Author: Brin

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

satanpositive:

Roses are red, that much is true, but violets are purple, not fucking blue.

 

feels-for-the-fictional:

I have been waiting for this post all my life.

 

marzipanandminutiae:

They are indeed purple,
But one thing you’ve missed:
The concept of “purple”
Didn’t always exist.

Some cultures lack names
For a color, you see.
Hence good old Homer
And his “wine-dark sea.”

A usage so quaint,
A phrasing so old,
For verses of romance
Is sheer fucking gold.

So roses are red.
Violets once were called blue.
I’m hugely pedantic
But what else is new?

 

ineptshieldmaid:

My friend you’re not wrong

About Homer’s wine-ey sea!

Colours are a matter

Of cultural contingency;

Words are in flux

And meanings they drift

But the word purple

You’ve given short shrift.

The concept of purple,

My friends, is old

And refers to a pigment

once precious as gold.

By crushing up molluscs

From the wine-dark sea

You make a dye:

Imperial decree

Meant that in Rome,

to wear purpura

was a privilege reserved

For only the emperor!

The word ‘purple’,

for clothes so fancy,

Entered English

By the ninth century

.

Why then are voilets

Not purple in song?

The dye from this mollusc,

known for so long

Is almost magenta;

More red than blue.

The concept of purple

is old, and yet new.

The dye is red,

So this might be true:

Roses are purple

And violets are blue

.

 

squeeful:

While this song makes me merry,
Tyrian purple dyes many a hue
From magenta to berry
And a true purple too.


But fun as it is to watch this poetic race
The answer is staring you right in the face:
Roses are red and violets are blue
Because nothing fucking rhymes with purple.

 

cryoverkiltmilk:

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hopelessromanticinspace:

Hirple – To limp or walk awkwardly

Cirple – An old Scots word for the hindquarters of a horse

 

nobodybetterhavethisoneoriswear:

“Roses are red, violets are purple,

My boner for you has caused me to hirple.”

…

My, how romantic!

 

wouldthatcreationhadformedmeman:

DYING. I AM DYING.

 

kiranovember:

Calling theshitpostcalligrapher! We need @theshitpostcalligrapher

 

theshitpostcalligrapher:

@kiranovember u better buy this as a commission lmao

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simonalkenmayer:

This post has evolved.

Tags:

#poetry #language #history #nsfw text #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog

Capturing Space Stories, One Click at a Time!

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

nasa:

It’s World Photography Day!

To celebrate the occasion, we’re sharing photos from our photographers that chronicle what’s making news across the agency – from launches and landings to important science announcements to images taken from the vantage point of space.

Take a look!

A Closer View of the Moon 

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Posted to Twitter by European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, this image shows our planet’s Moon as seen from the International Space Station. As he said in the tweet, “By orbiting the Earth almost 16 times per day, the #ISS crew travel the distance to the Moon and back – every day. #Horizons”

The International Space Station is the world’s only orbital laboratory. An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the station. The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.

Photo Credit: NASA

Spacewalk Selfie

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NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold took this selfie during the May 16, 2018, spacewalk to perform upgrades on the International Space Station, saying in a tweet “An amazing view of our one and only planet.”

Arnold and fellow spacewalker Drew Feustel donned spacesuits and worked for more than six hours outside the station to finish upgrading cooling system hardware and install new and updated communications equipment for future dockings of commercial crew spacecraft.

Photo Credit: NASA

Preparing to Leave Earth

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The mobile service tower at Space Launch Complex-3 is rolled back to reveal the United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket with NASA’s InSight spacecraft onboard, Friday, May 4, 2018, at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a Mars lander designed to study the “inner space” of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core. 

Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Launch Long Exposure

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The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket is seen in this long exposure photograph as it launches NASA’s Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018 from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Parker Solar Probe is humanity’s first-ever mission into a part of the Sun’s atmosphere called the corona.  Here it will directly explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth.

Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Waving Farewell

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Expedition 56 flight engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor of NASA waves farewell to family and friends as she and Soyuz Commander Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos and flight engineer Alexander Gerst of European Space Agency depart Building 254 for the launch pad a few hours before their launch, Wednesday, June 6, 2018 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Auñón-Chancellor, Prokopyev, and Gerst launched aboard the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft at 7:12am EDT (5:12pm Baikonur time) on June 6 to begin their journey to the International Space Station.

Photo Credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov

Launching Humans to Space

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The Soyuz MS-09 rocket is launched with Expedition 56 Soyuz Commander Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos, flight engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor of NASA, and flight engineer Alexander Gerst of ESA (European Space Agency), Wednesday, June 6, 2018 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Prokopyev, Auñón-Chancellor, and Gerst will spend the next six months living and working aboard the International Space Station. 

Photo Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Rethinking Aircraft Design

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In an effort to improve fuel efficiency, NASA and the aircraft industry are rethinking aircraft design. Inside the 8’ x 6’ wind tunnel at NASA Glenn Research Center, engineers tested a fan and inlet design, commonly called a propulsor, which could use four to eight percent less fuel than today’s advanced aircraft.

Photo Credit: NASA/Rami Daud

Flying Observatory

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SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is the largest airborne observatory in the world, capable of making observations that are impossible for even the largest and highest ground-based telescopes. During its lifetime, SOFIA also will inspire the development of new scientific instrumentation and foster the education of young scientists and engineers.

Photo Credit: NASA/SOFIA/Waynne Williams

Experimenting with Venus-like conditions

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A close-up view of crystals that developed on materials exposed to conditions on Venus in NASA Glenn’s Extreme Environments Rig. This unique and world class ground-based test rig can accurately most simulate atmospheric conditions for any planet or moon in the solar system and beyond.

Photo Credit: NASA/Bridget Caswell

Honeycomb Close Up

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A close-up view of 3-D printed honeycomb patterns made in NASA Glenn manufacturing lab using a method called binder jetting. The honeycomb structures can find use in several applications such as a strong core for lightweight sandwich panels, acoustic panels for noise attenuation and innovative cellular structures.

Photo Credit: NASA/Marvin Smith

To see even more photos of our space exploration efforts, visit us on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Tags:

#long post #pretty things #space #the power of science #proud citizen of The Future #I especially like the third one #that’s not an angle I normally see

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

maryellencarter:

maryellencarter:

Wanted: disability beta (prosthetics)

Okay, as much as I bitch every time I give up one of my overambitious projects halfway through, I think I’m calling it for Kinktober. I’m still gonna try to write all the stories, but maybe the jinx will stop if I’m not aiming for the time limit. :P I’m legitimately a little worried my Gdocs account is gonna get wiped at this rate, or maybe I’ll just take a misaimed shotgun blast. :P

So! I have one story that’s just about done and ready to post, but it needs one more beta. This is the one I think I mentioned in passing when I was ranting about Highlander fic – I got pissed off about how passive Joe/Methos writers always made Joe in bed, just cause he has prosthetic legs, and it so happens that my current fandom also has a character with prosthetic limbs, so I wrote a fluffy little Wes/Hobbie porn in which Hobbie happens to not be wearing his prosthetics and is also very much an active participant. (He was swimming, there was sunscreen, they got distracted. ^_^)

So, uh, if anybody happens to know anybody who might be willing to look at this and tell me if I did anything clueless or offensive? Preferably someone who actually uses prosthetics, but failing that, somebody actually in the mobility-impaired / physically disabled community.

The fic specifics: ~2400 words, M/M, NC-17 fluffy porn. Fandom knowledge not required; “middle-aged retired space marines in love” should hopefully be pretty self-explanatory. ;-) I can’t actually pay, but I can trade a SPAG beta of up to 10k words if you want? (References available on my beta skills.)

Feel free to signal boost.

Reblogging for the daytime crowd. I’d really like to find someone for this.

Tags:

#signal boost #nsfw text? #death mention

Y Couchinator

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

luminousalicorn:

Crossposted to Less Wrong.

There are a lot of people – there are probably incredibly tragic mountains of people – who just need one or three or six no-pressure months on someone’s couch, and meals during that time, and then they’d be okay.  They’d spend this time catching up on their bureaucracy or recovering from abuse or getting training in a field they want to go into or all three.  And then they’d be fine.

There are empty couches, whose owners throw away leftovers they didn’t get around to eating every week, who aren’t too introverted to have a roommate or too busy to help someone figure out their local subway system.

And while sometimes by serendipity these people manage to find each other and make a leap of trust and engage in couch commensalism a lot of the time they just don’t.  Because six months is a long time, a huge commitment for someone you haven’t vetted, and a week wouldn’t be enough to be worth the plane ticket, not enough to make a difference.

I think there might be a lot of gains to be had from disentangling the vetting and the hosting.  People are comfortable with different levels of vetting, ranging from “they talked to me enough that it’d be an unusually high-effort scam” through “must be at least a friend of a friend of a friend” through “I have to have known them in person for months”.  And you can bootstrap through these.

Here’s a toy example:

  • Joe barely makes ends meet somewhere out in flyover country but in between shifts at his retail job he’s doing well at self-teaching programming and seems like he could pass App Academy.
  • Norm has a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco and doesn’t really need his couch to be empty, nor does he need to rent it out for money to someone desperate enough to pay rent on a couch, but he’s not ready to give some dude on the internet a commitment to providing shelter for the duration of App Academy.
  • Tasha has a house somewhere in visiting distance of Norm, maybe even several different people like Norm, and she too has a couch, and is willing to host an internet dude for one week based on a sad blog post.  During this week, Joe and Norm meet, and Tasha evaluates Joe’s suitability as a guest, and Norm decides he can commit to have Joe as an occupant for the duration of App Academy.

My household has been informally couching (or bedrooming, as the case may be) itinerants for a while.  Sometimes they get jobs and move out, or get jobs and don’t move out.  Sometimes they find other households they fit into better and move into those.  Sometimes they wind up staying for a while and not really improving their prospects and going back whence they came; this is just the sort of thing that happens sometimes.

And I think more people could accommodate this fine from the hosting end, and just don’t have the networking to find would-be couch occupants on a routine basis.

I propose a minimum viable product, low tech, Y Couchinator, to gauge demand and work out kinks before I try to make a technical person build me a website and expose us to liability and all that exciting stuff.  Here’s how I’m imagining it will work.

  • If you have a couch, you tell me about your couch.  Is it available for a specific week in June for people you talk to for two hours first and like a lot?  Is it available for one month to nonsmoking vegetarian afabs who your landlord might believe are your cousin?  Is it available to anybody for any portion of the academic summer as long as they can walk your dog and don’t seem inordinately sketchy to me when I hear about them?  Is it available for six months if they can cover groceries and get a reference from somebody who has hosted them for at least a fortnight?  Please be prepared to really maintain these boundaries when you need them even once you are presented with an actual couch occupant who has a sob story, even if it’s a really sobsome story.  We’ve never had a serious problem with this, but it’s the sort of thing that could happen. (Of  course, distinguish “not enforcing a boundary” from “liked person more than expected, happy to keep them longer than I committed to based on less information”.)
  • If you need a couch, you tell me about your couch needs.  Does it have to actually be a bed, not a couch?  Do you need to bring your gerbil?  Are you deathly allergic to peanuts/children/cats/country music/Brutalist architecture?  And you tell me about your plans for your couch time.  This is a somewhat constrained offer, so there do have to be plans.  I want to match people whose couch needs are plausibly likely to be self-limiting and don’t come with a need for cash in particular, at least unless I find that there are many more couches than occupants under this condition.  Do you have a prospect for getting some kind of job as long as you can park in the right city for a while to attend interviews?  Do you have a plan for some kind of job training, like the example of App Academy or something less classic?  Are you pretty employable already but only when you have your mental health under control, and just need some time not relying on your parents for survival in order to get there?
  • I collect couch needers and couch havers.  I match people who can be straightforwardly matched, and I do my best to line up dominoes when several couches have to be strung together (“Bill, you can stay with Haley for a week, and she’ll introduce you to Penelope, and if Penelope likes you you can stay with her for three months, and if Penelope doesn’t feel comfortable with that then Wilbur is willing to subsidize you in REACH for a week and a half until Leroy’s place opens up, which is yours for two months as long as you do dishes and sometimes give him rides to the airport”).

I want to emphasize here that there do exist people who have couches they would be willing to offer.  This came up in a Discord chat and two people I didn’t even know about before mentioned that under certain constraints they could offer couches.  My own household (which currently contains three different people who have at different times lived with us, paid no rent, and stayed on to the present day, and that’s if you don’t count my toddler) can fit people short-term, medium if we really click.

How to get ahold of me:  You can put out initial feelers via Tumblr ask (I will assume this post is not getting enough circulation until at least 3 depressed anons have wondered at me whether they really deserve couches) but it is a bad way to do anything long form.  My email address is alicorn at elcenia (dot com).  If you share any Discord servers with me, Discord works great too.

 

mathemagicalschema:

So on the one hand: I have absolutely known and been people who have just needed some space to crash and be under less pressure while they get some shit sorted out. On the other hand: hosting dysfunctional people with few-to-no housing alternatives can get really fucking ugly.

I don’t at all want to get into my personal history around this topic, but I do want to note a couple things. First, someone who would be a perfectly workable housemate for you if they had their own room could potentially be quite stressful for you to live with as a couchsurfer, because they have no private space and they are limiting the use of your would-be common space. (Conversely, someone who would work for you as a housemate could drive you up the fucking wall when you have no private space.)

Second, related to that first point but not quite the same, for a great many reasons it is difficult to figure out someone’s ability/willingness to do chores or their care needs without actually spending time living with them. It is difficult to get a sense of how much someone can contribute to housework or what level of difficulty they have with instrumental activities of daily living, because those questions are fucking awkward to ask and even more awkward to answer honestly. On top of that, people have very different ideas of what “clean” means, or what an “acceptable” level of mess looks like, so two people can think they’ve negotiated all of that in complete honesty and yet find that they have drastically incompatible needs when actually living together.

Third, please do be aware that if you are renting it is probably against your lease to host long-term guests, and that’s not for no reason. Someone who stays with you long enough, especially if they are treating your home as their residence in other respects, is legally considered a tenant. In the unfortunate scenario that you need someone gone – now – and they are refusing to leave, the police will not help you. You need to follow whatever the usual proceedings are for eviction under state/provincial/local law, or negotiate some other solution.

For all of these reasons, I strongly recommend that if you are inviting someone to stay with you for more than a week or two, that you pre-negotiate somewhere else for them to stay if things aren’t working out.

In general, there’s just a huge goddamn mess of potential issues when you’ve got someone who conditionally provide something that another person deeply needs. It can create a fucked-up power dynamic, and the stakes can make boundary-setting a serious challenge on either side.

 

luminousalicorn:

Yup. I don’t mean to discount any of that, and people shouldn’t offer couches if they can’t handle the applicable risks and finesse the applicable social and legal inputs. I also want people on both ends to be really clear about what they can provide and what they need, whether that’s an actual room or a well-defined level and kind of cleanliness or anything else.

But, y’know, I’ve hosted people and it can work really great when it works.

 

shedoesnotcomprehend:

Six months ago, I was desperately lonely and chronically suicidal and failing out of grad school.

And then I couched someone Alicorn had previously hosted.

It has not been a perfectly smooth ride! At one point I had to consult a lawyer; at another I had an awful yelling fight with my parents.

I am also now blissfully happy and working my dream job and for the first time in years not depressed. And still living with the couchperson in question. And our cat.

It’s not always easy and it’s not for everyone. But, man, when it works it works.

Tags:

#interesting #signal boost

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Sort-of-tagged by @maryellencarter.

the last movie you watched: I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if I haven’t watched a movie beginning-to-end since seeing Mockingjay Pt 2† in a theatre. I’m not really big on video.

(Which is also why I haven’t done the favourite-movies-as-gifs meme @agapi42 tagged me in. Sorry, Agapi: I do appreciate that you thought of me, but I don’t think I’m the right person to do that meme.)

Edit: wait, hang on, I saw The Force Awakens (I think shortly after it came out on DVD), and that would have been more recent than Mockingjay. So that puts a new cap on how long ago the most recent movie could have been.

the last tv series you watched: There is…a distinct possibility that I have not sought out any TV since Daily Planet ended. Again, not big on video. Mom has been watching The Worst Witch and Merlin, usually while I am in the room.

the last webseries you watched: I know I watched Red vs Blue a few years back (think I got partway through S12). Neither my sense of the boundaries of “webseries” nor my sense of what time things happened is good enough to say if there were any more recent than that.

the last comedy special you watched: I agree with maryellencarter, re: what does this even mean.

Hmm…*googles “comedy special”*

This appears to mean a recorded stand-up act, especially but not necessarily on Netflix. It has been so long since I watched stand-up that I really couldn’t say who it was, let alone which specific act.

the last podcast you listened to: Talk the Talk, as is traditional on the ride over to an exam. (I had my accounting midterm today.) The episode in question was apparently locked behind a Patreon paywall some time after I downloaded it, but it’s about Chinese puns and censorship.

the last game you played:
     Video game: Flight Rising. My familiar fund is coming along nicely, though gems per se are a bit hard to come by at the moment what with the new Starmap gene.
     Board game: Wormhole, a locally-designed trivia game (mostly history and geography, with the occasional science question) my parents found at Value Village (thrift store chain, pretty much the Canadian version of Goodwill). I later saw it at a board-game store for 90% off, so I guess it wasn’t too popular. (And indeed, nothing relevant comes up when I google it.) It’s okay as trivia games go, though the difficulty level of the questions feels pretty variable (and they aren’t divided into distinct difficulty levels).
    App game: I don’t play these much at the moment. Whenever Pokemon Go sends me a “we miss you, here’s some free stuff to entice you back” code I pop in, redeem it, and then immediately leave, so technically Pokemon Go. (I figure there’s a good chance I’ll start playing again at some point, and I might as well acquire a stockpile of double-XP items and egg incubators for if/when that happens.) Actually *playing* might have also been Pokemon Go, or it might have been sudoku.

the last book you read: Hmm. My reading has mostly not been in book form lately. Probably Welcome to Floating Point. (That’s just the first one, not the whole trilogy: I haven’t finished the rest yet.) The author’s habit of using “spoke” rather than “said” as the default speech marker is a little irritating, but I liked it otherwise.

Alternately, if you want something more traditionally published and/or costing money: Pyramid of Peril. (Though, in fairness re: costing money, the audiobook is now free. But I already owned the ebook, and I prefer text to audiobooks anyway.)

the last comic book you read: I don’t read comic books myself.

the last webcomic you read: I think XKCD was more recent than Parhelion.

the last song you listened to: “Tried”, by Assemblage 23.

the last musical you listened to: I don’t really do these either. By default, then, “Once More, With Feeling”: the only musical whose soundtrack I own.

the last thing you searched online: Online, I’m not sure. I looked up kewra on Wikipedia this afternoon, but it wasn’t online because I didn’t have Wi-Fi. (Well, come to think of it I didn’t actually *check* if the Indian food store had public Wi-Fi, but I doubt they did.)

the last outfit you left the house in: A green Girl Scout camp T-shirt (Girl *Scout*, not Girl Guide: that’s how old this shirt is), brown leggings, plain white socks from the big pack I bought in Florida upon finding the socks I’d brought weren’t enough for all the walking around Disney I was doing, hiking boots, utility belt††, one-litre water bottle on shoulder strap.

(I don’t especially *like* camping, but I tend to wind up with Camper Aesthetic anyway, as a side effect of prepper tendencies. I never leave the house *intending* to spend the night in the woods, but I also never leave the house without enough gear that I *could*, if necessary, do so. Also, hiking boots are comfortable.)

(For the record, it has never yet been necessary. I have still never used my foil blanket. But if I ever need it, there it will be.)

the last completely unnecessary thing you purchased: I was going to say McDonalds food, but it was a post-exam treat, which disqualifies it by the rules maryellencarter’s answer uses.

Mind you, I normally go to Tim Hortons–which is noticeably cheaper than McDonalds–for my post-exam treat, so arguably the *additional* $5 vs getting a Timmies bagel *was* completely unnecessary. (But I had a coupon for a free medium fry and drink with purchase, and it had been a long time–actually, hang on, I can literally look that up: it’d been a little over two years–since I bought any McDonalds, so I decided to go for it this time.)

—

†Fun prosopagnosia fact: Katniss Everdeen looks a lot like I would without glasses, but Jennifer Lawrence looks nothing like me.

††Maybe I should make an updated list of utility-belt contents: I keep finding myself wanting to link to it and only having the 2012 version available.

Tags:

#when Mom asks me what I want for my birthday/Hanukkah and I’ve run out of ideas #I look at the camping section of Amazon and see if I can find any Useful Thing inspiration there #pretty sure that’s how I found the solar-powered phone charger #(which I don’t own yet but I expect I’ll get it for my birthday) #oh look an original post #meme #adventures in University Land #food #(ever since the Pillowfort thing I’ve been noticing just how often my posts link to previous posts on my Tumblr) #(almost any post where I contribute significantly #–rather than just ”hey here’s a neat thing”– #is part of a broader context of my other writings) #(and many of said writings are comments) #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

Winnie ille Pu

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

pittrarebooks:

What’s even better than Winnie-the-Pooh? Winnie-the-Pooh in Latin, of course! Some of you may be saying, “Huh?” Why would you translate a children’s story into a dead language? I don’t know, but it is real and it’s
called Winnie ille Pu. Just look! Pooh Bear’s in a toga and it’s so adorable.

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Alexander Lenard translated A.A. Milne’s classic into the Latin language, and published it in 1960. Then and now, it proved quite unexpectedly to be very popular. Winnie ille Pu is the only Latin language book to ever become a New York Times best seller. Nothing is written in English—not even the map labels! It has been called “the greatest book a dead language has ever known.” Its popularity took even the publishers by surprise; they had only ordered a small printing to be made of the book, and within weeks it was nowhere to be found in bookstores.

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Lenard spoke 12 languages, and was a Latin enthusiast. Taking seven years to translate the whole of Milne’s first Pooh book, Lenard almost became an additional author in his own right. He tailored the translation to include its own alliteration, puns, rhymes, and other language-specific quirks. Actual Latin scholars would be able to read this book for its own enjoyment, not just as an exercise.

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One of the best things about Winnie ille Pu is figuring out how Lenard re-named all of the characters. Here is a list of their new Latin christenings:

  • Christophorus Robinus: Christopher Robin
  • Porcellus: Piglet
  • Ior: Eeyore
  • Bubo: Owl
  • Ru: Roo
  • Lepus: Rabbit
  • Canga: Kanga
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Now, you may be thinking, where is Tiggerus? I also searched for him in vain. Fun fact: Tigger does not appear until the second Pooh Bear book, The House at Pooh Corner, and he is the only new major character to be introduced.

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-Lauren Galloway, Archival Assistant

Sources:

McDowell, Edwin. “ ‘Winnie Ille Pu’ nearly XXV years later.” The New York Times. 18 Nov. 1984, http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/18/books/winnie-ille-pu-nearly-xxv-years-later.html. Accessed 20 Feb. 2018.

“Tigger.” Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation, www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigger. Accessed 20 Feb. 2018.

Tags:

#Winnie the Pooh #language #neat

the chilliad: book two | a trashbag full of donuts

Link ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

{{Title link: https://www.ofgeography.com/single-post/2018/08/10/the-chilliad-book-two }}

ofgeography:

{book one}

“the thing you have to understand is that, helen aside, things were kind of like, brewing,” homer says. to be fair, up until this point he really could not have given less of a shit about greek life politics. he’d rushed alpha sig because he wanted to lose his virginity, make friends, drink a lot of beer, and because lowkey he wanted to be like capi from ABC’s greek. he loved that guy. that guy was the shit.

anyway, the point is, now that homer’s really giving it some thought, yeah: the thing between troy and alpha sig had been building for a while, long before homer got anywhere near campus. helen was kind of just like, the final straw.

“the trojans aren’t even greek, is the thing,” he explains. “like, they used to be, um … i dunno, some national chapter, i forget because who cares. but they got kicked off campus and then just renamed themselves after the street their new house was on. priam’s nice but he’s not exactly creative.”

“why did they get kicked off campus?”

“well, a deer got drunk at one of their parties, and then the deer got hit by a car, and then there were all these protests by the vegan club.”

“why did they get a deer drunk?”

“is this on the record?”

“son, you’re at a police station. everything is on the record.”

homer hesitates. he’s pretty sure they’re past the statute of limitations on getting animals drunk, and also he doesn’t think that’s technically illegal, just a real dick move.

“well … they didn’t,” he admits. “but – okay. look, don’t tell anyone i told you, but the real truth is aggy did it.”

“aggy got them kicked off campus?”

“no, aggy got the deer drunk. it was on trojan property, though. and – this is extremely on the DL, i’m very serious about this, boys – it wasn’t the vegans who protested. or i mean, it was the vegans, but how did the vegans find out, you know what i’m saying?”

there’s a thoughtful hum. homer isn’t sure if it’s coming from Ray Ban or Donut Mouth, but he thinks it might be Donut Mouth because he smells a hint of bear claw on the exhale.

“so how did they find out?” Ray Ban asks. his words are a little squished, like he’s resting his chin on one of his hands.

“roy,” Donut Mouth mutters. “c’mon, this isn’t relevant.”

“so?” Ray Ban answers, unapologetic. “it’s fucking interesting. you so desperate to go write up your reports that you wanna get out of here? you itching to sit in the bullpen listening to frank powerwash the floors for the next four hours?”

homer grins. he holds his hand out for a high-five. “my main man ray ban,” he says. Ray Ban takes the five.

“it’s roy, actually,” he says.

“rick and roy, that’s cute, actually,” homer answers. “i’m still gonna call you ray ban, though. it’s like, your vibe. rick, sorry man, but you’ve been donut mouth to me this whole time and i just don’t think that’s gonna change for you.”

“for god’s sake,” Donut Mouth says, “can we please focus?”

homer, nodding, feels around the table until he finds the corner of what he’s pretty sure is the donut box. he raises his eyebrows in question and is gratified to hear Donut Mouth sigh before nudging the box forward so he can get his hand in. he grabs whatever is closest – no such thing as a bad donut, after all – and says, mouth full of strawberry glaze, “okay, so, someone told the muses and the muses told me that it was emi hunter, olly hunter’s twin sister. she’s not a vegan herself but is BIG into like, animal husbandry. their whole family have been butchers since like, the 1600s or some shit. i heard she only eats meat she’s killed herself, which is super hot and very scary.”

he waits, but neither Ray Ban nor Donut Mouth have anything to say about emi hunter. “… anyway, she found out that someone at this party had gotten the deer drunk and that the deer had gotten hit by a car and died, and also nobody even used the venison, and she sicced the vegans on them.”

“why didn’t she report them herself?”

“well,” says homer.

READ BOOK TWO

Tags:

#oh look an update #fanfic #Iliad #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(though I was already planning to reblog it)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

startorialist:

*opens door very slowly*

*cautiously steps into tumblr*

*dusts off cobwebs*

Hello! As I’ve said for the past few months, it’s been very quiescent around here, but hopefully that will change imminently, as my sabbatical year ramps up! Luckily tumblr’s monthly archive helped bring me over (or through?) the potential barrier and twitter gave me a very good reason to post today.

This stunning artwork, titled “Margaret’s Moon”, was made by Dr. Jamie Molaro (aka Spacejammie), and I’ll just post her own description:

This piece was made using data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter
(LOLA) aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. The
topography is the same as used in The Book of Moon, though with fewer layers. The text on the pages is original source code
for the Apollo 11 guidance computer for the command and lunar modules.
The code was written by NASA computer scientist Margaret Hamilton in
1969. It was during this project that she invented the term “software
engineering” to describe the process of writing code.

Check out more photos of “Margaret’s Moon” on Jamie’s website. We’ve also featured Margaret Hamilton and her work immortalized on a scarf and as a LEGO mini-fig.

Check out other pieces (or commission your own! “Custom topography and papers are available upon request.“) at Jamie’s Make Science @etsy shop.

Dr. Jamie Molaro is a Research Scientist with the Planetary Science Institute, who is based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

–Emily

Tags:

#space #(sort of) #art #the power of science #moon #trypophobia?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

very-flirtatious-deatheater:

thegreatsnapescape:

enter-the-phantom:

Some of my favourite moments from the day I spent at the library playing Snape for their Harry Potter event

•”The real Snape is taller than you!”

“Real Snape? Oh, you mean the muggle who played me in that film? His name was Alan. My name is not Alan, and I am sadly not 6’1”. Ten points from Gryffindor.”

•*to a little girl dressed as Hedwig complete with mask* “You’re that Potter brat’s owl, arent you? Hedwig, correct?”

“Yeah! You’re so mean to Harry! *pretends to peck at me my god she was adorable*

“See, I’d put you in detention for that, but regrettably you can’t put owls in detention. So I’ll put your mother in detention instead for raising such a disrespectful child.” *the mother cracked up at this*

•”Are you Professor Snape?”

“*long sigh* Regrettably.”

•I had a belt of potions bottles and a group of kids asked me what potions I had, so I actually gave an impromptu potions lesson. Some of the highlights included threatening to use Skele-Gro on a boy dressed as Harry who wouldn’t stop interrupting, and loudly complaining to their parents that I wouldn’t have had to waste time reteaching this lesson if their kids had paid attention the first time.

•Word got out that I actually had the dark mark on my arm so kids kept coming up to ask to see it. I made a big show of rolling my eyes and threatening them and then finally rolling up sleeve while flexing the tendons in my wrist to make the snake move. Made several kids scream. It was hilarious

•There were a couple teenagers in a group with a Luna and her friend dressed as her rabbit patronus. I had a lot of fun with them giving her a hard time:

-“Lovegood. I know that name. Why do I—ah, yes, your father.”

“He writes for the Quibbler!”

“Indeed he does. Penned an article claiming Hogwarts had a vampire teaching there. Can’t imagine to whom he was referring.” *cue biggest laugh of the evening*

-“Lovegood, if you melt on more pewter cauldron—“

“They had dark magic in them! All pewter cauldrons do!” (She was really good)

“…you’re telling me every pewter cauldron was made by a dark wizard? He must have been extraordinarily busy” *dry tone*

“Yes, and it explains why you’re the way you are. Spent too much time with pewter cauldrons”

“…why am I still talking to you, Lovegood?”

•”Why arent you at Hogwarts?”

“Have you been outside, child? It’s summer.”

•*parents who wanted photos* “Can we get our picture/their picture with you?”

“…*sigh* Fine. *dramatic eye roll* You do know I’m the villain for like six and three-fourths of seven books, right?” (They found this hilarious)

•The classic, “I love your costume/great costume!” comments followed up with “…What costume?”

•There was a sorting station I helped back up for a bit and I had way too much fun loudly groaning and complaining when kids were put into Gryffindor.

•One little girl was put into Slytherin so I introduced myself to her and her dad and was all “You’d better make me proud. Although honestly after 14 years my expectations aren’t very high so that should be relatively easy.” Went over her head but the dad lost it

•*two rowdy little boys nearly putting each other’s eyes out with fake wands and in general causing dangerous commotion* “No duelling in the halls. Twenty points each from both your houses, and a week’s detentions.” (They straightened up immediately. Was proud.)

•There was a station where kids could make Pygmy puffs out of cotton balls and glue and one kid made an all black one and proudly presented it to me with “I tried to make it look grumpy”

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That is spot on and so wonderful! Share you Snapeing secrets…

A wholesome post.

Tags:

#Harry Potter #fanfic #(close enough)