Month: January 2015

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

theunitofcaring:

ozymandias271:

petition for theunitofcaring to get a real blog

Right now this would be a very bad idea! Hits on a blog are, as it happens, a quantifiable thing that changes every minute and tends to go up when I work harder. When presented with things like this, my brain adopts them as the totality of its self-esteem and stops working on all goals that are harder to measure/optimize. 

(last time I tried this I failed all my classes. I really suck at incentives.)

However! I have attained a software internship this summer and I should have more free time and capacity-to-motivate-myself-to-do-my-homework is less relevant and it would be really cool to have a real blog. So maybe I’ll do it then.

Perhaps there’s a way of preventing yourself from being able to see the analytics? Like that add-on that hides your Tumblr follower count. (I don’t know what add-on that is, but one of my friends has mentioned using it, so I know it exists.)

I don’t know you well enough to even hazard a guess at how difficult undoing the blocking would need to be for it to be effective, but it’s something to consider if and when you start looking into getting a long-form blog.

*signs petition, on condition of finding a way around self-esteem traps*

Tags:

#reply via reblog

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

cosmictuesdays:

camwyn:

graphicnerdity:

It’s all Harry’s fault. Well, partially. I suppose Voldemort can be saddled with an equal portion of the blame. The point is, the Dursleys were just minding their own business when a horcrux was dumped on their doorstep. For the next decade it proceeded to warp their minds, turning them from your garden variety insufferable human beings into horrible, heartless monsters. The fact that they survived such prolonged horcrux exposure without delving into insanity or abandoning a helpless child only solidifies their place among the pantheon of noble and virtuous heroes in the Harry Potter universe.

*Mic drop*

That… actually does kind of explain an awful lot, dunnit.

Damn, that’s some twisted meta.

…I thought this was going to be a “just say no to Horcruxes” joke.

Tags:

#Harry Potter #meta #…oh my god #I laughed at ‘Weasley children are particularly susceptible’ #and then I just stopped and stared #oh god

New Tech Could Reveal Secrets in 2,000-Year-Old Scrolls

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

archaeologicalnews:

image

Hundreds of ancient papyrus scrolls that were buried nearly 2,000 years ago after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius could finally be read, thanks to a new technique.

The X-ray-based method can be used to decipher the charred, damaged texts that were found in the ancient town of Herculaneum without having to unroll them, which could damage them beyond repair, scientists say.

One problem with previous attempts to use X-rays to read the scrolls was that the ancient writers used a carbon-based material from smoke in their ink, said study co-author Vito Mocella, a physicist at the National Research Council in Naples, Italy.

“The papyri have been burnt, so there is not a huge difference between the paper and the ink,” Mocella told Live Science. That made it impossible to decipher the words written in the documents. Read more.

Tags:

#history #awesome