(pictured above: mango smoothie and blueberry muffin)
Everything tastes better when it’s free!
I’m so glad I looked up birthday promotions a couple weeks ago. (Especially since you have to sign up for these a week in advance, presumably to encourage people to give their *actual* birthdays and not just whatever the current day is.)
(I mean, I had to subscribe to their respective newsletters, but I have a dedicated email address specifically for receiving newsletters from people who might give me free stuff, so no big deal. And both stores were on the way to the Chinese takeout place, so the fuel cost was negligible.)
Tags:
#adventures in human capitalism #birthday #oh look an original post #food
I’m going to bite somebody, I really am. What is wrong with you, 1930s Newbery writers? :P
I’m guessing your problem with this is to do with the whole ~democracy~ and ~ideals and manners~ stuff (and fair enough), but for me the problem that stands out most is:
“Instead of dwelling upon the familiar details of the story, this treatment of the legend”
I look at that, and I think:
‘And *that’s* why I had to learn nursery stories by taking several parodies and riffs of each one and noting the similarities between them. Nobody ever ““dwells upon the familiar details””, *everyone* assumes you already know and expects you to keep up.‘
You would think *children’s* media, of all things, would understand that there’s a first time for everything. If fucking *children’s books* aren’t a 101 space, what *is*?
(It may be relevant that I had to look up William Tell on Wikipedia just now. At least Wikipedia is willing to provide basic background knowledge. I guess *they’re* the 101 space for legends.)
Tags:
#reply via reblog #my childhood #(I know I used italics here) #(but I also put single quotes around it as a fallback measure)
That’d be awesome. LOVE ME AND DESPAIR. ARE YOU GAY? ARE YOU STRAIGHT?! YOU JUST DON’T KNOW BUT YOU STILL WANT ME. MWAHAHAHAHA
Tags:
#this amuses me because my reaction to it #is exactly the opposite of the reaction of the presumable target audience #both of these things are *downsides* to me #today a random stranger (customer) referred to me as ”she” #and I felt pleased that I had presented my gender successfully #I’m not even trans or anything #it is not and has never been particularly *difficult* for me to present as female #yet I am still always pleased by success #also being attractive sounds like it would lead to a lot of unwanted attention #ideally I would like to look plain in a vaguely pleasant manner #(I think I do pretty well at this for the most part) #gender #tag rambles
That’s not a coincidence! Naturally, it’s less work to transmit shorter sequences of dots and dashes, so we try to use up all the shorter sequences first. Basically, this means that we fill in all the branches at one level of this tree before moving onto the next. The result is a perfectly balanced decoding tree.
The placement of the letters is also far from arbitrary. Here are all the letters in English ordered from most common to least common:
ETAOINSRHLDCUMFPGWYBVKXJQZ
Notice something? The shortest morse code sequences were assigned to the most common letters. This makes the common letters easier to remember, and makes messages as short as possible in the average case.
Numbers are sort of an exception to this. All numerical symbols are encoded with 5 dots and dashes. But there’s a pretty clear pattern to these as well.
1 = .—-
2 = ..—
3 = …–
4 = ….-
5 = …..
6 = -….
7 = –…
8 = —..
9 = —-.
0 = —–
So if the listener hears a series of 5 dots and dashes, they immediately know it’s a number. To decode it, they count the number of dashes. If the dashes came before the dots, the number is 5 + the number of dashes. Otherwise, the number is 5 – the number of dashes.
Morse Code is neat.
Tags:
#Morse code #the more you know #things I have vague aspirations to learn someday #but suspect I will always have higher-priority things to do
–From a Certain Point of View, ”An Incident Report” by Mallory Ortberg
“It must, however, be pointed out that at present the number of planets destroyed solely by the unaided power of the Force is zero.”
MOTTI JUST DRAGGED THE FUCK OUT OF VADER I AM FUCKING LIVING
“I imagine Lord Vader would have had to stand very close to the planet Alderaan indeed today if he wanted to demonstrate how thoroughly his Force-wielding abilities outmatch the Death Star.”
THIS ASSHOLE IS GOING TO DIE, BUT IT WILL BE IN SERVICE OF THE MOST GLORIOUS DRAGGING OF VADER I HAVE EVER SEEN.
“I merely spoke the truth: Lord Vader’s devotion to a nearly extinct faith has not resulted in the recovery of the stolen data tapes, nor has it given him insight into the rebels’ secret base, nor has he ever destroyed a planet.”
“He found my lack of faith disturbing? I have never claimed to be an adherent to his sect. I found his lack of faith in this military installation disturbing.”
MOTTI IS GOING TO FUCKING DIE IN A SPACE DITCH WHERE VADER DUMPS HIS BODY BUT HOLY SHIT HE WENT OUT LIKE A GODDAMNED LEGEND
I’m pretty sure the force *has* destroyed planets.
Yeah, my fiance clarified this morning that the force has been used to destroy multiple planets. However, this occurred several thousand years prior at a lower level of canonicity, so Motti can hardly be blamed for not remembering that.
Tags:
#Star Wars #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog
Brinens and Things 