi/ii. they care about the weapons and machinery. do they care about the events and the people? do they care about why wars were actually important? in my experience, very, very rarely.
I think that gets to heart of it: they’re not history buffs in any real sense. What they are is war fanboys. They collect and curate technical information about wars just like any other fanboy collects and curates technical information about the subject of their fandom. It’s basically not real to them; knowing what exact metal the buttons of SS uniforms were made of is of no greater significance to them than knowing the exact height of the captain’s chair on the starship Enterprise – it’s just another shiny technical fact for their collection.
It’s incredibly annoying because WW1 and WW2 are actually really interesting in terms of how politics changed and the like but all people want to talk about is the fighting.
This comic from The Nib is a great analysis of how the cultural obsession with World War II and “the greatest generation” has completely skewed our view of its history and totally fucked us up.
^ definitely definitely read this, especially if you were too young to remember the immediate post-9/11 times.
theres a big martian dust storm rn and its not clear if opportunity will survive
sci fi writers: humans dont care about robots
me, crying: OPPORTUNITY HONEY YOU CAN DO IT I BELIEVE IN YOU
Important clarification
1) Mars Rovers have to run heaters constantly (especially at night) because Mars is cold and they have sensitive electronics. Opportunity has had to shut down its heater because it hasn’t been able to draw enough power over the past few weeks; the danger is that Opportunity may not survive the few days its expected for the dust storm to clear up. The other currently operating rover, Curiosity is younger and has more advanced panels, batteries, and, most importantly, an onboard RTG (tl;dr: nuclear power source) that means dust storms aren’t as threatening to it. Opportunity has some radioactive heaters too, but they’re older, smaller, and have less power output. It’s survived dust storms in the past but every one is always a risk.
and 2)
THEIR OFFICIAL TWITTER CALLS IT OPPY, OPPY I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!
The Supreme Court just issues a ruling allowing Ohio and other states to purge voters from their election registration rolls due to their failure to cast a ballot in previous elections.
This is a major victory for the Trump administration and the GOP, and a direct consequence of the Supreme Court being stacked with more conservative judges (the votes were 5-4). This is also a huge part of what Trump/the GOP were counting on to save them in the 2018 midterm elections, which is where Democrats have been hoping to take back a majority in the House, giving them more power to combat Trump’s abuses of power and Republican legislation.
What this means is YOU CAN NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE REGISTERED for the 2018 elections, just because you SHOULD be. Thanks to this decision, red states can purge voters’ registration based on their not having cast a ballot in even just previous federal elections, NOT just the national Presidential elections. Effectively, if you haven’t voted in previous senate races or for congressional representatives in the past few years, that’s all they need now to say you’re no longer registered and need to register again.
They’re deliberately counting on people assuming they’re still registered and so not checking until after registration deadlines have passed, or showing up to vote this November and only then finding out they’re no longer registered, when its too late to do a damn thing about it.
And this is absolutely targeted at marginalized communities, low income voters, disabled voters, and basically anyone who simply can’t always AFFORD to keep on top of every federal election and show up to vote in every senate race, etc. Which not so coincidentally happen to be all the communities and voters who have the most to gain from Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms and are the least likely to cast votes for GOP candidates at this point.
This was absolutely a calculated effort aimed specifically at keeping the GOP in power with a majority control of the government come November, and unfortunately, it has a DAMN good chance of accomplishing just that if it goes by unacknowledged. I’m not looking to alarm or panic anyone, simply to say:
If you are a registered voter in a red state at this point, please please please do not take your registered status as assumed. Check on your registration status, look up all relevant voter registration deadlines for your state and district, CIRCLE THAT SHIT ON YOUR CALENDAR, and check your registration status AGAIN right before those deadlines pass, so you can be sure of it before its too late to do anything about it til the next voting cycle.
i scrolled past this an hour ago and thats when the winston/hanzo drama started happening so im obligated to reblog this to dispense with the bad energy. sorry
Bromley House Library (formerly the
Nottingham Subscription Library). It was founded in 1816 and moved into the 18th century Bromley House in 1825. The Standfast Library room on the first floor has a Meridian Line from 1836, formerly used to set the clocks before standardised time. The clock in the room is still set to the local time,
4 minutes and 33 seconds slower than
Greenwich Mean Time. The library still operates as an independent subscription library and has over 40,000 holdings.
I'd Much Rather Have a Dragon 