flaminm

a chemistry test after a background check.

yosemite has a waterfall that looks like it's pouring lava.

it's called horsetail fall, and for a few evenings in february, the setting sun can hit the water at just the right angle and turn it bright orange.

no lava, no fire. just sunlight, water, and ridiculously perfect timing.

nature really knows how to show off.

when jennifer’s body came out in 2009, the studio marketed it heavily around megan fox being hot.

writer diablo cody later revealed that when she questioned the marketing strategy, one executive literally responded with three words: “megan fox hot.”

the movie struggled initially but eventually became a cult classic, especially among women.

kind of ironic that a movie exploring the exploitation of teenage girls was marketed by exploiting its lead actress’s sex appeal.

the vmas don’t matter unless my favorite artist wins. then suddenly we’re witnessing music history.

if they lose, it’s rigged. obviously.

race to the bottom gets a lot easier to see with real examples.

fast fashion is one. global brands keep looking for cheaper production, and bangladesh became a major manufacturing hub partly because of extremely low wages and weak labor protections. academics have literally used its garment industry as an example of the race to the bottom.

another version happened with amazon’s hq2. cities basically competed to win amazon by offering huge incentives. new york offered a package worth nearly $3 billion and virginia offered up to $773 million. the new york deal eventually collapsed after political backlash.

different industries, same weird dynamic: everyone competes to offer more by asking for less in return.

the concert of europe was basically the great powers of europe trying to keep the continent from blowing itself up again after napoleon.

britain, austria, russia, prussia and later france agreed to meet, negotiate, and manage major crises instead of immediately going to war.

it wasn’t exactly peaceful or democratic, and they often cared more about preserving their own power than anything else. but for a while, it helped prevent another continent wide war on the scale of the napoleonic wars.

kind of an early version of powerful countries realizing that talking regularly might be cheaper than fighting constantly.

one thing worth checking for every congressional candidate this year is where they actually stand on israel and gaza, and who is spending money to help elect them.

that includes aipac.

but there is an important distinction. aipac pac can contribute directly to candidates, while united democracy project, the super pac associated with aipac, can spend independently supporting or opposing candidates. federal law requires that independent spending to be disclosed, and it cannot legally be coordinated with the candidate.

why do people care so much?

because congress votes on billions of dollars in military assistance, weapons sales, foreign policy, and oversight involving israel. at the same time, american opinion on the conflict has changed significantly. in 2026, only 16 percent of democrats had a favorable view of the israeli government, while younger americans were increasingly sympathetic toward palestinians. more than half of americans still said the israel and gaza conflict was personally important to them.

so when looking at a candidate, i think there are two separate questions worth asking.

what do they actually believe about israel and gaza?

and who is spending money to make sure they get elected?

you do not have to assume the money bought their position.

but voters should at least know the relationship exists before deciding what to make of it.

ms. rachel is probably the healthiest version of toddler screen time, but it is still screen time.ms. rachel can help teach your kid words. she still cannot replace talking to them.

image

life is less an individual journey than a web of relationships, rituals, obligations, stories, and exchanges.

we are born into cultures already in progress, inherit meanings we did not create, and spend our lives negotiating our place inside them.

in the end, a human life is partly what happened to us, and partly what our community learned to call meaningful.

it can be genuinely painful to read, but the reward is real.

this is one of those writers you have to meet at the right time. the book asks something from you too. it wants your full attention, your whole mind, almost your whole self.

i love the writing, but this is absolutely not the kind of author i can casually pick up whenever i feel like reading a few pages.

samsung responded: image
https://x.com/...ileUS/status/2097748103478591990

the price is going to be duo too, so i guess it makes sense.

eulagisca gigantea looks like something evolution designed after watching too much sci fi. it’s a giant antarctic scale worm that lives in cold deep water, grows up to around 8 inches long, and has a retractable throat armed with large jaws for grabbing prey. the weird golden “fur” along its sides is actually part of its segmented body.

basically proof that the deep ocean has been quietly making monsters this whole time.

i decided to look a little more closely at norway, since it is one of those countries we seem to envy for almost everything.

i was honestly stunned. the story is almost too good.

norway had been in a union with sweden until 1905, when it broke away and became fully independent.

the norwegians wanted to remain a monarchy, but there was one small problem. they had no king and no royal family of their own.

so they literally went looking for a king.

yes, looking for a king. it sounds ridiculous, but that is basically what happened.

their first choice was the swedish royal family they had just separated from. norway essentially asked whether sweden might spare one of its princes so they could make him king. sweden declined.

so they turned to denmark.

there they found a suitable candidate, prince carl of denmark. he was scandinavian, had naval training, was young, and already had a son.

when the offer reached him, he did not simply jump at the chance. he insisted that he would only accept the crown if the norwegian people actually wanted him.

a referendum was held in november 1905, and the monarchy was approved by a large majority. prince carl accepted the throne and took the name haakon vii, reviving the name of earlier norwegian kings and tying the new monarchy to the country's older traditions.

and norway later discovered that it had chosen an extraordinary king.

during world war ii, haakon vii refused to submit to nazi germany and became one of the great symbols of norwegian resistance. this man had essentially been invited in from another country to become king, yet when norway faced its darkest moment, he stood by it completely.

you could not ask for much more from a monarch.

he also strongly respected norway's parliamentary system and became a lasting symbol of constitutional monarchy during the development of the modern norwegian state.