So my autistic ass was OBSESSED with The Titanic as a kid and one thing I keep thinking about with this whole lost submarine incident is the “name curse”.
White Star Line, the company that produced the Titanic, made three Olympic class ocean liners: The Olympic, The Titanic, and The Britannic.
(Seen in order top to bottom. Picture stolen from reddit. X )
The Olympic is the only of those three that did not sink.
Now, the “name curse” that comes in to play here is related to greek mytholoical races from which each ship has supposedly taken its name: The Olympic Gods (also just called Olympians), The Titans, and The Giants. The giants are involved due to a claim that The Britannic was originally called The Gigantic, based on an unofficial poster featuring the ship with the supposed name above it, as well as a contemporary newspaper stating that the company announced a ship with said name three years before The Britannic was launched.
Both The Giants and The Titans were races that were vanquished by The Olympic Gods in what are called the
Titanomachy
and Gigantomachy, with the latter event being less well know.
Another race of gigantic beings seen in greek mythology is The Cyclopes. The Cyclops were never vanquished by The Olympic Gods as they were never
at odds with the gods, even crafting artifacts for the gods themselves,
namely: Zeus’s thunderbolts, Poseidon’s trident, and Hades’s helmet of
invisibility.
The submarine that went missing is part of the Cyclops class submarine line produced by OceanGate Inc., probably called such due to the design. Two vessels of the class have been produced with two more planned following a naming scheme of Cyclops I, Cyclops II, and so on. Cyclops II however was renamed to Titan specifically for its use in touristic viewing expeditions of The Titanic.
Now, more about the submarine itself;
Cyclops I performed well for its intended depth, Titan however has not, with OceanGate having lost track of it before. This is due to the vessel lacking a tracking beacon, as well as navigation controls and communication devices, relying on a support ship to text Titan’s captain its directions, as revealed by Journalist David Progue, who also said that they “turned off the ship’s internet to prevent tweeting.” Also, due to the lack of these features, Titan was denied official certification by ship classification societies for not meeting safety standards of ANY society. Problems started long before this, though.
During the testing of Titan’s design, OceanGate claimed that the dimensions and structure were partly designed and tested by NASA, Boeing (the plane company) and The University of Washington. All three of which have denied this. In fact, when Titan was first built, it was handed over to the company’s operations department with no testing whatsoever as well as an insufficient monitoring system. The Director of Operations, however, saw this and submitted a negative quality report, for which he was promptly fired. When they DID finally test it over a year later, the vessel resurfaced with signs of cyclic fatigue, which is the near microscopic bending of metal that happens before cracks appear. Instead of changing the design to prevent this from happening in future expeditions, the company simply replaced the damaged parts and called it good.
All in all, its just so funny to me that OceanGate used the same supposedly cursed naming pattern for its ONE safety violation riddled submarine only to send it to a lethal depth its not equipped to handle AND SOMEHOW not expect it to eventually crush like a soda can under a semi.
chimney swifts are so weirddd theyre like if birds decided to be bats.
thats bats. those are bats. to me
just like what a strange little creature. theyre related to hummingbirds. they cant actually sit and perch like most birds, the best they can do is cling to vertical surfaces. almost everything they do is done in mid-air. they have to drink by swooping at the surface of water with their mouth open. they build nests out of twigs they break off of branches as they fly by. they eat 5000-6000 bugs a day. And theyre the next president, of the united states of america
hey man youve been taking a while putting your change back in your wallet and i just wanted to let you know we are kicking you out of the grocwery sytore forever. goodbye
If you use Tumblr on a web browser, you might have noticed us testing a brand new navigation on your dashboard in the last month. Now, after some extensive tweaks, we’ve begun rolling out this new dashboard navigation to everyone using a web browser. Welcome to the new world. It’s very like the old world, just in a different layout.
Why are we doing this? We want it to be as easy as possible for everyone to understand and explore what’s happening on Tumblr—newbies and seasoned travelers alike.
Labels over icons: When adding something new to Tumblr in the past, we’d simply add a new icon to our navigation with little further explanation. Turns out no one likes to press a button when they don’t know what it does. So now, where there’s space, the navigation includes text labels. Since adding these, we’ve noticed more of you venturing to previously unexplored corners of Tumblr. Intrepid!
What’s already been fixed? Thanks to feedback from folks during the testing phase, we’ve been able to make some improvements right out of the gate. Those include returning settings subpages (Account, Dashboard, etc.) to the right of the settings page instead of having them in an expandable item in the navigation on the left; fixing some issues with messaging windows on smaller screens; and streamlining the Account section to make it easier to get to your blogs.
What’s next? We’re looking into making a collapsible version of this navigation and improving the use of screen space for those of you with enormous screens. We’re also working on improving access to your account and sideblogs.
That’s all for now, folks. For questions and suggestions, contact Support using the “Feedback” category. Please select the “Report a bug or crash” category on the support form for technical issues. And keep an eye out for more updates here on @changes.
This is terrible. For everyone who wants to unfuck it:
This painting was left intentionally incomplete. Haring began it when he was dying due to complications from AIDS, and knew he didn’t have much time left. The piece represents the incomplete lives of him and many others, lost to AIDS during the crisis.
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“AIDS Memorial Quilt” — Multiple
This quilt is over 50 tons heavy, and one of, if not the, largest pieces of community folk art. Many people who died of AIDS did not receive funerals, due to social stigma and many funeral homes refusing to handle the deceased’s remains, so this was one of the only ways their lives could be celebrated. Each panel was created recognition of someone who died due to AIDS, typically by that person’s loved ones.
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“Untitled” — Felix Gonzalez-Torres
This pile of candy weighs the same amount as an average adult man. Visitors are encouraged to take some of the candy. As they do so, the pile of candy weighs less and less. This is a commentary on how AIDS deteriorates the body of those who have it, as Gonzalez-Torres’ partner, Ross Laycock, had died due to AIDS-related complications that same year.
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The SF Gay Men’s Chorus
This photo was taken in 1993. The men in white are the surviving original members. Every man in black is standing in for an original member who lost their lives to AIDS.
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“Electric Fan (Feel it Motherfuckers); Only Unclaimed Item from the Stephen Earabino Estate, 1997” — John Boskovich
After the death of his lover, Stephen Earabino, from AIDS, Boskovich discovered that his family had completely cleared his room, including Boskovich’s own possessions, save for this fan. An entire person, existence and relationship had been erased, just like so many lives during the AIDS crisis. Boskovich encased the fan in Plexiglass, but added cutouts so that its air may be felt by the viewer, almost like an exhalation. In a sense, restoring Earabino’s breath.
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“Blue” — Derek Jarman
This was Jarman’s final feature film, released four months before his death from AIDS-related complications. These complications had left him visually impaired, able to only see in shades of blue. This film consists of a single shot of a saturated blue color, as the soundtrack to the film described Jarman’s life through narration, intercut with the adventures of Blue, a humanization of the color blue. The film’s final moments consist of a set of repeated names: “John. Daniel. Howard. Graham. Terry. Paul". These are the names of former lovers and friends of Jarman who had died due to AIDS.
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“Untitled” (Perfect Lovers) — Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Created by the same man who created the previous untitled piece, this piece was also inspired by his lover’s deterioration and death due to AIDS. This piece consists of two perfectly alike clocks. Over the course of time, one of the clocks will fall out of sync with the other.
In a letter written to his lover about the piece, before his lover’s passing, Gonzalez-Tourres wrote, “Don’t be afraid of the clocks, they are our time, the time has been so generous to us. We imprinted time with the sweet taste of victory. We conquered fate by meeting at a certain time in a certain space. We are a product of the time, therefore we give back credit were it is due: time. We are synchronized, now forever. I love you.”
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