I am so fucking sick of everyone calling the Riften Ratways in Skyrim a sewer!!!
IT’S A CISTERN. IT’S CALLED A CISTERN. THE WELL IN THE TOWN SQUARE LITERALLY LOWERS INTO THE CENTER OF THE GUILD!!!! A CISTERN IS A RESERVOIR OF FRESH WATER.
Literally why, the fuck, would a medieval town BUILT ON THE WATER have a sewer system? They’re throwing the sludge into the waterway, not in their one source of fresh water!!!!
I mean seriously, the whole “stinky Thieves Guild” thing makes me want to foam at the mouth. It’s my minor thing that makes me irrationally angry.
Get to know the satanic leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus phantasticus).👹🍂🦎 This nocturnal resident of Madagascar’s rainforests is a master of disguise. It specializes in mimicking dry leaves—down to its jagged tail, which looks like it’s rotting or has been chewed. And if it’s spotted by a predator, it’ll drop the camouflage act and instead open its bright red mouth for a shocking display. If all else fails and it’s caught, this gecko can drop its tail to make a getaway! Photo: Frank Vassen, CC BY 2.0, flickr #AnimalFacts #gecko #SatanicLeafTailedGecko #nature #dyk #Madagascar #camoflauge #nocturnal https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdo-wFqLtEf/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Heard my first whip-poor-will in half a decade this spring, and right after I drew this guy for Northern Woodlands Magazine If you draw them, they will come.
Yesterday in the evening, I decided to put some peanut butter on the branch to see if anybody would come to check it out during the night. We have several species of squirrels in Michigan, and this is one of them - a Flying squirrel. These guys look like straight out of an animation movie, and they are so elusive and fast that it is hard to spot them, let alone capture them on film or photo. This is not perfect but still a lot of fun to watch, and only the second time I saw one in my yard.
It was used to measure time at night by determining the angle between a star and Polaris. In principle, the nocturnal is a representation of the apparent movement of the rear wheels of the constellation of the Little or Big Dipper around Polaris (actually: celestial pole) in the centre, which takes place in 24 hours.
The instrument has three discs that can be adjusted. The lower disc shows, among other things, the months with days (1-28/31) and the zodiac symbols, while the upper, rotatable disc shows, among other things, the age of the moon (1-30). Above this is a small disc to which the long index arm is attached. To use the instrument, hold it by the ivory handle like a hand mirror.
An ivory plate embedded in the pointer bears the engraving "BOTH-BEARS", which means that either the constellation of the Big Bear or the constellation of the Little Bear could be used to set the correct angle in the firmament. Through the hole in the centre of the disc, the pole star was aimed at after the discs had been preset. When the finger of the index hands marked "LB" (for Little Bear) or "GB" (for Great Bear) pointed to certain stars in the respective constellation, the instrument was correctly aligned. The time could then be read on the hour scale on its back.