A more detailed look at the Doctor Who episode “The Bells of Saint John” reveals that the opening sequence has given away clues about web sites, sports and music that the visual designer who created the sequence enjoys.
Tags:
#interesting #I don’t tend to watch videos normally but this was worth it #Doctor Who
{{Title link: https://reason.com/archives/2016/11/28/the-secret-dangerous-world-of }}
In a country where cash has lost much of its value, and food and other necessities are dangerously scarce, bitcoins are providing many Venezuelans with a lifeline. The same socialist economics that caused the country’s meltdown has made the energy-intensive process of bitcoin mining wildly profitable—but also dangerous.
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#interesting #Venezuela #bitcoin
I like having long hair. I can see the ends vibrate with my pulse.
Wait, really?
*leans over arm of couch, watches waist-length hair dangle*
Huh. It does vibrate. Not sure whether it’s in time with my pulse.
Tags:
#reply via reblog #hair #interesting
TOASTYSTATS: Did the US election influence fanfic production?
I’ve heard some folks talking about using fanfic to cope with/distract themselves from the recent US election (I’m in this camp, though I’m not ignoring the real world), and others, like the hosts of @fansplaining, discuss not being able to focus on fandom right now. I wondered which of these impulses was currently stronger overall in fandom.
TL;DR: as of two weeks following the 2016 election, there’s been a big post-election spike in fanfic production on AO3 (~30% increase) – which is unusual for this time of year. Though, of course, correlation is not causation – there could be some other cause(s) at play. And while some people may be turning to fandom for distraction, there’s a bigger increase in ‘Angst’ than ‘Fluff.’
I gathered daily data from AO3 for the pat 5 years in order to compare this year to past ones. I figured even if we did see a spike or a drop in fanworks, that might be normal following an election – or just normal for November. The past 5 years have the benefit of containing another presidential election, as well as a midterm election and two off-years. I looked at the total amount of fanworks produced in each of the two weeks leading up to the US election, and in each of the two weeks following it. (If you look at the above graph, 0 on the x axis is Election Day – Nov 8, 2016.)
Based on the above graph, we can see that most years have a fairly flat production rate surrounding the election. 2016, however, departs strongly from this pattern with a 32% increase from the two weeks leading up to the election.
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#interesting #AO3 #election 2016
Daniel Kahn (of Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird) performing a Yiddish translation of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”.
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#music #interesting #Leonard Cohen #so I went and looked up Hallelujah on Youtube #like you do #and…look #my parents had a set of three mix CDs they played a zillion times in the car when I was growing up #one of the tracks was ”Hallelujah” #and that track is How Hallelujah Sounds as far as my brain is concerned #I’m beginning to suspect it was a cover #because the two Leonard Cohen versions I tried were so Wrong I couldn’t bear to finish them #it may have been from the Shrek soundtrack #apparently there were two versions involved with the Shrek soundtrack #and I listened to both of them and they both sound Correct in a way that the Leonard Cohen versions very much did not #I don’t know #I get the impression from looking around that Leonard Cohen did a lot of versions of Hallelujah #was there a Correct one at some point and it’s just not what comes up first on Youtube? #because it’s kind of awkward to see all these people mourning Cohen and gradually realise you may have never actually heard a Cohen song #and your brain is in fact rebelling at having to listen to a Cohen version of the archetypical Cohen song? #anyway this one is neat as long as I don’t think of it in terms of Correctness #tag rambles
{{the OP is by epic, but has only two lines and the second line is labelled “me”; it is unclear who edited the post to its current form}}
People: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
You: Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs
Me: Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Tags:
#language #interesting #(I went through the letters in the other two and they check out)
controversial: dumbledore would’ve made the right decision taking the 1991-1992 house cup away from slytherin even if harry and co. hadn’t saved the school and stopped voldemort from returning to power
Can I ask why? Genuinely curious here
Slytherin students didn’t have better academic performance and they certainly didn’t have better behavior than the other houses. What they did have was a head of house who would award his own students points for almost no reason while handing out penalties to other houses like candy. If Draco Malfoy answered a question correctly in potions, he’d be awarded ten points, while Hermione giving the same answer would lose ten points for being a know-it-all.
That’s the thing, the game was rigged in Slytherin’s favor. Snape set his own house up to win, through absolutely no merit of their own, seven years in a row with no penalty. Meanwhile Dumbledore is made out to be the one who “just hands victory to his own house” after four members of his house put their lives on the line to save the school from a genocidal mass-murderer.
Gryffindor deserved the house cup because their students saved the school, but even if they didn’t, Slytherin should have had it taken away from them because they didn’t earn it.
I can’t even condemn Dumbledore for letting Slytherin believe they’d won, sit in a green-and-silver dining hall, and then changing it when he announced they’d actually lost, because after seven years of cheating, it’s not enough for them to just lose. If they’d just lost, they’d think they were cheated out of something that’s rightfully theirs. Allowing them to believe they’d just once again been handed an award they didn’t deserve, and then giving it directly to the house that actually did something to deserve it, teaches a valuable lesson.
Anyway, if we’re going to criticize Dumbledore’s abilities as a school administrator for anything, it’s how unchecked he left Snape’s treatment of his students. Even putting aside the emotional and physical abuse he inflicted on his students, there should have been some provision in place to prevent his abuse of the points system before he had a chance to hand it to his own students for ONE year, let alone seven.
There should have been a provision that the current holder of the house cup is ineligible for participation in the next year’s competition. There should be an upper limit on how many points you can take away from another house’s students, and how many points you can give to your own students. Students should be able to appeal unfair penalties to the headmaster.
Point is, Slytherin shouldn’t get an award just because their head-of-house refuses to play fair
I never thought of it like this before. Thank you so much, OP
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#Harry Potter #meta #interesting
{{Title link: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/04/14/universal_basic_income_this_nonprofit_is_about_to_test_it_in_a_big_way.html }}
GiveDirectly’s launching a test of universal basic income!!!!!!!!! They’re doing it properly, giving money to everyone in the selected communities and committing to do that for 10-15 years. And they’re good at rigorous data collection. And if this works, we can scale it up.
Tags:
#interesting #(I know I’m not being as effusive as most of the others reblogging this) #(mostly because it’s hard to wrap my head around) #(but I can manage ”interesting”) #((and I can manage a smile at the mention of the Canadian Liberal party)) #((my vote for them didn’t actually *affect* anything because of fucking first-past-the-post)) #((but the fact remains that I voted for them)) #universal basic income
I was on the bus thinking about Harry Potter tonight and I remembered the part where the Dementors all show up at the Quidditch game, and I remembered how they were all looking up at Harry, and I wondered why they would all be staring at him, and then I realized that it’s because he has two souls in him.
On this note, wouldn’t that also be a reason why Harry would have had a more negative reaction than his friends (even Ginny)? He was hearing his mother’s voice as she was protecting him, which in itself was his worst memory. but the Dementors were also forcing the piece of Voldemort to relive its worst memory as well… The memory of being ripped apart by the curse that backfired. No wonder Harry passed out so often.
I literally never thought about that.
omg…
HOLY
Oh FUCKING HELL, you just made me realize that it wasn’t Harry’s memory that was his father telling Lily to take Harry and run, and it wasn’t Harry’s memory of Lily screaming.
Here I was, just eating a cup of applesauce under the 14-year-long assumption that the reason a small infant was able to remember something was because this was a fictional world of magic, but no, now this entirely reasonable and somewhat less terrifying bubble has burst and I’m never going to recapture that innocence.
I’m going to fucking bed.
Tags:
#Harry Potter #death tw #huh #interesting
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