People complain a lot about the “hot political takes interspersed with anime girls” Tumblrs, but I find them less jarring than the “hot political takes interspersed with GIFs of ejaculating penises” Tumblrs.
I am once again reminded that other peoples’ experiences of the internet can be very different from mine.
Now I’m wondering how many people reading this fall into the “this is a reminder of how different other people’s experiences can be” camp and how many into the “god, do I know that feel” camp.
(Personally, I’m in know-that-feel.)
Tags:
#there is a time and a place for reading hot political takes and it is *not* while looking for porn #look I get that you want to demonstrate your SJ-ness in order to reassure people that #just because you write *fiction* about women getting brainwashed doesn’t mean you support The Patriarchy in actuality #but you could just *link* to your politics blog from your porn blog #reply via reblog #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #sexuality and lack thereof #nsfw text? #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #our roads may be golden or broken or lost
She doesn’t know it yet, but she will soon. You see, the midterm paper on calls for students to write a collection evaluation for a library of our choosing. Now, I know that when she said that library does not need to be real, she meant that we didn’t need to pick a specific one. But what I heard was…
For those of you requesting the full paper, I’ll see what I can do once I get the grade back!
I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED
For the sake of this evaluation, only the official, present collection of the Unseen University will be examined. Collections belonging to other libraries that are accessible via L-Space will be considered as part of the Interlibrary Loan System, as will materials available by time-travel and other such means.
Relatedly:
Whether or not acquiring books that have not yet been written is a violation of copyright law has yet to be legally clarified, but faculty and students should not expect to be permitted to cite them in their own work (see also Library Rule 3: Do Not Interfere With The Nature Of Causality).
She doesn’t know it yet, but she will soon. You see, the midterm paper on calls for students to write a collection evaluation for a library of our choosing. Now, I know that when she said that library does not need to be real, she meant that we didn’t need to pick a specific one. But what I heard was…
For those of you requesting the full paper, I’ll see what I can do once I get the grade back!
I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED
For the sake of this evaluation, only the official, present collection of the Unseen University will be examined. Collections belonging to other libraries that are accessible via L-Space will be considered as part of the Interlibrary Loan System, as will materials available by time-travel and other such means.
Relatedly:
Whether or not acquiring books that have not yet been written is a violation of copyright law has yet to be legally clarified, but faculty and students should not expect to be permitted to cite them in their own work (see also Library Rule 3: Do Not Interfere With The Nature Of Causality).
A weirdly large share of productivity advice is about increasing how many hours in your day you spend doing work.
My current job is not a good example here because it doesn’t come in discrete little units, but my last job did. My last job was to write profiles of software engineers. They took about 15minutes to write when I was in the swing of things, but it was often hard to get myself into the mode where I could work on them. Sometimes I’d spend the whole day slowly slogging through them. Sometimes I’d procrastinate all day and then do all of them with two hours left in the day.
The maximally productive day, for that job, would have been to finish all of my work by 10am and then spend the rest of the day relaxing.
Nearly all productivity tools and apps would consider the ‘most productive’ day to be the one where I spent ten hours working on profiles.
I get why they do this. You have more volitional control over how much time you spend working than over how much work you get done when you do, and it can be discouraging to strive for something that’s not really in your control. For many people and many tasks, how much time you work and how much you get done are pretty strongly correlated. And it’s easier to track time spent than progress accomplished.
But nonetheless, it seems pretty damaging for this to be the focus of nearly all productivity advice. The rare things which are instead results-oriented seem to do well. Duolingo rewards lessons completed, not time spent doing them. 4thewords rewards words written. The people I know seem to like them and stick with them a lot more than with time-trackers or strategies to squeeze more workday out of their lives.
I think most people trying to be more productive should try both a ‘track how much time you spend working! spend more!’ approach and a ‘here’s how much you have to achieve today! try for the earliest possible completion time!’ approach, so you can give yourself a chance at hitting on whatever works best.
I find that what works best for me is neither “spend as much time as possible” nor “do a set amount” (mind you, I don’t think I’ve tried the particular variant “do a set amount *as quickly as possible*”; that might work a little better), but rather “you have this much time available, do as much as possible within that period”.
Both more-time and result-based methods tend to make me work more slowly because it feels like there’s little reason not to, whereas if I only have a certain amount of time I want to make it count. My job pays by the hour, and I actually do really well under that system: it motivates me to make myself useful, because I want my employer to get his money’s worth.
Meanwhile, with university, it’s unfortunate that my schedule is not as conducive to “spend Exactly Four Hours working on school assignments” as it used to be, and I *am* pretty sure that I go through schoolwork more slowly now that I’m not doing that. I’ve been considering ways I might tweak my approach to allow for rigid school times while still being able to fulfil my duties as my workplace’s emergency fill-in person (that is to say, while having a somewhat unpredictable work schedule).
Tags:
#yes I do best with strict scheduling but signed up for a job with an explicit condition of ”must be able to show up on short notice” #look local minimum wage is super high compared to my cost of living #so by my standards even this fast-food job pays *very* well #most weeks I work 16 hours and make very nearly enough to support myself #reply via reblog #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #adventures in University Land #in which Brin has a job #adventures in human capitalism
The Canadian Space Agency is proud to have many Veterans among its employees. On this Remembrance Day, join us in thanking them and all Canadian Veterans for their courage, service and sacrifices that have kept our nation strong, proud and free.
(The poppy pin shown above is either old-fashioned or foreign, I’m not sure which. This is what a modern-day Canadian poppy pin looks like. I’m not complaining about the CSA’s choice of picture, but I thought I should give you the correct mental image for what I’m about to tell you.)
The importance Canadians place on Remembrance Day and World War I is probably the biggest thing that surprised me about Canada. I had no idea until after I moved here.
My first November here, the very first time I ever saw someone wearing a poppy pin, I told her I liked her flower. She was rather surprised. I was nearly fourteen: surely I knew what a poppy pin was? But I didn’t, and the people there had to explain to me.
The first time someone referenced “In Flanders Fields” in front of me, I didn’t know what they were talking about. They were surprised: surely I’d had to memorise it in school a few grades back? But I hadn’t, and they had to explain to me.
I memorised it on my own not long after that; I wanted to be more a part of my adopted country. I visited two World War I museums to learn the things a Canadian ought to know. I bought a poppy pin from one of the countless donation boxes for the Royal Canadian Legion, and I try to wear it whenever leaving the house during the first eleven days of November, as Canadians do. This is my country too, now, and its customs are mine.
Tags:
#it’s that time again #our home and cherished land #Remembrance Day
I’m gonna pitch a show as “like Game of Thrones but even more gritty and realistic” and then it’s nothing but a baron handling land estimates and organizing road repairs and stuff. There’ll be an entire episode about how a peasant gets brought to court for letting milk cattle graze on communal pastureland even though it’s supposed to be reserved for draft animals.
my ten-episode plan from the writer’s room of this blessed show: –ep. 1: meet the accounting staff of this magical kingdom in a far-off land –ep. 2: land estimates, plenary powers of wizards employed by the office of the royal treasury, and how tax code intersects with succession laws of absolute primogeniture when the lineage in question may have extra-planar ancestry –ep. 3: a full-hour hearing with flashbacks on how mrs. Jones’ cow grazing actually violates three local statutes, is in line with a conflicting royal decree (potentially issued under ensorcelled compulsion), and is entitled to binding arbitration via fey courts. mrs. jones is not entitled to said arbitration, the cow is. –ep. 4: how land rights and taxation applies to druid circles and sentient treefolk, especially when said land is technically owed fealty to both a human and inhuman entity. we never see any treefolk. –ep. 5: the differing rights and responsibilities of yeomen who freehold land near a lord’s manse vs. yeomen who freehold land held by the lord’s vassals vs. burghers in cities surrounded by forty-foot high gilded walls inscribed with runes so terrible they will burn a man’s flesh just from touching. extensive tax comparisons are made based on type of property held and crop status (cereal crop taxed x, but fiber crops taxed y). –ep. 6 – 9: ep. 3 but for a host of other problems: conflicting tax status for nobles who hold different positions (especially if they technically owe themselves fealty), bridges (just like…in general), a revolt started by a miller, and tax-deductible status for magical family heirlooms and whether or not being part of a dragon’s hoard can be considered “held in escrow.” –ep. 10: the queen kills the king. this is never explained but on a rewatch, isn’t surprising. it does rattle the staff as they look to cook the books and make sure they get paid as revolution sweeps the land. a brief aside is delved into concerning mercenaries. this takes less than five minutes; the rest of the episode concerns a detailed archive of back-taxes owed by the rebel dukes.
I would watch the shit outta this
Tags:
#story ideas I will never write #and I’ll also throw in #adventures in University Land
Older forms of English kept Latin’s gender-specific suffixes -tor and -trix; tor is for men and trix is for women. So a male pilot is an aviator, a female pilot is an aviatrix. A male fighter is a gladiator, a female fighter is a gladiatrix.
This contrasts with the modern system, where tor is for both men and women, and trix are for kids.
Tags:
#puns #(for the record OP is a roleplay blog) #(but that doesn’t seem to matter for this particular case)
how do I pass out food at a protest and then immediately leave without seeming extremely fucking shady
Use food pre-sealed by [companies with good food-safety rep]? Maybe granola bars or something like that.
I mean, I suppose there are *some* protests where that wouldn’t go over well (such as protests against corporations that manufacture granola bars), but it seems like it would work in many cases.
Tags:
#admittedly I do not have much first-hand experience with protests #so I might be misunderstanding which aspect you think will look shady #reply via reblog #food #politics mention
My wife and I were were talking the other day and, I don’t remember what we were even talking about, but the idea came up that we would need an oreo for. I joked about getting one from my secret stash. This is where she made her mistake. She said “oh right, like you could have an Oreo stash without me knowing about it.”
I’m sorry?
That’s a challenge.
Oreos aquired.
I’m going to hide them in a super simple place at first
But be sure to follow this post while I chronicle all the ways and places I hide them and also how I plan on taunting her with cookies while she can’t find the package
Time to up the stakes. It was fun having em here and hiding them around her while she didn’t know what was happening. Bit now it’s time for her to be in on the game she is playing
If you two weren’t already married I’d beg you to marry her because you two are obviously perfect for each other and I love this post with all my heart
You like that eh? Well you are going to love today’s installment
Look at that. So sad. So few Oreos left
Guess I’ll just pin em right to the middle of the wall in the middle of the living room. She’ll never find em there
Oh, guess I should put this back up
Bwa ha ha ha! You guys! You guys don’t understand! I was planning on doing this and when I got home and looked at it I was like “aww, it’s too thin. They won’t fit.” I even TOLD my wife this and how I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to hide them back there.
But then I looked again. They dooooo
Thank you all so much for the love. I knew y’all would like this, but I had no idea you would like it THIS MUCH. People calling us “goals” and stuff… Man…. It’s kinda hard to take in ya know? Anyways: if this post gets Over 9000™ before I get off work today I will pick up Halloween Oreos on my way home and this will not stop
Ohmygosh oh. my. gosh. You guys. Near disaster. Check this shiz out:
Wife and I were sewing Elly’s Halloween costume up
Yea, she is going to be a spider and it’s super cute and all but. But. Loooook
Holy actual shit the Oreos fell out from the table literally next to her.
The moment she got up I threw them into the closet
Also:shout out to whoever it was that lost a follower for this post
Sry bout that eh.
Tags:
#food #long post #this reminds me of multiple parts of my childhood simultaneously #(1: afikomen hunts) #(2: when I was two my parents tested my reading comprehension by) #(hiding a package of Oreos under the bed‚ giving me a note reading ”the cookies are under the bed”‚ and seeing if I could find the cookies #) #((at age two I was at the stage (which non-hyperlexics generally do at around 4 or 5) where you can do text-to-speech but)) #((it takes so much brainpower you don’t have any leftover to *understand* what you’re reciting)) #((so tiny!me could not find the cookies))
i’ve been getting a lot of comments about how i pulled off my last Hidden Walmart exploit so i thought i’d go ahead and make a basic guide on how to do it. i’m no expert and be aware that you do this at your own risk
What is a Hidden Walmart?
most people have at least one walmart in their city. but what if i told you that there’s nearly always an extra walmart that you can’t see? to understand why, you need to dial the clock back to 1967. the founder of walmart, sam walton, had finally begun mass expansion across the US. it had already opened nearly 30 stores, and was at no sign of stopping. sam walton was projected to become a tycoon with his fair prices and business skills, but there was one thing holding him back: bubble-gum.
sam walton was a fervent believer that bubble gum was made from spider eggs. he was convinced that spider eggs were ground up and mixed into the sticks of chewable candy, but also was sure that bubble gum companies would cut back costs on their spider-proofing technology with the anti-sugar hysteria that was still sizzling in american suburbia, causing some embedded spider eggs to make it through the proofing process. sam walton theorized that the spider eggs would be mutated by human bodily fluids and give birth to a race of giant superspiders that would hatch from the inside of its victims and wreak havoc on his country. but sam walton was also notoriously circumspect, and was determined to preserve the legacy of his grocer chain at all costs.
after only a few years into the expansion of walmart stores, sam walton signed a behind-the-scenes contract with the stuhler construction company. the agreement obligated the construction firm to build a near-identical, underground walmart directly underneath the original. the only differences between the “Hidden Walmart” (HWM) and the “Root Walmart” (RWM) are that the Hidden Walmart is devoid of entrances and exits of any kind. in addition, every Hidden Walmart is fitted with a very primitive scanner designed to detect the presence of any arachnid buds, which would then lead to the underground building to saturate itself with high doses of gamma radiation if the scanners read anything.
the intention was clear: sam walt wanted to create a series of underground walmarts designed to persist and thrive while the surface world was ravaged by overgrown spiders. obviously, the spider apocalypse never happened, but for legal reasons the walton family today is still obligated to honor sam’s corporate order, so even the newest walmart stores today have hidden counterparts. the walmarts themselves are devoid of any staff, and it’s unknown how exactly anyone was supposed to enter the buildings (the area around the Hidden Walmart is always filled with cement), but this is where my tip comes in, because believe it or not, there is a way to get into your local Hidden Walmart.
Preparation
if you do not prepare for your venture into a hidden walmart, you risk death, or at least serious injury. thankfully, prep is minimum, and can change the outcome of your exploration. it’s advised you wear thick clothing, because the Hidden Walmart will be at least one mile underground, and devoid of sunlight. anything warm will do, but it’s crucial, and i mean crucial, that you wear a pair of reebok walking shoes.it’s not known why, but they seem to be one of the main things that allow you to enter any Hidden Walmart. anything made before 2001 will not work. generally, white pairs work the best, but i don’t think you need to be a stickler for color.
the other thing you’re going to need is a bag of flaming hot cheetoes. just trust me on this. i’ll explain why later.
Queering the HWM
now you have the necessary stuff, so let’s get to Hidden Walmart spelunking. first you’re going to need to pick a walmart, which shouldn’t be hard.once you’ve arrived at the Root Walmart, you’re gonna need to find the hardware section, which will either be labeled simply “Hardware” or “Home Detailing Appliances”.find a nail gun in the aisle, generally any will do. after finding it, you need to lie it perpendicularly against the bottom part of the rack, at least between 90° and less than 180°. from there, you’re gonna want to find a corner in the aisle. if there is no corner, you’re probably just gonna have to find another store. when you get to the corner, you need to bend over, rear facing the wall, and touch both feet with your hands. hold that pose for about 20 seconds, and you’ll feel a weight pulling on you. keep holding. what’s happening is the nail gun‘s mapping is starting to collide with yours, causing you to build up speed. at exactly one minute, let go, and if you do it right, you should clip through the ground at long enough of a distance until you suddenly pop right into the Hidden Walmart. you’ve done it.
Arrival
i’m not gonna lie. there isn’t much to do at a Hidden Walmart. the merchandise at it will be as old as the walmart above it, meaning you won’t be finding anything new unless the walmart is ~2 years old.visiting Hidden Walmarts is a way of exploring the untouched and, depending on the walmart’s age, traveling back to the past. one thing i forgot to mention: if you visit the Hidden Walmart and you have eaten in the past 3 – 5 hours, do not enter the makeup or book sections of the store. those are generally where the spider-egg scanners are positioned. it’s a primitive technology that hasn‘t been developed since the 60s, and it’s been known to mistake still-digesting organic matter in a person’s body for spider eggs. if you pass those areas after recently eating, you risk enduring lethal amounts of radiation.
Finishing the Adventure
so you’ve explored the Hidden Walmart, and seen everything there is to see. but there are no doors or exits! how do you get home? this is where the flaming hot cheetos bag comes in. technically, when you’re in the Hidden Walmart, you’re still in the Root Walmart as well. consider it like the Root Walmart unknowingly giving you a “preview” of the Hidden Walmart, although your body in the Hidden Walmart is very much real. however, when someone “previewing” a Hidden Walmart makes a sound at a high enough decibel, the Root Walmart automatically reacts by ripping the visitor in the HWM out of the store and back into the original. the human voice isn’t capable of that, but the loud popping sound of a flaming hot cheetos bag is. i don’t know why it’s specifically flaming hot cheetos. some of my friends have said the capsacin in the snack make the air inside more brittle and loud, but i don’t know if that’s true. at any rate, it ought to take you back to the original walmart so you can return home.
this is an amateur guide, like i said, but hopefully this should give you guys a kickstart into the world of Hidden Walmarts. if you have any extra advice you’d like me to add onto the guide, please message me! happy HWMing!
EDIT: fellow HWMer circutspit has just notified me saying that it’s also for the best that you avoid all canines for at least a week after visiting your local Hidden Walmart. for some reason, the process of noclipping leaves an odor that’s undetectable to most animals except dogs, and they just happen to attack anything that smells of it. thanks for the tip!
Tags:
#unreality cw #death mention #food mention #spider #body horror #storytime #I often enjoy reading video-game guides even if they’re for games I don’t play #and I’ve found that this can extend to fictional video games
Brinens and Things 
