This is a image of the oldest star with a well-determined age in our galaxy. The aging star, cataloged as HD 140283, lies 190.1 light-years away. Hubble Space Telescope was used to narrow the measurement uncertainty on the star’s distance, and this helped refine the calculation of a more precise age of 14.5 billion years (plus or minus 800 million years).
The star is rapidly passing through our local stellar neighborhood. The star’s orbit carries it through the plane of our galaxy from the galactic halo that has a population of ancient stars. The Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) UK Schmidt telescope photographed the star in blue light.
Credit: Digitized Sky Survey (DSS), STScI/AURA, Palomar/Caltech, and UKSTU/AAO
Hang on a tick. The current estimate of the age of the universe, according to Wikipedia, is “only” about 13.8 billion years, give or take 37 million. One would think no star can possibly be older than the universe, but even if we assume therefore the error is minus 800 million, which seems to me an awfully large margin of error on an object so relatively close to us (the Milky Way is 100,000 to 120,000 light-years in diameter, so 190 light-years is comparatively just down the block), that still comes out to 13.7 billion years. FWIW the Wikipedia article on the Milky Way says the oldest known star in it is 13.2 billion years, “nearly as old as the Universe”, but doesn’t name it or cite a source for the age where one might find out what star exactly is being referred to.
but tl;dr, wow, hail the Ancient One.
(via ninquelen)
#So am I the only person into BPAL that thinks Lush products smell pretty horrible on one end or like nothing on the other end because it really seems that way from the forums what
#i haven’t been all that impressed whenever i walked into a Lush i think i’ve always walked out empty-handed despite the hype
And with that last post, reblogging something from January, I am officially only 7 weeks behind in my “posts to reblog and reply to” folder! (There was a gap.) Next up—maybe—something from inocain I bookmarked on April 1st. Whee!
It’s one thing to hang on to emails to reply to for several months, but on tumblr that is LITERALLY FOREVER. I mean LITERALLY. FOREVAH.
(I am being facetious, of course, but it seems there’s far more chance that someone will delete a post or change URLs and break the link within a few months or even a few weeks on tumblr than it is likely that someone will abandon an email address in the same time period, and even if not, 4 months ago is OMG SO OVER THAT NOW. Tumblr posts seem to have a much more limited shelf life, in other words.)
- May 23
- , 2013
So I know there’s a lot online about otherkin, and a lot of theories about what constitutes an otherkin. Some say that they’re reincarnated souls trapped in a mortal body, some say it was choice, some say it’s about the soul and some feel phantom limbs. We’ve all heard it.
We’ve also all heard of…
There are some otherkin whose personal narratives include the idea of some bloodline non-humanity. However, as roguesareth said, there’s no way to prove such a thing; as biologyweeps said, it’s only feasible scientifically speaking if that “other” donor is very close to the human genome to begin with. That in itself need not necessarily be damning for certain types, such as elves; after all, the Eldar could interbreed with Men and produce fertile offspring, so there’s a decent argument that they are better thought of as two strains or breeds of the same species, which as we know can be very different in appearance and other characteristics (cf. domestic animals and plants), rather than two separate species as such. (Of course there are offworlder elves, but speaking of the idea of an elvish bloodline or bloodlines among humans on Earth.)
But usually this kind of thing is kept to mythic personal history rather than making strong claims about one’s literal biology.
Reposted for frameacloud :) symbols proposal from Twilight-Stray over the Werelist, circa 2004? Around the time the theta-delta started being used. I’ve kept some of those in my personal archives.
Edit: ALSO, from Twilight-Stray again: http://therianthropy.livejournal.com/263915.html; this latter post was about the designs I posted above, I believe: http://therianthropy.livejournal.com/265319.html
Strange to think of such things now. I think I agree with the person in the LJ thread who said that having variations with different paws sort of defeated the purpose of having a single sign by which to recognize each other. I don’t know what to think of the sketch version that includes symbols for dragons (ok, I know there are some dragons in the therian community), unicorns (… I guess the same could apply, they are “beasts” after all) and fae (!! this one really surprised me).
(As an aside about types like dragons, unicorns, or gryphons, do they then tend to frame themeselves as “shifters” as many therians do, but which their counterparts in the otherkin community typically do not, though they may experience “shifting” phenomena?)
I think the theta-delta was a more uniquely meaningful choice than this moon/spiral thing, although I suppose one can fairly say that the acute seven-pointed star often used by otherkin (particularly elves and fae) is far from having a unique meaning.
I’m also surprised to see how recent the theta-delta is, relatively speaking. To me on the outside it’s seemed like it kinda always was - not literally, obviously, but I thought it must have dated to the 90s. The seven-pointed star was already current among otherkin in the late 1990s, and I think descends from the Elf Queen’s Daughters and Silver Elves’ use of it as an elven star in the 1970s.
That moment when you planted foxglove (toxic) and lavender seeds for germinating in two pots, but forgot to mark the pots.
RUSSIAN PLANT ROULETTE
My best guess is that the one on the left is lavender (it looks just like the other mint family seedlings I have), but I haven’t grown foxglove yet so I’m not 100% sure. ^^’
Lavender. is my guess too for the left actually.
So long as you weren’t planning to pluck up the sprouts and eat them, I’m not sure I see a problem. Just keep waiting, yeah?
hunters-in-the-sherlocked-tardis:
people rant about teenage characters being portrayed by grown up actors but i’d like to know how exactly did this happen that 65 years old alan rickman played 38 years old severus snape
HE’S 65 YEARS OLD?
I don’t think I’m capable of even starting on this one without ending up on a looong rant about how many of the Potter adult actors are too old, but Alan Rickman as Severus Snape is among the worse ones. Um. So I won’t.
(via mothensidhe)
Hay doods, check out what came in the mail off eBay today. (Bonus view of the back of my husband’s head and much crap on the shelves in our bedroom.)
I still don’t know how I am going to manage to digitize this, as it seems silly to buy equipment made for the purpose unless we were going to do more than one record, but I’ll work on it.
[snip lyrics]
Congrats! I know you said you’ve been looking for it for awhile :)
Yeah, I was beaten three times IIRC before I won this one. (So maybe there’s more of them out there than I thought; it was three different sellers for the four auctions.) Cost me about $25 counting the shipping. A couple of the previous ones went for more than that, so yay.
Hay doods, check out what came in the mail off eBay today. (Bonus view of the back of my husband’s head and much crap on the shelves in our bedroom.)
I still don’t know how I am going to manage to digitize this, as it seems silly to buy equipment made for the purpose unless we were going to do more than one record, but I’ll work on it.
(oh, and on the question of the date: ℗1979.)
To the Sea
To the sea my brethren
So far it seems yet so remembered, so dear
Home to all tho seeming far
Yet really so very near
To the sea
The sea of dreams she weds the faerie night
Yond Taeratan, star kindler burning bright
A song to her deep still vaults of crystal and blue
Happy am I to share my evernew dream with a lover such as you
Soft moon hanging bright above my heart, it abides with ye
The sea calls us onward evermore and everyond to roam
We sisters of Eldar fate
Wander ever home
To the sea
Dana O’Shee===perfect beautiful honey almond notes. Perf.
O=cherry cough syrup. Dragon’s milk=same thing. T_T
Same for me. Didn’t like Dragon’s Milk or O either, same reason, too cloying and just ergh. And usually amber and vanilla are good for me.
Dusken, do - do we smell like each other?
this is getting into a real weird area here
…I—
don’t know…
DO WE?
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITES? THIS IS WEIRD BRAH
*examines collection*
Dublin, Crossroads, Wolfsbane, Robin Goodfellow, The Raven, Arkham, Tombstone, Dance of Death, Damnation, Spellbound, Laudanum, Lear are probably good candidates, besides Dana O’Shee.
Yumboes
Silver-haired fairies from Senegal in West Africa who held revels by moonlight.
Their homes are exotic palaces beneath the hills.I recognize the artist. If I remember right, the original art showcases trolls from Scandinavia, not African fae.
Illustration by John Bauer in Bland tomtar och troll (Among pixies/fairies/gnomes and trolls), a Swedish fairy- and folk-tale annual, for “Bortbytingarna” (“The Changeling”) by Helena Nyblom, 1913.
Everyone, I’m elated to tell you that Tumblr will be joining Yahoo.
Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower…
I don’t have any particular emotional attachment to tumblr as some do, but this all kind of reminds me of when LiveJournal was first sold to Six Apart. Been downhill since then over there.
lol.#the sorrows of the eldar are never-ending
