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nardo-headcanons · 3 months

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Writing Scientist Characters

this post is mainly an excuse to post a certain list of lab supplies I've made for a friend and infodump about lab work. but feel free to use this as a little resource when writing characters who are scientists and/or lab nerds. who knows, maybe it'll be of use.

General thoughts

Many people think it's a stereotype that scientist or nerd characters talk using complex technical jargon. While that is true to an extent, there actually is some kind of lab jargon. It varies across different labs and fields, but one thing they have in common is that it seeks to simplify, not the other way around.

gelelectrophoresis becomes elpho

microbiology becomes mibi

deioninized water becomes aqua dist

biochemistry becomes BC

sodium hydroxide becomes NaOH

They will probably not call a glass of water "silicon dioxide and h2o".

...and more. feel free to get creative. If you're writing in any other language than English, you can throw in one or two anglicisms as well. Also, most scientists will never gatekeep their work, and in an opposite fashion, will not shut up about it unless you make them. And no, most chemists do not know the entire periodic table by heart, only the most relevant elements. (main groups and a few commonly used metals of the subgroups) When it comes to characters doing the lab work, keep in mind that there are a lot more people involved than the scientist themself. Most scientists are more occupied with paperwork and data analysis, it is the laboratory technicians and assistants that do most of the practical work. They often have more lab experience than the scientists themselves.

Things you can have your lab nerd character do instead of making random chemicals explode

writing a lab report (and losing their mind over excel)

degreasing the glass bevel stoppers

removing the permanent marker from beakers (labeling is important)

complaining about the lack of funding of [their field] research

cleaning glassware

preparing specimen for examination

googling the most basic equations for their report

checking if the glassware and utensil collections are complete

steal single use plastic pipettes from their lab

pirating expensive textbooks

A list of laboratory supplies and utensils you can have them work with

Laboratory general (chem + bio)

Erlenmayer flasks, beakers, precision scales (3 digits), glass rods, metal spoons/spatulas, screw on glass flasks (autoclave compatible) test tubes, stopcock grease, dispensers with sanitizer and hand cream, gas burners, heating plates, eppendorf pipettes, pipette tips, Peleus pipetting aids, squirting bottles, liquid and powder funnels, incubator/drying chamber, round watch glasses, magnet stirring plates.

Microbiology Autoclave, petri dishes, agar plates, innoculation loops (reusable and metal), clean bench, microscope slides, microscope, drigalski-spatula, test tubes with clamping lids

Histology

Paraffin bath, water bath, scalpels, scissors, razor blades, microtomes (rotating microtome, slide microtome and freezing microtome), histocinette, tweezers (various kinds), ocular

Biochemistry

Sequencing robots, eppendorf tubes, gelelectrophoresis chambers, centrifuge

Analytical Chemistry

Photometer, kuvettes, burettes, mass spectro meters, UV bank (for chromatogrophies), pyknometers, melting point meter, porcelain mortars, pH paper, analytical scales (4 or more digits)

Prep Chemistry

Tripod/standing material, miniature lifting platforms, spiral condenser, colon condenser, round bottom flask (three necked and y- necked), filtration material, Separating funnel

Electrical engineering

Electric generators, Soldering iron, Clamp connectors, plugin connectors, ohm’s resistors, plug in lamps, condensers, transistors, PCBs, amperemeters, voltmeters, multimeters

Mechanics

Tripod/standing material, metal hooks, metal rods, mechanical stop watches, marbles, metal springs, Newton meters, laser motion detectors

Optics

Prisma (various kinds), various glass lenses (concave, convex, biconcave, biconvex), laser pointers, optical bench, mechanical iris diaphragm, looking glasses, monochrome lamps, lamp filters

Most used chemicals

Deionized water, ethanol, NaOH, HCl, H3PO4, NaCl (+ physiological NaCl solution 0.9)

Useful websites for writing science stuff

DNA sequence generator (simple): http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~mmaduro/random.htm

DNA, RNA and protein sequence generator: https://molbiotools.com/randomsequencegenerator.php Annealing temperature calculator: https://tmcalculator.neb.com/#!/main

Medicine name generator: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/medicine-names.php Anything chemistry related: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=chemistry

Commonly used software:

MS Excel

Yenka

CASSY Lab

LabView

SpectraLab

LIMS

LaTex

Slack

Scientist friends, feel free to add onto this.

Have fun writing!

#creative writing #writing #resource #writing resources #science #biology #chemistry #physics #writing guide #writers on tumblr #writeblr #rp #rp resources

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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How Amazon transformed the EU into a planned economy

Amazon is a perfect parable of enshittification, the process by which platforms first offer subsidies to end users until they’re locked in, then make life good for business customers at users’ expense, until they’re locked in, then claw back all the value they can for themselves, leaving just enough behind to keep the lock-in going.

In a new report for SOMO, Margarida Silva describes how the end-stage enshittification of Amazon is playing out in the EU, with Amazon repeating its US playbook of gouging the small businesses who have no choice but to use the platform in order to reach its locked-in customers, making European customers and European sellers poorer:

https://www.somo.nl/amazons-european-chokehold/

The mechanism for this isn’t a mystery. Amazon boasts about it! They call it their flywheel: first, customers are lured into the platform with low prices, especially through Prime, which requires pre-payment for a year’s shipping, which virtually guarantees that customers will start their shopping on Amazon. Because customers now start their buying on Amazon, sellers have to be there. The increased range of goods for sale on Amazon lures in more buyers, who lure in more sellers, with both sides holding each other hostage:

https://vimeo.com/739486256/00a0a7379a

This flywheel creates a vicious cycle, starving local retail so that customers can’t get what they need from brick-and-mortar shops, which funnels sellers into offering their goods for sale on Amazon. The less choice customers and sellers have about where they shop, the more Amazon can abuse both to pad its own bottom line.

There are 800,000 EU-based sellers on Amazon, and they have seen the junk-fees that Amazon charges them skyrocket, to the point where they have to raise prices or lose money on each sale. Amazon uses both tacit and explicit “Most Favored Nation” deals to hide these price-hikes. Under an MFN deal, sellers must not allow their goods to be sold at a lower price than Amazon’s — so when they raise prices to cover Amazon’s increasing fees, they raise them everywhere:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/

It’s not hard to understand why Amazon would raise its fees: the company has an effective e-commerce monopoly. Like Ozymandias, they have run out of worlds to conquer, and so their growth has to come from squeezing suppliers and/or raising prices, not from bringing in new customers. This is likewise true of mobile companies like Apple and Google, who have run out of people who are so excited about incremental mobile hardware gains that they’ll buy a new phone every year, which means that growth has to come from squeezing app vendors:

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2023/06/09/Pixel-4-to-7

This is likewise true of the streaming companies, which is why Netflix is cracking down on “password sharing”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes

It’s true of the movie studios, which is why they want to zero out their wage bills by replacing writers with automatic plausible sentence generators that will write stupid movies that they think we’ll still pay to see because there won’t be anything else:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/06/people-are-not-disposable/#union-strong

It’s certainly true of Uber, which is why they’ve double the cost of a taxi ride and halved the wages they pay drivers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Monopolies “grow” by making their customers and suppliers worse off. But they have to be careful about this: if it’s obvious that you’re using your market power to screw buyers, you can get in trouble with competition regulators. That’s because the only part of antitrust law that the neoliberal project left intact is “consumer welfare” — the idea that monopolies should only face enforcement when they raise prices and/or lower quality:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/10/play-fair/#bedoya

This focus on price-hikes has given monopolists a free hand to squeeze suppliers and workers, because a monopolist — from Walmart to Amazon — can claim that squeezing your workers and suppliers is necessary to enhancing consumer welfare. The less you pay to produce a product, the cheaper you can price it.

When a company has a lot of seller power, we call it a monopolist. When it has a lot of buying power, we call it a monopsonist. No one ever made a bestselling, family-destroying board game called “Monopsony” so most people haven’t heard of the concept. But monopsony is every bit as dangerous as monopoly, and monopsonists find it far easier to acquire market power than monopolists. Few suppliers can afford to have even 10% of their sales disappear overnight, so a buyer who accounts for 10% of your sales can demand deep discounts and other favorable terms.

Amazon is a monopolist, but it’s also a very powerful and ruthless monopsonist. For example, its audiobook division, Audible, has a 90+% market-share, and it used that market-power to steal at least $100m from audiobook creators, in a scandal dubbed Audiblegate:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate

For Europe’s 800k sellers who rely on Amazon to reach their customers, the monoposony conditions are blatant and shameless. Take listing fees: Amazon’s “flywheel” pitch claims that as the company grows, it achieves “economies of scale” that can lower its cost basis. But Amazon’s listing fees haven’t changed, even as the company experienced explosive growth in the EU (remember, sellers whose Amazon fees exceed their margins have to pass those fees onto buyers, and also raise their prices everywhere else to satisfy the Most Favored Nation requirement).

Amazon books the revenues from these fees — and other junk-fees it extracts from sellers — in Luxembourg, an EU member nation that provides a tax haven to multinational businesses that want to maintain the fiction that they operate their businesses out of the tiny kingdom. There is sharp competition in the EU to offer the most servile, corrupt environment for multinationals, and Luxembourg is a leader, along with Cyprus, Malta and, of course, Ireland:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

But at least listing fees haven’t gone up, unlike other fees, which have climbed sharply. Amazon falsely claimed that its additional revenues from fees were the result of growth by independent sellers, which Amazon pegged at 65%. Later, the company admitted that the true growth figure was 22%. Meanwhile, fees are up 85%.

The true growth figure might be lower still. Amazon refuses to show the math behind its growth figures, or even say which sellers and sales are included in the figure.

The SOMO report cites research by Juozas Kaziukėnas of the e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse, who finds that sellers are now giving 50% of their gross revenues to Amazon, an increase of 10% over the past five years across the whole EU. However, different EU (and ex-EU) countries have experienced much steeper increases in fees — in the UK, fees have nearly doubled (up 98%), and in France, fees more than doubled (up 115%).

Many of these increases come from the Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA) program, which is promoted as an optional service, but which is really obligatory — careful research shows that sellers who warehouse, pack and ship their own goods get banished to the depths of search results, even if they have ratings, costs and times that are competitive with FBA. This is especially true of the “buy box” that lands at the top of most searches. The company refuses to disclose how buy box positioning is determined, but 90% of products in the buy box pay for FBA.

Amazon has used excuseflation to hike its FBA prices, blaming higher energy prices for price hikes that predated the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and blaming covid for price hikes that predated the pandemic.

Italy’s competition authority did yeoman service in uncovering the sleaze of FBA, publishing an investigation that showed that Prime and buy box made the notionally “optional” FBA into a must-have for merchants, meaning that Amazon could jack up FBA prices without losing business.

Another notable source of gouging came in response to the UK and France adopting digital services taxes, which were meant to make up for the tax-base erosion enabled by Luxembourg’s flouting of EU tax law. Amazon passed these taxes straight through to its merchants, without seeing a comparable decrease in the number of sellers using its platforms — an unmistakable sign of market power. If you can raise prices without losing customers, then, by definition, your customers have nowhere else to go.

I’ve previously written about how Amazon’s $31b/year “advertising” market isn’t really advertising — rather, it’s a payola scheme that auctions off the top of a search-listing to the merchant with the most to spend:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is how you get a simple search like “cat beds” returning results whose first screen is 100% ads, and whose next five screens are 50% ads, many of them for dog products:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/amazon-shopping-ads/

Auctioning off search results means that every time you search for something you want, you have to wade through screen after screen of listings for products whose vendors spent more on advertising, leaving less to spend on making quality goods.

This is as true in the EU as it is in the USA. The SOMO report shows that European merchants are required to spend ever-larger sums to show up in results for the exact products they sell, leaving them with a choice between making less money, raising prices, or skimping on quality.

But even the “winners” of Amazon’s gladiatorial combat among vendors can still lose. Amazon uses an automated product removal process that can delete some or all of a merchant’s products, without warning or explanation, and no one at Amazon will explain what a merchant did wrong. That remains true even if a vendor pays for Amazon’s “marketplace consultant” service — ask these paid Virgils why you’ve been cast into Amazon’s pit, and they’ll shrug their shoulders (and bill you for it).

And even if you can navigate the junk fees, the Kafka-as-a-service removals, the war of all sellers against all sellers for search primacy…you still lose. Merchants told SOMO that a product that survives Amazon’s gauntlet is likely to be cloned by Amazon and sold as an Amazon Basic or other house-brand product. Amazon doesn’t charge itself 50% junk fees, so it can always underprice the vendors it knocks off, and give its own products permanent top-of-search placement.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once testified under oath before Congress that this doesn’t happen — and then refused to return to Congress when multiple vendors showed evidence that he’d lied:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/18/amazon-congress-letter-third-party-data/

He definitely lied:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-rigging/

Amazon has faced investigations and enforcement in the EU over this, and settled a claim with a promise to “not use non-public seller data to compete with sellers,” but given the company’s record of broken promises on this score and the difficulty of catching them cheating, it’s pretty naive to think they’ll stick to this.

The report quotes Thomas Höppner, a lawyer who has represented small businesses that Amazon screwed over. Höppner says the problem is that the EU evaluates Amazon’s bad deeds on a “case-by-case” basis, missing the big picture: “By the time one identified problem was seemingly solved, Amazon had long made amendments elsewhere with the same effect. We require a more holistic approach that considers the entire Amazon ecosystem and the various interdependencies within.”

But the EU’s enforcement approach is about to change significantly. The EU just passed the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which imposes a bunch of obligations on Amazon:

allowing sellers to offer their products on other marketplaces at different prices (Article 5.3),

not obliging business users to pay for one of its services in order to use its platform (Article 5.8),

limiting the way Amazon uses non-public seller data to compete with them (Article 6.2)

preventing Amazon from giving top billing in search results to its own products or sellers that have acquired extra Amazon services (Article 6.5)

The report concludes with a suite of recommendations for improving EU enforcement. First, they argue for a return to traditional competition law, abandoning the “consumer welfare standard” that is so friendly to monopsonies and their abuses of suppliers and workers.

They call for a probe into Amazon’s Most Favored Nation deals (“fair pricing policy”), the practice of sponsoring search results, and spiraling fees. They want the EU to adequately fund DMA enforcement, with “measures to prevent regulatory capture.” And they want Amazon to publish clear explanations for how search results, buy box placement, and other practices hidden behind a veil of secrecy.

Amazon will doubtless claim that disclosing how those systems work will make it easier for spammers and scammers to game their way to the top of search results. We should be skeptical of this claim — content moderation is the last domain where anyone takes the bankrupt idea of security through obscurity seriously:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

Finally, the report calls for breaking up Amazon, forcing it to choose between being a platform seller or a platform user, calling this the only way to “prevent the conflicts of interest between its role as a platform intermediary, seller, and service provider.”

The technical term for this measure is “structural separation” — a rule that bans platform companies from competing with their business customers. This is the principle at work in the US bipartisan AMERICA Act, which would force Google and Meta to spin off the parts of their ad-tech business that put them in a conflict of interest. Right now, Googbook represents both publishers and advertisers, while operating the marketplace where ad sales take place, and they take 51% out of every ad dollar:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Structural separation hasn’t really been applied in the US for a generation, but it’s gained currency in recent years, for the obvious reason that the referee can’t also own one of the teams. I was in Germany last week speaking to regulators and politicians, and they espoused skepticism that the EU would embrace structural separation anytime soon.

But they were wrong! Today, the European Commission announced plans to force Google and Meta to sell off their conflict-of-interest ad-tech lines of business, mirroring the provisions of the US AMERICA Act:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/google-may-soon-be-ordered-to-break-up-its-lucrative-ad-business-eu-warns/

Structural separation really is the policy we should be demanding. It’s amazing that lawyers who would never argue a case in front of a judge who was married to the plaintiff will turn around and defend the idea that Amazon can fairly operate a marketplace where they compete with other sellers.

With Amazon dominating online sales, and with in-person retail cratering, Amazon’s decisions have the power to determine the outcome of whole swathes of Europe’s economy. This is the “planned economy” that the EU claims it detests and seeks to prevent — but it’s an economy planned by distant autocrats in a Seattle boardroom, for the purpose of extracting the surpluses needed to launch an endless procession of penis-rockets.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this postto read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

[Image ID: A desert ruin. In the foreground is a huge Amazon box, with an EU flag in place of its shipping label. Atop the box are the feet and partial legs of an Oxymandias figure.]

Image: Rama (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gladiator_with_sword-Louis_Ernest_Meissonnier-MG_1216-IMG_1223-white.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/fr/deed.en

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kaywavy · 4 months

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transforming soffits reorganizing keys formalizing immersion joints justifying kick extractors advising aggregates managing elbows recasting connectors achieving aluminum trowels officiating disks exhibiting absolute spigots progressing coil hydrants jerry-building reflectors informing casters inventing rubber hoists performing wrenches judging chalk adapters upgrading ignition paths

regrowing flashing recommending ratchets approving barriers sweeping impact fillers sewing mirrors detailing collectors enforcing measures distributing systems presenting plugs interwinding registers piloting ash diffusers gathering cranks supplying eave pockets undertaking scroll stops accelerating straps designing fittings protecting diamond boilers logging downspouts correlating shingles uniting mallets qualifying electrostatic lifts sharing clamps obtaining circular fluids ranking foundation gauges sensing miter brackets originating space networks translating drills regulating guards selecting gable padding utilizing pellet dowels reconciling artifacts altering pulleys shedding space filters determining vents representing mortar remaking flash rakers supporting funnels typecasting rotary chocks expressing junctures resetting auxiliary vises professing strip treads inlaying matter trowels questioning drivers forming edge fittings sketching blanks overshooting spark breakers rewriting controls playing tunnels inventorying buttons enduring joint handles effecting ratchet bibbs unwinding couplings forsaking vapor conduits defining sockets calculating heaters raising grids administering tiles measuring resources installing ignition remotes extracting corners manufacturing ventilators delegating consoles treating mounting stones enacting jig deflectors intensifying alleys improvising cargo pinpointing bobs prescribing arc masonry structuring metal chucks symbolizing lathes activating plumb kits adapting coatings fixing channels expediting cordage planning compressors enlisting hangers restructuring keyhole augers shearing ridge hardware collecting reciprocating bolts maintaining corrugated dimmers whetting hole collars conducting mandrels comparing assets compiling sealants completing paths composing equivocation wheels computing dampers conceiving electrostatic treatment ordering cotter grates organizing ties orienting ladders exceeding materials targeting thermocouples demonstrating emery stock expanding latch bases training wardrobe adhesives overcomming[sic] fasteners streamlining storm anchors navigating springs perfecting turnbuckles verifying gate pegs arbitrating arithmetic lifts negotiating outlets normalizing strips building surface foggers checking key torches knitting grinders mowing planers offsetting stencils acquiring bulbs adopting rivets observing avenues ascertaining coaxial grommets slinging wing winches instituting circuit generators instructing wicks integrating pry shutters interpreting immersion lumber clarifying coils classifying wood bits closing cogs cataloging matter strips charting holders conceptualizing push terminals stimulating supports overthrowing shaft spacers quick-freezing connectors unbinding ground hooks analyzing eyes anticipating gateways controlling proposition rollers converting power angles coordinating staples correcting benders counseling joist gaskets recording gutter pipes recruiting drains rehabilitating rafter tubes reinforcing washers reporting guard valves naming freize sprues nominating rings noting straps doubling nailers drafting circuit hoses dramatizing flanges splitting framing compounds refitting stems interweaving patch unions placing sillcocks sorting slot threads securing mode cutters diverting catharsis plates procuring load thresholds transferring syllogism twine directing switch nuts referring time spools diagnosing knobs discovering locks dispensing hinges displaying hasps resending arc binders retreading grooves retrofitting aesthetics portals seeking stocks shrinking wormholes assembling blocks assessing divers attaining lug boxes auditing nescience passages conserving strikes constructing braces contracting saw catches serving installation irons recognizing fluxes consolidating fuse calipers mapping shims reviewing chop groovers scheduling lag drives simplifying hoists engineering levels enhancing tack hollows establishing finishing blocks

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spiderh0rse · 2 months

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freeman's mind notes part 9, e41-45

e41

all lasers all the time

sees a warning sign and promptly tries to obstruct the laser

wants to reflect this very dangerous laser through a disco ball

he'd love to let the laser gradually burn a hole out of the building

gravity hates him so bad

he'd want a big room with a trampoline

insulted by some guy and promptly abandons him

MIND. PLEASE STOP BEING ABLEIST

thinks the sirens would be a good alarm clock sound

actually shows concern for a guy who's been shot

SO relieved to be outside

it looks like an anemometer but it is Not

HATES being beeped at by the turrets

thinks there may be a meteorology department

the science team makes their own explosives

has read The Art Of War

considers being exploded not a terrible way to go

"whoo hoo hoo!"

ALMOST feels like he doesn't need more stimulants today

he doesn't think his suit can stop mortar shells

e42

mentions a rocket launcher....

damned dam

ICTHYOSAUR ALERT

[gibbering]

"BOMBS BAD BAD BOMBS BAD BOMBS BAD"

just plain ol rambling in fear out here

just in love with saying "damn" and "damned" every chance he gets here. He is on a dam

still struggling to stay afloat

"underwater 'ah-hah!'" GSIIENDKD

flooding the canyon would make him feel better

air is for losers

"wahhhhh gahhhhhh"

checks a corpse for money or snacks. will Not give the man fare for Charon

growls :grins:

slur count six. It's not the r slur but hey. Variety.

needs a surface to air missile

curse of formatting :/

e43

jiving with the idea that some unnamed force wants him dead

he thinks that he was MEANT to die in the test chamber but since he didn't (due to being "hardcore") reality is slowly unravelling. I just played a Friendsim route where this was a plot point.

he concludes that this makes him the most important person in the universe

gordon freeman has become Based (thinks there is too much money funneled into the military)

says an incorrect plural of "cactus" and corrects himself

this is subtitled as [screaming] but it's more of a "mnnnyeaheaheah" noise

he does NOT look like a helicopter

he likes math. No tolerance for bullshit. Math works or it doesn't. Clear defined rules that stay clear and defined. Some of these comments are mine and not his. I like math.

he doesn't smoke!

does clarify he doesn't smoke tobacco. peyote, yes. Mulls over other methods of taking it being better though

straining noises

YAAAAH AAAAAH WAAAAH

doesn't seem to recognize the tentacle. He definitely has brain damage between the head trauma and repeated electrocutions.

the desert tricked him. The desert.... THE DESERT....

yells all silly at some headcrabs

implies he yelled all silly at some scientists to claim his lab space for work. Didn't need a shotgun for that

the first situation in two days in which a grappling hook would Not solve all his problems

sand in his suit :(

e44

new intro. First surface portion of the game.

he feels like he's escaping from prison

seems pro-union

notices that going outside just makes stuff worse for him every time

wonders, perhaps sarcastically, f the planes are gassing him

turret beeping is a DEATH SENTENCE for it

echo! :D

he's got the best comeback of all. A spas-12.

he doesn't mind people talkin trash about him if they get shot after

doesn't much like heights

would love to slide down that big ol pipe

no breakdancing on the cliff

"dahdahdahdahdah..." Followed by a growl

[whimpering]

he can't read his mind

he hates the tin foil hat people. Not because of the conspiracy (owls) but because of their means of defence

bad bridge... Wants a grappling hook so bad but admits it may not work here

[breathing heavily]

the CLIFF is following him- no. Nevermind.

didn't realize Black Mesa was built into the mesa proper

no longer trusts catwalks

afraid of spiders

he could SLIP on these SHELLS

"is that..? Oh my god, it's a rocket launcher." You can HEAR the awe in his voice

he just sounds as calm as he ever sounds all series

interloper!

so happy to have used a rocket launcher :)

"whhuuuh"

a universe that entirely wants him dead wouldn't give him a rocket launcher so some part of the universe wants him alive

knows a fair deal of greek mythology

screams at a near miss with a cliff edge

he just wants a helmet :(

put the water park on the cliff edge

e45

we know this one.

he can't see where he is on the gps trackers

his water park! It's here! No wish needed!

HATES the military theme to the park

modern major general :D

this was where I would put Gordon's Hal. IF HE HAD ONE (don't worry about that if you don't know Hal, for my tumblr fellows)

complains about mmg being dated but that is actually the point of the original song. The idea was to just talk to fast no one would question that it was all common knowledge

that said it's impressive that he's memorized it and can sing it while he's running and shooting people

the new lyrics too are solid. Some syllables are. Questionable for the tune, but overall quite fine

"Ah."

I think some fans got mad at him for calling the tank an Abrams when it wasn't. Whatever!

buttons!

"nyyeehhhhh,,"

valley girl mind

he wants this tank so much

astounded that bullets managed to EXPLODE a tank

his knees are wobbly again. Methinks he's recovering from the adrenaline of the past five, very hectic minutes

if he were a general facing someone like Freeman and soldiers didn't work he'd just use nerve gas on the guy

#freeman's mind #gordon freemind #mindverse #rmanotes

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hello-vampire-kitty · 2 years

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Servamp Chapter 118 Translation “Eat or be eaten”

READ ON MANGADEX

Translation notes

The first line "Enjoy your favorite dessert", the latter word is the intended reading, in furigana while the kanji reads "freedom". Since the page didn't have panels where I would usually write a TL note on borders, I had to only write the intended reading and mention the kanji reading at the end of the chapter on Mangadex

Oh man, I had troubles with one lines spoken by Licht on the 4th page...His final line in the top panel, it sounded to me like he was making a general statement rather than making it about Hyde. I thought that it's possible he could have been referring to Nicco, giving him as an example to Hyde, saying something like "Look there's someone who is fighting because they knew what that they were getting themselves into". It's due to the grammar pattern that I think it was a general statement because it didn't sound like Hyde was the subject of his sentence. In any case, I wanted to make it vague because it was hard to determine whom Licht was referring to.

I have to give my thanks to @pocket-luv101 for telling me what it says on page 10 because omg, when I first saw this when I was reading the chapter on stream, I was like "OMG, just...what?" I could barely make out what it said.

So apparently, it's a fragment from the Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto III)

"Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create se non etterne, e io etterno duro. Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"

I looked into the translation of this fragment, however, I asked a friend of mine who's Italian if she could give me her interpretation because I couldn't quite understand one of the lines and I understood it better when she told me her translation:

"Only eternal things were created before I was, and for eternity I will exist."

(The translation made by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Before me there were no created things, Only eterne, and I eternal last. All hope abandon, ye who enter in!")

So yeah, Tanaka-sensei went Divine Comedy on us xD On the 11th page we have another reference to it. Regarding what Nicco says about "Hell being shaped like a mortar", when I searched in Japanese, I found images of The Map of Hell by Botticelli and it's a reference how Hell is depicted kinda like funnel. In Japanese it's described as すり鉢 which means mortar.

Also, I hope it doesn't look too bad, but I had to enlarge the speech bubble to make the word "Colosseum" fit...There wasn't enough space and I didn't want to make the text small and narrow, it wouldn't have looked nice.

On page 15, I hope I managed to convey the attitude of the "King" because I made his sentence into a question due to the fact that I had to keep the word "way" （態度) (manner, attitude), because the word I used was the only one option that would have fitted in the King's first speech bubble which is small, and he repeated the same word in his next line where I tried to put emphasis on it.

#servamp #chapter 118 #my translation

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serfuzzypushover · 10 months

Note

With Feferi’s help Aradia slides open the sarcophagus lid, revealing John’s ancient skeleton, dressed in the traditional blue vestments of the Heir of Breath. Aradia took her place before an enormous stone mortar, decorated with carved skulls, and removed the heavy wooden pestle from it. Feferi meanwhile began her duty of removing his bones and depositing them with the massive mortar. As the last of John's bones had been gathered up, Aradia looked to Feferi, who cleared her throat and began to read from a small black book. "Ashes to ashes…" The normally bubbly fuchsia heiress intoned solemnly as Aradia lifted the gigantic pestle in preparation to begin grinding. She brought the pestle down harshly into the massive stone mortar, smashing fingers and ribs into powder. "Dust… To dust." Feferi continued as she saw John's skull crushed to fragments. Using both hands, Aradia harshly worked the pestle against the bones, leaving nothing but dust. After many minutes of grinding, John's skeleton was soon reduced to mere ashes. Feferi then placed a funnel within a grand, tall hourglass and set it before Aradia, who, effortlessly lifting the more than 150 pound mortar, emptied John’s remains into it. Feferi then corked the hourglass back up and once more read from the black book, her voice still grim. “Our time in this world is brief.”, she said as Aradia swiftly raised the hourglass above her head and watched the sand trickle downwards. “But our souls... Live on in Heaven.” She looked up from her book. "Or in the pit of Hell." She finished as Aradia sat it down harshly upon John’s sarcophagus lid.

sure thing buddy! here now look at this lil guy i found at the beach today 🦀

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bretongirlwrites · 2 years

Text

‘The supposition is perfectly reasonable,’ said I: ‘there is no reason it should not work; save that, –’

‘Save that the Nirnroot,’ said Tara, ‘has evaded knowledge for a thousand years. That it glows whilst alive, means nothing, –’

‘That is the sort of attitude,’ said I, – quite undeterred, put the leaf in my mortar, – ‘that has ignored things for a thousand years.’

I detached the roots from it; shook it a bit; crushed it a bit; and wondered at last if there was anything which might be done to stop the damnable ringing, which Sinderion after all had warned me about. – ‘I shan’t be deterred by that,’ I had told him. – ‘Could you speak up?’ he had replied: ‘I cannot hear you over the tinnitus.’ – Leastways it would not stop: and to my left, a poor scholar gave up on his own work, and departed. I mashed the thing a little more; and invited Tara to prepare the milk-thistle.

‘There are much easier ways,’ said Tara, whose skirt-hems were still damp with lake-water, ‘to make a potion of light.’

‘Oh!’ said I: ‘I do not believe the Arcane University has ever done something easily, which might be done more interestingly.’

‘No,’ said Tara, – mashed the thistle with good-humoured resignation: ‘no, we haven’t.’

The materials prepared, I got a flask of water on the boil; set up our calcinator; and began to hum, a vain reattempt to drown out the ringing. – Absently nibbled a bit of milk thistle: was most startled when the whole room lit up. – All was in place: we had only to boil the thing, and then test it.

‘Anyway,’ said Tara at length: ‘if you and Sinderion keep pulling up nirnroots, we shall have none left by the end of the era.’

‘That is a long way off,’ said I, ‘we are hardly four hundred years into it. Oh! there’ll be droves of them somewhere we can’t get to them. – Is that nirnroot charred enough yet? It is still ringing.’

‘Only very faintly,’ said she: ‘it must be your ears;’ but she passed it over regardless; along with the thistle-pulp. I became most delighted by it even before we had finished: for the ingredients were perfectly prepared; and Sinderion and I being pioneers in nirnroot experimentation, we must take the utmost care over it.

‘Well!’ said I: ‘you do the honour of the thistle; and then I shall, –’

The milk-thistle is so-named, because its pulp is white: and when put into a potion, it so resembles milk, that one is fooled until one tastes it, and gets all the sentiment of having consumed a liquified hedgerow. The water became cloudy, but had no bits in it: we had done well so far.

‘The honour of the nirnroot,’ said Tara, ‘is all yours:’ and quite to my consternation, she took two steps back.

‘You will want to watch this,’ said I: ‘whatever happens, it will be novel.’

‘That is one way,’ said Tara, ‘of describing all of your experiments.’

I dismissed the barb; drew myself up; and already imagining the quill in my hand, to write up my tribulations and victories, I collected up the nirnroot from the calcinator, and poured it into our funnel. At once the water became not dirtied, but a wonderful glowing sort of dark green, – began to fizz, – I took out the funnel, and waited in triumphant anticipation.

The mixture settled for a moment; but quite as if to spite me, when I had just leaned over, redoubled its fizzing, and without warning shot up from the flask, and in a bright pillar almost to the ceiling. Tara, who would later suggest the addition of buckets to the Lustratorium, rushed forwards by instinct, and caught enough of it on her robes, that she could see them a little in the dark for ever afterwards. There had not been very much water in the flask; yet infinities of it poured out, and faintly ringing all the while; and when it had done, I was left to look in dismay over a table quite drenched, and an afternoon of ingredients spent in disaster.

‘If you say: I told you so, –’ said I at last, –

‘Well,’ said Tara, ‘I did say that I did not believe it would work. If you had meant to create a potion of levitation, perhaps, – but light, –’

‘Did you see that!’ I cried: ‘we illuminated the whole room!’

‘And so might we have done,’ said Tara wringing out her robes, ‘with a potted nirnroot on the corner of the desk.’

I opened my mouth to disagree; but could say only something about utilitarianism and novelty; and becoming glad that if there was one thing that might be done easily and without exciting novelty, it was cleaning, – went laughing for the towels.

------

thanks to @druidx for the prompt ‘a magical experiment gone awry’ for julianne!

#oblivion #oc:julianne #breton girl writes #idk how much 'alchemical experiment' counts as 'magical experiment'...#just wanted to write lore-friendly coke and mentos hehe #lore-friendly but not chemistry-friendly probably. have not done chemistry in almost 10 years

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missbehavior0u0 · 7 months

Note

With Feferi’s help, Aradia slides open the sarcophagus lid, revealing John’s ancient skeleton, dressed in the traditional blue vestments of the Heir of Breath. Aradia took her place before an enormous mortar, decorated with carved skulls, and removed the heavy pestle from it. Feferi meanwhile began her duty of removing his bones and depositing them with the massive mortar, his skull being the first to enter. As the last of John's bones had been gathered up, Aradia looked to Feferi, who cleared her throat and began to read from a small black book. "Ashes to ashes…" The normally bubbly fuchsia heiress intoned solemnly as Aradia lifted the gigantic pestle in preparation to begin grinding. She brought the pestle down harshly into the mortar, smashing fingers and ribs into powder. "Dust… To dust." Feferi continued as she saw John's skull crushed into a fine sand. Using both hands, Aradia harshly worked the pestle against the bones, leaving nothing but dust. After many minutes of grinding, John's skeleton was soon reduced to mere ashes. Feferi then placed a funnel within a grand, tall hourglass and set it before Aradia, who, effortlessly lifting the more than 150 pound basalt mortar, emptied John’s remains into it. Feferi then corked the hourglass back up and once more read from the black book, her voice still grim. “Our time in this world is brief.”, she said as Aradia swiftly raised the hourglass above her head and watched the sand trickle downwards. “With each fallen grain…” She looked up from her book. "We grow closer to the final slumber." She finished as Aradia sat it down harshly upon John’s sarcophagus lid.

Oh hey, It’s you again! I thought you were dead! OuO

#schmoodles

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themori-grimoire · 2 years

Text

Mori’s Black Salt

This is my personal go-to recipe for Black Salt. It makes a small/medium sized batch, which is fine for personal use. I find it to be very effective and use it sparingly whenever I do need it, because a pinch is often enough.

INGREDIENTS:

Sea Salt (150g)

Lemon juice.

Activated Charcoal.*

A sigil on a piece of paper (I would recommend a general protection sigil, or one that repels negative energy).

Black pepper.

Myrrh incense ashes (if you make your own incense intended to cleanse, protect, purify or banish, use that).

TOOLS:

Pestle and mortar.

Funnel.

Jar.

Pipette (optional but useful).

METHOD:

Preparation: Safely burn your sigil and keep the ashes aside. Wait for them to cool.

Put your salt into a pestle and mortar first, followed by the other dry ingredients.

Use the mortar to grind it down into a finer version of the original mixture (which will have been quite chunky thanks to the sea salt).

Add two or 3 drops of lemon juice, and mix your salt well. It will make the salt a little bit clumpy at first, but after enough mixing it will be fine.

Let the salt sit for a little while before transferring it into a jar.

Use a funnel to pour the salt into a jar that has an airtight lid. You need it to be airtight to preserve your salts and stop moisture from getting in.

Store them in a dark, cool, dry place.

*Please take care when handling activated charcoal. It can be very messy and clings to everything. It can also stain.

If you like my content and would like to help me keep providing free stuff for my gorgeous Ghoul Gang, you can tip your witch here: Paypal.

#witchcraft 101 #black salt #protection magic #the mori witch

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swamp-land · 2 years

Note

With Feferi’s help Aradia slides open the sarcophagus lid, revealing John’s ancient skeleton, dressed in the traditional blue vestments of the Heir of Breath. Aradia took her place before an enormous stone mortar, decorated with carved skulls, and removed the heavy pestle from it. Feferi meanwhile began her duty of removing his bones and depositing them with the massive mortar. As the last of John's bones had been gathered up, Aradia looked to Feferi, who cleared her throat and opened a small black book. "Ashes to ashes…" The normally bubbly fuchsia heiress intoned solemnly as Aradia lifted the gigantic pestle in preparation to begin grinding. She brought the pestle down harshly into the massive stone mortar, smashing fingers and ribs into powder. "Dust… To dust." Feferi continued as she saw John's skull crushed into a fine meal. Using both hands Aradia harshly worked the stone pestle against the bones, leaving nothing but dust. After many minutes of grinding, John's skeleton was soon reduced to mere ashes. Feferi then placed a funnel within a grand, tall hourglass and set it before Aradia, who, effortlessly lifting the more than 150 pound basalt mortar, emptied John’s remains into it. As Feferi corked the hourglass back up, Aradia lifted it and watched the sand trickle downwards. Feferi once more read from the black book, her voice still grim. “Our time in this world is brief”, she said as Aradia sat it down upon John’s sarcophagus lid. “With every fallen grain, we grow closer to the final slumber.”

Is this some fanfic or something? Sorry I don't get it

#askswamp

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antonia-gergely · 8 months

Text

Current Artist Research - Janine Antoni (b. 1964, Bahamas)

Border Crossings article

'From the beginning, Antoni has used her body as the object through which she has measured her place in the world. She has said that her body “is a funnel through which the world is poured,” and for the last 20 years she has discovered subtle ways to affect that pouring.'

Conduit, 2009.

'There were the more specific questions, such as with Conduit, which includes an apparatus that allows a woman to pee standing up, I asked myself if I’m going to pee through an object, what material should it be made of? I was thinking about Duchamp’s Fountain, of course, and so I first made it in porcelain. Then I came to copper. It would patina when in contact with my urine and it calls to mind the decorative cornices on buildings.'

Conduit, 2009

Her work fills me with some feeling of rebellious vindication. Every piece of hers I've seen has struck me as a visceral display of Antoni's mind and process. She seems to get an idea, then develop it theoretically, retrospectively, while letting it develop physically, presently. The issue she had with Lard Gnaw collapsing before the opening of her exhibition led her to consider the difficulty to control fat in the human body, Conduit formed a patina when it came into contact with her urine, and that made her 'consider Gothic architecture as the background for' her action.

[source: https://bordercrossingsmag.com/article/the-beautiful-trap-janine-antonis-body-art]

note to self: Antoni allows herself to move seamlessly between photography, sculpture, performance - it's easiest way to conduct the development of ideas. get the idea out as opposed to planning to do so

Gnaw, 1992.

Antoni cast 600 pounds of chocolate into a cube and sculpted it using her mouth. In the same mould she packed 600 pounds of lard. She also sculpted it with her mouth. Two weeks before the exhibition, the lard collapsed onto the ground. The one part of the piece she couldn't control was lard - conceptually in keeping with her interest, according to her.

The chocolate she spit out was cast into heart shaped packaging for candies. The lard was moulded into lipsticks.

Wonderful speaker to listen to, I think:

2013 Distinguished Artists' Interview with Janine Antoni, CAA. Video, Youtube. 46'03.

Speaks to Klaus Ottmann.

'I started the piece with some very traditional ideas. I was interested in doing the most traditional thing I could do as a sculptor, and that was to carve...

...Rather than to describe the body ... I'd talk about the body by the residue it left on the object.'

'I thought if I could seduce you ... I would equally disgust you.'

There's a lot of reference in the piece, the minimalist cube, the handmade readymade.

She acknowledges the RISD professor, Mira Schor - a New York-based artist and writer noted for her advocacy of painting in a post-medium visual culture and for her contributions to feminist art history. [source: https://www.miraschor.com]

On Loving Care, 1993

She is vulnerable in her position, but claims her space with her movement and action, and any viewer feels the need to step back.

'I was thinking about [Yves] Klein, and those paintings of him putting blue paint on the women's bodies and rolling the on the canvas.'

She relates the piece to her childhood, her mother sending her out to play, almost claiming the kitchen as her own, having mopped the floor.

'The piece really worked with everyone in the room. It was a very intimate experience, but it was also one where you felt you were really part of it.' - Klaus Ottmann

'Two forms sculpting each other simultaneously' - sentiment she got from Greek architecture built without mortar.

See also - all available and described on janineantoni.net

To Twine, 2015

Saddle, 2000

I Conjure Up, 2019

#art research #sculpture #photography #Janine Antoni #artist #feminism #anatomy #conceptual art #performance art

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