Favorite Girl Scout cookies, by state. Seeing this, my state is hungry.
Tags:
#…since when is New Jersey’s favorite Girl Scout cookie not Thin Mint #has something changed in the past ten years? #(okay things clearly *have* changed because I don’t recognise like half of these but still) #does North Jersey love Samoas enough to outweigh South Jersey’s love of Thin Mints? #(Samoas were pretty popular but not *Thin-Mint*-level popular) #home of the brave #food #Girl Scouts
Growing up, I would often read people describe “the spot on your back that you can’t reach.” Generally in the context of, like, putting on sunscreen.
I was always super confused by this, in a classic case of generalizing from one example. I can still overlap my hands at the small of my back; there’s nowhere on my back I can’t reach pretty comfortably. It still surprises me every time someone can’t do that.
….wait, that’s actually a thing?
I always assumed that when people said that, they meant, like, “the spot on your back that’s slightly awkward to reach so maybe if someone’s putting on sunscreen right next to you they’ll get it for you since you can’t see it anyway”
Me, reading a story with centaurs that has just mentioned them having a scratching post†: “Huh, yeah, centaurs *would* have large swaths of their bodies they can’t reach with their hands. It’s *weird*, trying to wrap my head around the idea of people who can’t reach every part of their skin with their manipulating appendages. What must that be like?”
Me: “…wait, hang on, there are some humans who are like that”
Me: “my *mom* is like that”
(When it first came up, Mom was likewise surprised to learn that I *could* reach every spot on my back. She brought up age and fatness as possible reasons for us to differ on this, but I remember there’s a Shel Silverstein poem about the one spot on your back you can’t reach that expected children to find this a relatable feel, so I expect it’s not that. Fatness could maybe still be involved.)
†Edit: I mean this in the sense of “a post you rub against to scratch yourself”, not the sense of “a post you scratch”.
I was always told this was a sexual dimorphism thing – that (cis) girls could reach the middle of their back while (cis) boys could not, and that it was due to some kind of evolutionary thing about girls having specialized baby-holding elbows while boys had specialized spear-throwing elbows. (hence “you throw like a girl” = you throw badly)
I take it this is all a load of bullcrap?
Probably a load of bullcrap, yeah. Even if it is sex-linked, I doubt those are the reasons for it.
(Mom and I are both cis women, though she has PCOS and I don’t so our hormonal profiles are noticeably different. And I think jadagul (the OP, who can do it) is cis-male, but I won’t swear to it.)
Tags:
#gender #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #reply via reblog
(I did not get the first part of this ask.)
Yes, I have actually compared. For many people, living in the Bay is a reasonable financial choice, even if they don’t have much money or if they want to donate a lot. In most parts of the U.S. I could not live with roommates, because places where I worked wouldn’t be so near the places where my friends worked, and I would need to own a car, and I still might pay less than I pay now but probably not so much less as to come out ahead taking the car into account.
Our house in El Cerrito, 10 min walk from the BART, was $550/bedroom. I do not think I’d end up spending dramatically less than $550 on housing+car anywhere I lived, and I do not think it’s unreasonable to tell people “there are affordable parts of the Bay” when what I mean is “there are $550/mo parts of the Bay where you do not need to own a car”. It was a nice safe neighborhood where I frequently went for walks at night, too.
Moving to the Bay is not an option for everyone! But if you’re thinking of it as sanctified and unattainable I think you are looking at prices in like, SF and Berkeley proper.
That works out to both cheaper than my hard limit price is and cheaper than the rock bottom student price here. And I cheated by inheriting a car but I still have running costs.
I live in an expensive part of Australia but not Sydney level horrible. And our public transport is terrible here- it’s comparitively functional in Sydney and Melbourne but those are expensive or 3 hour commute afaict.
*updates*
International price comparisons are tricky, though.
Like, from what I’ve heard of Australian prices, they tend to spend about the same amount of minimum-wage-time-units for stuff as Americans do, but their minimum wage is much higher. As long as you’re paying for local goods with local labour, it generally works out, but it makes things confusing when you’re trying to compare (or, god forbid, move) between countries.
(I could definitely be wrong, though, I’m mostly going off of numbers I’ve overheard from friends)
(Personally, as of 2016 my household’s average per-person per-month housing+transport cost was…*checks spreadsheet, feeds results into calculator*…about CAD$290. Alternatively: USD$217*, 25.4 minimum-wage-hours*. But we’re in an unusually good position, and I think a lot of people in our area are paying more like twice that much.)
*Using 2016 rates, to match the time period of the spreadsheet.
Tags:
#reply via reblog #adventures in human capitalism #home of the brave #Australia #trying to sound reasonably friendly; not sure if successful
Growing up, I would often read people describe “the spot on your back that you can’t reach.” Generally in the context of, like, putting on sunscreen.
I was always super confused by this, in a classic case of generalizing from one example. I can still overlap my hands at the small of my back; there’s nowhere on my back I can’t reach pretty comfortably. It still surprises me every time someone can’t do that.
….wait, that’s actually a thing?
I always assumed that when people said that, they meant, like, “the spot on your back that’s slightly awkward to reach so maybe if someone’s putting on sunscreen right next to you they’ll get it for you since you can’t see it anyway”
Me, reading a story with centaurs that has just mentioned them having a scratching post†: “Huh, yeah, centaurs *would* have large swaths of their bodies they can’t reach with their hands. It’s *weird*, trying to wrap my head around the idea of people who can’t reach every part of their skin with their manipulating appendages. What must that be like?”
Me: “…wait, hang on, there are some humans who are like that”
Me: “my *mom* is like that”
(When it first came up, Mom was likewise surprised to learn that I *could* reach every spot on my back. She brought up age and fatness as possible reasons for us to differ on this, but I remember there’s a Shel Silverstein poem about the one spot on your back you can’t reach that expected children to find this a relatable feel, so I expect it’s not that. Fatness could maybe still be involved.)
†Edit: I mean this in the sense of “a post you rub against to scratch yourself”, not the sense of “a post you scratch”.
Tags:
#is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #reply via reblog
1. I give myself pep talks in the first person, a la “The little engine that could.”
2. I chide or berate myself in the first person: “I’m an idiot.”
3. I give pep talks in the second person: “You can do this, [my name]!”
4. I chide myself in the second person.
5. I narrate what I’m doing in the third person, as if I were the protagonist in a story: “They rolled out of bed, early in the grey morning, thinking only: Coffee!”
6. Discuss what I’m doing with someone who isn’t there (either someone from history, my own past, an imaginary friend, etc.)
7. All of the above.
Tags:
#I won’t swear I’ve *never* done 5 but if I do it at all it’s rare #other than that all of the above #though when there’s chiding to be done it’s mostly first-person #and when there’s pep-talking to be done it’s mostly second-person #(which makes a lot of advice on the subject weird because they assume it’s the other way around) #second-person thoughts don’t address me by name that much though #(in early February my brain adopted a habit of calling me ”love”) #(I remember the time period because I thought at first it was some kind of celebration of Valentine’s Day) #(but it hasn’t stopped) #(it’s kind of nice though so I haven’t tried to get rid of it) #((…wait hang on are we talking about thoughts in general or specifically talking aloud?)) #((I don’t talk to myself out loud much)) #((I think when there are pronouns for those they’re usually first-person (sometimes singular sometimes plural))) #((but more often (”often” being a relative term) it’s pronoun-less stuff like ”wait no not that have to do this first”)) #reply via reblog #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #in which Brin somehow manages to be among the most singlet people she knows #tag rambles
(I feel like @itsblehnedict might find this interesting)
[under the cut for non-fourth-wall-breaking infohazards, and also cordyceps spoilers if anyone still cares]
So in my dream this morning I was playing a video game (it might have been a VR game, but the way my dreams work all media is VR media, so I’m not sure if it was *meant* to be VR), and part of the plot was an elephant-induced apocalypse†. I thought it was neat how the game handled that.
(Note: in this game, the elephant is foodborne as well as airborne, and was deliberately developed and put into place by some evil conspiracy. Never reached the part where they explain what the conspiracy was trying to accomplish.)
As you would expect, the game tracks physical infection and memetic infection separately. You can actually survive for quite a while after eating a poisoned cookie, if you play in exactly the right way to keep your character oblivious to the apocalypse going on around them.
But it’s really hard to do that and people normally only stumble into it by accident, because the game performs (limited, one-way) fourth-wall breaking.
If this is not your first playthrough to reach the elephant plotline, the game *knows that you know* (because you’ve played before), and will flag you as memetically contaminated even if your character has no idea.
But it goes farther than that. The plot flag that triggers the apocalypse is finishing your dinner that night. (You then–if you don’t have other plans for the night–go to eat poisoned cookies and watch a poisoned movie with your family, and many other people in other places are doing the same. If you do have other plans, your family does it without you.) There is no in-game indication that an apocalypse will start then (in the main branch of the plotline, you actually *die* that night, and are resurrected by plot stuff later). If the game notices you building a bunker, buying gas masks, avoiding finishing your dinner to buy yourself more time to prepare††, the game *realises you must have read a walkthrough* and *flags you as memetically contaminated* (because why would you be doing this stuff if you didn’t know what was coming?).
—
†For anyone who has not read Cordyceps but still wants to read this post, the short version is that “the elephant” is a disease that is fatal when symptomatic but can only become symptomatic *if you know the disease exists*. If you’re infected without ever learning about the disease, it lies dormant for a few months and then dies out, unless you learn about it during that timeframe. (They call it “the elephant” because it’s pink and you mustn’t think about it.)
††If you say you aren’t hungry and put your dinner in the fridge, the “finished dinner” flag is not set and the apocalypse is postponed. You can eat other stuff later, and as long as it isn’t *that* particular meal the flag is not set. Letting the food rot sets the flag, but you can still buy yourself about three days this way.
Tags:
#cordyceps tcftog #illness tw #apocalypse cw #infohazards #oh look an original post #dreams
has anyone on earth ever actually paid money for an app?
I have, but it was Choice of Games so it was more like paying money for an ebook that happened to be on sale as an app.
I had a class once that required me to pay (an offensively large amount of) money for an app.
I have, like actually on purpose and not just technically or under duress, paid for an app! I paid for Wolfram|Alpha ($3 I think, totally worth it for how much I used it in college) and an offline Wikipedia-clone (limited free version exists but it was $10 to download their whole article library, good for my anxiety even though I have never actually needed it).
I have, for an app that synchronizes a Yahoo Calendar account with the Google Calendar app. (Yahoo Calendar itself does not have a proper app, or didn’t last I checked.)
It was $3, and I don’t regret it. (It’s a shame I can no longer use the app and have to resort to manual imports, but that’s not the app’s fault: there were some issues with Yahoo and the account owner (not sure about the details), and now the account that technically owns the Yahoo calendar in question can’t log into any new computers (such as the new smartphone I got in January).)
Also, I sometimes buy the ad-free versions of apps I like after I’ve used them for a while. But SmoothSync is the only one I’ve ever paid upfront for.
—
an offline Wikipedia-clone (limited free version exists but it was $10 to download their whole article library, good for my anxiety even though I have never actually needed it)
Which app was that? I have Kiwix*, which is nice, but they don’t actually update monthly like they say they do: in fact, my Wiktionary copy actually ended up downgraded from March 2017 to December 2016 when I had to re download after a factory reset. (The option to download the March 2017 version wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know what happened to it.)
*Well, I have their Wiktionary copy. Wikipedia is too big for my current amount of storage space. (Someday!)
Tags:
#I was going to reblog from shedoesnotcomprehend #but then I saw this one in the notes and wanted to ask about the wiki clone #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #reply via reblog
-the paladin, confronting a lich
Tags:
#I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog
I want to try to blind them with the applesauce in my fanny pack.
the wizard, having no useful spells
Tags:
#I feel like this post goes well with my previous post
So, being able to accentuate gender with clothing is nice, but guys are missing out by not having a version of tights. (They don’t, right? Not since the medieval tunic+leggings?)
I stand corrected.
Now take the logos off, they’re not improving the look.
Male skinny jeans serve basically the same prupose but with the added utility of pockets
If you can use the pockets on skinny jeans, you didn’t buy tight enough skinny jeans.
Pockets are overrated anyway. A purse carries everything I need, and I don’t compulsively pat my pockets to make sure I still have my stuff.
If you have breast-height pockets on both sides you could legitimately do the King Kong/Tarzan? thing tho
I just had a conversation about this issue the other day. A friend and I were looking at a pair of women’s jeans.
“And this one has roomier pockets than the other one.”
“This is the one with bigger pockets!? Wow, women’s pockets are as bad as everyone says they are.”
“Yeah but women normally carry purses so they don’t really need pockets, do they? Some men are so worried about their gender roles that they can’t conceive of any bag that isn’t a women’s purse. They have to carry everything in their cargo pants all the time. So who’s really at a disadvantage here?”
do women use purses because their pockets are too small or they they have small pockets because they use purses? which came first?
I don’t know about historically, but in the case of a number of particular girls and women I know (including myself and my younger sister), the chain of causation was in fact [needing to carry pads/tampons] –> [carrying a purse]. (And pads/tampons don’t tend to fit well even into quite large pockets, due to bulk & length respectively.)
I always carry either a purse or a backpack when I’m actually going somewhere, so no pockets are gonna be enough to replace everything for me, but I really like having pockets for things that I am likely to want while in transit (phone, transit pass, credit card, headphones, maybe fidget spinner) or when I’m just going a couple blocks away to buy something. When I carry a purse it’s because I don’t have enough stuff for a backpack to be necessary & I have more stuff than will fit in my pockets right now (which can be because I’m actually going somewhere, or because I don’t have any pockets).
I would much prefer it if more of my clothes had pockets, but I pretty much never decide not to buy something because of lack of pockets, so I guess I’m not really helping.
I prefer not having to carry a purse/backpack, and would go without more often if I had pants with pockets deep enough that my wallet/phone didn’t fall out of them pretty regularly. >.> (Phone/wallet/keys is enough for most non-school going-places I do, which isn’t a quantity of things that really should require a purse.)
Like you, though, I rarely pass up clothing just because of lack of pockets. My clothes shopping is almost entirely second-hand anyway, so it’s hard enough to find something that fits and is in decent condition and non-hideous and has tolerable fabric; adding a pocket criterion to that would just make it impossible to find anything.
I swear by belly bags (and have since before menarche). They solve the problems I have with other ways of carrying stuff around: easier to access than a backpack, easier to carry than a purse, larger and more detachable than pockets. (This list is outdated, but gives you an idea of the amount of gear I like to have with me. Not only is there no way I would fit all of that into even large pockets, I would have to move *all* of it *every* time I changed pants. Like hell am I doing that.) Also, they give you a supporting platform when you’re carrying bulky objects in your arms! I love belly bags so much. I usually wear mine even if I’m not going very far and don’t technically need any objects, because I feel naked leaving the house without it.
I have heard some rumours that belly bags ““look”” ““stupid””, but whatever. I like how I look, and anyway it’s not nearly a good enough reason to pass up something that’s been this useful to me. (And…like, I did not *deliberately* select my customary accessories to make me easily recognisable even by faceblind people, but I think I’ve ended up that way, and that’s kind of nice in a Golden Rule sort of way.)
Tags:
#reply via reblog #gender #clothing #I love my Useful Thing collection #even the foil blanket I have carried around for over a decade and literally never used #having it there Just In Case still comforts me #(and of course a lot of the stuff *has* come in handy)
Brinens and Things 