#i got distracted on Wikipedia

[transingthoseformers]

I saw that the Phase Seven fic had Megatron/Ravage and my mind immediately went to imagining what those sparklings would look like. I eventually settled on the Cybertronian equivalent of siberian tiger beastformers. Large cats!

Like, reaching Megatron's waist in beastmode big.

From the MinimegaRav there is so much creativity, altmode wise, that can come about

Like your idea!! Like. Originally I misread that as "saber tooth tigers" and fucking rolled with it, you're still right though. Like. Please don't be afraid to steal from extinct classes of Carnivora, there are some totally underrated extinct mammals in there.

[fishy-lava]

kaz brekker really out here living every cane user's fantasy of hitting people with their canes

[solradguy]

Do you think one could attain decent-ish ability to read Japanese just by studying kanji? Specifically asking because the kanji learnin' service "wanikani" is the single Japanese resource that works best with my brain, but then there are separate resources for grammar and vocab and and and.....

You will get REAAAALLLLLYYY far knowing only the kanji but you're going to have to know hiragana and katakana at some point too. Tofugu, the company that did Wanikani, has two mnemonics-based guides for the kana that are basically Wanikani Lite. They're how I learned the kana and I swear by them.

Here's hiragana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/

And katakana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/

Hiragana are especially vital to learning kanji; you won't be able to use 99% of Japanese-English dictionaries without them. BUT they're pretty easy and the rules for using them are consistent. You won't have to remember any irregular exceptions for any of them.

I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard really good things about the Crystal Hunters manga series as a fun/low stress way to learning Japanese vocab and grammar. It eases the reader into new concepts and then repeats them throughout the chapter so you remember them. There are free vocab and study guides/lists for each chapter too. Might be worth checking out once you get some kanji and the kana under your belt? The first book is also free.

Official site: https://crystalhuntersmanga.com/

Good luck!!

[eggtrolls]

my enemies are working against me; I was strongly tempted by dark forces to make a completely nuance-free statement like "dear christ I hate the wiki education foundation so fucking much it's such a terrible idea" but instead I will be SO strong and make a post with way too much nuance about a niche step in the sausage-making of wikipedia

backstory: when the world was young in like...2010, some wunderkind realized college students use wikipedia for their classes, ergo college students in classes can be harnessed en masse to be use FOR wikipedia! if you're taking a class on, say, the Punic Wars, wouldn't it be an excellent educational experience to teach others (via wikipedia) about the Punic Wars to develop your own research and academic (okay, academic in tone) writing abilities! the kids will contribute! wikipedia gets a new crop of editors who HAVE to do this unlike the rest of us morons editors who voluntarily toil under the endless wheel of the open internet! yeah!

and that's not like. the WORST idea I've ever heard, for all that it's not really a good one. Because on the surface, there are a lot of similarities to writing a humanities-esque college paper and a wikipedia article. you are assigned a topic; you research the existing scholarship; you compile a bibliography and summarize the relevant literature IN YOUR OWN WORDS; your sentences are cited, your perspectives are balanced, and you check your bias (as much as you can) at the door.

two major, one minor (but no less annoying), issues with this :

(major) wikipedia editing is not the same as college essay writing. for one thing, coordinated editing in groups on one topic like this is uhhhhh strongly discouraged on wikipedia because it's very fucking easy for a cliche of editors to make massive changes and sideline other editors who disagree with them. wiki editing is an iterative process where articles are refined and improved in the forges of a Socratic circle of topic-proficient grammar nerds.

(major) a lot of you are really bad writers!!! you are not good at writing at a college level on the first go and, as far as I can tell, none of you are using the blessed Sandbox feature that every single registered editor gets in order to test and try out the big, blocks of text edits y'all are adding to these shivering, unsuspecting articles who are getting t-boned by 19 year olds adding sentences that are just comma splices on comma splices.

(minor but lol it's the largest one because I'm petty) the rest of the editorial corps of wikipedia, to say nothing of the READERS, who are unaware of that this fuckery is ongoing, are not in your college class. I'm not taking Fall 2024 ENG 2201 at [Random Ass] University and the articles that I keep an eye on didn't sign up to be shoddily edited by a bunch of novices who have no understanding of, let alone respect for, (among other things) the Wikipedia Manual of Style, editing norms and best practices, how to not plagiarize whole-cloth, and how not to regurgitate propaganda. the rest of the internet is not standing still while you make unsourced claims about dead Emirati sheikhs being "visionary leaders" with references from Emirati governmnet websites. no!!!! there's never enough oversight from the professors and Wiki Ed Foundation people and then when I undo most of the shit-tier edits they're like ummm hi sweaty sorry but I'm reverting you (triple-revert-undo-block guideline violation but go off I guess) so I can see my students' edits for their grade (despite the fact that the history features keeps a record of every single edit) sooooo yeah just leave this horseshit on Hedy Lamarr's internet for 8 weeks until the semester is over :) and I'm like no. die perhaps.

'so why does wikipedia keep doing this if the student editors suck so much donkey dick' - again, a few main reasons.

I'm bitter rn because I've been dealing with a particularly stupid batch of student editors editing particularly badly. most of them are much better and have supervision so they can't suck THAT badly. it's generally an overall benefit to have anyone edit....ever. so this is still a positive, either from the edit itself or that it prompts other editors to go take a look at what these kids are doing and clean up both the new mess and the preexisting mess that has been stagnant since 2012.

WIKIPEDIA NEEDS NEW EDITORS SO BADLY. you know how the premise of Game of Thrones is that there's all this seemingly really important but in fact petty fighting happening between the houses or w/e but the actually, huge issue is the ice zombies about to fuck shit up? people are freaking out about ChatGPT and other LLMs but the reality is that won't matter very much if there's no one to do the actual editing. Wikipedia is STARVING for editors as people move on, get older, get new responsibilities, get fed up with bullshit, sometimes die, etc. multiple college classes of dozens of students (worldwide! so doubly great if it helps with countering the American/Western-centric bias!) who are under 25 is like a blood infusion for a hemophiliac to Wikipedia. I cannot emphasize enough for much they (we) want YOU to go edit. I will help you, I will take your hand. they want you, personally. and imho that's why there's the willingness to put up with these pretty solidly mediocre editors - the odds that one or two per every 50 will stay and turn into a relatively active editor.

[baravaggio]

that 16 minute version did not come to play

[blinkbones]

Kim's Coupris Kineema** probably related to κίνημα (kínēma), the Ancient Greek for "movement" and the same root that sprouted the word "cinema".

a potential reading of the double <ee> as the "ee" (like eel) sound* suggests possible weaving of meaning with :

κίνημα • (kínima) n (plural κινήματα)

movement (grouping working towards a common aim) το συνδικαλιστικό κίνημα (the trades union movement)

mutiny, conspiracy, coup (group intent on radical social change)

*I don't remember how it's pronounced in the audio **This is wikipedia-grade research. I am not an etymologist

[merge-conflict]

i come with a very serious and not at all self-indulgent question: what mythical/fantasy creature would Valentine be?

bonus: what do you think Goro & Johnny would be?

This is an interesting question I’d never thought of before but I think I’ve settled that Valentine is a werewolf. Big happy ouppy that is also sometimes dangerous. The whole trans metaphor? Her tendency to fly off the handle in rage and then suddenly be normal? Afflicted by some sort of curse? All the biting and clawing? Sooo much going on there. (I also considered sphinx)

Johnny is some sort of poltergeist or perhaps a phoenix. Sticking within the realm of familiar mythology I’d call Goro a griffin. Majestic eagle-lion protector for sure.

[regicidal-defenestration]

Anyone spare a hint for a struggling TSV fan in these trying times?

[toytulini]

they should invent a way to read while crocheting

<-guy who listens to podcasts but refuses to listen to audiobooks

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

yea i definitely felt like i was being mised into the fucking abyme youre telling me

[mercymaker]

i'm trying to get a little better at doing stuff and things in my daily life and i really want to get better at just sitting down and reading but listen... i spent nearly an hour reading today and i managed 10 pages. T E N pages

[machinedramon]

legit wondering if when I start going to the doc for all my physical shit I should ask abt who I should see abt maybe getting mood stabilizers

i'm sick of this unending cycle of getting eight million ideas and scrambling from one to the next before burning myself out on all of them and falling into a depression and hating myself for not doing any of the eight million things I was excited about

[ruralcat]

started pride and prejudice and then got majorly distracting learning gorillaz lore

[felidthing]

blank room soup was a gateway drug

[jaggedwolf]

thinking about how the mom in Furiosa is also the ex in that Anyone But You film that I only tolerated a third of, and am once more so distracted by its choice to steal names from Much Ado About Nothing and none of its plot - cool, Hero/Claudius are now lesbians, but then one of them still needs to be horrific to the other, what else is the point!

[beeapocalypse]

think the honey sweet thulite church has this sort of frontierism going on where they believe their virtue is both defined By and proven In the settling of the lands. they are embodying the teachings of thule because they are working to mold the world into their desired shape sort of deal (while thule deliberately sought out a planet pretty far from the existence dragons corpse+influence and then decimated the already existing life there they just CANNOT create something without their parents influence. theres animals thatve evolved to use their own blood as a spell medium theres hints of past sentient life underground they were too late in realizing there is that need to MOVE engrained into all of reality countering their own desire for stagnation+total control)