interesting

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

prokopetz:

One of the distinctive features of Old Norse poetry is the use of kenning: a circumlocutory device in which a straightforward noun is replaced with an allusive phrase.

For example, a ship might be referred to as a “wave’s horse”; a sword, a “wound-serpent”; a shield, “the shame of swords”, and so forth. Sometimes, kennings could be embedded in other kennings – thus, one might have “feeder of war-gulls” = “feeder of ravens” = “warrior”; this is known as a doubled or extended kenning

Though many conventions of English literature can be traced back to Old Norse roots, kenning isn’t much encountered these days – at least, not in most genres. There’s one particular genre where the art of kenning is alive and well, though.

I’m speaking, of course, of erotic fanfic.

Whether you’re referring to a penis as a “porn-truncheon” or a vagina as “squish-pocket” (both examples I’ve seen employed in all apparent seriousness, incidentally), that perfectly fits the form and function of a kenning. Indeed, these examples even adhere to the idiosyncratic grammatical structure of many Old Norse kennings, with the base word being modified by an uninfected noun determinant inserted as a compound prefix.

Euphemisms for sex acts, meanwhile, can be even more baroque, forming multi-level allusions in the manner of doubled/extended kennings. “To ride the baloney pony”, for example, employs the act of riding a horse as an allusion to penetrative sexual intercourse – but the contained phrase “baloney pony” is, itself, a kenning of the simple type, with “pony” as the base word and “baloney” as the determinant, making the whole phrase a doubled kenning.

There are practical reasons for this sort of practice, of course; e.g., complex euphemisms can help sexually explicit works sneak through content filters. Still, it’s kind of fascinating that smutty fanfic has managed to preserve – in virtually unaltered state – a poetic form that’s otherwise been largely extinct in English literature for the better part of a thousand years.

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

comparativelysuperlative:

theunnumberedsparks:

In the Emperor’s New Grove animals are sentient. Squirrels can talk and so can insects. There’s a scene where a fly gets caught in a web and then cries out for help because it knows it will die. Killed by probably another sentient being for survival.

When you think about this type of relationship going on in the entire world, the true horror might dawn on you. There are millions of sentient creatures with short lifespans and most of them die savagely. They are literally forced by their natures to hunt each other or else they will die. Until society invents a way to feed everyone ethically, reconciliation, cooperation, and peace are impossible. No wonder humans have a legup.

It’s an incredibly horrifying implication.

Wow, that’s terrifying. And there’s only one person who can fix it.

No, not Gandalf. Yzma. Yzma can fix this.

Whatever else she can do, she can turn things into other things without worrying about details like “conservation of mass.” This doesn’t solve all the problems, because it only works within the animal kingdom: Llama potion turns the Emperor into a llama, the same potion turns a potted plant into a llama-shaped potted plant. (Human to octopus still works, so it’s not about composition, but there is some kind of constraint here.)

What she can do is manufacture meat for whatever animals can’t go vegetarian. She has potions to turn things into whales. (Come to think of it, it’s kind of impressive that those have even been discovered.) Pick the largest animal that’s tasty for the carnivores, and mass produce that potion. Use it on recently-dead mammals, or insects if that works. Macabre? Absolutely. It’s transmogrifying the bodies of sentients in order for more people to be able to eat them. But it’s also saving countless lives.

Now we have to get the animals to go along with this. Fortunately, they’re sentient. And Yzma has authority to negotiate as the Emperor’s advisor. Think they’d agree to eat only meat that died of natural causes in exchange for full citizenship rights? Uh, if there even are citizenship rights in a country where the Emperor can tear down your house at will. Still, they’ve clearly got stuff to gain. Maybe everyone agrees not to kill sentient prey in exchange for protection from their own predators, and the people at the top of the food chain go along with it because it’s enforced by a shape-shifting superpowered Royal Guard.

The eventual solution is to use those transforming potions to make everyone biologically capable of vegetarianism. It may take time and research to figure out how to change, say, a jaguar, to make them vegetarian without also giving them an unprecedentedly bad case of dysmorphia, but that’s what the Secret Lab is for. And you can’t tell me this is outside the scope of what transmogrification can do.

Then you get to work on the optional upgrades. Don’t like your body? Try another one! You can be a llama permanently if you want to for some reason, and once everyone accepts that the nonhumans here are sentient it won’t even be weird! Your species would be about as significant as your clothes, and a lot easier to deal with.

And that’s just with animals that currently exist. Wanna be a kraken? Want the eyes of a hawk and the thumbs of a human? Want wings? Our friendly neighborhood alchemist can probably make vials for those eventually. She can likely even isolate the immortality from that one species of jellyfish.

Only problem: Yzma’s evil.
Darn.

#A Connecticut Yankee in Emperor Kuzco’s Court

I like the way you think.

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#The Emperor’s New Groove #interesting

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

laurelhach:

El-Aurian Redesign

Originally from the Beta Quadrant, El-Aurians are a borderline humanoid race. They are eight limbed, with two main walking limbs, and they often use at least two other limbs during locomotion, though it’s not always necessary. They are extremely long-lived, often upwards of two thousand years.

El-Aurians have groups of cerata on their necks and their tail. Each ceras contains a central tube connected to three small highly vascularized lung-structures. A small pouch at the base expands to lower pressure inside the ceras and draw in air. Relatively simple organs, cerata regenerate easily when damaged. The constant inhalation/exhalation from the cerata causes them to wave gently. Non El-Aurians often find this effect calming, but others may think it unnerving.

El-Aurian listening skills are a racial personality trait, not biological, and their hearing is not exceptional among known races. Even before their homeworld’s assimilation, they were a widely-travelled species, and their cultural value of knowledge and history contributes to their listening skills. They have fantastic memories, and easily assume historian roles. Their arms contain partially separate nervous systems and do not require the concentration of the main brain to operate—this leaves the main brain freer for other functions, including the storage of memories (because El-Aurians have a lot). It also makes El-Aurians great multi-taskers. 

Their fan functions similarly to the antennae-plate on the Trill, though it is not a hearing organ—that is located dorsally to the fan. The fan has receptors for a broad range of particles, including chronitons, making El-Aurians a rare time-sensitive race. Their biological ability to detect spacial and temporal anomalies is unparalleled in known species.  As they have a limited skeleton and much of their body is supported by hydrostatics, they are also sensitive to pressure changes (and they like less gravity than Fed Standard—Guinan keeps Ten Forward a little light, it’s fun)

El-Aurians have at least two distinct phenotypes—-given their rarity, we don’t know whether or not there are more.

(yay for the chickensquids)

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#Star Trek #…huh #interesting

Level Up Your Living Room: A Secondhand Furniture Guide For the Broke and Discerning

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

nonasuch:

When I first began living on my own, I didn’t really have any furniture. I started with an IKEA bed and a hand-me-down dresser; from there, I added wobbly particle-board bookshelves and lumpy couches left behind by previous housemates. By the time I was getting ready to move into my current house, a year and a half ago, most of my furniture was, frankly, kind of crappy.

So I started scouring Craigslist, and checking the furniture section at the thrift store, and called in favors from a few friends who owned vans or SUVs. When I moved into my new place, I had ditched most of the old stuff and replaced it with better-made, better-looking vintage pieces, almost none of which cost more than $200 individually (and that was for a midcentury modern dining table with eight teak chairs). Since then, I’ve also swapped out most of my particle-board bookshelves for hardwood replacements. I still pick up nice pieces when I see them and the price is right— most recently, a glass-fronted cabinet ($25), a velvet settee ($300, which is more than I’d usually pay), and a coffee table/console/end table set ($100).

image

Actual furniture & art currently in my house.

There are a lot of reasons I prefer my current furnishings to the old ones. Well-made vintage pieces are sturdier, last longer, can better survive dis- and re-assembly, and (in my opinion, anyway) generally look nicer. I do still have a couple of Billy bookcases and a Lillesand bed, but I am also a human person under the age of 40 and living within 50 miles of an IKEA, so that’s kind of inevitable.

There’s one other good reason for buying vintage that gets overlooked. The furniture and other housewares I’ve bought secondhand will not lose value; in fact, should I ever resell them they will probably go for more than I paid. 

Because here’s the thing: if I hit a rough patch, or an unexpected medical bill, or other major unplanned expense, I am probably not going to have to resort to hocking my laptop or my few pieces of good jewelry. I can sell my 1930s enamel-topped breakfast table (bought from Craigslist for $85; would resell for $200 easily), or my 1920s spool cabinet (bought from an estate sale for $25, would fetch $250+ at an antique store), or a few of the thrifted paintings off my walls. They are all lovely things that I enjoy owning very much, but I would be fine without them and I would find equivalent replacements eventually.

So: let’s say you want to start divesting yourself of particle board. How should you start? What should you look for? How much should you be willing to pay?

Read More

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Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

ds9vgrconfessions:

frontier001:

teroknortailor:

bibliothekara:

Staring at Star Trek maps TO FIGURE OUT WHERE THE FUCK EVERYTHING IS

(from this blog )

If you flip the Cardassian symbol on its side, it actually kinda looks like the shape of the Cardassian union!

While not perfect, this book (“Star Trek: Star Charts”) is just so full of yummy awesomeness in a fanboy way.  Cause finally, you could make more sense of the Trek universe than ever before.  Even if some choices didn’t make any sense or something contradicted itself.  The maps have since been adopted by pretty much anyone/everyone when needed.

I even re-created this one with some heavy modifications for a never-got-off-the-ground PBEM RPG I was going to do. 

Star Trek Online used these as a source, I think. Well, until they went to the Delta Quadrant and decided to compress 7 years and 70,000 light years into 2 sector grids of 3 sectors each… :S

It’s nice knowing where stuff is though.  It gives it… dimension? 

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#Star Trek #DS9 #interesting

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

barafurbear:

anotheralexandros:

tommytv:

nychealth:

Let’s stop HIV in New York City

  • If you are HIV-negative, PEP and PrEP can help you stay that way.
  • If you are HIV-positive, PEP and PrEP can help protect your partners.

 

Daily PrEP

PrEP is a daily pill that can help keep you HIV-negative as long as you take it every day.

  • Ask your doctor if PrEP (Pre-exposure Prophylaxis) may be right for you.
  • Condoms give you additional protection against HIV, other sexually transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancy.

 

Emergency PEP

If you are HIV-negative and think you were exposed to HIV, immediately go to a clinic or emergency room and ask for PEP (Post-exposure  Prophylaxis).

  • PEP can stop HIV if started within 36 hours of exposure.
  • You continue taking PEP for 28 days.

Many insurance plans including Medicaid cover PEP and PrEP. Assistance may be available if you are uninsured. Visit NYC Health’s website to find out where to get PrEP or PEP in New York City.

This is such a giant step that barely any people know about it seems, so amazing to see progress in the treatment of HIV

I honestly thought this might be exaggeration but the CDC says that PrEP is 92% effective. Damn. Damn.

reblogging because this deserves waaaay more attention D:

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#HIV #interesting #the more you know

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

thisoldapt:

DAILY FIND: Sometimes the Internet is a crappy place full of crap. But today I’m reminded that it’s an amazing trove of free and good information from reliable sources: The University of Illinois Extension has created a searchable index of every stain known to man and stain removal solutions for each. The tool will even tell you what your window of stain-treatment time is to achieve optimal results.

This is nerd GOLD, people. Use it in good health. -ts

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#habitat unfucking #interesting #the more you know