#12 hour shifts shouldn't exist

[cursezoroark]

like ok i think about green so much. i think about green and red and just. god. canonically for some fucking reason he's 13-14 as viridian's gym leader???????????????????? which. does not match his appearance tbh but its pokemon what the hell do i know. imo he looks like 16. but eh.

like ok my personal timeline is. following canon to an extent also disclaimer this is primarily green pov, sliding pokemas to the side im not putting it here. also btw Leaf does exist here but im gonna focus on green and his pov of Red particularly:

______________________________________________________________

5 years - 10 years: tiny babies :'] they get along great at first. pokemon nerds. Green becomes a bit more astute. u know the usual fandom hc of pokemon oak's not the Greatest Parenting. Like He's Trying but Green being a kid notices and a bunch of misunderstandings and mistakes pile yk? kids notice. and kids also assume. and Green assumed. Green starts to antagonize Red more, shifting him from a friend to a rival. the rivalry is starting to bleed out the friendship. Red notices, but not aware of the familial situation, is just hurt.

10 years old - 11 years: whatever the fuck happened in frlg. insane preteen angst between the two. i like to think they got in a fistfight. poor kids.

11 years - 12 years: red disappears around this time. 12 year old kid learns how to be a caveman. Green goes to school. Kind of mumbles through the process of becoming champion, and losing it in less than an hour. he's like halfway through a process of whatever happened when he gets the opportunity and he pounces. school is paused.

13 years old - 14 years old: Apparently a girl named Leaf took over the old champion position. From pallet town too. Not that he rlly cares. Green only hears rumors about Red being at the top of the mountain, repressed whatever had happened and the whole situation of their relationship, doesn't rlly want to confirm for himself rlly. cause. well. don't ask. shut the fuck up.

15- 17 years old: what the fuck do you mean the rumors are true. Green gets egged on to finally check after confirmation of Ethan/Lyra. By Red's mom, Daisy, Professor Oak, the whole fucking town jesus christ- and. really he shouldn't be here. doesn't really deserve to be here. but he finally sees red. its an awkward as hell 2 years, warming up a cold 5 year old friendship. they don't talk about it.

18 years old: it almost felt like nothing ever happened. for a while. he had visited monthly, bringing supplies, warm wishes. the usual topic had been about the gym, the family, pokemon battles, people in pallet town, safe topics. The only one he's willing to breach is how to get Red off the damn mountain, but as you can clearly read, hasn't been successful. red's grown taller than him. annoying as hell, but his eyes still sparkle when he talks about new pokemon. Green restarts his education, and lucky for him his brain is still sharp enough to catch up. He applies for a university in Kalos.

19 years old: he got in, awesome. he breaks the news to Red. he leaves in five months. Red....doesn't seem happy, but he congratulates Green anyways. on a whim to try to cheer him up, Green makes an shitty joke attempt: come down for a dinner celebration in Pallet Town in a week. Just Red's mom, Red, Daisy, Green, and Professor Oak. No one else, and afterwards we can send you right back to your happy cave home mountain, yeah? Red doesn't respond. The next day however, he agrees. Green doesn't know how the fuck that worked.

The dinner: Green breaks the news to his family and Red's mom, and helps a frantic Daisy prepare the food, where he confesses his doubts over Red's reaction. Daisy suggests that Red may have been used to his company, seeing as he was the only human willing to trek Mount Silver monthly just to see him. Green decides to phone Ethan/Lyra to ask them a favor.

The favor: ok so you've been looking for a challenge right. right ok. i thought you would rebattle Red or something. where the hell are you nowadays. why? oh idk just wondering, cause he just got a new team member and I thought you-no? aw man ok cause I can't go to the mountain for a Long While. He needs a training partner. Ok! thanks, smell ya later.

The Dinner Cont.: Red appears with his mom, and. Green notices the redness around her eyes. Red's hand was carefully clasped around hers. Red's eyes flitted almost anywhere but their faces, but he nods a greeting to Gramps and Daisy on the way in, before sitting at the table. the roast duck was ready. Professor Oak lobs his questions at Red, almost automatically. How was he, his pokemon?? How was Mt. Silver's eco-climate, did you know how the league operated- yadda yada yada yada yada Green began to buzz out in the middle of chewing some potatoes. It wasn't until Oak grasped his shoulders, commenting about Green's recent success could Green finally grasp whatever expression was on Red's face.

outside, the dishes were being washed, and the two friends elected to take a walk.

hesitation wrangles his hands, before signing. "I thought you and Professor Oak weren't getting along?"

a waved hand. "he's better. Helped me with the whole application process, so I had no choice but to kind of had The Talk.

"and?"

"It went shit. we got into another fight, but I think I got something through."

"...."

"He still asks about you though. That didn't change. And, don't worry, I stopped him from trekking over there himself. I think he's getting like, old old. He only holes up in his lab now."

"I thought he still trekked into viridian forest to collect metapod shells."

"He only did that to make sure we didn't somehow end up there. we were seven- you know how we were."

"we could've ended up there."

"HA- no- yeah. yeah actually. I think I would have somehow been dragged by you. You used to chase rattatas for crying out loud. It's a shock how you weren't infected by a disease."

"You told me they were strong."

"what did you think 'strong' meant to a 7 year old?"

"......I thought they meant they were the best."

"....yeah well, me too."

"I'm sorry, Green."

"I should be the one saying that, you asshole."

"...."

"I think I should have said that from the beginning. I'm sorry, Red. I'm so sorry."

The walk ended with a silent beat.

After the Dinner: weird clean up, Green feels like the ice had finally, chipped around Red. He hasn't seen Red's mom kiss her son's forehead for a long time. He hadn't seen Red in his childhood room where they used to play pretend for a long time. He hadn't seen Red smile like that..... in a long time. He takes him back to Mt. Silver.

There are 5 visits left until Kalos.

5 visits left: Red makes a face and comments about Lyra/Ethan's sudden visits again. It's kind of funny, seeing a mildly aghast look on his face as he signs about their new look, team, personality even. His eyes shine as he talks about pokemon he has never seen before, what do you mean there's a different form of slowbro????? He almost looks younger, hands now more lively as he talks strategy with Green.

3 visits left: It's Red's 20th birthday. Green and Lyra/Ethan make a trip this time together. Somehow, through Reds mom magic, the cake stays preserved throughout the entire trip. They munch through strawberry cream cake in silence, occasionally breaking into conversation about the travels, preparations, and global news. Red's eyes stay shiny under the candles until blown out. Green gets him a pokemon egg. What it is, he won't tell Red. Lyra/Ethan gets him a new pokegear. the first number he adds is Green.

2 visits left: Red keeps staring at Green. it's pissing him off. He stares as he cooks, as he rants, when he's tending to his pokemon. Green decides to play cool, talking more and more about the process of moving. He has to license his pokemon, contact his mentors, pack all of his stuff. Kalos apparently has good fashion too, did you know, maybe I could finally install a change to your godawful outfit- Red just keeps staring. The egg remains unhatched, yet the signs tell him that its near time.

1.5 visits left:

Red: The egg hatched.

Green: LMAO did you like it??????

[ a blurry photo is sent, barely depicting the picture of a shiny mimikyu, surrounded by Pikachu and venasaur.]

Green: IS THAT A SHINY???????

Green: RED.

Green: OF FUCKING COURSE.

Red: :)

1 visit left: They sit in silence by the open fire, cozy and in their own world. That is, until a finger jolted Green awake. Red only stared back with a serious expression.

"I think I forgave you a long time ago."

"It took me a while, to connect everything together." Red seemed to be reciting this, almost as if he practiced this speech.

"But I wasn't sure. you never brought it up, which wasn't the best. You weren't....good when we were kids. but you were my friend. You are my rival. "

"I understand, why you were like that. and I saw you again, and it was really good. Really good." Red emphasized.

Green blinked. "like we were kids again?"

Red nodded. "It was back to before then. before the championship. We used to talk more. You didn't avoid me, and we battled like usual. we didn't have to worry about league management, or team rocket. I thought maybe we could start over again."

Green grimaced. "But?"

"You're leaving." Finally, with the wind taken out of him, Red deflated right in front of Green, seemingly worn. He almost looked like a limp balloon. Vaguely, Green wondered what his 11 year old self would thinking looking at him. Probably not a nice thing.

He's not 11 now though.

"You....could come with me?" Green froze under Red's incredulous look. "Look, I was an asshole, still am an asshole times 100 there is no denying that. I'm surprised you even let me on this mountain. I thought you would never talk to me again, and I would totally get it. I would maul myself."

"But I want to start over too. If you could just. think about it. You can't room with me, but given you're a champion I'm pretty sure you're able to get some sort of bonus, but only if you're really really REALLY sure, this cold ass mountain never seemed to lift its grip from you-" A pair of hands swiftly covered Green's mouth, muffling him.

A silence swept over the two, before slowly, Red's hands lifted from Green's lips.

"....Let me think about it." Red signed.

"All the power to you, buddy."

A snort. "Buddy?"

"shut up."

Three days later, Green flew to Kalos.

A year later, Red moved to Kalos.

Post Kalos: so you may have noticed i have not rlly pushed on the romantic agenda. yeah i rev the engines slow here. but point is its not my forte most of the time. either way they do get together inbetween kalos and sm. Green writes a hell of a thesis paper on pokemon research, they still have things to hash out and properly explain, but its a working process. Red gets invited to every champion event ever when he finally cracks out of mt silver. If you ask me who catches feelings first, i'm going to say they both did at the same time cause its funny and they annoyed the hell out of every surrounding colleague with their pining.

Misc

red's mimikyu is a girl, like his pikachu

Leaf and Green meet at Kalos, she helped him make an arrangement when Red was moving over. They became rlly good friends with all three of them!!! :D They also found out they wall lived in pallet town, just never met because Leaf entered school rather than their reckless 10 year old adventures.

Professor Oak's whole issue is saying the wrong things when he means one thing. Which causes Green to snap back and then he gets mad at the disrespect and yaknow. they're slowly getting better though. this also did Numbers of Green's self-esteem.

Red does live with his mom before leaving with Green. They visit Kanto as often as possible.

Green and Red's mom had a talk when Green was about 16, about his whole deal. Green wonders how she could smile at him afterwards. But Red's mom is understanding and observable as her own son. Not to say she isn't letting Green go scot-free though. it's what finally cracks Green to reflect.

"Hey so why didn't Green try to get Red off the mountain when he was visiting over and over again?" I did consider that. I think they were so close to teetering off the edge when they battled it out on Mt. Silver that teenager Green was just deathly afraid of fucking things over and scaring Red away from contacting Pallet town again. It was a slow process for him to get Red curious enough about the outside world to goad him into even considering visiting places.

Does Red Sign? Yes! I'm not completely sure how to properly write it cause i am a Novice. (u are free to give sources, though i'm not a writer I will look through yes yes) He's selectively mute in my eyes!

The Viridian Gym Leader position got shifted a few months before Green moved to Kalos, but Lance has always told Green that the position is open if he rlly wants it.

Lyra/Ethan could be whatever u wish. is lyra and ethan the same person and they have incredible gender and two names? sure. are they separate people on their own and they're just a duo? if u want. go ham.

note: i didn't expect this to be THIS LONG but also forgive me i just vomited word thought and it evolved to semi-writing. I'm a completely beginner at this. this is just my interpretation of the red/green whole spiel cause i had brain worms. if urs is different that is cool!!! rad!!!

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Well I was able to sleep from 8 am yesterday until around noon, and then managed to get to bed by 7 pm and slept till almost 11, so that's at least 2, 4 hour shifts.

That's 8 hours, and having been awake at noon and relatively alert from the 4 hours of sleep at a new time, I was able to clean out everything under both my desks to sort through, because they are things I shoved there when I first moved in and some logs. If I was worries about finding anything under there I shouldn't have been, because there was little more than some pens, one spoon and simple floor dirt.

Point being it's 12:30 [midnight] and I have a cokey cola. The tea or coke before each of these times actually helped me sleep, which suggests part of what's causing my insomnia currently is brain hornets from the adhd, so caffeine focusing me is helping me right now. There are other times when it wasn't, which is why I started limiting it.

For me, mentally alert, and mentally buzzing are two separate things that just -can- go together. Like I can be mentally busy or agitated while not being particularly alert and that's when the intrusive thought demon annoys the fuck out of me the worst. Or I can be mentally alert and awake but not be particularly prone to the sort of manic buzzing unfocused thought processes that can exasperate that into an inability to fall asleep at night. Sometimes it's BOTH and that's when I calm the hornets by working on creative projects, but the insomnia is hopeless.

It's like, alert exists opposite of sleepy, fatigue exists opposite of having physical energy, and brain hornets exist opposite that kind of mental slowness that requires someone remind you what you are holding in your hand 3 times in a row. And caffeine...

Caffeine for me prioritizes each of these sliders one after the other instead of affecting them in parallel. It pulls me out of seeming drugged to my peers, escalates to calming the brain hornets for a long time, adds to my mental alertness at some threshold after that amount... and at no point actually reaches a threshold of tricking me into thinking I have physical energy, because everything hurts, so it circles back and kicks the brain hornet's nest in frustration [this comes right before seeing the face of god].

And if last month I was at a baseline of "brain fogged to all fuck" caffeine could bring me up into brain hornets, but the problem is that brain hornets keep me awake, and brain fog lets me sleep 16 hours, so I was letting myself sleep 16 hours and reducing caffeine.

This month my baseline is "brain hornets" and brain hornets don't ever want me to be asleep, so having caffeine is focusing the brain hornets into obeying me, and letting me sleep.

Not for more than 4 hours at a time, mind you, but I can do 4 hours shifts, it's fine.

How do I tell the difference between brain hornets from too much or too little caffeine? By how much caffeine I have had, generally.

But I can't keep sleeping at 8am. I get up by 5 so that I can leave in time for any business right at opening, in and out before everyone else. And some of the places I need don't open until 8am. So I am done my errands by 10-ish, but going to sleep at 8 regularly means potentially being hit with the sleepies right when I need to leave to buy food or something. I think the ideal is 10-2 ish, but the problem then is that the sleep shifts get too opposite each other and it takes me at least 3 hours to wind up to doing anything after sleeping. Having my sleeping shifts too divided just means doing nothing ever.

I had been aiming for 10-2 and then 6 ish till 11 ish, or 9 ish till 3 ish, but for whatever reason if I sleep past noon I was having a hard time sleeping before -at least- 9 pm... My "regular hours" were supposed to be 7pm ish till 5 am, with an extra hour in there to get up to pee, and we have strayed so far from that T~T...

But the 3 goals are:

-restful sleep

-always awake at least between 5 and 10 am

-productive enough to do more in a day than just barely keep up on chores so I can make my apartment nice and then have hobbies and the will to live

Let's not lose sight of that.

My cat won't tolerate me sleeping more than 4 hours at a time anyway, because he doesn't know what a human is and thinks I work like him. And he isn't even particularly cuddly about it :( Don't try to tell him though, he doesn't understand and also he is very cute.

Maybe with the right level of caffeine I can swing 10-2 and then 6-11??? That leaves me midnight onward, already being up and about at 5+ am, and then a daytime sleeping shift that is during the day when my brain wants to sleep.

The other problem is that I had to have a lot of iodine recently to cure the goiter, and then I ate mushrooms [the food kind, not like drugs] and a few handfuls of cereal... which means I had B vitamins while my iodine levels aren't borderline depleted... Which means my thyroid is acting up, so being hungry and hot all the time, and very sweaty, is in part due to too much thyroid hormone and my metabolism being elevated. This always comes with insomnia, and it's probably why my baseline this month is brain hornets instead of brain fog. Unfortunately, we are a decade past the time when my metabolism getting out of control meant having usable physical energy from it.

But for the moment we have reached our 3 goals during this 24 hour period, and if we can keep achieving that while sleeping in somewhat regular shifts without having the negative symptoms get out of control, then everything is fine.

The great news is I don't think I am having auditory hallucinations of a french horn today! I think someone's just being really inconsiderate with their car noises. [I do keep hearing a random french horn though, so, there is that, and it is the middle of the night]

The other good news is my neighbours are clearly awake till at least 1am and stomp around and sometimes play dance music this late so any time they start playing dance music I am going to start moving heavy shit around and if they complain I'll tell the landlord that I don't know how they could possibly hear me over the dance music they keep blasting in the middle of the night, and I think they are at least smart enough to realize I am not the one losing that fight.

[vidiaofthewind]

From Blood to Dust {Vidia One Shot}

Vidia breaks into Townhall.

Set: March 12

Previous Reading:

Bubbling to the Surface Like a Tornado

Vidia was still livid when she left the Hollow. Everyone wanted her to slow down. Everyone wanted her to play by rules that shouldn't exist.

Why did no one understand that the fairy crown shouldn't be there. Why didn't anyone understand that the fairies needed more. Deserved more than a half ass note that they didn't need a permit to go home. That they were lessor than in the eyes of clumsies. 

That they had to play by the clumsies rules to be safe and that was all that it was. That they shouldn't expect more.

Her body was burning at the anger that it couldn't contain.

Why was she the only one that saw that.

It wasn't the first time Vidia had come to town hall to stare at the fairy crown. Glaring at the artifact that shouldn't be there.

On display to be gawked at.

This was the first time she had snuck in after hours.

This was the first time she didn't have bodies milling around her to keep her from doing anything brash.

Because there wasn't a plan for this.

All Vidia knew was that this crown shouldn't be here. 

That was the only thought process behind her anger. Before she slammed her fist through the glass case. 

Blood trickling off her knuckles and her arm as she knocked away the rest of the glass.

Even as an Alarm blared, Vidia didn't flinch. For the first time in weeks she felt like she could breath.

She could get out of here quick enough. Just grab the crown and go. No one would know it was her. 

Grabbing the crown, Vidia only had a moment to admire it. The intricate details of the Vines and flowers. The gold details. The smallest details that - well the details up close honestly weren't to the quality that Vidia would expect.

Before Vidia could even turn on her heel the crown shifted in her hands. The tips turning ashened first before the rest of it crumbled in Her hands. 

Dust mixing with her blood, falling through her hands into the case.

Vidia hadn't saved the crown. She had destroyed it.

[life-of-lizbet]

ugh

I'm just so done. Done with working with people who don't care and don't even do the basics. (Hello, can any one of you three who are just standing there talking come help me? Ugh.) Done with rude customers. (Hey, don't talk to me in a rude tone because some of my coworkers suck. I don't need to hear it from you as well.) Done with the lottery. (For the love of god PLEASE someone, ANYONE, win the Powerball on Wednesday night. I don't care for my coworkers being stupid about the lottery pool or customers putting a $50 bill into the machine when they only want $8 worth of tickets, and expect $42 in change when the machine doesn't give change!) Yikes. It's been a long (or has it been short?) 4-ish weeks back at work. Thankfully, I haven't had any 12 hour work days- oh wait, that's Wednesday when I have to work 6 am until 6 pm. Then I have my second to last concert in the park from 8-9, with the rehearsal at 7. God help me.

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

I advise you not seek this content out. There's a reason I'm not linking it. It's full of abelism and gaslighting. But I just want to show you what I'm about to rant about because this woman is claiming chronic illness doesn't exist and women specifically are faking to get a diagnosis for attention. And she's claiming this is a mental health issue.

As a disabled person, I need to rant.

The first time I got a migraine. I was 10 years old. They were near constant. I know exactly how old I was because when I went to the doctor, he said it was probably the braces shifting the bones in my skull. They were called just headaches.

If you've ever had a migraine, you would understand that if you were experiencing this much pain, and you were told there was a way to make it stop, you GRAB that shit. I had my braces removed before my jaw was finished straightening because I shouldn't have had braces in the first place and my baby teen started falling out (very late, I know).

And when my adult teeth came in, I BEGGED my doctor to not give me braces again. And remember what I said earlier. If you're experiencing migraine level symptoms and you were told there was a way to make it stop. You grab that chance. Yes, my teeth are still fucked up. Yes, this leads to me dealing with chronic jaw pain.

You don't get how much pain I was in just... all the fucking time. My parents had to carry large bottles of advil with them at all times. Some of my earliest memories is being at a restaurant and my mom being like "I know this is weird but do you have any advil? I forgot to refill the bottle and my daughter is in too much pain to eat". Just from the migraine.

I was taking adult doses of pain meds with my doctors telling me to alternate Advil and Tylenol every 2 hours at the age of 10 (most meds say not for children under 12). Because migraine was not a diagnosis that existed.

When I was in high school, I finally did get a diagnosis from my PCP of "migraine". Idk if it ever went on the record but a was prescribed migraine medication. Which was essentially prescription strength advil and imitrex. There weren't exactly a lot of options back then.

And I again have specific memories of being in school. The ring of the fire alarm during a fire drill triggers a migraine. First thing I had to do when we went back in was go to the nurse and nurse had to call my parents and they had to bring my meds (special school rules the nurse needed the prescription bottle which would make it hard to have any at home). And the nurse was like "when's it gonna work?" And my mom was like "idk. If it does work it'll be like 30 minutes" and the nurse was like "Yeah we can't keep her here 30 minutes on a maybe. This is no place for a kid with a migraine. Take her home."

Throughout all this? I didn't consider myself disabled. Because I could still function. I wasn't missing too much school to pass. I was still able to pass my classes.

In college though it got really bad. I was missing 3 or 4 days of classes at a time because I couldn't hold down anything but water. There's weeks I did go to class that I just blacked it the pain was so bad. I got hurt from the vertigo regularly. It got so bad u finally sought it a migraine community just to try to understand what the hell was wrong with me and just so I had a place where I could vent. It sucked so damn bad.

And this community helped me immensely. They had a list of headache specialists which helped me find my doctor. They gave me a ton of treatment options to discuss with my doctor and they suggested vitamin supplements that I could also discuss with my doctor. It took a few years because I don't react to most common migraine meds, but a year out of college, I finally got a treatment plan that fucking helped. I live a pretty normal life now the only exception being the couple of hours it takes my meds to kick in.

And even through all of that, I hesitated to call myself disabled. I was still functional enough to graduate college without the ADA (but honestly I'd have done better if I had accommodations for all the time I had to miss). My migraines weren't frequent enough to be considered "chronic".

The only reason why I'm able to comfortably call myself disabled now is because of the invisible illness and spoonie communities. They were like "Your health issues impacting most of your life even though there's no physical symptoms? You keep missing important events duev to your health issues? You limiting what you do so to not impact your health issues? You're disabled."

Because I was so afraid of taking something away from physically disabled people by using the label. I'm still going to heavy metal concerts (yes they land me in bed for days after with a migraine). I can hold down a job and still semi-function (I'm privileged that I can get a remote job so if I can't get out of bed I don't need to call in. And I work for small companies that are more forgiving of health issues.)

Listen. I 100% believe in the spoonie movement with all my heart. But what people don't realize is that invalidating the spoonie movement invalidates people like me. People that have had pain since childhood that almost no medication can touch that's coupled with other neurological issues that is detrimental to our health. I was exercising every day, but I had to stop because there were too many days I couldn't hold down food. I was eating very healthy, but I had to stop because there were too many days where calories were more important than vitamins because again I was lucky if I could hold down food. The pain was so bad that there was gaps in my memory and I hurt myself but I couldn't remember how between the vertigo and the memory issues.

And yeah. My migraines don't affect me like that now. I'm on treatment where I don't "look disabled". I can function with the best of the abled people. But it took years of meds and trial and error with my doctor to get here. I'm functioning with the exact balance of person meds and activity levels to keep me found for the things I enjoy doing.

And I need people to realize that's what invisible disability is. Paralyzed person can't walk? They get a wheelchair. I can't go outside without spending the rest of my day bedbound from the bright light and heat? I get meds that help sooth the nervous system (honestly I don't know how the fuck my meds work but this is the equivalent of my "wheelchair")

Yeah! We look functional. That's the point. That's the entire point. Because before this we lost friends and failed classes because we couldn't get our of bed our body's failed us so hard. The only reason why abled people think we don't exist is because we literally couldn't leave the house. And online communities have allowed us to be seen on those worse days when we're normally hidden behind closed doors.

I was able to interact with people online yesterday with my migraine, when previously you wouldn't have been able to see that because I literally couldn't leave the house.

-fae

[iamanartichoke]

I started to reblog this post on my dash, but then I ended up writing a long ass reply bc apparently I care about the how shitty the school system in America is? Which was news to me, but regardless, by the time I finished I didn't want to reblog it anymore bc it had strayed from the point of the post and was mostly just me yelling into the void -

- but, I mean, I wrote it and everything and now I have to do something with it, so, well, have a random brain dump about the US school system.

This isn't even a fandom post, smh.

___

I mean, obligatory 'I used to be a K-12 teacher' and kids are fucking messy. Like. When I was a teacher, kids weren't allowed to eat in the classroom and I would still be pulling empty chip bags and candy wrappers and half-eaten dum-dums and drink bottles from kids' desks every single day. And the gum, my god. They really will stick that shit anywhere and everywhere. These were high schoolers, not kindergarteners. I can't imagine what it would be like if eating was allowed.

So, I mean, "no eating/drinking in class" is a reasonable rule.

I get the spirit of the OP and absolutely agree with it, btw. Kids aren't animals and aren't robots, either, and the strictest teachers take reasonable rules and use them to be power-tripping assholes to kids and that's not okay.

I just think that "kids should be allowed to eat/drink in class" isn't exactly the conversation we need to be having here because it's not the real issue. The conversation we need to be having is, why does the structure of our school system lend itself so easily to reasonable rules being unreasonably enforced?

For example, why is the kid hungry in the first place? Bc their day is ridiculously long; the first bell was at 7:30am and they had a slice of pizza for lunch at 10am and the day isn't over until 3:30pm. That's an eight-hour day; an adult on an eight-hour shift gets two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute break for lunch (assuming their work place follows the law, which is another conversation). Kids get 25 minutes, 15 of which are spent standing in the food line, and 4 minutes between classes, all of which are spent getting from one class to the next without being penalized for walking in late. Bathroom? Good luck. Snack break? Pfft.

And the power-tripping teacher who treats that hungry kid like an animal by refusing to let them go to the bathroom or eat a snack? Here's a not-so-secret from the inside: teachers who are in it for love of the profession are rare. Most of them feel powerless against admin, parents, the school board, the state. They can't even create their own curriculum anymore bc it's all "collaborative" and "meeting the standards" and all that matters are test scores and the test scores are skewed data that doesn't actually matter and the teachers know that but they can't do anything about it. The pay is abysmal, the benefits might as well be nonexistent, the unpaid work builds and builds, and there's never any pencils. The kids are the only people they have any say over, and they abuse that power in order to feel important bc their jobs fucking suck and when you're a teacher, 80% of your life is spent on your job, so your life probably fucking sucks, too.

All of which is to say, teachers shouldn't be treating kids like animals or robots, but kids shouldn't be hungry in class in the first place. The structure of the school day needs a complete overhaul to allow for flexibility and meeting the needs of growing human beings.

And in order for that to happen, the entire system needs to be redesigned. Teacher pay needs a huge increase in order to attract people who love the profession but also want to make a comfortable living. The budget needs to be redone so teachers aren't constantly paying for materials and classroom decor with their own money. The curriculum and the standards need to be re-evaluated. Standardized testing needs to cease to exist. Teachers need to be allowed to be creative and fluid in their lesson plans; they need to be allowed to teach things that matter. Get rid of those shitty ass desks and chairs and invest in something less permanently damaging to one's joints and posture. Get some more fucking windows in those god-awful buildings.

"Teachers should let kids eat/drink in class" is a solution to the illusion of the problem. The rule is a symptom of the overall broken design. So how do we fix that?

[therealactualasteratwood]

No job is a good job because jobs shouldn't exist.

Revelution time already?

Here’s the thing.  Nice as that sentiment is it’s completely unfeasible.  Shit has to get done.

What shouldn’t exist are 12 hour working shifts six days a week, job standards that endanger workers and employers who place profit over human lives.  

[dxmedstudent]

Alternatively, you could do a 24-hour comic sort of thing! Awkward Zombie does this every month if I remember, and she basically just does too quick pencil drawn panels of highlights of every hour for 24 hours. You could alternatively truncate it to 12-hour comics and do it every other day? (But let's be real, real life takes priority over all else, so you shouldn't push yourself to do it if you anticipate a busy or tiring month)

Oops utterly misread your post lol. But seriously a) my point about life taking priority before all else stands; and b) dude your sketches are anything but tired or silly, they're very well done and it's obvious how much detail and effort you put into it! And it may not immediately seem it but they're also quite provocative,  especially your Resilience series and the comic with the mugshots of doctors and their relationships with medicine (which punched me in the gut in a way I really needed to be punched and made me think about my own expectations and standards for my future as a doctor). Point is, you draw many special things year round, so you really shouldn't let the sentiment and atmosphere surrounding an arbitrary month for drawing dictate what you must and mustn't do as an artist =)

Aww thank you, this means so much! This is definitely one of the messages I’ll be saving to refer to at a later date when art insecurities are kicking my butt!

As it happens, your original interpretation isn’t far off the mark, it’s sometimes tricky to put out weekly comics. I always try to have a buffer of a few comics in my queue, so that I can forget about it for a while at a time. Then when life quietens down I tend to power through a batch at once. But sometimes when I reach that ‘quiet’ part of my rota something else comes up, so it’s not always easy to make sure that it gets done. Recently, there’s just been more chaos and other things going on in downtime, and I haven’t always had the time or energy to make comics when I normally would. You’re completely right about life taking priority. Realistically, that’s true, and that will always be the case; there’s just too much RL stuff that takes priority. But I think  in medicine, clinging on to things that exist outside of work take on special meaning to us. To me, putting out a weekly comic means more than just releasing some shiny new art into the world, it’s an affirmation that medicine isn’t entirely taking over my life. So if things don’t go as I hope they do with art, to me it’s a warning sign that I need to readjust my life balance. That’s what’s scary. I’m really touched that my comics mean something, so thank you for sharing that! I’m not sure I quite wanted to punch anyone in the gut, but the doctor yearbook/mugshot comic personally made me cry when I was making it. It just felt like it had to be made, and I debated for a long time about how visceral to make it. In particular, I thought a lot about whether to include physician suicide. But I thought that our friends and colleagues who took their lives deserve to be acknowledged. The toll medicine takes has been a dark secret for too long, I think we can’t change things if we pretend it doesn’t exist. I hope it comes off as the right balance of hopeful and realistic.I still want my overall comic As for Resilience, I had great fun making it (I think it was going to be shorter, and then I was like ‘wait, no this needs MORE STRESS’, and after I showed it to friends and family I got a lot of ‘Uh, are you... OK?’ responses, which I took to mean that it felt genuine. It really drew from the struggles of a lot of people I know, and I look forward to exploring comics that go into a bit more depth than my usual 4-panel format. At heart, I really like characterisation and telling a story. 4-panel gag comics is a format I fell into because it fitted the limitations of my timetable, so it’d be nice to explore a different format and play around with layout once in a while. As for Inktober, who knows. We’ll see. I’ll try not to think too hard about it, because it’s meant to be lighthearted and enjoyable.  I think it’s important to reflect, and it’s helped me realise that I still have some hangups about art, which I haven’t really thought about for a long time. Like my comics schedule, a lot of it is about my having minimum standards for myself. It’s not that I think little rough doodles are bad, it’s more that when my art falls below a certain self-imposed standard, it trips an alarm in my head that says “What are you doing? You could do a lot better!”. And given how all-out everyone goes, I think that alarm is just a little more annoying than usual. I think it’s part of being an artist, so I’m OK with sharing this side, too. The idea that artists are always confident about what they are putting out is definitely not true! I do like your 24h comic or 12h comic ideas, though. I’ve seen it done before and I think they can be really interesting. I can see myself wanting to try it out :)  Oh, perhaps one looking at a typical 12h shift. Yes, this is definitely an idea. As an aside, during my 4th/specialties year of medicine, I did frequent post-it-notes comics for my friends and family chronicling the highs and lows of med school. I’ve never posted them online here because they’re a bit more personal and might need some censoring to maintain anonymity. But who knows, I might pick out a couple to show. :)

[flauntpage]

The Toronto Raptors Shouldn't Blow it Up

As fired-up Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri addressed the media for his end-of-season availability on Wednesday, his one committal statement was also his most obvious.

"If they want us to break this up and start over, you might get fined for using this word but 'tanking,' no, we're not doing that here. We're finding young players we want to grow and we want to win," he said.

Normally, Ujiri dislikes these sessions. In this case, he'd had less than 48 hours to process and evaluate after another sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and while there was no promised "culture reset" this time around—Ujiri opened his remarks by joking that he can't sell that same line again—it was clear the wounds were still fresh. Ujiri's tone ran defiant, even defensive, about the success the franchise has achieved over the last five years.

"What these guys have done will remain in history in this organization. No question about it. I think we have to respect that. Forget the noise and what everybody says," he said, his voice rising. "It's incredible where we've come in the last five years—and that's not a pat on the back—but we go through stages of winning, and maybe we're going through a stage. I believe in this. I believe in the city. Anyone who wants to poke fun, hey, we're proud of the moments we’'e spent here and we're really proud of what's going to come after this."

In other words, there is value in ascending to even this level. Ujiri also mentioned the weight of greater expectations, expectations that only come with relevancy. That relevancy is something the Raptors haven't had prior, and thinking longer-term, it's a relevancy that will matter the first time the team's cap sheet and competitive window line up to be a true free agent player under Ujiri. It's easy to get caught up in a championship-or-bust mentality, but that's not always realistic. As the president notes, 29 teams go home disappointed, and it's not possible for the league to be structured with the Golden State Warriors atop it and the rest of the league kicking the can down the line for the future.

Passion aside, it's not as if the Raptors could really go in the blow-it-up direction, anyway. With apologies to a vocal portion of the fan base who seem to have had enough of being very good instead of a true contender, the eject button the Raptors built into this core comes next summer, not now. With two years left on pricey deals for Serge Ibaka and Kyle Lowry, one more before a player option for Jonas Valanciunas, and up to three more for DeMar DeRozan—plus a now-uncomfortable four for Norman Powell as his extension sets to kick in on July 1—it's hard to imagine how a tear-down could be expedited to where the Raptors were able to completely cleanse themselves of their most veteran players.

Another wrinkle, if they could manage: They might be too good to truly tank, armed with a youthful core that made them the second-youngest roster in the playoffs. Even a stripped-down version of the Raptors might back its way into 30 wins, and Toronto fans surely remember the hollowness of a return from an ineffective tank-job (no offense to Terrence Ross, but Ben Uzoh didn't die for that). Ujiri is a part of the league's competition committee, and that committee recently approved changes to the lottery structure that will shift the reward structure for true bottoming out; the percentage likelihood of landing that No. 1 pick is now spread across more teams, and some embarrassing hypothetical 12-70 Raptors team would only have a 14-percent shot at our nation's bounciest son R.J. Barrett, or whomever.

"It's not at every time that every organization is going to have that generational player," Ujiri said. "That comes with strategy, luck, planning, winning, many things, and I believe we have that structure and we've created that culture here. We can get there at some point."

When Ujiri extended the window of this core last summer, the plan always appeared to run at least until 2019. Next summer, the four biggest contracts on the team would have more value, or at least would be easier to move a year closer to expiration. Team control and cost certainty is great, but in the current cap environment—with space at a premium and the luxury tax line plateauing quicker than initially anticipated—there projects to be a small shift back to valuing good players on expiring deals, even outsized ones. What's more, the Raptors will know far more about their young core by that point and will be in a position to better understand how to build an effective pivot to the next era.

Those are questions the Raptors still have time to answer, because it was fairly clear Wednesday that they intend to trudge forward. They believe they got closer to overcoming Cleveland, though a 4-0 series sweep and across-the-board admissions that the outcome had at least something to do with the team's psychological state is discouraging. Maybe they're banking on LeBron James heading elsewhere or Philadelphia and Boston and Milwaukee not quite ascending to where the NBA community is projecting them just yet. You can make a legitimate case that as wide open as the window felt this year, 2018-19 is just as open. That's how the three-year window-extension was intended, anyway, with 2017-18 representing a shift in playing style and an empowerment of the youth, laying clear the team's needs for a 2018-19 season in which there would be an easier path to spending into the tax and a greater knowledge of what holes need filling.

If anything, this is where the discourse needs to shift a bit. It's unfair to hold Ujiri and Dwane Casey and anyone else to their comments in the immediate aftermath of the season, and Ujiri has become famous for his ability to speak passionately and to inspire renewed trust and faith without actually revealing much. Anyone who came away from Wednesday's press conference with a sense of what the Raptors intend to do from here is better at reading between incredibly thin lines than I am, or they're squinting too hard at a 3D puzzle that doesn't actually contain a schooner within. Even the job status of Casey remains up in the air, because the cooling-off period is an important one ahead of serious evaluation.

The Raptors can sell sticking with this group. Really, it's an easy case to make, and Ujiri could sell shoes to Michael Jordan. The argument: Toronto is too heavily leveraged on high-end talent to tank effectively, there is value in continuing to build 50-win seasons and playoff experiences and the overall equity in the Raptors name, and there's upside remaining despite a star duo likely embarking on the wrong side of the aging curve because they're surrounded by a talented, young group, even if there's not a sure-fire star within. There are, eventually, diminishing returns to that existence; the Raptors, moribund until the last few seasons, have not reached that point yet. Another playoff defeat stings, but being really good for an extended period of time is still worthwhile. This isn't quite the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks yet, because there's more promising youth to eventually pivot with and it's a year early for the "they'll leave and you'll have nothing!" arguments.

What the Raptors won't be able to do is sell this same group as a contender to make the NBA Finals, which, if they're being earnest, is the highest goal this core can realistically hope to achieve. After three straight kicks at the Cavaliers can, it's hard to imagine Raptors fans or the NBA at large believing next year will be different. They're not going to have a better résumé on paper than 59 wins, the No. 1 seed, and a top-five ranking on both ends of the floor. If that couldn't get them over the hump, nothing short of OG Anunoby or Pascal Siakam rising to borderline-star status will change the thinking of this group's ultimate upside. And so the Raptors have some tough decisions to work through, even if it's clear they won't blow it up. There are a multitude of paths between tanking and keeping this group together, and Ujiri will need to explore them.

Casey, a very good coach, should be evaluated thoroughly to see if the micro-shortcomings this team has run into are a byproduct of his approach or something else. The market for Lowry, the team's highest-impact player during this run, should be explored as he ages a season further. DeRozan is the face of the franchise and the first star who ever wanted to stay, and trading him would introduce a tough P.R. situation, but he's also the team's stylistic bottleneck and could fetch a reasonable return that perhaps lowers the team's talent level (a risk, given they're already often at a talent deficit) but makes them a more holistic and versatile group. It would be risky to flip Ibaka for different bad money, and still it should be explored. Ibaka is not "better at center" so much as he's just not all that good now, the team has two young centers, and Anunoby and Siakam can capably be a power forward combination against most teams. Making a play for another star without subtracting one would seem unlikely—the Raptors don't have surplus pick equity and Anunoby is their only blue-chip prospect—but Ujiri will surely be aggressive.

"Everybody can question Casey all they want, you can question Kyle all you want, you can question DeMar DeRozan all you want. Guess what? I have to look at a body of work." Ujiri said. "As a leader, I have to look at a body of work that had been done over the last five years and think what's the last five years, and what's the next five years ahead. And that's what I have to do, and that's what I'm going to do. Yes, there are weaknesses. And, yes, there are strengths. I have to figure out a way. I say it again, there's only going to be one champion here, so everybody else is going to be disappointed. And we are disappointed right now."

In the coming weeks, the Raptors will sober from this defeat and chart a course. It will not be a straight line from this ending to the same starting position again. Ujiri doesn't sit still in the offseason, and even if the team wanted to stay intact, they have some dancing to do around a heavy luxury tax bill. The blow-it-up crowd is probably going to have to wait at least another year (and maybe shift their expectations on the severity of that request), and the Raptors are going to continue to build what they feel has become a world-class program. They're among the youngest competitive teams and most successful at developing players over the last few years, and there are options—not easy ones—for making changes to what will ultimately be a similar core.

"We're not going to handcuff ourselves in any way but the one thing I know is we're a strong team now, we're together now, and now it's my job. It's on me. Put it on me," Ujiri said. "Forget all the other stuff that you guys are talking about. Put it on me. We'll get better."

They can be really good again, and that's important. They haven't reached the point where that's no longer of value, and the two-steps-back approach doesn't suit the front office or, really, reality at this moment in time. The Raptors won't be able to sell that earnest belief in the playoffs turning out better next time around, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're lying to themselves if they come back believing it.

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports CA.

The Toronto Raptors Shouldn't Blow it Up published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[djgblogger-blog]

Worries about spreading Earth microbes shouldn't slow search for life on Mars

http://bit.ly/2x15mEM

The Viking landers in the 1970s were the last to look directly for life on Mars. NASA/JPL, CC BY

There may be no bigger question than whether we are alone in our solar system. As our spacecraft find new clues about the presence of liquid water now or in the past on Mars, the possibility of some kind of life there looks more likely. On Earth, water means life, and that’s why the exploration of Mars is guided by the idea of following the water.

But the search for life on Mars is paired with plenty of strong warnings about how we must sterilize our spacecraft to avoid contaminating our neighbor planet. How will we know what’s native Martian if we unintentionally seed the place with Earth organisms? A popular analogy points out that Europeans unknowingly brought smallpox to the New World, and they took home syphilis. Similarly, it is argued, our robotic explorations could contaminate Mars with terrestrial microorganisms.

As an astrobiologist who researches the environments of early Mars, I suggest these arguments are misleading. The current danger of contamination via unmanned robots is actually quite low. But contamination will become unavoidable once astronauts get there. NASA, other agencies and the private sector hope to send human missions to Mars in the 2030s.

Space agencies have long prioritized preventing contamination over our hunt for life on Mars. Now is the time to reassess and update this strategy – before human beings get there and inevitably introduce Earth organisms despite our best efforts.

Microbiologists frequently collect swab samples from the floor of clean rooms during spacecraft assembly. NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY

What planetary protection protocols do

Arguments calling for extra caution have permeated Mars exploration strategies and led to the creation of specific guiding policies, known as planetary protection protocols.

Strict cleaning procedures are required on our spacecraft before they’re allowed to sample regions on Mars which could be a habitat for microorganisms, either native to Mars or brought there from Earth. These areas are labeled by the planetary protection offices as “Special Regions.”

The worry is that, otherwise, terrestrial invaders could jeopardize potential Mars life. They also could confound future researchers trying to distinguish between any indigenous Martian life forms and life that arrived as contamination from Earth via today’s spacecraft.

The sad consequence of these policies is that the multi-billion-dollar Mars spacecraft programs run by space agencies in the West have not proactively looked for life on the planet since the late 1970s.

Dr. Carl Sagan poses with a model of the Viking lander in Death Valley, California. NASA, CC BY

That’s when NASA’s Viking landers made the only attempt ever to find life on Mars (or on any planet outside Earth, for that matter). They carried out specific biological experiments looking for evidence of microbial life. Since then, that incipient biological exploration has shifted to less ambitious geological surveys that try to demonstrate only that Mars was “habitable” in the past, meaning it had conditions that could likely support life.

Even worse, if a dedicated life-seeking spacecraft ever does get to Mars, planetary protection policies will allow it to search for life everywhere on the Martian surface, except in the very places we suspect life may exist: the Special Regions. The concern is that exploration could contaminate them with terrestrial microorganisms.

Can Earth life make it on Mars?

Consider again the Europeans who first journeyed to the New World and back. Yes, smallpox and syphilis traveled with them, between human populations, living inside warm bodies in temperate latitudes. But that situation is irrelevant to Mars exploration. Any analogy addressing possible biological exchange between Earth and Mars must consider the absolute contrast in the planets’ environments.

A more accurate analogy would be bringing 12 Asian tropical parrots to the Venezuelan rainforest. In 10 years we may very likely have an invasion of Asian parrots in South America. But if we bring the same 12 Asian parrots to Antarctica, in 10 hours we’ll have 12 dead parrots.

We’d assume that any indigenous life on Mars should be much better adapted to Martian stresses than Earth life is, and therefore would outcompete any possible terrestrial newcomers. Microorganisms on Earth have evolved to thrive in challenging environments like salt crusts in the Atacama desert or hydrothermal vents on the deep ocean floor. In the same way, we can imagine any potential Martian biosphere would have experienced enormous evolutionary pressure during billions of years to become expert in inhabiting Mars’ today environments. The microorganisms hitchhiking on our spacecraft wouldn’t stand much of a chance against super-specialized Martians in their own territory.

So if Earth life cannot survive and, most importantly, reproduce on Mars, concerns going forward about our spacecraft contaminating Mars with terrestrial organisms are unwarranted. This would be the parrots-in-Antarctica scenario.

On the other hand, perhaps Earth microorganisms can, in fact, survive and create active microbial ecosystems on present-day Mars – the parrots-in-South America scenario. We can then presume that terrestrial microorganisms are already there, carried by any one of the dozens of spacecraft sent from Earth in the last decades, or by the natural exchange of rocks pulled out from one planet by a meteoritic impact and transported to the other.

In this case, protection protocols are overly cautious since contamination is already a fact.

Technological reasons the protocols don’t make sense

Another argument to soften planetary protection protocols hinges on the fact that current sterilization methods don’t actually “sterilize” our spacecraft, a feat engineers still don’t know how to accomplish definitively.

The cleaning procedures we use on our robots rely on pretty much the same stresses prevailing on the Martian surface: oxidizing chemicals and radiation. They end up killing only those microorganisms with no chance of surviving on Mars anyway. So current cleaning protocols are essentially conducting an artificial selection experiment, with the result that we carry to Mars only the most hardy microorganisms. This should put into question the whole cleaning procedure.

Further, technology has advanced enough that distinguishing between Earthlings and Martians is no longer a problem. If Martian life is biochemically similar to Earth life, we could sequence genomes of any organisms located. If they don’t match anything we know is on Earth, we can surmise it’s native to Mars. Then we could add Mars’ creatures to the tree of DNA-based life we already know, probably somewhere on its lower branches. And if it is different, we would be able to identify such differences based on its building blocks.

Bacterial species Tersicoccus phoenicis is found in only two places: clean rooms in Florida and South America where spacecraft are assembled for launch. NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY

Mars explorers have yet another technique to help differentiate between Earth and Mars life. The microbes we know persist in clean spacecraft assembly rooms provide an excellent control with which to monitor potential contamination. Any microorganism found in a Martian sample identical or highly similar to those present in the clean rooms would very likely indicate contamination – not indigenous life on Mars.

The window is closing

On top of all these reasons, it’s pointless to split hairs about current planetary protection guidelines as applied to today’s unmanned robots since human explorers are on the horizon. People would inevitably bring microbial hitchhikers with them, because we cannot sterilize humans. Contamination risks between robotic and manned missions are simply not comparable.

Whether the microbes that fly with humans will be able to last on Mars is a separate question – though their survival is probably assured if they stay within a spacesuit or a human habitat engineered to preserve life. But no matter what, they’ll definitely be introduced to the Martian environment. Continuing to delay the astrobiological exploration of Mars now because we don’t want to contaminate the planet with microorganisms hiding in our spacecrafts isn’t logical considering astronauts (and their microbial stowaways) may arrive within two or three decades.

Prior to landing humans on Mars or bringing samples back to Earth, it makes sense to determine whether there is indigenous Martian life. What might robots or astronauts encounter there – and import to Earth? More knowledge now will increase the safety of Earth’s biosphere. After all, we still don’t know if returning samples could endanger humanity and the terrestrial biosphere. Perhaps reverse contamination should be our big concern.

The main goal of Mars exploration should be to try to find life on Mars and address the question of whether it is a separate genesis or shares a common ancestor with life on Earth. In the end, if Mars is lifeless, maybe we are alone in the universe; but if there is or was life on Mars, then there’s a zoo out there.

Alberto G. Fairén receives funding from the European Research Council.

[naughtygals]

notes on smoothing, noise rejection, workflow

notes on smoothing, noise rejection, workflow i started today with a positive outlook. it's ship day for a new product (or an update of an existing one) and i had a few small bugs to fix, plus a showstopper that i already had a direct solution for in mind. things went pretty well according to plan - i pushed out the showstopper fix in only 15 minutes, and had received confirmation reports within the hour. next i slowly worked through the last of the bug-fixes which took the better part of the day, but i got there, somehow. had a little bit of a celebratory wander around the studio, talking to my workmates and co-habitants about how good it feels to have this pretty much wrapped up (it's dominated the last 2 months of my life, and on-and-off before that for 18 months)! then something occured to me. a little niggle i'd been keeping in the back of my head. i was finally listening to the sounds of the little project, and while the new functionality was sounding fantastic, there was a kind of warbling to the standard tones. often times these things are purely in one's mind, but i sat there and listened, comparing between old and new hardware. it was totally there. the pitch of a thing that is designed to produce a steady tone, was gently squirreling around. shock horror! a sense of dread. maybe the last $20k i just sank into this production might be going straight in the trash. what was wrong with the new version of the hardware?! the only thing i changed was the digital detection of a switch - that couldn't possibly be affecting the functionality - it's only a GPIO pin. what else changed? the power supply.. long story short, we shifted to using a switch-mode power supply internally on this updated project. this allows the power conversion (from 12v down to 3v3 for the microcontroller) to be over 80% efficient, whereas prior it was less than 60% efficient and passed through 2 different regulators (switching and linear). added (perhaps blinding) benefit, is it decreased the unit cost by some $2.50. i checked there was sufficient power supply filtering and it was fine on the schematic. next i started poking around with the scope. thanks to my genius repair-focussed employee natalie, this revision had test points for all the important voltages on the back. they all tested out as solid rails. no ripple was visible, and the peak-to-peak accuracy seemed really good at around 35mV, heavily focussed in the center. i scoped the ADC traces where the pitch input signals hit the uC, and they were a little fuzzy, but no big jittery wandering as i was expecting. it had to be something else. it had to be the power supply! what else could it be. i scoped the 3v3 analog rail again. it looked fine to my eyes. i zoomed right in and all looked well .. except .. little dots were appearing in the bottom of the screen. single dots on my old 90's scope. the kind of dots you generally ignore, but they were happening repeatedly. i turned on peak-to-peak voltage detection and there it was "100mV". these dots weren't random dots, they were part of the voltage readout! static. it must be static. but what is static anyway?! i don't know to be honest. i didn't want to spend all day staring at the datasheet for the power-supply i'd put in there as the only thing that would lead to was changing the hardware itself. we'd already spent wayyy too much time fixing hardware for this product in the past -- that was the whole reason for the re-design. i had to turn to the code. i had to make it work. we'd come too far. the firmware was monumentally better than the original version. we had to ship! // this is how i came to an early evening exploration into signal smoothing & noise rejection. -- linear interpolation / 1-pole lowpass / RC-filter originally i'd already implmented a simple smoothing algorithm to deal with the inherrent noise of the ADCs in the uC i'm using. this was a single stage delay mechanism where the previous output is combined with the new input. the ratios of each define how quickly the output signal moves toward the new input value. this is great for smoothing out random noise at a relatively low level. you just finetune the ratio of old-vs-new to balance between better random-noise rejection and the settling time to reach a new value. if you only move gradually toward new inputs, you reject the randomness very well, but the signal will only 'glide' toward the new destination. this is particularly problematic for pitch, as there is a long tail to the glide (which theoretically never converges). i turned this up all the way to where the glides took 30 seconds (they need to be less than 30ms) and was surprised to find.. the signal still wobbled around! how could this be?! after some ranting, raving, and rubber-ducking with my other workmate, i arrived at a different conclusion - the problem wasn't random-noise, but rather random little spikes in the signal! i did some measurements to print out the stream of values that were being detected by the ADC and they weren't hugely spikey, but there was definite moments where it seemed to jump a little too far out of range. this is only a 12bit ADC so even a change of 4 or 5 LSBs is significant when amplified out to the range of pitch it is controlling. -- windowed averaging before thinking too much further down the line, i thought about how the RC-filter above favours the input sample. every new sample must influence the signal more than the last. all the ratio sets is how similar their influence is over time. alternatively it's possible to just take the average of the last n samples and thus reduce the impact of the spurious samples impact to no-more than the surrounding 'good' samples. i implemented it as a simple queue, storing the last set of values. an added benefit here is that the 'glide' behaviour of the RC-filter is replaced with a 'linear' characteristic. once a value has changed to a new state, it will go there in a fixed amount of time, directly related to length of the averaging queue. i implemented this and tried sizes of 5 then 35, and after still seeing no change, 505. the signal still moved around, albeit in a much slower kind of way! this couldn't be the solution either. -- hysteresis something i use a lot in analog circuits is hysteresis. allowing things to change state only after seeing a certain amount of change. i knew brian had used this in the earthsea design to filter the knobs for the purpose of knowing whether they'd been turned, or were just resting. the main problem i was having is that static knob positions were resulting in jittery tones, thus if i could just know when the knob was stationary, i could lock the pitch to the current state and then pick up again when the knob moved. this was a fun one to implement and of course i got it wrong at first (it would only move if i turned the knob fast enough). eventually though i dialed it in. choosing the hysteresis value was interesting to see the kinds of effects, but eventually i found something i was happy with. once a change was detected, i did a simple 50% mix of the current output and new destination, just to help smooth any quick bumps. this was a solid solution after some refining of the hysteresis values. it tracked the static pitch quite well, and yet the step size was small enough that it didn't sound obviously discreet in it's movement.. until one turned the knob very slowly with a tone of rich harmonics - all those lovely aliased artifacts were jumping around. it was close, but i hadn't quite nailed it yet. -- stepping back and rethinking the problem at this point i had to go home. i'd been at work for almost 12 hours and i'd burnt out on this project at least twice before - i didn't want to make it a 3rd time right as we were about to ship. i knew there was a solution, but i also wasn't going to magically complete and test it in one day. i packed up and was about to get on my bike to ride home, when it occured to me. this whole hysteresis thing is just a binary form of the more general idea:    for small changes, the output should move slowly (or stop)    for large changes, the output should move quickly this is the idea that i'm still running with right now. -- a slope sensitive smoother if we take either the RC or averaging smoother, they both have a smoothing effect on the signal. the problem is we can't use a constant coefficient that is slow enough to smooth out our noisy signal, because our particular signal is too spikey for short decay times, and our use-case is too demanding for long slew times. rather if we break down the problem into the two abovementioned parts, what we need is a filter that follows this small-slow vs large-quick approach. we can implement this by simply using the rate-of-change of the input to control the coefficient of the filter! rate-of-change is easy as we just implemented it for the hysteresis approach as the absolute-difference of output to input. -- bringing it all together i haven't even tried this yet. indeed i'm just home now after this brainwave. but i want to talk about bringing these ideas all together into a resilient filtration mechanism that should have wider use than in this case. there's 2 different areas where previous ideas should be integrated: the first is this idea of exponential vs linear glide time. when moving small distances, the linear time is better for smoothing extraneous signals. while moving large distances requires a more rapidly moving slope to avoid obvious artifacts. the second idea is about integrating smoothing into the rate-of-change detector, vs. the input into the slope-sensitive-smoother. the linear filter introduces a fixed delay equal to it's length, which is not ideal for the signal itself (latency always feels bad). on the other hand, it shouldn't be a huge problem for control the rate-of-change this way, as large changes will start moving (albeit slowly) before the filter picks up, while a little overshoot (in terms of smoothing time) isn't a problem, as the ear is unlikely to notice the pitch warble if it's only at the onset of a new note. the filter is good at rejecting spurious noise, so it seems appropriate for ignoring spikes by keeping the r-o-c relatively static conversely, the exponential smoother acts with a single stage of delay, pushing it toward the real-time use of smoothing the signal itself (controlled by the r-o-c detector). the filter is quick to respond to big changes, so it will deal well with quick note changes (often these occur as large steps). -- final thoughts by combining the benefits of the different averaging techniques, and abstracting the idea of hysteresis to a continuous function, we've arrived at an efficient, responsive, and resilient smoothing technique. it is suited to deal with both white noise, as well as spurious noisy elements in a stream. the coefficients of both averagers, plus the scale of modulation by rate-of-change, can be customized to the use-case. it was only by thinking about the problem with a multi-faceted approach that this conclusion was able to be reached. the answer didn't come about through textbook knowledge, but through practical & lateral thinking about the problem in its surrounding context.

[flauntpage]

The Toronto Raptors Shouldn't Blow it Up

As fired-up Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri addressed the media for his end-of-season availability on Wednesday, his one committal statement was also his most obvious.

"If they want us to break this up and start over, you might get fined for using this word but 'tanking,' no, we're not doing that here. We're finding young players we want to grow and we want to win," he said.

Normally, Ujiri dislikes these sessions. In this case, he'd had less than 48 hours to process and evaluate after another sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and while there was no promised "culture reset" this time around—Ujiri opened his remarks by joking that he can't sell that same line again—it was clear the wounds were still fresh. Ujiri's tone ran defiant, even defensive, about the success the franchise has achieved over the last five years.

"What these guys have done will remain in history in this organization. No question about it. I think we have to respect that. Forget the noise and what everybody says," he said, his voice rising. "It's incredible where we've come in the last five years—and that's not a pat on the back—but we go through stages of winning, and maybe we're going through a stage. I believe in this. I believe in the city. Anyone who wants to poke fun, hey, we're proud of the moments we’'e spent here and we're really proud of what's going to come after this."

In other words, there is value in ascending to even this level. Ujiri also mentioned the weight of greater expectations, expectations that only come with relevancy. That relevancy is something the Raptors haven't had prior, and thinking longer-term, it's a relevancy that will matter the first time the team's cap sheet and competitive window line up to be a true free agent player under Ujiri. It's easy to get caught up in a championship-or-bust mentality, but that's not always realistic. As the president notes, 29 teams go home disappointed, and it's not possible for the league to be structured with the Golden State Warriors atop it and the rest of the league kicking the can down the line for the future.

Passion aside, it's not as if the Raptors could really go in the blow-it-up direction, anyway. With apologies to a vocal portion of the fan base who seem to have had enough of being very good instead of a true contender, the eject button the Raptors built into this core comes next summer, not now. With two years left on pricey deals for Serge Ibaka and Kyle Lowry, one more before a player option for Jonas Valanciunas, and up to three more for DeMar DeRozan—plus a now-uncomfortable four for Norman Powell as his extension sets to kick in on July 1—it's hard to imagine how a tear-down could be expedited to where the Raptors were able to completely cleanse themselves of their most veteran players.

Another wrinkle, if they could manage: They might be too good to truly tank, armed with a youthful core that made them the second-youngest roster in the playoffs. Even a stripped-down version of the Raptors might back its way into 30 wins, and Toronto fans surely remember the hollowness of a return from an ineffective tank-job (no offense to Terrence Ross, but Ben Uzoh didn't die for that). Ujiri is a part of the league's competition committee, and that committee recently approved changes to the lottery structure that will shift the reward structure for true bottoming out; the percentage likelihood of landing that No. 1 pick is now spread across more teams, and some embarrassing hypothetical 12-70 Raptors team would only have a 14-percent shot at our nation's bounciest son R.J. Barrett, or whomever.

"It's not at every time that every organization is going to have that generational player," Ujiri said. "That comes with strategy, luck, planning, winning, many things, and I believe we have that structure and we've created that culture here. We can get there at some point."

When Ujiri extended the window of this core last summer, the plan always appeared to run at least until 2019. Next summer, the four biggest contracts on the team would have more value, or at least would be easier to move a year closer to expiration. Team control and cost certainty is great, but in the current cap environment—with space at a premium and the luxury tax line plateauing quicker than initially anticipated—there projects to be a small shift back to valuing good players on expiring deals, even outsized ones. What's more, the Raptors will know far more about their young core by that point and will be in a position to better understand how to build an effective pivot to the next era.

Those are questions the Raptors still have time to answer, because it was fairly clear Wednesday that they intend to trudge forward. They believe they got closer to overcoming Cleveland, though a 4-0 series sweep and across-the-board admissions that the outcome had at least something to do with the team's psychological state is discouraging. Maybe they're banking on LeBron James heading elsewhere or Philadelphia and Boston and Milwaukee not quite ascending to where the NBA community is projecting them just yet. You can make a legitimate case that as wide open as the window felt this year, 2018-19 is just as open. That's how the three-year window-extension was intended, anyway, with 2017-18 representing a shift in playing style and an empowerment of the youth, laying clear the team's needs for a 2018-19 season in which there would be an easier path to spending into the tax and a greater knowledge of what holes need filling.

If anything, this is where the discourse needs to shift a bit. It's unfair to hold Ujiri and Dwane Casey and anyone else to their comments in the immediate aftermath of the season, and Ujiri has become famous for his ability to speak passionately and to inspire renewed trust and faith without actually revealing much. Anyone who came away from Wednesday's press conference with a sense of what the Raptors intend to do from here is better at reading between incredibly thin lines than I am, or they're squinting too hard at a 3D puzzle that doesn't actually contain a schooner within. Even the job status of Casey remains up in the air, because the cooling-off period is an important one ahead of serious evaluation.

The Raptors can sell sticking with this group. Really, it's an easy case to make, and Ujiri could sell shoes to Michael Jordan. The argument: Toronto is too heavily leveraged on high-end talent to tank effectively, there is value in continuing to build 50-win seasons and playoff experiences and the overall equity in the Raptors name, and there's upside remaining despite a star duo likely embarking on the wrong side of the aging curve because they're surrounded by a talented, young group, even if there's not a sure-fire star within. There are, eventually, diminishing returns to that existence; the Raptors, moribund until the last few seasons, have not reached that point yet. Another playoff defeat stings, but being really good for an extended period of time is still worthwhile. This isn't quite the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks yet, because there's more promising youth to eventually pivot with and it's a year early for the "they'll leave and you'll have nothing!" arguments.

What the Raptors won't be able to do is sell this same group as a contender to make the NBA Finals, which, if they're being earnest, is the highest goal this core can realistically hope to achieve. After three straight kicks at the Cavaliers can, it's hard to imagine Raptors fans or the NBA at large believing next year will be different. They're not going to have a better résumé on paper than 59 wins, the No. 1 seed, and a top-five ranking on both ends of the floor. If that couldn't get them over the hump, nothing short of OG Anunoby or Pascal Siakam rising to borderline-star status will change the thinking of this group's ultimate upside. And so the Raptors have some tough decisions to work through, even if it's clear they won't blow it up. There are a multitude of paths between tanking and keeping this group together, and Ujiri will need to explore them.

Casey, a very good coach, should be evaluated thoroughly to see if the micro-shortcomings this team has run into are a byproduct of his approach or something else. The market for Lowry, the team's highest-impact player during this run, should be explored as he ages a season further. DeRozan is the face of the franchise and the first star who ever wanted to stay, and trading him would introduce a tough P.R. situation, but he's also the team's stylistic bottleneck and could fetch a reasonable return that perhaps lowers the team's talent level (a risk, given they're already often at a talent deficit) but makes them a more holistic and versatile group. It would be risky to flip Ibaka for different bad money, and still it should be explored. Ibaka is not "better at center" so much as he's just not all that good now, the team has two young centers, and Anunoby and Siakam can capably be a power forward combination against most teams. Making a play for another star without subtracting one would seem unlikely—the Raptors don't have surplus pick equity and Anunoby is their only blue-chip prospect—but Ujiri will surely be aggressive.

"Everybody can question Casey all they want, you can question Kyle all you want, you can question DeMar DeRozan all you want. Guess what? I have to look at a body of work." Ujiri said. "As a leader, I have to look at a body of work that had been done over the last five years and think what's the last five years, and what's the next five years ahead. And that's what I have to do, and that's what I'm going to do. Yes, there are weaknesses. And, yes, there are strengths. I have to figure out a way. I say it again, there's only going to be one champion here, so everybody else is going to be disappointed. And we are disappointed right now."

In the coming weeks, the Raptors will sober from this defeat and chart a course. It will not be a straight line from this ending to the same starting position again. Ujiri doesn't sit still in the offseason, and even if the team wanted to stay intact, they have some dancing to do around a heavy luxury tax bill. The blow-it-up crowd is probably going to have to wait at least another year (and maybe shift their expectations on the severity of that request), and the Raptors are going to continue to build what they feel has become a world-class program. They're among the youngest competitive teams and most successful at developing players over the last few years, and there are options—not easy ones—for making changes to what will ultimately be a similar core.

"We're not going to handcuff ourselves in any way but the one thing I know is we're a strong team now, we're together now, and now it's my job. It's on me. Put it on me," Ujiri said. "Forget all the other stuff that you guys are talking about. Put it on me. We'll get better."

They can be really good again, and that's important. They haven't reached the point where that's no longer of value, and the two-steps-back approach doesn't suit the front office or, really, reality at this moment in time. The Raptors won't be able to sell that earnest belief in the playoffs turning out better next time around, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're lying to themselves if they come back believing it.

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports CA.

The Toronto Raptors Shouldn't Blow it Up published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[kayetypeswords]

Can we for once on this website actually think about poor people before saying things like "eight hour work days are cruelty, and you shouldn't have to work 80% of your day to live. And making kids sit so much is evil and should be stopped!" Without, additionally, offering any form of solution or thought birthed from efforts towards reform or solvency? How about no more "look what these people are doing! What a load of bonkers." How about we stop parading ourselves and our lives forced into all-consuming labor constraints, where all we do is complain about things we can change, if we perhaps... tried to at least try. HOW ABOUT you try to at least try to fix things before your mouth opens to complain? Before your mouth opens to assign blame where it isn't warranted?

Linking your articles about how working is slowly killing me doesn't take away the fact that I have to work two full-time jobs to continue the facimile of a sham that is live. It just proves that you don't. And honestly, throwing this in people's faces who have no choice otherwise beats them down to bone.

Yeah, these 8 hour shifts are bad. Try 12 hour shifts. Try 15. Try not wording posts about the pressures of capitalistic gain based off of the ever-present exploitation of the working class, something so deeply culturally ingrained we teach it to our own children, without that pesky undertone of "poor people have a choice otherwise." And "poor people are doing this to themselves." You brought our kids into it, shamed us for the culture that created us. You did the thing. The "poor people should be ashamed to have children" thing that poor kids grow up interpreting as "you should be ashamed to exist."

Because we do raise our kids to work like adults. We know they're little minds attached to little bodies. We know it isn't fair, it isn't healthy. But we are built from concrete mixed with outsider opinions and the combustible steadfast belief that we do not deserve help. And that includes our kids. Who y'all talk about with twists and bends from silver tongues, but all that shimmering richness dries up once "help them" comes up. Stop pretending to care about our kids... just stop, please. Only validating poor children to shame poor families is exhausting. And we know this is a tactic you're implementing to further your shaming of poor adults. This has been 200+ years of the same discourse. The same ole back-and-forth.

We love our kids. We really, truly do. But nobody helps us, and we have very little to help ourselves. But we try. And god damn the burn scars on the pads of my feet from the summer sand I worked in as a child could tell you a thousand stories about just how much my family sacrificed and loved one another.

Do you think my mom sent me to pick tobacco at 9 years old, in the mid-August heat of rural southern America, because "I needed to grow up?" Because "I needed character?"

No. She hated it. My mom wanted nothing more than for me to be able to play and write and exist in that imaginative way that only kids can, and only some kids get to.

I started dying at 20, I started working at 9.

I haven't stopped doing either since.

Your tired epiphanies about the strain of capitalism and it's negative impacts on the bodies and minds of the working class are both trite and unneeded. Especially when it's rooted in a privileged 20-something year-old on Tumblr who is now, probably for the first time, experiencing the woes of full time work. Who took time out of their day to shame people who raise their kids with working class mentalities (a cultural institution you complain about but give no active solution for eradicating. Cool). Without considering the act of violence this is. Better yet, without caring.

We know our choices, as poor people.

Live in the lie

or die in the lie.

We don't need you coming to the realization now, in 2018, when this has been over a century's worth of lived experiences, with your little just-learned factoids we can prove with the gunk in our lungs and the lines on our faces. We live with the cracks in our hearts from being forced to teach our small children that some people aren't allotted the opportunity to experience being a child. And that we'll have to work fingers to bloody nubs to assure, like our grandparents tried with our parents, that our kids have at least something resembling play and peace.

And you're welcome, by the way.

These kids sacrificing their childhoods are the same kids who allow you to continue living like a child.

adults, while forcing all children above the age of 5 to sit still, be silent, and obey orders for 7-8 hours a day with minimal breaks, reducing their exposure to fresh air and sunlight to almost nothing, forcing them to alter their natural sleeping patterns to increase productivity, and repeatedly telling them their self worth depends on their being able to follow these instructions perfectly for 13 or more years: kids these days are so lazy! they never go outside! they never want to do anything! clearly it’s not because of us!

[fantasiaofwords]

Thirty seconds.

I can do this.

I *have* to do this.

"Are you ready?"

D e e p b r e a t h.

"I'm ready."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I'm still growing into my awkward, gangly body. Seventeen in France, I shouldn't even be here. I forged my birthdate *and* my father's signature on the goddamn papers that sent me here. My helmet is tilted casually on my head. I lean against my ambulance, on foot nonchalantly resting on it. It stopped raining a few hours ago, but here, the smell of petrichor still permeates the air.

In my left hand, I hold an open package of cigarettes and my shiny new lighter. In my right, perched delicately between my index and middle fingers, a freshly lit, smoldering cigarette creeps ever closer to my mouth. I can smell it, practically taste it, and resist the urge to gag.

*The time is now.*

I stop breathing.

I summon every feeling of disgust I can muster. My lungs burn, like the tobacco I hold in my hand. My head buzzes and complains at the putrid smell, and I summon a cough from deep in my diaphragm. I hack away, desperately wheezing for air, letting the terror of being unable to breathe flood my senses, drowning in smoke.

*IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?!*

I pull the cigarette away from my face. I inhale deeply, relishing in the moist air that rushes to my lungs. The spots clear from my vision and the panic subsides. I gasp, happy to be breathing.

I crush the cigarette with my bare hand, the embers stinging my palm: a reminder. I throw the package of cigarettes into a puddle underneath the ambulance, and throw my lighter to the ground. I crush it beneath my heel, digging it into the mud.

I stare up at the sky. The clouds are starting to part. And I make myself a promise.

*I will NEVER smoke again.*

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I wake up gasping. The nurses buzz around me, running some tests and doing bloodwork. I focus on my breathing, trying to recover from the experience.

"Were you successful?"

"I don't know yet," I say.

The nurses tell me I will be under observation for two hours, and then I can go home. When the last one has filed away, I reach for my phone.

Shaking, I enter my passcode, and Google his name.

WALT DISNEY

Date of birth: 12/05/1901

Date of death: 12/15/1988

1988.

Nineteen eighty-eight.

*Nineteen eighty-eight.*

I let out a sob. I did it. I fucking did it. I read through his Wikipedia article, searching for what has changed. He lived another 22 years. He saw the opening day of Magic Kingdom, of Walt Disney World. He built the EPCOT of his dreams. He saw the beginning of the next great technological age.

He did so much more. His dreams came true the way he meant for them to. I sit and weep as I read about the changes made in this new world. Eventually, I stumble across a quote from an interview with him, one that hadn't existed before.

"...I only ever smoked once in my life. And even then, it wasn't a real smoke. I had it less than an inch away from my lips when I suddenly couldn't breathe. I thought I was having some kind of reaction to it. I put it out, and never tried to smoke again. Just the smell makes me dizzy."

I smile. That was me. That was me, with Walt, telling him no. And he *listened.*I read on:

"In my haze from [the reaction], I crushed the cigarette with my bare hand. It left a little mark there that I've kept with me all these years. A little souvenir from the War, I suppose."

I stare in shock. I *literally* scarred Walt Disney for life. I shift my phone in my hand, and yelp in pain. I look at my palm, and see a fresh burn mark.

The cigarette.

You are given the opportunity to possess anybody in history for 30 seconds in order to change something. Who do you choose and what do you do in that brief time?