#but it's like completely tautological now

[cipheramnesia]

I saw you tagged the post re: X with 'stop joining Bluesky' -- can I ask why that is?

Because Twitter has always been a godawful form of social media, news, and networking. Elon Musk turned it into something unusable but in its usable state it had and continues to have an appalling effect on complex ideas and nuanced information. The nature of its character limit forced everything to a reductive sound-bite which effectively enshittified information propagation online, and its enshrinement as the "official" social media site for any person or entity to issue information or communication through dragged everyone down into the same level of garbage communication and analytical skills.

A website like Bluesky which only has "the same interface as Twitter prior to Elon Musk" as a selling point, isn't better for anyone. A short form character limited blogging site is fine as a gimmick and okay for simple person to person communication, which was more or less the original purpose of Twitter. It's absolutely shit for a central hub site for global information. The idea that Twitter's short form format and layout made it useful and popular needs to die immediately. The idea that information should be shared universally in short bites needs to die immediately.

What happened with Twitter, not with Elon Musk's purchase, but from the instant it gained media dominance, is fucking horrible, possibly one of the worst things to happen to online communication in its entirety. Go anywhere you want to get away from X, but for all that is good and hopeful in the world do not put any version of whatever constitutes your "personal official online presence" onto any site resembling any iteration of Twitter.

There is a window of opportunity to finally, finally be free from what Twitter did, but it is closing fast. I don't think very many people remember what it has been like watching information literacy collapsing in real time around Twitter, and I don't think there is much hope of killing that format, and I don't think it's going to solve every problem. But if somehow we do find a way to drive a stake not just through Twitter itself but the foundational ideals it represents, we will have made forward progress.

Kill the idea of Twitter that lives in your head. Don't reproduce the same mistakes just because it's familiar to use. For all our sakes, tweets must die.

#every single professional i know is like i hate twitter but i have to be on it for my job #and then moving to a twitter clone like NO you finally don't have to be on it! #it's over at last! #but it's like completely tautological now #oh well #raving

[transmutationisms]

thanks 4 the blogging it has helped me realize why it’s always annoyed me when ppl pathologize normal behavior as being a result of X disorder because it creates a false dichotomy between acceptable/“normal” and aberrant behavior when 99% of the time the aberrant behavior is completely mundane and how it self-justifies (e.g. you’re [disorder] because you X -> you X because you’re [disorder] -> you can’t be taken seriously because you X because you’re [disorder] -> infinite recurring hall of mirrors) anyway thank you because now that I have the words to point this reasoning out it’s made shutting people who say annoying things to me extremely efficient i was going to blow my top about being armchair diagnosed 100 times a week now i just say that obsessively pathologizing behavior is weird and tautological and people shut up. tbf they definitely armchair diagnose me further from that statement but at least they keep quiet but anyways thanks this has improved my life

people using your resistance to diagnosis to armchair dx you is sadly real as fuck lmao and it is soooooo annoying but hey im glad you feel you have a better handle on your own position here. i too felt like i had gained a lot of clarity when i was first getting exposed to this sort of critique it really does make a huge difference <3

[themedicalstate]

Why do I cheat on my partner so easily in a dream?

Have you ever noticed in a dream you can cheat on your partner without having even a shadow of a doubt it’s the right decision? Well, it is definitely not your unfaithful nature; it is all about our brain’s workings, especially some parts of it which we are going to examine here.

The Frontal Cortex

The Frontal Cortex is located at the very front of the brain and is responsible for not only long-term planning, decision making, knowledge analysis and regulation of emotions, but also for social behavior control. This means that the frontal cortex prevents different types of inappropriate behavior, such as aggression, desires to steal, compulsivity and sexually assaultive behavior. As a result, damage to this lobe might cause, for example, a complete lack of interest in sex or, contrastively, more active sexual behavior. So why does this matter in terms of sleeping?

The Sleep Cycle

Our sleep cycle consists of two main stages: non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During the latter stage, our body experiences temporal muscle paralysis and, more interestingly, — dreams (if you don’t have any brain damage that could lead to dream loss). The question about the purpose of dreams is still in dispute, but there is a clear answer at why they are ridiculously illogical sometimes:

during REM sleep, the frontal lobe is “turned-off” affecting our social behavior in a dream

There is also a range of research supporting this statement. For example, in one experiment, scientists activated the frontal lobe of the participants during REM sleep and noticed that such stimulation “induces self-reflective awareness in dreams”. In other words, you act more appropriately and logically as your frontal cortex is stimulated while sleeping:

Recent findings link fronto-temporal gamma electroencephalographic (EEG) activity to conscious awareness in dreams, but a causal relationship has not yet been established. We found that current stimulation in the lower gamma band during REM sleep influences ongoing brain activity and induces self-reflective awareness in dreams. Other stimulation frequencies were not effective, suggesting that higher order consciousness is indeed related to synchronous oscillations around 25 and 40 Hz.

Noticeable effects on dreams

As you can imagine, this temporal “shutdown” of the frontal cortex has a huge impact on our social behavior in a dream: from aggressive conversations to having sex with your partner’s best friend. Don’t feel guilty; it’s just your brain! What about moments when you act consciously in a dream and do things with full awareness of your actions?

Lucid Sleep

Lucid sleep is a sleep during which you are aware of dreaming while dreaming (apologies for the tautology). Recent studies suggest that this phenomenon occurs due to “increased brain activity over frontal regions during REM sleep”. However, other researchers analyze it through the states of consciousness theory. These two points of view are not interchangeable but complementary.

Now let’s look more closely at different states of consciousness:

- Primary states of consciousness — states in which dreams “are concerned with the immediate present, with only uncontrolled access to the past or the anticipated future”

- Secondary states of consciousness — states in which people are able to manipulate with “higher order cognitive functions such as self-reflective awareness, abstract thinking, volition and metacognition”. In the case of sleeping, this mode is “turned-on” after awaking

So, when both states coexist together, a person experiences a lucid dream. It is like being simultaneously asleep and awake! What is more, humans are most likely the only species able to experience such a thing.

Source: Anastasiia (Medium). Image: Katherine Streeter for NPR.

#science #medicine #medblr #neuroscience #academia #health

[weatherman667]

WWII Tank Strategy

Germany

When you ask anyone who had the best tank strategy in WWII, you will get the obvious answer to be the Germans. This is because the Blitzkrieg, and that's it. People seem to forget that Germany lost the war. Did Germany make the most territorial gains in Human history? Probably. And then they lost the war.

The Blitzkrieg worked extremely well against unprepared opponents. Czechoslovakia and Poland had no substantial defenses against tanks. France THOUGHT they had good defences, but we'll get to that later.

During the Blitzkrieg, the primary tanks used by Germany were the PzII and PzIII. The PzII had paired 20mm bolt-action breech loaders. The PzIII used a 35mm, which was upgraded to a 50mm. 50mm was okay at the start of the war, while 35mm was not useful against any real tanks. 20mm even less useful.

Despite all of this, they managed to conquer much of continental Europe.

Later in the war they developed the PzIV, the PzV/Panther, and PzVI/Tiger. The Panther and Tiger were beset by mechanical problems, to the point that the PzIII modified into a Tank Destroyer became their most successful late-war tank.

Now, back to France, France created the Maginot Line, one of the most fortified lines ever created. It was literally impossible for Germany to break through. So, what did Germany do? Go through the Ardennes. The Ardennes was considered impossible for a large mechanized force to penetrate. Luckily for Germany, they were using PzII's and PzIII's. Once they got around the Maginot Line, there really wasn't any organized resistance. The giant boulevards of Paris made it EXTREMELY easy for Germany to invade.

The lesson here is defence in depth.

But, if Germany was using the late-war panzers, there is no way they could have made it through the Maginot Line, especially once Britain deigned to get involved.

Germany decided it would be impossible to invade Britain, even with the best case scenario. So, they decided to invade Russia. Yeah, not a good idea. Apparently he was trying to be Mongols, which succeeded, but he ended up like Napoleon.

And now we have a completely different war. We have the Southern front, where mobility was the highest issue. But, the late war panzers had great mobility? Well, they had great speed, yes, but they had terrible reliability. Monty's Foxhounds literally chased the Fox across North Africa.

To the East, they had Russia, which claimed so many lives and war materiel.

To the West they had a defensive war. What does Germany do in a defensive war? Build bigger breakthrough tanks. The Tigers had great armour and great cannons. The best solution the Western Allies had to deal with them was by AVOIDING THEM. For the cost of a single Tiger, they could have built dozens of anti-tank guns. And this is where the StuG shined. It's lower profile and big cannon made it fantastic for defensive use. What did Germany do? Well, they were planning to build the Lion, but skipped passed that to build the Maus. When the StuG was the tank that as succeeding.

Americans

The Americans honestly did NOT have a tank strategy during WWII. This isn't an insult, really, because the US military become well known for improvised tactics. It's said that the greatest Generals and Admirals of WWII would not get promoted in the modern US military.

As for their tanks, the US was playing catch up the entire time. Their tanks were never truly exceptional, but they were usable, and useful. Everyone liked their Sherman, at least until it caught on fire.

The Sherman was a good solid tank. The Grant/Lee was never a good tank, but it was USEFUL. The US made good, useful tanks, and just kept making them.

The US was known for starting with the worst equipment, and ending with the best, because they allowed their soldiers to experiment.

Russia

Russia's primary tank strategy was that their tanks had to work in Russia. This might seem like a tautology, but they simply could not adopt any other tank strategy. Their tanks had to run in Russia, which was not easy. The US built tanks like cars. Germany built tanks to break through and strike behind enemy lines. Russia needed tanks from that could run in Russia, they needed tracks that could move the tank in Russia. Their biggest complaint against the lend-lease tanks was that they weren't designed to work in Russia.

As such, their tanks were robust. Unfortunately, over the course of the war, they modified their tanks to be quicker to manufacture, which made them less functional. Apparently at the end of the war 1/3 of T-34's came out of the factory without functioning guns. The solution was to ram enemy tanks, which worked.

Britain

Britain literally created tanks. They didn't have a Blitzkrieg, because they didn't want to conquer Europe. I mean, France is right there if they want to start a fight. If they did, it probably would have been slower, but a lot more sustainable, with a lot less Crimes Against Humanity.

But what Britain had was Cruiser / Cavalry Tanks, and Infantry Tanks. Infantry tanks needed heavy armour, but only needed a slow speed, because they were keeping up with infantry on foot. The expectations was a return to the stalwart trench warfare of WWI, which didn't happen, but, that didn't mean the British tanks were bad. Because what they did was ITERATE. They took existing designs, made them work better. When they couldn't be pushed further, then they made new tank designs, and iterated them.

The Churchill was used from Britain's first entry into the war, and were good tanks for the entire war, and after. The Matilda I needed an upgrade, and the Matilda II was a solid tank throughout the entire war. The only reason it was supplanted by the Valentine was that the Valentine was cheaper. The Valentine did the same job for cheaper. It was also easier to up-gun.

For the cruisers, the same thing largely happened. They created a tank, pushed as far as they could, and then replaced it with a tank that did the same job but better.

Germany on the other hand kept wanted to big the biggest tank to show they have the biggest penis, and more and more complicated tanks that had terrible reliability.

#rants #tanks

[thelightfluxtastic]

On the Humanization of Dream

So I'm soaking myself in Sandman recently and I have this one thought that keeps making me feral (Spoilers for all volumes ahead): Dream gets humanized throughout the arc of the story, literally and figuratively.

Many characters in Sandman- gods and fae and immortals and entities- have a sort of blue-and-orange morality. They have internal rules and expectations that don't fit what the audience would see as good or kind because they operate on a completely different system of thought. Morpheus is no exception. Many of his actions (like destroying the dream dome in The Doll's House, or almost leaving the women stranded in A Game of You) seem callous and cruel to the audience but from his perspective are just him serving his natural function and allowing nature to run it's course.

And throughout the story, it is repeatedly emphasized that it is not just time and character development in general, but people and humans that produce this effect. Flashbacks in side stories show a much darker and gloomier Death before she started spending a day every century as mortal. In Brief Lives, literally every sibling's flashback to Destruction comments how, even back then, long before he left, he spent a lot of time on Earth. Like a notably, unusually large portion of his time.

So Dream's character development over time (with very stark differences in the New Dream) seems to be him becoming gentler or kinder or more moral or less prideful. What it is, tautologically, is it becoming more human. Which of course, to a human reader audience, reads as becoming less alien, more understandable, more sympathetic.

Dream of the Endless is not just the Dream of Humans, he is the Dream of martians and cats and fairies and galaxies. It just makes me wonder whether this had a contradictory influence on his perception to other species. Is the Dream at the end of the series, the one the audience finds has grown and changed for the better, now more confusing and inscrutable to cats? More cruel and harsh to some alien species with a nonhuman morality system? More emotional and sentimental to planets?

#sandman #the sandman #essay #mine

[jaxinvasion]

What a better way to kick off my new blog than with my first... Uh... Pesterlog? Fic chapter? Whatever it is, it's for my AU of Homestuck, basically Trolls on Earth and No Sburb. It's not too long, more of just an introduction, so please check it out under the cut! I'd love to hear any feedback you have. :) This isn't meant to be romantic, so I'd appreciate if you didn't tag as ship. Thank you, and enjoy!!

-- ghostyTrickster [GT] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 16:13 -- GT: uhh... hello? GT: are you rose lalonde? GT: this is john egbert. GT: do you remember me? you and your mom had dinner at our house. GT: our as in me and my dad. TT: Oh. TT: Just as I had begun to contemplate as to what exactly my mom could have possibly needed my chumhandle for, completely disregarding the question of how she even knows that I use it to begin with, here you have made your appearance, as if wholly manifested by slightest utterance of your satanic name. GT: satanic?? GT: uh, did i do something to make you this mad at me already?? TT: Oh, no, you didn't do anything yourself. TT: You just happen to be a hapless pawn in yet another one of my mom's duplicitous schemes to play housewife (or step-mom, as the case may be) in an attempt to, as one might say, "Get my goat." TT: While I have no business interfering with her condescending ventures, I have no will to entertain any sort of farce masquerading as a play-date. TT: It is bad enough as is that I have to live in this hapless Nowheresville of a town in a timezone 3 hours behind that of my childhood home on the other side of the country for the sake of my mom's employment. TT: So color me disinterested in fumbling for a method for resuscitating a conversation like a paramedic in denial. Especially not with someone as hammer-headed as you. GT: O_O TT: For the sake of my time, and yours, I will do us both a favor and end this little chat early. TT: Au revoir. GT: wait! TT: ? GT: i do not know what you have been going on about or why you are being such an asshole, but i can promise that your mom did not set me up to this. TT: Oh? In that case, how exactly did you get my chumhandle? GT: my dad gave me a note of it. he was the one who told me about your name, and also that we met before. TT: ... GT: oh my god. GT: our parents are totally trying to get us to be friends! they are in cahoots!! GT: and it is not like it is a secret why. everyone knows that there is something going on between him and your mom. TT: Wow. I would compliment your abnormally skillful discernment, but I would be remiss to partake in unwitting propagation of what must be tautology to a brain as secure as yours. GT: rose, that is like the tenth time you have said something that does not make any sort of sense. TT: I try my best. GT: ugh, what ever. i guess i will go if you do not want to talk. bye rose. TT: John, wait. GT: huh? what is it? TT: It has become all too clear to me that my mom has recruited an ally in her passive-aggressive crusade in patronizing me. TT: An ally in the form of Dear Old Dad. TT: If our dignity is to maintain its status as unscathed, then we will need to form an alliance, the likes of which have never been before seen. GT: wait, so now you want to be friends with me?? GT: rose, you need to make up your mind! TT: John, listen. If our parents are going to start seeing each other, we will be stuck in each other's midst whether we like it or not. They already set us up to meet on Pesterchum. Who knows what other shenanigans they will attempt to bring about? It will certainly be much worse than any harsh quips slid your way. GT: uh... okay. TT: Glad to have you aboard, John. I look forward to working with you. GT: i suddenly have a very bad feeling about all of this.

#john egbert #rose lalonde #schoolstuck #homestuck #homestuck au #my writing

[liskantope]

As one of what will likely be several minor afterthoughts to the Big Thread that's been going on with me, here's something else I want to say regarding the way people argue about what counts or doesn't count as love.

This may surprise some people, since I've been known to deride simplistic-sounding slogans as meaningless, annoying, or misleading, but I'm actually really fond of the slogan "love is love". If you knew me in real life, there's a chance you might have run across a photo of my real-life self at a rally carrying my own homemade sign saying "LOVE IS LOVE".

Now I guess what some people have been trying to suggest to me is that "love is love" was part of an effort to get homophobes to believe that when two people of the same sex said they were in love, they actually were feeling genuine love. I think I always interpreted it differently: as an abbreviation of "Love is love, and that's all that should matter in this issue." More generally in our language, we say "X is X" with an implied follow-up of "...and that's the only salient thing right now" (compare to the common saying "Rules are rules.") Or to put it another way, "I think same-sex relationships should be respected and celebrated in our society -- after all, love is love." It was never, to me, about a dispute as to what actually counted as love; otherwise I suppose it would be somewhere between a simple direct claim and a silly-sounding tautology.

That said, I'm aware of a longstanding characterization of gay people (I think particularly gay men) as operating on lust only, and I've occasionally run into more extreme types (always very religious) who insist that there is no real love outside of the parameters they believe in. During college I spent an inordinate amount of time in one of the main plazas which was frequented by extremist preachers spewing all kinds of garbage (at the time part of it was morbid fascination with how outrageous their purported beliefs were, although with maturity I've come to suspect that at least half of it was performance). Among all the horrible things they said, condemning me and all of my friends to hell and so on, the only time I recall feeling real, deep anger was when a preacher asserted that no two people can actually love each other without believing in his god. I don't know if I found the voice to argue with him, but I remember literally shaking. And I clearly reacted this way because I was feeling very much in love at the time with my then-girlfriend, and we were both staunch nonbelievers, and how dare he look down and insult us by saying our feelings weren't genuine. (Another time, I recall a preacher -- I don't remember if it was the same guy or someone else -- said how sorry he was for atheists because atheists are incapable of feeling true joy, which didn't make me angry in the same way but which struck me as even more bemusingly deluded than usual.)

The thing, though, is (and please don't jump on this, I'm no longer trying to use my memories as justification for some point like in the Big Thread, I'm just expanding on some interesting recollections) that the preacher saying those who didn't believe as he did couldn't feel love wasn't discussing this in the context of homosexuality or even "fornication" (one of their favorite words), although his type did often harp on such views. He was simply insisting that in the absence of God in the relationship, genuine feelings of love couldn't exist. It was just another way, as with the way they condemned homosexuality and pre/extramarital sex, that God was constantly being treated as a black box that simply changed the meaning and validity of everything while being (to someone like me) a complete abstraction that I could choose to embrace or not.

#romantic love #fundamentalist christianity #gay rights #premarital sex

[according-to-the-laura]

StackedNatural Day 181: 7x23, 11x22, 12x22, 12x23

StackedNatural Masterpost: [x]

May 18, 2022

7x23: Survival of the Fittest

Written by: Sera Gamble

Directed by: Robert Singer

Original air date: May 18, 2012

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean make a plan to storm Dick's company building and kill him once and for all, with help from Castiel and Meg. Providing Bobby doesn't get to Dick first.

Features:

Homoerotic business negotiations, Castiel naked and covered in bees, righteous bones, Cas’ honey and farm-to-table sandwiches, copies of Dick, releasing Bobby’s spirit, the Impala’s big entrance, arrival in Purgatory, Sam left alone. 

My Thoughts:

This is a fun finale. It’s great to see “original Cas” breaking through the veneer of traumatized Cas now and then, not to mention how many classic Destiel frames and lines are packed into this episode. The scene where they make up when they go to pick up the Impala is so sweet and soft, it really sets up early season 8 well. Not to mention, “I’ll go with you” is Supernatural’s code for “I love you”. 

Bobby’s goodbye scene is great, proof that they do know how to write out a fan-favourite character well. I love not actually getting to see him vanish, just watching the effect that it has on Sam and Dean. 

Crowley playing both sides is great - he keeps being a really interesting enemy/ally for a while yet, and it’s fun to watch the balancing act. 

Notable Lines:

“Go ask him, he was your boyfriend first.”

“Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas. Clean up your mess!”

“Sorry, but I’d rather have you. Cursed or not.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.0

IMdB Rating: 8.8

11x22: We Happy Few

Written by: Robert Berens

Directed by: John Badham

Original air date: May 18, 2016

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean face their biggest challenge yet. Rowena makes her move.

Features:

The devil throwing a temper tantrum in Sam’s room, Our Heavenly Father making pancakes for breakfast, God’s apology to Lucifer, getting the team together, Sam almost accepting the Mark, Lucifer being banished from Cas, the beginning of the end.

My Thoughts:

Watching everyone getting the chance to confront God absolutely kicks ass. I truly love digging into the mundane in the divine and exploring not just the power of higher beings but the emotion and damage and trauma that they’ve all experienced. Absolutely wild to have the Winchesters, who have never had a healthy interaction in their life, mediate the two oldest grievances in existence, but it sure does make for good television. 

I have to say I don’t remember them ever establishing that Lucifer was the first to have the Mark of Cain so that was quite a surprise. I kept expecting the brothers to react to that revelation and they never did, so I guess we already knew at some point. 

Chuck’s eventual apology to Lucifer is, as @meg3point0 said while we were watching, the one that Sam and Dean deserved from John and never got (fuck Lebanon). 

Gathering the team is fun in a heist-movie sort of way; I kind of wish that more time had been devoted to that part and that the plan had been a bit more complicated just for the fun of it, but they needed the run time for the emotional confrontations with dad so that’s understandable. It also gave me big DTA vibes - you have to fight at the end of the world.

One of my notes just says, “Get absolutely feral, Amara. Go girl.”

Notable Lines:

“You have any idea what it’s like to argue with your father when your father is God? Everything is a tautology with you. Everything is, ‘Because I told you so.’ Everything’s, ‘It had to be done.’” “Pretty sure that’s all fathers.”

“Do you think we see any daylight between you and the Adversary?”

“You can't make an effective soldier by force. They have to choose this fight.”

“We weren't great or powerful because we stood only in relation to each other. You think you made the archangels to bring light? No. You made them to create lesser beings, to make you large. To make you Lord. It was ego! You wanted to be big!”

“Welcome to the end.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.2

IMdB Rating: 8.8

12x22: Who We Are

Written by: Robert Berens

Directed by: John F. Showalter

Original air date: May 18, 2017

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean only have each other to rely on when they're caught in a dangerous situation; the fight between the American hunters and the British hunters comes to a head.

Features:

Mary hunting the hunters, Dean finally getting a chance to use his grenade launcher, the strength of Mary’s programming, Sam as a leader, parental relationship dynamics, saying all the things you ever dreamed of saying to someone that hurt you, the end of the British Men of Letters in America, family group hugs.

My Thoughts:

Robert Berens, you have my sword.

There’s really nothing about this episode that I don’t love. Starting out with a mini-bottle episode to give the brothers time to talk about their feelings before the finale starts. Dean getting to use his grenade launcher. The dudes from Dark Side of the Moon coming back (Berens does the reading!). Sam getting to have meaningful plot points instead of being sidelined by Dean’s experience.  

I LOVE that Jody and Alex are competent enough to have already taken Mary down without the brothers swooping in to rescue them. I love that she checks in on Dean because she can’t turn her mother instinct off, and Dean can’t hide how much he needs it. I love that she ssys goodbye to Alex, her daughter figure, as Dean says goodbye to Sam, his son figure. Also, she’s a great shot and ice-cold under pressure. 

The Mary-Dean dream sequence… what is there to say other than that it’s perfect? Both of their fantasies about themselves and about each other come crashing down at the same time. She can’t ever be the perfect pie-making sundress-wearing mother he remembers from when he was four, and he can’t ever return to the innocent, untraumatized child that she left behind. They have to choose to love each other for who they are, not who they imagine each other to be. 

This episode rounds out Mary’s season 12 arc in such a beautiful way, pulling it all together into truly one of the more cohesive character progressions of the series. 

Plus, killing Ketch is one of my favourite things they’ve ever done. Good riddance. 

Notable Lines:

“You know, it wasn't long ago, I thought we had it made. We saved the world. We got Cas back. We had Mom back. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but still, we had 'em.”

“You left us. Alone. 'Cause Dad was just a shell. His perfect wife? Gone. Our perfect Mom, the perfect family... was gone. And I... I had to be... more than just a brother. I had to be a father and I had to be a mother, to keep him safe. And that wasn't fair.”

“I hate you. And I love you. 'Cause I can't – I can't help it. You're my Mom. And I understand...'cause I have made deals to save the ones I love more than once. I forgive you.”

“I knew you were a killer. You both are.” “You’re right.” [GUNSHOT]

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 10

IMdB Rating: 9.0

12x23: All Along the Watchtower

Written by: Andrew Dabb

Directed by: Robert Singer

Original air date: May 18, 2017

Plot Synopsis:

Lucifer battles Sam, Dean and Castiel for control of his unborn son.

Features:

The lakehouse, Crowley crawling from his grave, Rowena’s second death, Cas’ 74 books on parenting and 1 online doula class, the first inter-dimensional rift, Kelly’s labour, Apocalypse World, Crowley’s sacrifice, Cas’ death, Jack’s birthday.

My Thoughts:

I haven’t re-watched this episode since the first time I saw it probably about a year ago now, and the thing that surprises me the most about it is that what we learn about Apocalypse World is cooler than what they eventually settle on. An eternal war between angels and demons is more active than angels having already won - it also makes the absolute devastation of it make more sense, since it’s not the angelic aesthtic at all for it to be a plain dusty wasteland. Azazel is still alive in this world, especially without the Winchesters to kill him! We could have gone back to the initial trauma of their lives again, matching it with the Mary arc of season 12. Fuck, Mary could have killed Azazel. How’s that for full circle? 

Last episode Dean told Sam that they had it made when they had both Mary and Cas, and in this episode they lose them both. That hits hard. Sam dragging Dean back from trying to chase after Cas in the same way Dean pulled Sam from the fire that killed Jess hits even harder. 

Notable Lines:

“I will do everything. I will give my life for your son. And I will raise him. And I will make him someone you will be proud of.”

“I kind of always wanted to punch the devil in the face.”

“Hi, Jack. It's, uh... I'm your mom. I know you're gonna be okay. You are gonna be... amazing. You have an angel watching over you. God, I love you, Jack. I love you so much. Sorry. I love you.”

“I saw the future. I saw a world without pain or hunger or want. I saw the world that this child... that your child...will create.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 8.9

IMdB Rating: 8.9

In Conclusion: 11x22 and 12x22 are about confronting the parent that abandoned you.

<< Previous Day  |  Next Day >>

#Stackednatural #supernatural #spn #7x23 #Survival of the Fittest #11x22 #We Happy Few #12x22 #Who We Are #12x23 #All Along the Watchtower

[marsmarvel02]

"What Manny Can't Fix" Review: Chapters 28 and 29

Welcome back and welcome again to my review of "What Manny Can't Fix", a Handy Manny fanfic that- dare I say it- is just not very good.

Last time, we saw Carrie discover that Iron Grip was missing on the day of their wedding, and Iron Grip escape from the Pet Store Of Doom. Now today,- I can't believe I'm writing this this soon- we'll be wrapping up Part 2 of "What Manny Can't Fix".

(And as always, if you'd like to start this review series from the beginning, Chapter 1 is here.)

Chapter 28

Iron Grip slowly opened his eyes to a teenager with a blue screwdriver sitting on his shoulder.

So Manny is a teenager now? Interesting time skip.

"I uh...I...I'm…." 

".... You're rusty." The screwdriver finished.

"Turner!" The teenager scolded 

"What, he is!"

“I don’t care! One more outburst like that and you’re banned from Pet Parrot Position!”

Iron Grip shivered anxiously. "I...I just….I...I don't…."

The teenager knelt down and gently stroked Iron Grip's cheek. "Hey, it's okay….Are you alone?"

Too anxious to speak, he just nodded.

"You can stay with us if you want." He replied, softly.

Once again, he’s inviting some random stranger to come live in his house. I’m sure //checks notes, and sees at this point in the story’s timeline Manny would probably be living with Abuelito// his grandpa would be thrilled.

Iron Grip's eyes lit up. "R-really?"

"Of course." He said, picking him up. 

Iron Grip felt a feeling of warmth fill his body. It was like a calming presence fell over him. 

The power of a Canon Purity Sue!

When he looked over at Turner, the mood completely shifted. He could sense a cold, untrusting, feeling coming from him.

The screwdriver leaned closer to the teenager, eyeing Iron Grip with narrowed eyes.

Finally Turner spoke again, "He's still rusted." 

"Turner…." He warned again before looking back at the monkey wrench. "I can get you cleaned up when we get home."

"H...home?" Iron Grip squeaked out.

"Yeah, home. You know, the place you live?" Turner replied.

Iron Grip avoided eye contact and looked at the sidewalk. 

The teenager stroked Iron Grip's head in comfort. "Don't mind Turner, he….he's just a little grumpy, sometimes."

Turner glared a bit, but decided not to say anything.

"I'm Manny. What's your name?" 

Iron Grip looked up to make eye contact with Manny, but instead he met Turner's cold glare.

All he could focus on was what Turner had said to him.

" You're rusty."

"......Rusty….." He said, dryly.

Ooookay. It’s not like this random, out-of-nowhere name change would be roughly equivalent to a human character renaming themselves Eczema or something!

"Rusty?" Manny asked.

"What an appropriate name." Turner muttered under his breath.

The Monkey Wrench  cringed slightly before looking At Manny again. After a moment of thought, he nodded slightly. "Y..yeah...Rusty…"

Random capital letters and a double space? Wow, writer, you’ve outdone yourself!

As Manny headed back to the house, Rusty calmed down in his gentle grip.

When they got inside, Manny grabbed a bucket of soapy water and a rag. He placed Rusty into the bucket and started scrubbing him.

Ah yes. He got all rusted by getting wet, so clearly the way to remove the rust is with more water! Gee, I didn’t know rust in the Handy Manny universe followed “TV amnesia” logic.

Although the rag was old and rugged, Rusty could only feel calm. As the rust was scrubbed off, he relaxed into the tub of water.

I’m not sure what’s worse- that the author tried tautologically to describe a rag as “ragged”, or that they then misspelled “ragged” as “rugged”.

It was almost like the past was being scraped away. For a moment he wasn't thinking about Carrie, Wisp or the garage. His mind was only focused on the warm water swirling around him.

Manny pulled him out of the water and dried him off. Rusty snuggled into the towel, feeling warm and safe.

"There we go." Manny said, placing him in front of a handheld mirror. "Well, what do you think?"

Rusty clenched his eyes shut, afraid to look at himself. I can't look...I'm hideous! I know I'm going to look ugly! I...I can't do this…...I...I…

"Well, are you going to open your eyes or not?" Turner asked.

….No...I...I have to do this...I need to...move on ..

Slowly, Rusty opened his eyes and faced the mirror. To his surprise, he wasn't covered in rust anymore.

Wow, how shocking. Manny cleaned the rust off him, and now he’s not rusty anymore. What a plot twist.

However, instead of his silver finish, he was now stained a bright orange.

I don’t actually know this conclusively, but the instincts imbued in me by my chemist father are screaming “BS”.

Hey….I don't look that bad….

He looked over at Manny and smiled softly, his eyes filling with tears. "Thanks Manny." 

"No problem." He said with a small smile, picking him up. "Welcome home, Rusty."

You’d think that, with Rusty now having his “home” with Manny, Part 2 would be over. 

Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

Chapter 29

Carrie hadn't left the toolbox since the day she was left at the altar.

I’m pleasantly surprised that the author bothered to follow up on this loose end, although unfortunately all this part actually does is make Rusty seem even more like a heartless jerk than he already does.

She laid there, her veil still on her head, breath unsteady.

Worried, Shock checked on her often.

"Hey, Carrie….How are you feeling?" She asked softly. 

Gee, it’s not like the answer is so blatantly obvious that that question shouldn’t even need asking…

Carrie glanced at her before looking back at the bottom of the box again.

"Do you need some company?" She asked. "Or do you want to be alone?"

Carrie reached out and held onto her, signaling she wanted her to stay.

Reached out with… what? Toolikinesis?

Shock snuggled against her side and sat there with her. "I'm here...I'm here for you...it's okay….it's okay…."

Carrie lifted her head and looked at her with tear stained eyes, a small smile managing to form on her face.

"The...thank you…" She choked out, her voice was hoarse and low.

That’s technically accurate to the phonetics of someone stuttering “Th-thank you”, but somehow it still seems… wrong.

"Of course." Shock said, pulling her closer. "I'll always be here for you."

Unlike Iron Grip…. Carrie thought, laying closer.

"Anne wants to know if you want to work today or not." Shock said 

Carrie sniffled and shook her head.

"It's okay…" Shock said. "She said you can take your time…."  

Carrie laid down again, disassociating. Her whole world was a blur, there's no way she could work like this.  

Carrie closed her eyes again and leaned against Shock, falling into another long nap.

At that moment, the radio of Anne’s latest repair job -some kind of bizarre limo with horns as a hood ornament and a paint job that straddled the line between yellow and beige- unexpectedly burst to life and began to play, at a volume that made Carrie jolt upright and Shock jump several inches into the air, a strange rock song which neither of them- nor Anne, nor Wisp- had ever heard before.

“Once took a Texan to a wedding

Once took a Texan to a wedding

But he kept forgetting

His loneliness letting

His thoughts turn to home and we turned.

I took a man to-”

Then the radio powered off, as abruptly as it had switched on.

(Man, I’ve been wanting to do that joke for as long as I’ve known that Part 2 had a runaway groom plot.)

(Oh, and my review of the beginning of Part 3 has now been posted!)

#marsmarvel02 does a review #review #fanfiction review #bad fanfic review #handy manny #what manny can't fix review

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary130

1/22-23/2024

monday - tuesday

waiting on an ableton export right now.

super annoying how long this specific song takes, it's like 43 seconds but it's like 8x that length to export. anyway, the drug test went well, i had to salivated on a foreign object in my mouth for 3 minutes. it was like, cotton, and i could feel it swelling in my mouth, i produced a lot i think cuz in the little plastic vial the woman put the thing in, she had to squish it down a bunch of times and it made rather loud squelching noises. this is how the cybernetic apparatus has made sex a constantly utilized part of our biology to continue to extract information. #lol. i was reading that book while waiting today, there were some interesting parts, maybe the most interesting one i can no longer find, it had to do with the idea that the human/humanity remains necessary as an organic component carrying out the ideas of cybernetics, essentially proving it as true/its methods of information collecting and probabilities being reigned in via information collected, as useful, but also to collect information from so as to continue the process, this is basically a tautology but it feels true, it isn't just accrual but it's proof, or it is just accrual, but the accrual of ever more accurate measurements of a box we are inside of, measurements that make it smaller with each breath.

here is a quote somewhere around that, but not the exact one:

"The cyberneticization process thus completes the “process of civilization,” to where bodies and their emotions are abstracted within the system of symbols. “In this sense,” writes Lyotard, “the system presents itself as an avant-garde machine that drags humanity along after it, by dehumanizing it so as to rehumanize it at another level of normative capacities. Such is the great pride of the deciders, such is their blindness... Even any permissiveness relative to the various games is only granted on the condition that greater performance levels will be produced. The redefinition of the norms of life consists in an amelioration of the skills of the system in matters of power.”

tiqqun - the cybernetic hypothesis

another interesting part was on terror/ the threat of terror, the threat of anything really, so as to justify the creation of information, and the creation of tools for measurement.

"Nothing expresses the contemporary victory of cybernetics better than the fact that value can now be extracted as information about information. The commodity-cybernetician, or “neo-liberal” logic, extends over all activity, including that which is still not commodified, with an unflagging support of modern States. More generally, the corollary to the precarization of capitalism’s objects and subjects is a growth of circulation in information on their subject: this is as true for unemployed workers as it is for cops. Cybernetics consequently aims to disturb and control people in one and the same movement. It is founded on terror, which is a factor in its evolution — the evolution of economic growth, moral progress — because it supplies an occasion for the production of information. The state of emergency, which is proper to all crises, is what allows self-regulation to be relaunched, and to maintain itself as a perpetual movement. Whereas the scheme of classical economy where a balance of supply and demand was to permit “growth” and thusly to permit collective well-being, it is now “growth” which is considered an endless road towards balance. It is thus just to critique western modernity as a “infinite mobilization” the destination of which is “movement towards more movement.” But from a cybernetic point of view, the self-production that equally characterizes the State, the Market, robots, wage workers, or the jobless, is indiscernible from the self-control that moderates and slows it down."

tiqqun

this feels like it speaks for itself but there was something very insane about reading it while sitting inside pseudo chuck-e-cheese, with mickey mouse clubhouse playing on giant tvs, the idea of precarity is lodged in that place, a daycare + entertainment complex + place you eat, located beside a dying mall, the constant agitation for workers of being around like, loud children's media, the sense of escape always, that there's something people are escaping from by being in here, and the prison-esque way they gain access, through locked gates and their time is kept precisely by computers, likely the same system that measures hours worked, it just feels accurate. it's also not like, blowing my mind, i don't know why but i always have the need to state that, maybe because online people are eager to assume this is all new information to someone, any information really, and not just a path you can walk down many times, return to old thoughts, thoughts revived by new perspectives/methodologies. but i shouldn't think about that.

anyways look at this professional looking ass bitch:

all my poses are awkward, i've just come to accept it. i should probably see if i look better in my other selfies, hold on. i hate how messy my bangs look in that pic, i want them to be like, way flat, way sharp, too, but my hair is too wavy i think.

at the place, they called me she and stuff, and i guess when that happens i just wonder if it's politeness or if i actually pass, i'll never get over that i think, because even to myself i am just 'both' and it's not tragic but i am i guess confused to the point of being kind of sick. it's okay though because i like being both, that's all i want i think. i'm stuck in between, so i'll be stuck and fucked up and whatever. i guess i appreciate the kindness but i also just hope they see me and think that, cuz i am that, or like, xx% that, or something. or whatever. it feels like spiders on my brain thinking about it too long. or idk. i think about it a lot. it didn't make me feel bad when it happened, i don't even feel bad now, i just wish i understood what other people see, and i don't even know if i'd adjust based on that ever. but i probably would by tiny amounts. who knows what i'd end up as if i did that. it's for the best i guess that i have to proceed from in here. this also makes me think of the cybernetic hypothesis, the need to gather information turned inwards, we are all our own informants, to improve performance, and the idea that interiority is washed away and instead replaced with diagnostic processes, or a series of thermometers that basically work like a series of mood rings that tell someone when whatever pulsion will take over. there is likely something to be said about these ways of interacting with ourselves and how that interfaces with gender. i guess i'm saying them, just in a not especially put together way. it is gestating. i should remember this though. this, even, is not new to me, but it's important and i come back to it a lot. it's an ongoing crisis from when i was a kid up until now, other's eyes and myself, and it's probably very common.

there's a level of wanting the self to be totally obliterated, in this, but it's not for liberation, except maybe the liberation (false liberation) of being perfectly servile. there's then the desire for self obliteration so i can be inchoate, to be scattered and multiform, a need for hiding and secrecy in that.

tomorrow i have to do a virtual meeting with the guy who i am making music for, for his short film. i still need to do the trailer music, it's so hard, honestly, to do this project right. he wants like synthwave and i just sort of hate the fantasy sound of the 80s. so i'm trying to make it weird, but it got too weird last time basically. i also want to walk a line where something is almost like, not just trailer music but a song, not even a film-y sounding composition that's good, but like, a trashy song. a trashy song that hits the beats of this trailer he already put together, which is so frustrating, for me. the other day i started something, there's some ideas there, i like a pad i made and its melody a lot.

re: music, though, i did 2 songs today, one was an older problem song, and i think it's pretty close to not being a problem anymore, biggest thing to do for it is re-record some vox. really exciting to be there. the other one was pretty simple, i think, just had to de-muffle the vocals on it.

so there's 6 more tracks to run through, and that should be good for this first (billionth-ish) pass. and then, maybe, it's time for a break on that whole side of things, and i'll get to doing vocals for the songs that need it, and getting the new tiny ones done. that will be fun, i think. i really want a tiny song that's just kind of dance-y w/ bass and synths. imagine, 10 seconds of dance punk. hilarious.

here's these flowers i saw today, and took pix of w/ flash on cuz they look better that way. i might do some stuff with these, or may not, it's just good for me to have an archive of interesting flowers, i think. maybe i'll trace as pixel art or something. that could be good. the first one here especially.

last thing of the night:

just a really inspiring vid tbh. love this band, there's this part here where the video gets way fucked, and like, there's these spurts of total glitched noise, thinking i should sample that or something, could be really cool. also love the part where the singer tells everyone they're beautiful, amazing, special, pretty, talented, and awesome, one by one, randomly. and then the guitarist goes out and gives high fives. really sweet people.

anyway, enough about stuff that is good and makes me happy, it's time to sleeeeep, so:

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!

#Youtube

[roxannepolice]

I don't understand why communism is the only political ideology with a free pass of "well on the paper it's good", as if not taking into account human nature for your political ideology is a good thing. If every time you apply a political ideology to a country it goes like USSR or CCP, then maybe don't do it at all?? It's so strange to see people who are pro lgbt and all be in such an awe of these countries where they would most likely be dead...

As the great sage Sebastian the crab put it, The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake. And it's not like I completely don't get it, I'm not a big fan of the kind of hypercapitalist economy we have, and as I mentioned in the tags under that post about communism, I think one of the worst long term outcomes of 4 decades of socialism in Poland is that we still haven't developed a functional welfare state, instead oscillating between clientelistic state redistribution and what has grown to be called trash contracts. I'm not sure if it was Piketty or someone else who pointed out that one of the very few downsides of the end of cold war is that the West lost the element which makes free market work - competition. So long as there was genuine threat of superpower backed communist revolt in your country you just had to go for the carrot every now and then while dealing with workers.

Another matter is that communist (or rather neo-marxist, it's not like you'll find the impact of alienation of work on construction of gender binary in Marx or Engels) theories have a tautological self-defence mechanism in that you can always blame one false consciousness or another for all of the system's shortcomings. A lot of tumblrinas are willing to admit USSR and CCP weren't/aren't exactly paradises but that's "just because of" some nationalist element. Needless to say, you end up with a lot of social engineering to form a true homo sovieticus, but since all of education is already social engineering, then to protest would be hypocrisy, wouldn't it? And when it comes to people being upset about communist symbols abd personnages being used positively, then you can always clutch your pearls with whataboutism on national flags waving despite historical attricities 🤷

On a less constructivist and more idealistic side, there's something to be said for how flattering the "human nature" is in leftist ideals. Where capitalism shows you competition of everyone with everyone, socialism gives you essentially peaceful human whose aggressive or selfish impulses come from outside. It's the lost paradise myth all over again. The evil serpent comes with desire for more instead of vegetating in your garden which gives you anything you might ever justly want (incidentally, Fromm with his application of psychoanalysis to society compared communism to "archetypal" matriarchy, as opposed to "patriarchal" capitalism; where toxic patriarchy makes you always strive for more than you'd ever consume while cutting you off emotionally, toxic matriarchy will give you everything you'd ever need while making you completely dependent emotionally; he concluded the most functional society as happiest individual will combine the best of both).

I think there's also a more potentially optimistic level to the online image of communism, which lies in the "global village" of network society. The big reason historical communist states' economy was so. bloody. inefficient, and extensive, amd get away from me if you think ecology was on anyone's mind in the east bloc is centralization. Centrally steered economy means someone up top decides that we will produce x cars y shoes z wardrobes relying on imperfect statistics and so you end up with falling apart cars, shoes in unwearable size (not to mention such bourgeois concepts like they're plain not to your taste) and wardrobes that you already have (luckily, someone might be willing to trade your wrong sized ugly shoes in exchange for two packs of cigarettes they don't smoke). And no, you didn't just have to present a talon and get it, you still had to pay for it (I have some relatives living in France since WWII and according to them 60s French rioters believed there was no money in the east bloc 🙃🙃🙃). I think many people hope that the fast flow of global information might alleviate this problem. Theoretically, you can now have a situation where people en masse provide exact information of what they need. This kind of relies on the observation that communism does sometimes work - in really small communities of willing participants. If you see network society as a global village, then perhaps there is some potential for improvement. That's not say "oh but communism could really work now!" But this is a genuine qualitative difference and I wish both private corporations and political parties were making more use of it. On the other hand, providing live information on what people want and need is exactly what free market is supposed to do - the buyer constantly shows what they're willing to get for what price. (And I would LOVE beholding this website of proudly socially inept people haggling shoes for alcohol face to face instead of paying with their non-physical money without the need to make eye contact).

I suppose the problem is always monopolization, which erases all healthy competition (in the sense that you have to either lower your prices or improve quality) and this is definitely more and more visible in the current capitalism. What western tumblrinas don't seem to understand is that state run communism is monopolistic by default - your only provider is the state and any sign of individual entrepreneurship is a proof you want to undermine the state and therefore are against THE (ONLY TRUE) PEOPLE so off with your head for collective benefit.

Oh, and when it comes to LGBTQ+ matters specifically in the east bloc. They were mostly criminalised and considered mental illnesses, although probably the most telling stories come from the brief moments when it was decriminalised. People were still being persecuted in workplaces and their identity or orientation used as a leverage against them by state forces. All of this was just happening not so much legally or illegally but in a secret third way 🙃🙃

#i hope i'm not rambling too much but i sometimes get confronted with people thinking stalin was history's good guy #and end up dissociating via how amazing the plurality of perception can be #also sorry for sociological jargon it's just one of those cases where a word really gets the meaning

[straycatboogie]

2022/12/24

BGM: HAL FROM APOLLO'69 "TERRAPLANE BOOGIE"

This morning I got a message from Judith in Indonesia. She said she wants to visit Japan, and I felt glad to hear that. The year will end soon. We connected on clubhouse each other and enjoyed talking about various topics. Of course, I hope we will talk next year too. Today I had to work early so enjoyed the music of HAL FROM APOLLO'69 and Cornelius before work. After that, I worked and spent idle time during lunch break. In short, I spent my time as usual. Although Eve or new year's day comes, my time goes very very ordinarily. Even if a star came and crushed the earth tomorrow, I would spend my time that way.

One of the troubles of this "end and begin" season is that libraries should close them. I have to borrow the books I want to read, but my interest changes recklessly like a cat's eye. I can't see what books I would like to read next moment. Actually, as you know by this diary, yesterday I wrote about John Irving but today I want to read Souseki Natsume. So today I borrowed Charles Dicken's first volume of "David Copperfield" that I promised a friend of mine in France to read. I might read it with "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Oliver Twist", but I have to admit that I wouldn't read them anymore. I can't tell.

We Japanese have a word to tell the "lonely Christmas" as "kuribotti", and I certainly have to enjoy that "kuribotti" in the group home alone. Unfortunately, we have to face the Christmas with a cold wave. Today, during I enjoyed chatting on Discord, a friend of mine told me "Now world's end girlfriend is doing his performance online on YouTube!". I tried to watch that but couldn't stop feeling sleepy as a reality of middle age. So I went to bed... this kind of reality of aging makes me sick. Single bells... I can remember that this year I confessed my lonely life without any female essences to the chief of my group home. I feel ashamed about that, but I have to owe it a serious problem.

I still have many many books I have to read, but never read in this life. "The Great Gatsby" and "Pride and Prejudice" (especially, Jane Austin's works attract me so someday I want to read them completely). But I can only do what I have an interest in, or what I want to do. So although you may say "what have you done in your life?" or "you haven't read such important books?", I can't do that because I can't do that (I know this sounds tautological). I should accept what is impossible for me and have to enjoy my life within that limit. This would be a secret of life. I can't drive a car because of autism, but I feel that I can enjoy myself within that limit. This might be a life hack from Spinoza and Koichiro Kokubun.

#diary #english #christmas #2022 #charles dickens #lonely christmas

[bitcofun]

This is a viewpoint editorial by Roy Sheinfeld, the cofounder and CEO of Breez, a Lightning Network mobile app. A variation of this post was initially released on MediumIt's practically tautologically real that expertise within a social system increases with elegance. Increasing expertise might be one method to specify social elegance.Example One:Our worldwide society is quite advanced. I understand how to produce items, ace a trivia object to about "The Wire" and discover the very best shawarma joints in Tel-Aviv, however I have no concept how to knit, create an effective solar battery or where to go rock climbing up around Maputo. We're all specialists at something, finding out more and more about less and less. Compare that with hunter-gatherer societies, where everybody can essentially do whateverEverybody can weave a basket, capture a fish, light a fire, sing a tune, recite the guidelines of the people, make a shelter, and so on. Their worlds are complicated, their societies are basic, with extremely little internal distinction or expertise.Example Two:In the early days of the web, business like CompuServe and AOL were essentially one-stop online stores. They were ISPs offering standard connection: e-mail; social networks (i.e., chatroom); material in the type of news, weather condition and so on; and search, typically in the type of a real curated directory site. As the web has actually ended up being a lot more intricate, we engage with several business for each of those functions. Consisting of all the writing, modifying, commenting, modifying and so on-- even an easy post like this one will include the services of a couple of ISPs, a couple of e-mail suppliers, a couple of cloud storage platforms, a couple of cloud full-screen editor, a couple of image repositories and who understands the number of background services.And now it's taking place to the Lightning Network. Like any social system, our network is continuously developing, and it looks extremely various now compared to how it searched in the start. Activity associated to Lightning is ending up being more specialized, which expertise is both a sign of and driver for the development of the network.What the innovation of the very first internet need to have appeared like. How far we've come ... (Image: Hans Splinter.And after that There Was Lightning, And It Was GoodBack in the early days of Lightning (we're talking, like, 2018), there were generally just 2 type of business. Were the facilities business that constructed the early executions of the network. Lightning Labs began early with lnd. More north on the exact same coast, Blockstream was dealing with c-lightning, which it has actually considering that rebranded as Core LightningHalf a world and a hop or more away, Flash was emerging in France. There were the"wallets," which was available in approximately 3 tastes. The early custodial wallets, like Wallet of Satoshi and BlueWalletprovided relatively-simple UXs, however they took custody of users' funds. The early non-custodial wallets, like Flash Zap and SBWprovided the opposite tradeoff: complete user custody with an in some cases rocky UX. The second-generation wallets, like Phoenix and Breez followed close behind, and they began dealing with the user experience holistically, thinking about both users' desire to self-custody their bitcoin and to move it without by hand opening, financing and balancing channels.This was Lightning's proof-of-concept stage. We advocates of Lightning were declaring that it was peer-to-peer cash-- bitcoin for daily purchases-- and these were the fundamental innovations required to move bitcoin from one peer to another over the network. If the wallets and procedure executions had actually shown impractical, there would have been little point in continuing. In impact, it was a neighborhood of lots, perhaps numerous individuals, everybody understood everybody else, and we were all dealing with the exact same, reasonably basic issues.

It was a basic social system, and there was little internal distinction. We hunted. We collected. Domesticating The NodesAround 10,000 years back, our hunter-gatherer forefathers got ill of going after the animals and plants they required to endure. And who could blame them? Speak about stressful. They changed tack and began domesticating plants and animals to have them closer to house. It needs to have been an excellent concept since it took place individually in a number of areas worldwide. And this modification had memorable repercussions: the steepest development in population ever, the introduction of civilization (in the sense of a city-based society) and a surge of innovations from the wheel and architecture to centralized political systems and composingThe standard concept is that when individuals tame their environments, they have more time to deal with complex things like tax codes, crash diet and open procedures. Lightning users' environment includes nodes due to the fact that nodes moderate all the inter/transactions on the network. Domesticating them was the next action in Lightning's development.As soon as you begin domesticating, it's tough to stop-- by the way another case of vertical expertise. (Image: Cinty Ionescu.Simply as those early wallets were getting steam, node-management tech for complete nodes began to appear. Some, like ThunderHub and Flight The Lightningto name a few, were successfully second-layer, node-management tech, assisting users perform operations and change the setup of their nodes. Others, like RaspiBlitz and Umbrelwere developed to assist users set up and set up nodes. Such node-management tech is simple to neglect in the advancement of Lightning, however it's crucial due to the fact that it promotes decentralizationwhich is a worth in itself and a crucial ways of preserving the network's effectiveness.And the next stage of that development has actually currently emerged. Voltagefor instance, uses scalable, enterprise-grade cloud nodes. Rather of a helpful tool to run a node, business can now lease a totally functional node with the capability and connection they require as needed.Keep in mind that the advantages of node-management tech are mainly unexpected. Much like whoever developed the wheel did not have high-speed rails and Swiss watches in mind, those who began dealing with node-management tech most likely simply desired more functions for their own usage. They're helping with brand-new network functions that are essential to Lightning's toughness and development (liquidity triangles LSPsnot to point out how they flatten the discovering curve for inbound users.Similar to hunter-gatherers accomplished a quantitative and qualitative leap in the intricacy of their societies when they tamed the important things their societies depended upon (plants and animals), the 2nd stage in the advancement of Lightning was a procedure of domesticating the nodes upon which our network depends.Going VerticalEarly in the agrarian transformation, and in lots of locations worldwide today, farmers really improve their own items. That is, a shepherd household may make and offer yarn, leather, milk, cheese, meat, sausages and so on that they make themselves. Usually however, the very best sausage maker and the very best cheese maker specialized to much better serve their particular markets. After a couple of generations, neither can shear a sheep, however together they can make up a charcuterie board that would have surprised their forefathers with its decadence and improvement.The fruits (and meats! and cheeses!) of vertical distinction and expertise. (Image: Shelby L. Bell.After a couple of more generations, we have the present circumstance where I can not make cheese or sausage, however I can debug in 7 various languages.Simply as civilization undoubtedly went through (and is constantly going through) a procedure of vertical distinction and expertise, that makes it more advanced, the existing, anticipated

and essential pattern in Lightning is that business are focusing on ever-smaller specific niches to offer ever-better user experiences. These specific niches are both practical and geographical. OpenNode rapidly included a Lightning point-of-sale (PoS) mode to its existing on-chain offering. We followed not long after with our non-custodial, point-of-sale mode back in early 2020, and a couple of months later on there was a little cadre of point-of-sale options for merchants who wished to accept bitcoin over Lightning. After a bit more elegance, the 2nd stage of structure facilities started, and ever-more facilities business developed in ever-more vertical specific niches. Some deal PoS with fiat on-ramps (e.g., Strikeand fiat off-ramps (e.g., CryptoConvert IBEXand so on). There are likewise self-hosted, bitcoin-only, PoS services ran in your area (e.g., lnbits BTCPay LNPayand so on).To serve the variable quantities of liquidity that merchants and users may require (believe Spirit Halloween in April versus in September), liquidity markets have actually opened. Bitrefill's Thor started offering channels rather early on. Now, liquidity management and channel financing have actually ended up being a home market in their own right, counting such individuals as lightning network+ Lava from Amboss and Lightning Pool Synonym's block tank is on track to end up being a multi-purpose Lightning company (LSP) with a broad combination of services. And bolt.observer is a service customized to LSPs that assists them to keep track of the state of their nodes.The very same thing is occurring to:Video gaming (e.g., Zebedee, THNDR GamesStreaming media (e.g., Breez Wag Lake Water fountainMonetary trading (e.g., LN Markets Collisions LoftChat and social networks (e.g., Sphinx Zion StarbackrNews and commentary (e.g., Stacker NewsBeyond the practical distinction, there is likewise geographical expertise, that makes sense offered regulative distinctions and localization requirements. Bitcoin Beachthough not precisely a business, notoriously assisted to cultivate the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador by priming the regional circular economy in El Zonte Bitnob is assisting Africans stack sats and accept remittances. Vietnam is leading the world in bitcoin adoption for the 2nd year in a row, and one factor is that Neutronpay has actually been feeding the marketplace with Lightning-based services. In South East Asia, Pouch.ph has actuall y been bringing Lightning to the Filipino masses.Where is this pattern of increasing expertise leading?It's no exaggeration to state that there are now more vertical marketseach including numerous business, in the Lightning environment than there were Lightning business just 5 years earlier. As a social system-- an innovation and organizational structure through which we connect with each other-- Lightning is ending up being even more advanced.The Future Of Functional DifferentiationExpertise is so extensive in social structures due to the fact that it increases effectiveness and efficiencywhich in turn cultivates development. The web of 1995 was structurally far easier than the web of 2005 or 2015, it ended up being simpler to utilize with each passing years. As an outcome, the swimming pool of 16 million early adopters grew by an even billion in a years, and now almost 70% of the world's population utilize it routinely It may sound counterproductive, however higher expertise and elegance feeds development.Multiplying verticals and practical distinction are needed since her issues are not my issues, however we both require Lightning. (Image: Arian Zwegers.And it's how Lightning will grow too. As a growing number of specialists from increasingly more various fields of activity find Lightning and incorporate it into the services they're supplying anyhow, increasingly more users will be onboarded-- frequently without even understanding about it. Take Synota . They link Lightning payment apps to wise meters to assist make energy payments rapid, last and based upon real-time costs.

Gas and electrical power circulation in one instructions, sats circulation in the other. It's a terrific concept, whatever implies of exchange it utilizes, and it simply occurs to make more sense with Lightning. If they can provide effectiveness gains to their users, then they'll be onboarding individuals onto the network who might have never ever become aware of Lightning and not care in the least about multipath payments or anchor channels.For us on the Lightning side, the difficulty is going to be making adoption simple without compromising the technological stability of our options and to keep the barriers as low as possible for all inbound users, be they LSPs, merchants, customers, Lightning wizards or total n00bs. Obviously, one method to fulfill this difficulty is with more expertise-- various offerings for various user groups. If we get this right, development will come naturally, naturally and undoubtedly.This is a visitor post by Roy Sheinfeld. Viewpoints revealed are completely their own and do not always show those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine. Find out more

[vulearanger]

How boys met their future S/O, spending time with them and confessed them. Part 1. LeonardoXReader.

Yeah... And forgive me for my english, i tried all my best. But i hope you''ll like it. Enjoy!

Leonardo

Leo never thought that at some day he would feel something like that. Never thought to be in love with you.

He found you on rooftop, sitting on the edge, listening the music at quite night. You were so relaxed, everything was so peaceful, so he a little bit forgot about about to hide.

Surprisingly, somehow you felt that you're not alone here and noticed someone from behind. Your eyes met, he was ready to hear the scream full of fear.

But you just stared at him, didn't say any word. And then your smile appeared on your face. That was the moment, when the blue leader felt some immediate spark.

Love from the first sight? Probably. But we all know Leo - he will shut his feelings until he figure out are they real and serious or not.

But despite his decision, he couldn't resist his desire to talk with you more and more. You were different, wasn't afraid of him, even was amazed, that flattered him a lot.

From that night, when he was on patrol, Leo visited you, you guys talked about a lot of topics, and the turtle felt, that he can be himself around you.

After a while you've become close. You respected his personal space, never wanted and tried to make him feel uncomfortable, for what he was greatful to you. And then you trusted him, letting him into your apartment, the only place you can be yourself.

He's the one, who makes a tea for you, usually it's a green tea, but he found so much sorts of it, it's a pleasure to taste them with you. Later you made some tradition for you both: when someone of you is upset or had a difficult day or it's your weekend, it's time to care for each other and a movie night.

Leo cares about you and trying all his best to make you relax. Well, obviously, he makes you your favourite tea(sorry fot tautology), then, if some part of your body hurts, he will make you a massage, will cuddle with you and make some jokes.

Probable, it would be difficult to imagine you both be together: you both are too different. Yet still you have something in common. You always lived alone, and that's why you used to handle with everything by yourself, yet can be lazy(who's not?). You can be loud, but, god, you're sincere laugh is amazing.

Now, you may think, that Leo completely in love. Yes, he really loved cuddling, touching you, he thought a lot about you when he was training, wanted to introduce you to his father. But he still wasn't sure about his feelings, even though he had a conversation with Mikey.

He relized that he loves you when you came back in tears after really stresfull day and opened to him fully. His heart contracted in pain, he immediately listened you closely, tightly hugging, and in the meantime time stoked your hair. He started to hate your tears and the one, who made you cry.

After that, he decided to talk with Splinter. That was a pretty difficult and long for him conversation, cause emotions wasn't his thing at all. But later he felt more confident about himself and soonly made a plan how to confess you. Planed a perfect date.

You let Leo come into your apartment anytime, whenever he want, and he used it to prepeare the dining hall for romantic date. Your favourite flowers in vase, red wine and your favourite food. Ah, what a wonderful romantic man~.

So, when you come, stood in shock, Leonardo took your hand and led in hall. To be honest, he wasn't worry about to be rejected, because he clearly saw, that your feelings are mutual.

You both stood in the middle of hall, Leo smiled and looked in your eyes, what embarrassed you a bit.

"Y/N, we've known each other long enough, I was here with you, you were with all the time, and now i can't even imagine my life without you, my dear", - he softly stroke yor cheek. - "I had to figure out about my feelings before say it, and now i can say. Y/N, i love you and want to be with you. I want us to be an official couple and introduce you to my family."

You couldn't not to smile at these words. You warped your hand around his neck and pull him closer to you. "That the most romantic words that i ever heard, Leo. And i want the same thing". You kissed him softly, felt, how strong turtles arms hold your waist, he kissed you back. "I love you, Leo, so much".

#bayverse turtles #tmnt 2016 #tmnt headcanons #tmnt leonardo #tmnt leonardo x reader #tmnt headcanon #tmnt x reader #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt bayverse

[diffractor]

Post Is Review: Baba Is You

So, I have been introduced to Baba Is You. It is a puzzle game. A very very good one. Up-front warning here: For the sorts of people likely to see this review who don’t want to get sucked into video games, stay way the hell away from this one. I’ve lost a worrying amount of time to it so far, it’s basically mathematician/programmer crack. It seems closely analogous to the warnings I’ve heard about Factorio (though I haven’t played Factorio). The one major mitigating factor for it over Factorio is that there’s a bit over 200 levels, and once you crack a level, that level is over with and has minimal replay value. So, for anyone sucked into the game, your task to surmount is finite, and the game can only eat a bounded chunk of time, instead of being an open-ended sandbox like Factorio and Minecraft. This is especially important for me because I have a very strong completion instinct for games, you haven’t truly beaten a game until you’ve gotten 102% completion and all achievements, and this instinct interacts poorly with open-ended games. Now that the warning is out of the way, on to gushing about the game. Block-pushing puzzles have been done to death. The core innovation is that the fundamental rules by which the level operates are also blocks which you can push around, dismember, and reassemble. Objects only have properties if they are declared to, and if you manage to create a new rule about the properties of an object, it will have that property regardless of how nonsensical the result is. Much like computer programming. The computer does exactly what you told it to do, whether or not you intended it. So, as just a taste of what’s possible, walls are only wall-y because most levels have Wall Is Stop as a rule. If that rule is absent or you break it... the walls become purely decorative. If you had Grass Is Stop instead, then the grass would perform the role of a wall. Lava is only lava-y because many levels with lava have Lava Is Hot as a rule, along with Baba Is Melt. Break one of those and you can walk on lava with no issue. If you formed both Door is Hot and Door is Melt, all doors would self-destruct.

Touching a flag to finish the level? Well, that’s because Flag Is Win is a common rule. You can make other things win instead. Forming Baba Is Win is often an auto-win because you tautologically occupy the same space as the winning object. Also, an occasional tactic of levels is having Flag Is Win as a rule in a level with no flag and no ability to split “Is Win” off and attach it to something else. Hell, you can only interact with the game because of Baba Is You, because “Is You” is the bridge rule which binds your key inputs to the motion of an object. So, it’s somewhat hazardous to mess with Baba Is You because then the interface between your keyboard commands and the level state shuts down. However, if you’re able to set things up carefully enough, you can make other things you. Like rocks and keys and water. And also there’s wacky meta things. The best nonspoilery example is “Word”, which makes semantics count as syntax. If Rock Is Word, and [insert physical rock here] Is Push, then you can push rocks around, because the rock also counts as “Rock”. Anyways, it’s a blast. Seeing as how the game is built entirely on the feeling of the insight click when things look impossible (with a dash of implementation difficulties when trying to do complicated things), the game is extremely sensitive to spoilers, stay away from them. Especially when the temptation is strong, there are some bullshit-hard levels in this game (looking at you, Floatiest Platforms) but it feels amazing when you finally crack them. Time to give four tips for hard levels. Tip 1 is to start off a level by categorizing what rules cannot be affected (and so are permanent rule background), which words can sorta be affected (like words up against a wall where you can’t move them but you can stick stuff on them), and which words are freely movable to play as you wish with them. This helps narrow the search space for what sorts of things you can do. Tip 2 is if you can manage to state precisely why a level is impossible, you’re probably very close to a solution. Accordingly, for levels you can’t solve, it’s handy to take a break and try to crystallize why it can’t be done. You’ll probably spot some implicit assumption or alternate strategy in the process of doing this. Tip 3 is to attempt problem reductions. Which subtask, if it was magically solved, would let you solve the level from there? Focus on that. Tip 4 is that, for novel words, it’s important to quickly get a good model of how they work. I’ve seen someone else do a blind playthrough of the early game regions and one of the most frustrating things is watching someone blunder into an unexpected interaction and just wave it off instead of pausing and staring at the result until it makes sense (because then, in later levels, they don’t know that they can implement interactions that an attentive player would know are possible). Play around! Try to predict all the interactions of the new word with other stuff and notice when predictions are wrong! Stare at confusing results until they make sense! As these tips indicate, there’s some heavy overlap between puzzle solving for this game, and the task of mathematics or algorithm creation, which is why it’s so nerd-snipe-y. So, if you can afford to lose the time, I heavily recommend Baba Is You.

[the-fallen-blue]

there’s something curious (read: depressing) about the way that people here talk about the idea of being good at stuff. or, more specifically, about being good at hobbies, particularly creative hobbies that are also professions.

like there’s that post that goes around now and then about not being good at painting(?) and not wanting to be, because it’s leisure. or the way that Concrit Discourse frames concrit as rude not because it’s unsolicited, but because it’s inherently out of place; this is an environment for fun, and the quest to improve is at best a totally unrelated desire, and at worst an outright enemy of fun which cannot coexist with it. the short jargony version would be tumblr tends to frame “mastery” and “enjoyment” as fundamentally oppositional. “mastery” is an unnatural demand by capitalism, and it must be partitioned away from “enjoyment,” much of which comes from release from the stress of trying to do things “well.”

which is, psychologically speaking, the complete and utter opposite of how it’s supposed to work. mastery is actually a basic psychological need! humans really want to feel like we’re good at stuff that matters! like, you don’t have to be a card shark to enjoy playing hearts with your friends, mastery isn’t a requisite for enjoyment, but it should be a source of it. we are designed so that the things that are good for us - nutrition, homeostasis, socialization, being good at important things - feel good when we do them. And generally hobbies, a source of good feelings, are important to us; we would expect mastery to not just comfortably coexist with them, but to actively enhance them. “we want to improve our skill at the things we care about” should be almost a tautology.

if it isn’t? if “trying to do things well” is stressful? if it feels like oppression, a demand made by a known source of harm? people talk a lot about the psychological damage of our socioeconomic system - the shame and anxiety of financial insecurity, the impact of wealth inequality on social structures and our ability to have the bonds or developmental assistance we need - but this means the damage is even more profound and comprehensive than even that. because if we have this system where “mastery = monetary worth = misery” (and thus its corollary, “ineptitude = leisure = frivolity”), if we have taken a necessary source of self-esteem and turned it into a goddamn trauma trigger, then not only are we robbing people of their mental health, we’re co-opting and weaponizing against them those very tools they need to get it back.

#probably doesn't help that everyone on tumblr has adhd like talk about ways to traumatize the desire for mastery #a neurotypical person is already fucked by the conflation of the healthy 'do -your- best in order to validate yourself' #with the warped 'do -my- version of best or i will declare you without value' #but throw in the insane feeling of knowing that -either one of those- versions of best -should- be attainable but you can't #you just fucking can't and you have no idea why #how could 'try to improve' ever -not- become utterly agonizing