Latest Posts by taiisdelusional - Page 8

I was talking about editing a bunch of wikipedia pages to talk about native americans and farmer family friend was like

"yeah, it's like when we went to Turkey and we visited these historical museums, and the museums acted like the history of the country began when the Ottomans took over. The Hagia Sophia was built in what, 500 AD? And there are Roman ruins everywhere but the 'history' only begins in the 1400s. In this book I'm reading about the history of agriculture in Kentucky the author doesn't even discuss Native Americans before Europeans came. It's a huge oversight."

I've consciously tried to unlearn that shit so many times why does it STILL unlock little doors in my brain when I learn examples of how deeply arbitrary the boundaries of what we see as "history" are.

He also talked about how we have this idea of cave men being our ancestors because the things left by them in caves were more permanent, whereas the structures and things people built above ground would have decayed.

...I really do think about that a lot. How we have evidence of the civilizations that built things out of stone, while civilizations that used materials that biodegraded wouldn't have left as much evidence.

Come to think of it, some of the best known ancient civilizations did live in deserts. But they had contemporaries (like Punt, which we now know was in Ethiopia iirc...)

Farmer family friend also has been to Arizona (Might have been New Mexico? Idk.) and saw these Indigenous rock carvings he told me about that I never stopped thinking about. According to him, there's a rock face that has pictographs carved into it showing the steps of how to plant and harvest corn. "Very simple," he said, "like a tutorial."

And the crazy thing is. There's this nearby rock formation that casts a shadow on the rock face. And throughout the year, as the position of the sun changes, the shadow points to the step in the corn growing tutorial you're supposed to be doing at that time of year.

...I swear this guy has me come over just so he can have someone to talk to while he's doing mind numbing manual labor.

"I bet it doesn't hurt that bad, I don't have time for this shit."

"everybody assumes someone else will add enough flour" feels like it contains a life lesson of some kind

get more out of life. read a fucked up book.

pathfinder 2nd edition is out and succubi are now so horny that they take psychic damage when their advances arent reciprocated

also you can rub it in how much you’re not into them to cause more psychic damage

Had a woman bring in her ferret for an exam and when I went into the room a second ferret poked its head out of her bag. In delighted surprise I exclaimed “oh you have two!” and she immediately responded “yes, I’m a small business owner”

Have to admit it took me a second

What do you mean those hot ladies aren't trying to follow me because they think I'm hilarious???

just made the worst pizza ever

10 or 11 little ducks have been spotted crossing the dash board

i hate it when game devs put “fixed several issues” in patch notes 

no. tell me what you fixed. i wanna know what the glitch was.

you know those patch notes that are like “fixed an issue where if the player sat in a bush for too long, they’d become the size of a skyscraper” 

i wanna read those. tell me those. 

Yes clown feet

Oh no

always blows my mind as a european when people talk about states like “yeah theres nothing in ohio/montana/wyoming/etc” because i look at a map like but. but theyre so big. every state could qualify as its own country what do you mean theres nothing there. and then i ask people from those states and theyre like “yeah theres nothing here” what do you mean theres nothing there!!!

1 like = one 25 cents 

1 RB = 50 cents

Tumblr shall never recover from this failure

You people disappoint me

Rant 1: Gravity and Predicting the Future (Physics,History)

Okay I know a lot of us here don't like physics a lot, and I can agree when it comes to weird formulae and counterintuitive theorems, but bear with me for a second here, it gets intersting

Newton's universal law of gravitation. Any science student has seen it at some point in their study lives and love it or hate it, it represents what's keeping the universe from spinning out of order (at least at a larger scale).

As students who are made to tediously calculate the force acting between two arbitrary planets we might not appreciate this simple equation too much, but it marks an important turning point in the history of the human race: where we finally managed to gain a true scientific and mathematical insight into the movements on our planet and those that occured in the infinite heavens above.

A: Halley's Comet

The ubiquitous equation appeared in the first volume of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia which was presented to the Royal Society. Although the Principia managed to explain a lot of observations, some of which remain remarkably relevant today, Newton's research on comets on comets was incomplete. This is where Edmund Halley, Newton's editor, publisher and friend steps in.

Using Newton's Laws of Gravitation and Motion for the mathematical aspect, Halley analysed 24 cometary observations and found a pattern emerging in the path of one that had been observed in 1682. Based on historical records the same comet had zoomed past earth in 1607 and 1531. If his work and Newton's theorems were correct, he predicted, in 1705, that the comet should return in 1758.

Lo and behold! A Christmas miracle! On 25th December, 1758, Johann Palitzsch, a German amateur astronomer, witnessed Halley's comet. Halley himself had died in 1742 and could not witness the momentous occasion, but the celestial body's return cemented Newton's work in the scientific community and remained unshaken for over two centuries until Einstein came up with General Relativity.

B: Newton can't be wrong, it must be an entire other planet!

With better telescope systems, astronomers were able to peer farther into space than before, the discovery and observation of Uranus, however raised controversy, since its orbit did not comply with the predictions from Newton's laws.

Many were ready to believe that the giant had fallen: Newton's age old theory had been disproven and it was time to move on, but a few scientists like John Couch Addams proposed an unseen planet whose gravitation caused anomalies Uranus' orbit.

About 4 years after Couch's proposal, in 1845, Urbain Le Verrier, a French astronomer and mathematician started the tedious work of calculating this invisible planet's location, purely from the motion of Uranus and mechanics. After many months of complex calculation, he presented his solution to the French academy on 31st August 1846.

On 23rd September in the same year Neptune was observed with a telescope for the first time and its location was within 1° of Le Verrier's prediction. Which is an utterly wild achievement, considering that it was the first time that a human had discovered a planet at the tip of their pen.

C: But it's outdated!

Yea yea Einstein's Theory of General Relativity is a much better explanation of gravitational phenomena, but even today, Newton's approach provides a REALLY good approximation of how it works. The only cases where Newton's theorems don't work are those with extreme gravity: such as black holes or between the Sun and Mercury.

So the next time when you're solving a question on gravity, maybe you'll appreciate the sheer power of the human mind and this tiny equation: that lead to our first great leaps in astronomy and still power things like air travel and architecture. Or you'll appreciate it thinking, "hey, at least I don't have to sit around for months trying to find something that I haven't even seen". Either way, you'll hopefully like this part of physics just a tiny bit more :)

cat who hacksd the no fly list literally my hero

The sprigatito is named Bingle this is the best news yet.

HarperCollins Strike Update

For the full breakdown of what’s been going on since November, read here.

January 20, 2023

It’s been over FIFTY days. The strike is still ongoing. Harper has yet to even speak to the union.

Union members are still scraping on their second and third hustles (which most entry-level publishing people have) and donations to the strike fund. The union has set up a hardship fund (here’s the post about it on their official Instagram, for verification) so no more fiddling with checks or Venmo.

If you can donate, please do.

And whether you can or can’t, please do still share.

I think it's hilarious that hands down the worst way to learn magic is the actual rulebook. Please do not read that. It's just there for reference when something weird happens

Funny government pigs playing in the mud

couldn’t stop thinking about this post

thought this was neat

I do genuinely believe that the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and arguably the Zelda franchise as a whole, though i myself have played literally none of these games) is closer to fitting the description of ‘Tolkien-esque Fantasy’ than most other movies/shows/games/books etc that claim that label

Like, compare this post by tumblr user wufflesvetinari, which makes an important point about Tolkien’s worldbuilding, and also lives in my head rent free:

and then these quotes from Jacob Geller’s “Every Zelda is the Darkest Zelda”

and his conclusions about the messages in Zelda games are thematically very similar to the through-lines about friendship and love in LOTR, and what a lot of authors miss about what makes a fantasy story personal and memorable:

“A world without joy and humor isn’t a compelling world to fight for” is exactly why there are so many pieces of fantasy media out there that just feel like carbon copies of each other (i’ve seen many posts that explain this better than I can though I can’t find any specific ones at the moment, just know that I didn’t invent this thesis). You’ve got the cool swords, you’ve got the wizards and the spells and the battles, but first and foremost you need the LOVE.

oh, to be a dutch resident armed with rotten eggs,