A black panther is the melanistic color variant of any big cat species. Black panthers in Asia and Africa are leopards (Panthera pardus), and those in the Americas are black jaguars (Panthera onca).
Close examination of the color of these black cats will show that the typical markings are still present, but are hidden by the excess black pigment melanin.
Melanistic and non-melanistic animals can be littermates.
There are no authenticated cases of truly melanistic cougars; sightings are assumed to be misidentifications.
they’re all so perfect and important!!!!! I love that the OP clarified the important leopard/jaguar distinction, because it is IMPORTANT!!!! Black panthers are actually TWO SEPARATE SPECIES sharing in common a SPECIAL COLOR MORPH.
There are so many good things to know about black panthers and so many things to love. Personally: I love that black jaguars are so chonky. I love the visible rosettes. I love that the selection pressures of evolution, which normally create very homogeneous-looking animal populations in the wild, loosen their reins enough to allow diversity and divergence in the same species, sometimes even in the same litter. ISN’T THAT GREAT. ANIMALS ARE SO GREAT
Fun fact: actual panthers (otherwise known as cougars or mountain lions) do not exhibit this color morph. So no black panthers are actual panthers.
Actually, “panther” is a common name for cougars (Puma concolor), but “black panther” refers to leopards and jaguars, which are members of the Panthera genus, and can still rightfully be called panthers.
tbh I think if we saw a neanderthal on the street we probably wouldn’t know they weren’t quite…us…we’d just be like “huh, that guy sure had a broad face also he must deadlift”
The newer reconstructions that they are doing show this so clearly. Both men and women, they looked….pretty much like us. Just heavier bone structure. Clearly Not Quite Us if you studied closely, but put on modern clothes, modern hairstyles, and…. yeah, they’re human.
They just look like us if we had slightly thicker bones and bigger skulls.
I love the facial expression!
Grandpa about to tell me a story about mammoth hunting……
I know I bring him up a lot but I have to talk about Shanidar 1. He is a Neanderthal man who lived in what is now Shanidar, Iraq. At some point in his early life he suffered a serious blow to the head,possibly leading to paralysis on the right side of his body that caused him to lose the use of his leg and arm, and he might also have been blinded in one eye. Around 40,000 years ago that would’ve been an immediate death sentence unless he was cared for by his tribe, and he was. He was cared for so well that he lived to be 35-45 years old, an advanced age for Neanderthals. They were capable of compassion, perhaps even love. This also means that “survival of the fittest” is a bit bullshit imho.
this is a really good post but i have a few things i’d like to point out:
and there’s a reason for this–neanderthals were extremely closely related to us. while recent research has upheld their status as a separate species (homo neanderthalensis) instead of a subspecies of homo sapiens, they could and did interbreed with our anatomically modern human ancestors. almost all modern humans carry a small percentage of neanderthal DNA (about 2% for people of non-african descent).
so yeah, they aren’t quite us. but they’re very, very close.
I’ve said “I hate this” so many times on this website, and never actually meant it, because “I hate this” is just shorthand for ‘this is an example of a meme given a twist I wasn’t expecting with intent to surprise’. Which is, in of itself, a meme on this site. God damn it.
But this… This is something else.
The rapidity of a meme’s introduction to its zenith to its decline is so rapid that in ten years, you’ll need a damn twenty-page manual to explain this. It’ll be as unfunny and hard to explain as jokes in Shakespeare plays, except even more inexplicable because fuck, at least Shakespeare’s jokes are usually about anal or fucking your mother, good wholesome sex jokes we can all get behind.
For the love of fuck, how do you explain loss.jpg? How do you explain gun?
….I THOUGHT THIS WAS A YMCA REFERENCE
it is a YMCA reference – that’s one of the 6 memes being represented here
ok let me see if i can break this down easily. YMCA is the easiest place to start – the song itself has become a meme over time with people changing the lyrics to reference other pop cultural events. so YMCA is meme one (1)
this first lyric replacement (”take the breadsticks and run”) is a reference to the tumblr meme ‘stuffing breadsticks into my purse’. i think everyone remembers that one so i wont bother to explain it. that’s meme two (2)
“man door hand hook car door” is a meme of its own, a creepypasta from i dont remember when. it was a terrible stupid retelling of the generic ‘stuck in a car while hook handed man tries to kill us’ story so the stupid title caught on for memorability. that in and of itself is meme three (3)
‘gun’ is… yeah i dont know how to explain gun. long story short you add gun to the end of a phrase instead of what you expect the last word to be. its shock funny. its everywhere but its popular to add to “man door hand hook car door” for.. some reason? gun is meme four (4)
and the thing is, this four meme combo is something thats gone around before. meme combos are, itself, a meme. which means taking this meme combo and mixing in another meme actually becomes meme five (5)
which leaves us at loss.jpg. loss.jpg was a terrible bad comic supposed to be about some tragic event, but it was presented so poorly literally no one takes it seriously, and for some reason recreating the four-panel setup has become popular. so thats meme six (6)
(but i need to add that this is the greatest version of loss.jpg i think i’ve ever seen. the initial ‘young man’ lines up with the guy bursting through the door, and the shock meme ‘gun’ matches the shock scene of the woman in the hospital and idk if OP even thought about that but it makes this just so much better)
I wasn’t going to reblog this, but @pagesofkenna‘s comprehensive meme-by-meme annotation is a thing of beauty and should be shared.
average tumblr post contains one meme, this post, which contains six, is an outlier and should not be counted
it might also just be a coincidence due to loss.jpg’s format but the whole white minimalist four-panel setup is also suspiciously reminiscent of those early 2000’s rage comics
I was getting a political compass vibe too
tag urself im man door hand hook car gun
This works better than I thought it would.
This was in my senior project
I’m not sorry.
EIGHT MEME COMBO
FATALITY
We have officially created a new language
I just had to do it to em
THIS FUCKING THREAD I’M GONNA CRY
I LOST IT AND MAN DOOR HAND HOOK CAR GUN AND DIDN’T EXPECT MORE I’M SOBBING
M E M E T E N
OwO?
W o w
You know I had to
I hope you know this is the most cursed addition to my post, and I love it
THIRTEEN!?
SOMEONE EDIT THIS FROM THE ORIGINAL PHOTO SAYING “this one does not spark joy” TO THIS VERSION SAYING “this one sparks joy”
well i added my contribution : )
why—
IM SCREAMING
This is the most elaborate meme I have ever seen and damn am I concerned by how it makes sense.
“You’re in your 30s, but you still understand all this meme stuff?” “Oh yeah, sure.” “Can you explain it to me?” “I absolutely fucking cannot.”
these wiggly fellas are Anguilla dieffenbachii, orNew Zealandlongfin eels. the ones in local rivers and preserves are known for being gentle, food-driven little weenies that beg tourists for food.
especially hungry wild specimens have been reported to attack humans and animals by swarming them and ripping off their flesh, but these ones are harmless!
@eelpatrickharris how can you tell them from other freshwater eels, I’m curious? I was looking around, and it seemed like while some are pretty different (some have spots, etc), there were a bunch that looked basically like this. I was thinking American eels, since OPs profile says Texas, but I certainly couldn’t tell for sure.
the size, behavior, and thickness! you see, NZ longfins are known for travelling in herds, and they are big boys. while the majority of anguilla eels grow to 3.3 feet on average—a. rostrata, a. anguilla, a. japonica—longfins can and will grow to 6 feet and over. there have been reports of them growing to 10 feet, but due to overfishing, any specimens like that are long gone.
also, girth. top is a fully grown american eel (4 feet is their absolute maximum, 3 is average), and below is a new zealand longfin who has a few feet to go.
when it comes to mannerisms, you’ll almost never see american eels in groups outside of mating season, when they all migrate to the sea. they’re highly aggressive, distrustful of humans, and bitey. longfins, on the other hand, stick together and act like big water dogs.
it’s a common thing in NZ to have “pet” eels. people will feed scraps of meat to the ones in their local streams, and they’ll start wiggling excitedly when they see you! those eels in the video are just getting really pumped because they think someone has treats. (even though it’s bread, which is bad for them.)
they’re not as scary as they seem. NZ longfin eels just want to be your friend!
(note: this only applies to ones that live in preserves and rivers near civilization. eels from huge lakes and remote areas are generally starving and i don’t recommend trying to be their friend.)
Whether you’re a city mouse or a country mouse — with a high-rise patio or 1000 acres — building an herb spiral near your kitchen allows you to partake in the sustainable permaculture revolution and have fresh organic culinary herbs at your fingertips. An herb spiral is a compact vertical garden built on specific principles allowing for individualized management of wind and water flow to create the ideal garden in a limited amount of space.
The spiral is a natural form that provides an efficient method for managing space, storing and sorting. Using the natural universal design of a spiral, the forces of gravity and water flow are utilized to their fullest allowing for proper drainage downhill. Herbs that thrive on drier soils live at the top, whereas those needing more moisture reside at the bottom where water collects. This form allows for planting of a widely diverse number of plants, and creates natural, sunny and shady areas — a perfect miniature microclimate landscape environment. The herb spiral as a permaculture form that allows you to create your own ecosystem and become self sufficient. The format can be adapted to large gardens if space is available.
Stone or block building materials allow for retention of heat and insulate plants in colder weather or at night, while acting as the backbone for the structure. Collect water at the bottom and have a small fish or frog pond or even a bog and grow edible water plants. An herb spiral can be built even on a concrete foundation and filled with the richest biodynamic, organic earth to support any plants included.
The spiral should always be built to move in the direction of water drainage in whatever hemisphere it’s located in — for example, in the Northern hemisphere, water runs off in a clockwise direction and the opposite is true for the Southern hemisphere. This allows for optimal positioning of the pond at the bottom and reduces evaporation. The spiral can be built as a round or oval shape to take advantage of the movement of summer sunlight.
15 REASONS TO BUILD AN HERB SPIRAL FOR YOUR PERMACULTURE GARDEN
1. Maximize growing space to grow more food. 2. Multiple microclimates available for optimal plant growth.
3. Healthier plants where growing needs are met and companion planting is easy to reduce insect problems and foster beneficial plant relationships for better growth. 4. Aesthetic garden focal point.
5. Maximizes space even in very small areas on top of concrete or in high-rise buildings. 6. Harvesting access is easy and all plants are effortlessly accessible. 7. No bending, everything is at waist height — hooray!
8. Save money by growing your own food. 9. Eat organic, using heirloom seeds and avoid pesticides and genetically engineered seeds. 10. Reduces maintenance, little weeding and easy to turn and mulch.
11. Manage water amounts and use natural forces to perpetuate the growing season. 12. Reduce building costs when you use local available materials. 13. Use drip irrigation or a small sprinkler for easy watering and irrigation.
14. Create a bio-diverse habitat for creatures who come to visit. 15. Build an herb spiral to grow medicinal herbs to avoid Big Pharm drugs.
Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of Silicon Valley, there was an age undreamed of…
Movies were sold on big reels of tape, wound up inside little plastic boxes.
And played on machines called VCRs.
And if you wanted to create a copy of a movie, you could hook two of these machines together and do it with no problem. In fact, it was ruled in a court of law that it was a fair use of someone elses copyrighted movie to make yourself an archival copy, so that if your tape broke, or the machine ‘ate it’ you wouldn’t have to buy another one.
Hollywood didn’t care for this.
So, when the digital age dawned, someone came up with the bright idea of selling movies on DVDs. And one of the big selling points, so far as Hollywood was concerned, was that you could encrypt the data of the movie on the disc, and put hardware to decrypt it in the DVD player, in such a way that it wouldn’t play if two DVD players were hooked together, and so that someone who put a DVD into a computer couldn’t copy it.
Techies and hackers didn’t care for this.
So, they started trying to figure out how to cryptanalyze the DVDs, which were encrypted with a tech called CSS, for Content Scrambling System. And they didn’t have much luck, because crypto is hard, and breaking it is harder. And then one day they caught a lucky break.
Some manufacturers of DVD players, from Taiwan iirc, put out a new product, one of which was bought by a hacker somewhere, who tinkered with it and realized that the makers had made a mistake. They hadn’t properly protected the chips that contained the CSS decryption key, which allowed this guy to get access to it and copy it. He then created a program called DeCSS, which would allow you to put a DVD in a computer and then ‘rip’ the data to your hard drive, then write it to another DVD. He posted it online, and within hours the news, and copies of the key and code, had spread all over the world.
Hollywood flipped their shit over this.
They brought the legal hammer down on this guy, and it ended up in court. He said he had a right, as per the previous Fair Use ruling, regarding VHS tapes, to copy DVDs as well. When people had previously complained that encryption was stripping them of their rights, Hollywood had argued that there was nothing in the law that said they had to make copying easy, and basically challenged them to figure out how to break it. In the court case, Hollywood argued that under a new law that had passed, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, it was illegal to circumvent an DRM, or Digital Rights Management system. The plaintiffs counter-argued that they hadn’t really reversed engineered anything, that the dumb machines had been built wrong, that they had a right to tinker with it and see how it worked.
So, sitting between these parties was a judge who… to put it kindly, was probably in over his head. Probably some old guy, the kind of guy who still owned a VCR with the clocking blinking 12:00 PM because he didn’t know how to adjust the time. An old grandpa sorta guy. Maybe not a bad guy, just clueless about how tech works. So, when Hollywood argued that there should be some sort of injunction against the spread of the DeCSS software online, that it should be illegal for people to host it, or for others to download it, or to tell people how it worked, or even to link to it, gramps said, “Sure, why not? Here you go, here’s an order that says it’s illegal to possess this software.”
Well, the tech people freaked out about this, because it contradicted a number of already established precedents. Like Phil Zimmermann publishing the source code of PGP and shipping the books containing it to Europe, despite the fact that the encryption tech it contained had been ruled a munition that couldn’t be sold overseas. The precedent, that code was speech, and therefore subject to first amendment protections, seemed to be being thwarted in the DeCSS case. And the tech/hacker community wanted to make it clear that they weren’t going to stand for that.
So, some bright person somewhere, went out and got himself a shirt made, that had the source code of DeCSS printed on it, along with some quote from the order basically saying that it was illegal to buy or own this shirt, then started selling them on his website. This clever idea opened a floodgate of people coming up with unique ways to spread the source code of DeCSS, in a way that was tempting the court to try to stop them, on the grounds that the ruling would then go to a higher court and be turned over on first amendment grounds.
“Take t5’s low byte (AND t5 with two hundred fifty five) to put it
in the ith byte of the vector called k. Now shift t5 right eight bits;
store the result in t5 again. Now that’s the last step in the loop.
No sooner have we finished that loop than we’ll start another; no rest
for the wicked nor those innocents whom lawyers serve with paperwork.”
One of these people, Phil Carmody, raised an interesting argument. He said that software is just numbers. In fact, every piece of software is a single number, that is also a infinite number of numbers (or practically so) as there are nearly an infinite number of mathematical conversions or encodings you can perform on a number. So he wrote a little script version of DeCSS, then converted it to a number, then started to look to see if this number was the same as another somewhere. Was it hidden somewhere in pi? Or the Golden Ratio? What if you doubled it? or added 1 to it?
And after some searching, he found a list of the largest known prime numbers, wherein the 19th largest prime that had been found by that time, was the same as his code for DeCSS. So he posted this info online, and said, “If you go to this website, take this prime number, and save it in a file, then compile it, the output is this piece of software that is illegal to possess, transmit, or share information about.” Here it is, by the way:
Carmody argued, if the ruling that it’s illegal to do these things with the DeCSS software
holds up, then it’s also illegal to possess, transmit, or share
information about this prime number. It will become an illegal number. It would have to be redacted from websites, and whatever books it might appear in. People searching for new primes, or any other number, will have to worry about sharing them online, that they are on some list of illegal numbers somewhere. The lists will grow exponentially, as the precedent that this software is forbidden to possess or share, will lead others to demand that software, and numbers, they don’t care for be made illegal as well.
And then… I forget the rest. Whether it was finally ruled in the favor of common sense, or if the case simply petered out and nothing more was ever heard about it. I do know that no one was ever brought up on charges for possessing a number, and DeCSS has been widely available ever since the day it was first posted online (if you’ve ever used a movie ripping software like ffmpeg, you’ve used DeCSS or it’s descendents.)
Last week I attempted to illustrate some neural net-generated racehorses by turning to another neural net – this time, one that generates images, called BigGAN.
Using Joel Simon’s ganbreeder.app interface, I’m able to see what BigGAN can generate for any of ~1000 categories of objects. Not finding a category for “racehorse”, I decided to use the nearest thing I could find, “horse cart”. Which, um.
But ganbreeder makes it easy to combine multiple categories – if “horse cart” is one point in space and “great grey owl” is another point in space, when you travel on a straight line between them, the horse carts gradually grow feathers and owl faces, ending in something that sort of resembles an owl.
Ganbreeder also allows you to travel AWAY from a destination. So I can start at “horse cart” and then try to remove some of the cartness by deliberately traveling in the exact opposite direction of “shopping cart”. Sure enough, the image morphs into a furry four-legged creature with no more sign of wheels.
[left: 100% horse cart. right: 75% horse cart and -75% shopping cart. bottom: tried to make the face less doglike by also subtracting some dog. success??]
What this also means is that I can take any category of thing and generate its opposite. For example, I can set “guacamole” to -100%, inverting every component that makes it up. It’s kind of like burrowing directly through the earth’s core to find out what’s on the exact opposite side of the planet.
Here’s what’s opposite of guacamole: this tower, this mysterious cloaked figure.
this thing, I regret to inform you, is the opposite of “jeans”
Now, this is just a single neural net’s strange idea of what an opposite is, basically “do exactly the opposite of what you would do to generate a picture of jeans”. If they retrained the neural net on the same data, random fluctuations in the training process might make the opposites look a lot different. But often the opposites have a sort of logic to them. The opposite of tiny indoor things tend to be large landscapes. The opposite of organic things tend to be geometric ones.
Here’s the opposite of “stingray”:
The opposite of “birdhouse” is, rather pleasingly, some kind of cat.
The opposite of “drilling platform” is this leafy green creature.
And the opposite of “eggnog” is a terrifying sight to behold.
You can make your own abominations and opposites with ganbreeder.app!
ifesbob 
