#foxes #comics #art #overly literal interpretations #fun with loopholes #food mention #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what
#demons #storytime #food mention #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #I saw a bunch of people in the notes tagging this #Venom #and while I have not actually watched Venom I see their point
#I gave multiple responses containing phrases like ”panicked paranoia” and ”doomsday prepper” #and my result admonishes me to ”try not to trust people so easily” #what the fuck #were you even listening #food mention #meme #(okay to be *completely* fair I do not *literally* own a spare container of gasoline) #(I would much rather use solar power for the apocalypse: #sure solar panels break occasionally but I’m pretty sure you’d go through them slower than you’d go through gasoline) #((also less fire and pollution hazard!)) #(but I feel that I fit the *spirit* of that answer) #((my result was oatmeal raisin btw)) #tag rambles #anxiety #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers
In my old house it was bottom right… but my apartment now it’s bottom left because of the layout of my kitchen for some reason. Idk why it changed for me, but the bottom right just doesn’t feel right now.
bottom left because it’s the one that changes size so I never have to change any of my habits for cooking different things
Bottom-right is clearly the best burner, because you don’t have to reach as far and the larger burner size heats the pot more evenly. Bottom-left is okay for boiling pasta and stuff like that, but I’ve *tried* making popcorn on the bottom-left burner and it *doesn’t cook right* because that burner is too small.
(results not applicable to stove designs in which the burners are not of different sizes, or designs where the sizes have a different pattern; possibly also not applicable to people significantly taller than 5′3″ or equivalently shorter stoves)
Tags:
#is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #long post #reply via reblog #meme
-“Dispense with thermometers, get a bunch of GPUs, simulate the heat distribution in your oven from first principles using CFD. As a bonus, you can use the heat output from the GPUs to actually run the oven.” -“Then you can compare the simulated bread browning to the actual one, that’s made by the GPU oven, in real time” -“Now that’s what I call…” *shades* “Predictive processing” YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH
Tags:
#high context jokes #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog
Is “identifying foreign words by phoneme cluster” a thing that many/most people have trouble with? It’s something I’ve been instinctively able to do for as long as I can remember, but quite a few people have told me lately what an uncanny ability it is.
I’ve studied only a couple of foreign languages, and both of them were Romance-based. I pick up languages and grammatical rules very quickly, though. Even when I don’t understand the language being used, I can almost always pick out which language it is, or at least which language family.
This comes so naturally to me that I’ve never thought of it as weird, but recently people have been downright awed that I can, say, pick out the Thai dishes from the Vietnamese ones on a pan-Asian menu. Even though Thai and Vietnamese have totally different phonemic structures! It’s not that hard! People are often frequently baffled when I identify someone’s ethnic extraction by their surname, which, like – I dunno, all I can say is it’s not that hard!
I swear this isn’t me humblebragging – I am legitimately confused that this does not seem to be a common thing.
I too do the thing. I always figured most people’s lack of ability to do the thing was primarily related to most people’s disinterest in learning even the tiniest bit of foreign languages unless the language in question is going to be directly useful to them in a way they can quantify. But also I’m hyperlexic so, maybe that’s a factor too.
In my case people have more frequently expressed surprise at my ability to pronounce surnames, but that’s directly tied to recognizing their derivation – when you know what language a name derives from, and have a vague idea of the pronunciation rules of that language, it’s generally not too hard to at least come really close to correct pronunciation of the name.
Hyperlexia nation checking in! @ozymandias271 is the only other hyperlexic I know off the top of my head; do they also do the thing?
Same re: pronunciation. Weirdly enough, though, that often leads to me pronouncing it incorrectly, or at least what the person in question considers incorrectly. French names are very common where I live, but most of them have been Anglicized to the point where the original pronunciation becomes wrong.
I’m hyperlexic and okay but not great at this? (I can’t distinguish Swedish and Norwegian, and I can tell the difference between Korean and {Chinese, Japanese} but I can’t tell Chinese and Japanese apart, etc.)
I am pretty good at doing the thing, because I pick up linguistics rules really easily. (My project for the past two days has been teaching myself the grammar of Classical Sanskrit (hence the Bhagavad-Gita blogging), which I expect to take about a week to get mostly-down. I’m not planning to memorise Panini’s entire generative grammar, though.)
However, I am really awful at remembering vocabulary, which is why I’m monolingual. Give me the words, and I’ll successfully make sentences in half a dozen languages. If I’m allowed to make the sentences really simple, I could probably do two dozen languages. However, expecting me to remember any of those words the next day is a lost cause.
Despite hyperlexia, I’m not all that good at distinguishing languages by phoneme usage.
I’m a lot better at picking up vocabulary than grammar. I mentioned “read[ing] okay Packaging French, but don’t expect me to write it” recently: when presented with an everyday French sentence of the sort one might see on a sign or a bag of food, there’s a fair chance I’ll be able to work out the gist of it. If you ask me what the French word for [insert thing here] is, a significant-though-still-fairly-small amount of the time I will be able to answer. (As long as I am allowed to submit my answer in writing.) I cannot predict the grammatical structure of a sentence that isn’t currently staring me in the face, and I might not recognise it in a sentence that is currently staring me in the face.
Ingredient lists, which have almost no grammar and consist mostly or entirely of terms that any Canadian who doesn’t grow all their own food would be naturally exposed to†, are easiest. I am frequently able to read entire French ingredient lists without any guessing at all.
(One time, I actually understood the French side of the package better than the English.
Me, in grocery store: *looks at chocolate bar*
Me: “Chocolate with marzipan”. What is marzipan, anyway?
Me: *reads French side* “Chocolate with almond paste”. Oh.)
†Though I can’t promise how much attention other people pay.
I’m not sure what hyperlexia is (and I need to go to bed rather than googling it), but I can pick out the phoneme clusters without any reference to whether I understand the language at all. I can only do it by reading (in Latin alphabet), not by sound or in other alphabets, though.
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!
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#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
Since I keep wanting to be able to link to it, and also to help me keep track of what all I’ve got in this, here is an updated Utility Belt Inventory, September 2018 edition:
Main bag: Main compartment: Wallet (notable non-obvious content: glasses prescription) Notebook 2 pencils (mostly for taking exams) 4 napkins Canadian passport (acting as primary government ID) Small scrunchie (I often bring my big scrunchie with me too, but I use it around the house often enough not to keep it in the bag) Small dim flashlight, good only for reading by AAA replacement battery for above flashlight (expired 2015; mind you, flashlight has same batch and works fine) Packet of Kleenex Book-shaped keychain, with broken attachment Twisty tie Honey-coloured rock, souvenir of a Rock and Mineral Fair a few years back Eurocent coin (found on a store floor in *this* continent) 100 yen coin (ditto) Penny squished into New England Aquarium souvenir Shopping bag, folded into its attached pouch Disposable plastic bag (the kind bulk foods are sold in) Front compartment: Clip-on sunglasses Nature Valley peanut butter granola bar (expires January 2019) Nutri-Grain mixed berry granola bar (expires April 2019) Pen (the kind with a button you click, rather than a separate cap that could get lost) Plastic tortoise Rubber lizard Stretchy string (originally a Chuck E Cheese prize bracelet, which I immediately untied into string), which past!me says is 16in long so I didn’t bother to measure it now 3 moist towelettes Short string with keychain loops at each end Chunk of amethyst, with broken keychain attachment Magnifying glass Penknife, with scissors and tweezers Slice of blue agate Mini crayon set (six to cover the rainbow, plus brown and pink), in a Ziploc so that it won’t spill and/or melt over anything if its case breaks Small blue Sharpie Mini sewing kit (I let past!me catalogue its contents: “a needle, six different colours of thread wrapped around some cardboard, a safety pin, and a button”) 1-metre tape measure Back compartment: Quart/medium Ziploc bag (huh, that’s it for empty Ziplocs?; *adds another quart, plus 2 sandwich, 1 snack/small, and 1 gallon/large, then moves to main compartment for better fit*) 2 tampons: 1 light, 1 medium 2 menstrual pads Some dried-out baby wipes (water to reactivate them stored separately) Silver Star of David, necklace attachment *not* broken but also not in use Loop with…what is this kind of closure called? *searches* looks like it’s called a “side-release buckle”; about 9in long in total Wire saw 8×11 paper with knot instructions printed on it, given to me by my Girl Guide leader An overlapping set of knot instructions, this time on a set of professionally laminated cards Purple geode Foil blanket …what the fuck, where is my poncho, could have sworn I had one in here (Well, at least I have a blanket and a hat (hat to be described later), that might suffice) Hand sanitizer (directly attached to belt) Phone pouch: Back compartment: Earbuds Lightweight gloves with capacitive fingertips The lanyard that came with the pouch Strap about 2ft in length, with clips on each end (visible in the third picture of the link) Carabiner (Coming soon: solar-powered external phone battery (+ bonus flashlight function), ETA November) Middle compartment: Phone (+ myriad contents) Front compartment: USB to microUSB adapter microSD to SD adapter String with adjuster (also visible in the third picture of the phone-pouch link) Snack size Ziploc containing the European!AC to USB adapter my most recent smartphone came with, the pin for popping the SIM card tray out, and something that might be a stand North-American!AC to USB adapter …huh, apparently I have *two* microSD to SD adapters in here, that seems excessive; *puts second one on coffee table until I decide where to keep it* Spare pair of earbud covers Screen cleaning cloth Edit Sep/15/2018: Found out Dad had the kind of adapter that lets you plug USB peripherals into a smartphone lying around unused, so I stuck it into my phone pouch in case it comes in handy. I’ll give it back if he needs it, plus I recently gave him my spare microSD card (32 GB), so even if you insist on viewing it transactionally he’s getting the better end of the deal. Keyring (on retractable string) House key Loblaws (grocery store) loyalty card Canadian Tire (department store) loyalty card Other keyring Bike key P.O. box key Samoa keychain Penknife pouch Penknife, with fork, spoon, and corkscrew Medkit (and other things that needed the space) Side compartment: 3 medium-small Band-Aids 3 medium Band-Aids 3 knee Band-Aids Moleskin bandage String with adjuster and clips at each end, like a hybrid of the things from the third phone-pouch picture Emery board 2 dimenhydrinate pills (expires January 2020) 2 pseudoephedrine pils (expires June 2019) 2 acetominophen+dextromethorphan+phenylephrine pills (expires October 2018; I would have preferred pure dextromethorphan pills, but the combo was all they had in pill form (cough syrup is fine for home, but hard to store in a medkit)) 1 loperamide pill (expires May 2020) Main compartment: Snack Ziploc: 4 restaurant packets of salt 2 restaurant packets of pepper 1 single-serving bag of M&Ms (expires November 2018) Bug repellent Sample-sized tube, originally some skincare product, washed out and refilled: masking-tape label indicates it is antibiotic ointment and expires November 2018 Another sample-sized tube with the same treatment done to it, this one indicating it is diphenhydramine anti-itch ointment and expires March 2019 2 pairs of disposable nitrile gloves Fairly large roll of something that might be gauze Smaller roll of something that is definitely gauze, as it is labelled (past!me only mentions one roll of anything even resembling gauze, so I can’t ask her for help) Travel-sized bottle of ibuprofen, emptied out and refilled with a newer batch (masking-tape label indicates it expired June 2018; *fetches January 2021 batch from cupboard, dumps out 6 old pills, replaces with 8 new pills, relabels*) Surgical mask, for keeping pollen out of throat Blister prevention ointment (looks like a deodorant stick, but you rub it on your feet) Whistle/compass/mirror combo Collapsible metal ~shot-sized cup, with keychain loop Mini hairbrush Lighter Instructional paper (past!me lists it as “heat exhaustion, blisters, insect stings, and sprains”) Dental floss (Coming soon: water-filtration straw, ETA December) Paracord bracelet (directly attached to belt) Hat with brim and chinstrap, tied up in chinstrap and strung through belt
Honourary member: one-quart water bottle, in shoulder-strap pouch
Brinens and Things 