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#computer internet course
socialvijay · 11 months
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Accelerate Your Web Development Skills with the Full-Stack Web Development In 7 Days Ebook
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Discover the ultimate resource to fast-track your web development journey! The Full-Stack Web Development In 7 Days Ebook is a comprehensive guide that covers front-end and back-end development, offering clear explanations and practical examples. With its organized structure, interactive approach, and thorough coverage of essential technologies, this ebook equips beginners with the foundational knowledge needed to excel in the dynamic field of web development. Don't miss the chance to accelerate your skills and unlock endless possibilities in just 7 days!
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kbsd · 1 month
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sometimes when i'm bored or need to occupy myself for a while, i think about how i would explain a concept or item in modern society to someone from 50, 100, 200 years ago, and what other groundwork i'd have to lay just to get there....it's a fun thought exercise and a good way to test my knowledge/understanding of a wide range of topics. i passed an entire regional flight yesterday thinking about everything i'd have to go through to explain instagram to someone from 1824
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mxrtified777 · 10 months
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okay i have decided to do more redraws, spider nevin is up NEXT
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raffaellopalandri · 3 months
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Daily writing promptThe most important invention in your lifetime is…View all responses Picking the “most important” invention is like choosing a favourite child … almost impossible and totally subjective! But between 1969’s moon landing and today’s AI marvels, some contenders deserve a shoutout, in my opinion: The Internet (1969): Launched as a whisper on October 29, 1969, when computers at…
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medicinemane · 4 months
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"It even connects to your smart phone!"
Well... that's a huge downside for something to have, don't like that
#don't like it cause not only might it be harvesting data on me; but that also means it probably is real susceptible#to the manufacturer just deciding they don't support it anymore; specifically with software#and of course that not just meaning 'not support' but meaning 'we've bricked your working device'#like I get why people like it; the convenience of your whole life in the palm of your hand#but I don't trust like that#to me it's an unneeded massive point of failure that risks me not actually owning the physical thing I bought#this is about a density meter for like... figuring alcohol content in home brewing#and like... neat... but the moment they said 'it even connects to your smart phone' that's a massive red flag to me and I don't like that#takes it from 'if I ever start brewing maybe I should get that'#to '...man... I don't know that I trust them not to brick my shit with hostile software'#know nothing about the company; but that's how I feel about all app based shit#maybe just like... measure my shit for me and keep and internal log... oh; and a usb port and the ability to interface with standard OSs#that would be nice; like then I can rip the logs off your thing onto my computer#but nah... I don't want a phone involved unless I plug it in with a usb#I'd rather it be a little less convenient for me; but not use a wifi signal#cause then you can't fuck with it; no one can fuck with it; except me when I plug direct into it#...don't want my shit connecting to the internet; and that's the other problem with apps#they pretty much can't mean anything but an internet connection... cause how else does it talk to your phone?#if it's not my computer; frankly it should be dumb and totally offline with usb ports (or other HDMI whatever) for communicating#tv should be a dumb blackbox; oven should be a dumb blackbox; sadly even thermostats and shit should be a dumb blackbox#this shit makes life easier... till it doesn't; and if I don't have total control over it then someone else does#like... if I have a closed system smart home; that's one thing; but if I use a standard one that means anyone can access it#both in terms of random employees being caught peeping on me (and tos that say they're allowed to gather data on my sexuality and shit)#to the fact that if it hooks up to the internet and someone can connect to it... they just have to get past security and they're in#like my car shouldn't fucking be harvesting data on me; that tos example wasn't random; that's lifted from one of car companies tos#online is vulnerable; online is unsecured more often than not; it's a fucking risk that isn't worth it#it's like all those keyless cars getting stolen cause all they gotta do is catch your fob's signal and then spoof it#I want it dumb and connecting to nothing 95% of the time#sometimes I want it dumb and connecting only with a direct wire#I in theory might want it smart but on a closed home network I have complete control over
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oneguardian15 · 8 months
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what causes that thing in your brain where you spell a common word a hundred million times and then one time pops up where you look at it and your brain is just like “nope nooooopppee! you spelled it wrong! it doesn’t look right!” and no matter how you spell it it doesn’t look right? like is it one or two ts kind of thing? and then you have like a mini crisis about it….
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lilgynt · 1 year
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okayyyyyyyyyy got lost for 3 plus hours with half a tank of gas trying to find the closet rest stop to my work with shitty directions printed at the libaryyyyy staying with a friend tonight and then probably heading home to be talked into moving back tomorrow but aha i am the devil 
#dont reblog im on a computer and cant figure this shit out#personal#assuming of course i didnt burn that bridge today#so my brother texted me asking like hey mom wants you to print this for her#and i was like you understand she kicked me out right. does she understand that#blow up on him and reveal how i feel like no one in the family actually loves me and while im not gonna do anything i wish i was never born#bc every aspect of life is so horrible and just keeps getting worse#dramatic but also look at my personal tag thats true. thats documented proof for like 10 years worth of data#i mean def better in some way worse in others despite it being one of the worst times of my life also doesnt feel that bad#my friend im staying with is telling to stay flat out#and like going into it and my other friends are enouchaging me to do so too but hehe imma victimize myself#unless of course theyre all done with me#but anyway go there dont print it bc internet is down and my mom is home and starts swinging verbally#even tho i said dont tell dad or the lady living with us but whatever. anyway so im like hey. no on forced you to kick me out thats on you#and shes like i said you can stay and im like after kicking me out#no one forced you to do any of this and gave her the phone and shes like keep it and iim like no you just asked for it#not to me but she was telling my brother she was gonna cut the line so i told her im returning it and she didnt correct me#anyway so i go to my room to grab some stuff and she follows me and is like you at least have to listen to me you owe me that much#im like i dont you owe you anything actually but god i feel awful#she blocked the door so i wouldnt leave and i was so angry i shoved her out of the way and she looked so genuinely shocked and ill be honest#ill be drinking tonight about that specifically#i ran out of there like a coward all angry with her yelling at me to listen#ii ended up coming back twice bc i left mail and two needed to contact my friend so i could stay over and dang she dont answer random s#just barely missed her but saw that she said lets talk when i get home and my brother begging me for a way to contact me bc hes worried#weeeeeeeeee this all over me calling out with hours
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mictcral · 2 years
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https://www.instagram.com/mictcral/
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spacedkey · 6 months
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normal i'm normal
#seasonal depression really hitting and forcing me to latch onto the nearest fictional lifeline lmao#you can guess. if you have a keen eye. or ear if text to speech is your deal.#normal normal me lol lol#AGH my brain is melting bc i keep using the lexicon of characters instead of my own. not helping.#also i might be having a silent migraine. or normal brain fog. or just tired.#or all at once. wombo combo.#all that to say. i've said too much. i'll say more cause i feel like it. and i am remembering that one anon that said they like reading#-excessive talking in tags. this one goes out to yuou mysterious reader#i latch so hard onto random medias 'cause i basically don't exist outside of them (don't extrapolate off of that#'course i don't mean literally.) i'm not fictional or anything. but also i'm not concrete#my internet persona is me. my characters are me. my body is sorta me but whatever. gotta deal with the flesh puppet even if it isn't me#i'm more my computer than i am my body#being room bound for most of my life will do that. even on good days when i leave the house#hours is nothing to years. is this poetry? i'm just blabbering#'BLABBERING'. gods. see what i said about linguistic sponge#talking to future me skimming my posts again with that one#besides the point. there is no point.#i exist here. now. no where else. i existed seconds ago typing this#that me doesn't exist now. now i exist here. you get the point#i'm just putting off sleeping by this point#anyway i have a new sona design. so reader as an easter egg feel freeeee to ask about it and i'll flaunt my inspirations on my sleeve#also i don't expect the sona to stay resonating with me for long. that's how it goes. it is a good design tho#key's lockbox#ok i think i really am normal now. bed time.
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onioneyez · 9 months
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Hm
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foone · 2 months
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There exist another dimension called The Empty World. It's very much like ours, in fact it seems to have been identical up until a few weeks ago, but it always seems that way. If you go there today, it was identical in late february, and if you go there this october, it'll have been identical until september.
It's empty, as you might guess. There's no humans, and no animals bigger than a cockroach. The sky is grey, and it slowly rains ash. It's colder than our world by a bit, enough to require a jacket even in summer. The streets are empty, the cars parked neatly in their garages or in lots, but they're all empty and abandoned, their doors locked like they expect their owners to return any minute now.
The newspapers left on stands don't mention any oncoming disaster. We have no idea what the TV or internet would have said: the power is out. The power is very, very out. Not just the grid, but batteries are drained. The cars won't start, the emergency lights are out, and anything with solar panels seems to be getting less energy than you'd expect, even with the perpetually overcast sky.
It's a very silent world, like the calm after a snowstorm. Sounds don't seem to echo as much as they should, nor does sound seem to travel as far. The radio spectrum is empty except for static, there's no one transmitting on any frequency.
There's fewer fires than you'd expect. Even places you'd expect to soon catch fire without human intervention are still standing, undamaged. Campfires can be lit but with difficulty: something is keeping them from burning as they should. Even if you pour kerosene on a campfire it'll barely grow, it's like something sucked the energy out of everything.
All the locked buildings are still locked. Alarms don't sound if you break in (understandable, given the power situation), and of course no one comes to investigate. So The Empty World is your oyster: you can break in wherever you want (provided you can physically do it: some doors are pretty hard to pry open even with tools), take whatever you want, and bring it back here.
Everything resets when you leave. You always enter The Empty World like it's your first time there, like this just happened and you're late to the party... but the party keeps getting rescheduled. You can even take something multiple times if you want.
When you enter The Empty World you get there at the same relative position as you are on this world. If you're in New York, you show up in the empty New York. If you're in Topeka, you show up in empty Topeka. So you have to travel around this world to get to where you want, and you can't just appear in the middle of a bank vault... unless you break into the vault from this world. (So it's great if you work at a bank and want to steal from your employer without repercussions, but not so useful otherwise).
You don't just have to take things, you know. You can take computers and files and books and diaries. You will have to deal with recharging laptops and breaking through any security when you get back, but it's doable.
So, imagine you've just gotten access to The Empty World. What are you going to do with it? What will you take, and where will you go?
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osaemu · 6 months
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GOJO SATORU: ❛❛ FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS WEEPERS! ❜❜
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.ೃ࿐ streamer!au: the user "gojoslittleslut" tries to make a move on your boyfriend, but she doesn't stand a chance
contents: fem!reader. it's not too serious, nobody gets angry/jealous (except the comments lol). if u haven't already read the other streamer!gojo works u probably should so u understand the dynamic between satoru and his commenters !
author's note: reader is actually a mature person who doesn't pick fights with random ppl on the internet and i think we should all be more like her ꨄ︎
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satoru leans back in his chair, idly chatting with people who pop up in his comments after he finishes his last round of the co-op game. his viewers are eager to chat, and some even shoot money satoru's way to draw his attention. whenever someone donates money, he gives them a quick shoutout and has a small back-and-forth with them, and he does that for everyone.
that is, until a user with a questionable username donates to his stream.
gojoslittleslut has donated $100.00!
gojoslittleslut: notice me pls
"shit, a hundred dollars?" satoru says, raising his eyebrows in mild surprise. "thanks, gojoslittl— oh, fuck, what is that?"
you look up from your laptop and see the way your boyfriend's cheeks have gone bright red. satoru laughs a bit nervously, so you get up and walk over, making sure to stay out of sight of the camera. you sit on satoru's desk beside his computer and peer at his screen curiously.
gojoslittleslut: im ur number one fan~
satoru's eyes flicker to yours for a second before he looks back at his monitor. "ah, well, thanks for the donation!" he replies, completely ignoring the user's advances.
suguru-geto: he has a gf ...
gojoslittleslut: yeah
gojoslittleslut: me
you cover your mouth to suppress a giggle, scrunching up your nose at satoru to let him know that you really weren't taking it too seriously. after all, it's just some random person on the internet—they don't stand a chance with your boyfriend. 
satoru reaches over and takes your hand, twining his fingers with yours off-camera. he ignores the sudden burst of comments that litter the corner of his screen, instead watching you intently. in response, you roll your eyes playfully and blow him a kiss, snickering when satoru pretends to faint.
eventually, he turns back to his screen, cerulean eyes doing a quick once-over of his new comments.
toji-fushiguro: ill take his gf any day
inumaki: we know gtfo
gojoslittleslut: toji i get gojo and u take his girl. deal?
toji-fushiguro: bet
"alright guys, settle down," satoru huffs, rolling his eyes. "for the record, i still have a girlfriend and i don't plan on changing that anytime soon," he clarifies, addressing the current feud going on in his comments. 
satoru's a good streamer—he does his best to keep things cordial and lighthearted with his audience, but he also knows his limits. one of his limits involves people trying to separate you and him, his one true pairing (of course satoru's otp is his own relationship).
your boyfriend leans closer to the screen and scowls good-naturedly, holding up the hand still wrapped around yours. "this isn't gonna change, so don't even think about it!"
satoru says his goodbyes and then ends the stream, turning to you with a sigh. "how down bad do you have to be to name yourself 'gojo's little slut?'" he grumbles, clicking through his stream analytics and finding the user. he opens gojoslittleslut's profile and studies it for a moment before hovering his mouse over the block button.
he leans back in his chair and tilting his chin up at you. "she just gave me a hundred dollars, so i kinda feel bad about blocking her," satoru muses, tapping his foot on the floor. he looks up at where you still sit on his desk, twirling a strand of hair around your finger. "c'mere," he mumbles, slipping his hands around your waist and hoisting you into his lap with a soft grunt.
satoru rests his chin on your shoulder and nudges his face into your neck, breath tickling your skin. "you know that i'm all yours, right?"
"of course i do," you murmur, settling into his arms. he's warm and comfortable, like always. satoru smiles warmly and kisses the side of your face, letting his lips linger.
"good. 'cause no fan account's ever gonna change that."
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weirdmageddon · 8 months
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i love these tags this person is so right
actually, can you imagine if dave was raised by B1 roxy?
i wanna get into this actually
(ok i had to spend a few hours rewriting this because IT DIDNT FUCKING SAVE AFTER FIVE HOURS OF WRITING WHEN MY COMPUTER UPDATED WHILE I WAS AFK so it would mean a lot to show this post some appreciation. i LOVEEE hearing what other people have to say)
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even though these things mom does are presented in an extravagant, kitsch, jokey way, her intentions always came from a place of sincerity. she is simply Funnie
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but rose reads too far into it and assumes things that aren't there, that her mother is passive-aggressively feigning interest in rose's interests simply because the things she does are so extra. "why do all of this if not to mock me"
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im telling you right now if dave lived in this household he wouldn't assume antagonism, he'd go,
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don’t forget who LITERALLY patented tangible jpeg artifacts as their post-scratch adult self and scattered shitty scummed up statue of liberties all over the planet. theres no way some of that overboard artful shit wasnt post-ironic / circling back around to genuine funny sincerity
dave's natural state is funny sincerity like roxy. he's had the natural capacity for this type of humor from the start and this is the direction he goes towards when he grows out of his brother's shadow by the end of the comic. dave and roxy share an earnest “so bad its good” type of humor
(lots more under the cut; the length of this meta analysis just got unwieldly with all the pictures and whatnot)
despite the alcoholism, roxy is a supportive mother. she's not the ideal guardian but hells of a lot more supportive of her kid than bro is. if she knew dave's interests she would totally indulge in them with some over the top silly goofy haha shit as a genuine gesture simply because she loves him
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rose isn't too keen on it though. but she is more similar to dirk in her natural state of thinking of overthinking shit and assuming the worst, like the tags said
and yes dave got the sweet cuddly yet sometimes backhanded ouppy gene from roxy, probably even moreso lol
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roxy's even said rose "sounds like girl dirk"
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side tangent here, but this is something i wanna talk about.
i dont think bro should ever be in custody of children ever but if theres anyone who would be up to the task it's rose probably. i know she'd be able to keep up with him. not only does she have a defined personality (dave is more malleable and absorbs his environment like a sponge), if anyone can pick apart B1 dirk's batshit brain and probably be right on the money it's her. lil cal has been pumping patriarchal nonsense into bro's head and rose would be able to bring the fucking facts to the table without losing her own and being a living example of a badass little girl. i also don't think bro would try to force masculine roles onto rose like he did with dave, seeing as she is a girl, so she would actually have more of a leg up and get some passes that dave was never afforded. and rose wouldn't stand idly and accept any bullshit; she is no doormat. and i think this would earn bro's respect
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but anyway, from this, couldn't we conclude roxy "sounds like girl dave"?
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yeah okay. we havent even gotten into their penchant for funny typos or misspeaks, deliberate or otherwise
so, dave's environment
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the sentiment "god you hope you can be as good as your bro at this some day" might have been genuine at the time when he idolized bro but of course he's not able to express that in any sort of sincere fashion because he's in dirk's fucking household. and this level 10 irony shit isnt doing dave any favors
his role models were the Internet and a vague idea of what Bro was like. So he built up his facade based on irony–not the literary definition of irony, as Rose might be quick to point out, but a popular concept of irony based on the idea that things that didn’t make sense actually made sense in some roundabout way. As a master of irony, Dave probably reasoned, he could see in a way other people couldn’t why a world that was scary and didn’t make sense really did make sense, and could therefore convince those people that he was superior to them. And he would wield his knowledge to maintain the appearance of superiority by calling everything ironic and pretending he didn’t care about things that didn’t make sense, and he would use walls of vaguely rhyming words to keep everyone at arm’s length so they wouldn’t discover his insecurities (source)
roxy's style is the embodiment of post-irony. being raised by mom lalonde would be like being raised by joel vinesauce ok
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what can i say ….. (getting meta about this actually, hussie got these jpeg wizard wallpapers from a spyware website. link takes some time to load because internet archive)
rose is quick to read post-irony as actually being a joke/insincere, which in bro's case would be true. but i believe dave's natural instinct, outside of the influence of bro, is to read post-irony as genuine, which is exactly how mom serves it. we see this as early as act 3 from him; he understands her motives better than rose does herself:
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and in act 6 intermission 2 i think it's pretty clear
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but the thing is, it's always genuine from her. dave wouldn't have to second guess it because he's not one to naturally second guess someone's sincerity; that was learned due to his bro being virtually unassailable
there two types of ironies at play here:
seems like a joke, is actually genuine (roxy)
doesnt seem like a joke, is actually a joke (dirk)
you can make the argument that the second is is more psychologically destructive because it makes you question the reality of what is genuine sentiment and what isn't. dave never knew what was genuine and what was irony so he just sort of existed in this sincerity-ironic limbo and always did the opposite of what he genuinely felt on principle even if it always did originate from a genuine place.
"it just a joke bro i was just being ironic i dont actually x" is so much more trust-breaking and psychologically damaging than "wait are you being serious" / "i am being so fucking fr rn davy gravy" / "ok thats actually pretty fucking awesome. giant ass wizard statue" / "RIGHT"
how much about dave would change do you think? his character arc would be completely different for one thing, i think he'd have it good aside from mom's alcohol issues. he'd be left with the sweet and funny parts of him that we see at the end of the comic. the fake coolguy stuff is out, but this remains. this is dave in his element and we see it as early as act 1
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he'd probably have no shades growing up in the lalonde residence* either cause those were given to him by bro straight out of the crater as an extension of his own cool image. and john gave dave ben stiller’s aviators for his 13th birthday to replace them so he could “spread his wings”
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dave said he was wearing them for the ironies but i kind of doubt it. maybe post-irony but there was some reacharound to it being genuine because dave never put those pointy anime shades on his face again.
*though... it’s kind of hard to imagine him without his shades at all? B2 dave still got stiller’s shades from stiller himself so maybe getting them is a universal constant. i can imagine mom getting him them as a birthday gift cause shes pretty wealthy and probably could buy it out in an auction. but also itd be cool if john still gave him it as a gift
dave is actually a lot more genuine and easy to read than he lets on even when grappling with his upbringing with B1 dirk (again, see this post). this can be seen all throughout he comic but a good example is the evolution of thoughts about his interest in the preserved dead things in his room:
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if B1 roxy was dave's guardian he probably WOULD have pursued paleontology because she wouldve indulged him in it and probably find it cool and worthwhile to pursue, instead of allowing dave to flounder under ironic detachment, being poisoned by irony to the point of gaslighting himself into believing he doesnt actually believe he thinks this shit is cool. even if it was indulged in this such a way; a superficially kitsch and ironic appearing presentation, it comes from a genuine place and inspires genuine interest. just read the comments.
basically, i think if B1 roxy raised dave, their relationship would have a surface level appearance of being bizarre or over-the-top but they’d have an unsaid mutual understanding that it’s completely in earnest and just build on each other's funny and absurd gestures of affection. rather than seeing it as one-upping each other, it'd more like collaboration of some silly bullshit that you take a step back and look at full and just say, "fucking incredible"
speaking of paleontology, mom had the proto-ectobiology lab. maybe they'd be able to use the equipment to appearify paradox ghost imprints of the dead shit to create paradox clones of things from the cambrian era??? sounds like a fun mother son bonding activity. and theyd actually put the sciencey shit in the household to use
oh god i know exactly the kinds of music shed listen too also growing up as a teen in the 80s. she on that (post)-punk/art rock/new wave/new romantic mtv stuff. XTC shit fr. this is a B-52S HOUSEHOLD. maybe the associates for the campy melodramatic flair. so he gets to keep the record on his shirt cause he is an enjoyer of the shit in her vinyl collection. dave would still gravitate towards musical expression and music itself but of more variety outside of just rap, with an 80s-90s, even 70s flavor due to mom’s influence. see this for perhaps a glimpse. ​she probably visited new york city a lot for business trips and because the music scene was cool as hell around that time, imports came straight from jfk airport, she probably got in on that a bit and have remnants in the form of vinyls and cassettes. in this way she could be distributing void to dave (influencing him with forgotten / presently irrelevant music). now he can REALLY rave about bands none of his friends have heard of. “hey davy grvay watcha listenin to” (he holds up vinyl cover) “omg snakefinger”
btw dave lalonde would look like this to me
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rachel-614 · 1 year
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Okay, let me tell you a story:
Once upon a time, there was a prose translation of the Pearl Poet’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It was wonderfully charming and lyrical and perfect for use in a high school, and so a clever English teacher (as one did in the 70s) made a scan of the book for her students, saved it as a pdf, and printed copies off for her students every year. In true teacher tradition, she shared the file with her colleagues, and so for many years the students of the high school all studied Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from the same (very badly scanned) version of this wonderful prose translation.
In time, a new teacher became head of the English Department, and while he agreed that the prose translation was very wonderful he felt that the quality of the scan was much less so. Also in true teacher tradition, he then spent hours typing up the scan into a word processor, with a few typos here and there and a few places where he was genuinely just guessing wildly at what the scan actually said. This completed word document was much cleaner and easier for the students to read, and so of course he shared it with his colleagues, including his very new wide-eyed faculty member who was teaching British Literature for the first time (this was me).
As teachers sometimes do, he moved on for greener (ie, better paying) pastures, leaving behind the word document, but not the original pdf scan. This of course meant that as I was attempting to verify whether a weird word was a typo or a genuine artifact of the original translation, I had no other version to compare it to. Being a good card-holding gen zillenial I of course turned to google, making good use of the super secret plagiarism-checking teacher technique “Quotation Marks”, with an astonishing result:
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By which I mean literally one result.
For my purposes, this was precisely what I needed: a very clean and crisp scan that allowed me to make corrections to my typed edition: a happily ever after, amen.
But beware, for deep within my soul a terrible Monster was stirring. Bane of procrastinators everywhere, my Curiosity had found a likely looking rabbit hole. See, this wonderfully clear and crisp scan was lacking in two rather important pieces of identifying information: the title of the book from which the scan was taken, and the name of the translator. The only identifying features were the section title “Precursors” (and no, that is not the title of the book, believe me I looked) and this little leaf-like motif by the page numbers:
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(Remember the leaf. This will be important later.)
We shall not dwell at length on the hours of internet research that ensued—how the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon, grading abandoned in shadows half-lit by the the blue glow of the computer screen—how google search after search racked up, until an email warning of “unusual activity on your account” flashed into momentary existence before being consigned immediately and with some prejudice to the digital void—how one third of the way through a “comprehensive but not exhaustive” list of Sir Gawain translators despair crept in until I was left in utter darkness, screen black and eyes staring dully at the wall.
Above all, let us not admit to the fact that such an afternoon occurred not once, not twice, but three times.
Suffice to say, many hours had been spent in fruitless pursuit before a new thought crept in: if this book was so mysterious, so obscure as to defeat the modern search engine, perhaps the answer lay not in the technologies of today, but the wisdom of the past. Fingers trembling, I pulled up the last blast email that had been sent to current and former faculty and staff, and began to compose an email to the timeless and indomitable woman who had taught English to me when I was a student, and who had, after nearly fifty years, retired from teaching just before I returned to my alma mater.
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After staring at the email for approximately five or so minutes, I winced, pressed send, and let my plea sail out into the void. I cannot adequately describe for you the instinctive reverence I possess towards this teacher; suffice to say that Ms English was and is a woman of remarkable character, as much a legend as an institution as a woman of flesh and blood whose enduring influence inspired countless students. There is not a student taught by Ms. English who does not have a story to tell about her, and her decline in her last years of teaching and eventual retirement in the face of COVID was the end of an era. She still remembers me, and every couple months one of her contemporaries and dear friends who still works as a guidance counsellor stops me in the hall to tell me that Ms. English says hello and that she is thrilled that I am teaching here—thrilled that I am teaching honors students—thrilled that I am now teaching the AP students. “Tell her I said hello back,” I always say, and smile.
Ms. English is a legend, and one does not expect legends to respond to you immediately. Who knows when a woman of her generation would next think to check her email? Who knows if she would remember?
The day after I sent the email I got this response:
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My friends, I was shaken. I was stunned. Imagine asking God a question and he turns to you and says, “Hold on one moment, let me check with my predecessor.”
The idea that even Ms. English had inherited this mysterious translation had never even occurred to me as a possibility, not when Ms. English had been a faculty member since the early days of the school. How wonderful, I thought to myself. What a great thing, that this translation is so obscure and mysterious that it defeats even Ms. English.
A few days later, Ms. English emailed me again:
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(I had, in fact searched through both the English office and the Annex—a dark, weirdly shaped concrete storage area containing a great deal of dust and many aging copies of various books—a few days prior. I had no luck, sadly.)
At last, though, I had a title and a description! I returned to my internet search, only to find to my dismay that there was no book that exactly matched the title. I found THE BRITISH TRADITION: POETRY, PROSE, AND DRAMA (which was not black and the table of contents I found did not include Sir Gawain) and THE ENGLISH TRADITION, a super early edition of the Prentice Hall textbooks we use today, which did have a black cover but there were absolutely zero images I could find of the table of contents or the interior and so I had no way of determining if it was the correct book short of laying out an unfortunate amount of cold hard cash for a potential dead end.
So I sighed, and relinquished my dreams of solving the mystery. Perhaps someday 30 years from now, I thought, I’ll be wandering through one of those mysterious bookshops filled with out of print books and I’ll pick up a book and there will be the translation, found out last!
So I sighed, and told the whole story to my colleagues for a laugh. I sent screenshots of Ms. English’s emails to my siblings who were also taught by her. I told the story to my Dad over dinner as my Great Adventure of the Week.
…my friends. I come by my rabbit-hole curiosity honestly, but my Dad is of a different generation of computer literacy and knows a few Deep Secrets that I have never learned. He asked me the title that Ms. English gave me, pulled up some mysterious catalogue site, and within ten minutes found a title card. There are apparently two copies available in libraries worldwide, one in Philadelphia and the other in British Columbia. I said, “sure, Dad,” and went upstairs. He texted me a link. Rolling my eyes, I opened it and looked at the description.
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Huh, I thought. Four volumes, just like Ms. English said. I wonder…
Armed with a slightly different title and a publisher, I looked up “The English Tradition: Fiction macmillan” and the first entry is an eBay sale that had picture of the interior and LO AND BEHOLD:
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THE LEAF. LOOK AT THE LEAF.
My dad found it! He found the book!!
Except for one teensy tiny problem which is that the cover of the book is uh a very bright green and not at all black like Ms. English said. Alas, it was a case of mistaken identity, because The English Tradition: Poetry does have a black cover, although it is the fiction volume which contains Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
And so having found the book at last, I have decided to purchase it for the sum of $8, that ever after the origins of this translation may once more be known.
In this year of 2022 this adventure took place, as this post bears witness, the end, amen.
(Edit: See here for part 2!)
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dgaprofessional · 1 year
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