#its not real. its not based in any sort of actual math.

[bananonbinary]

my most unpopular opinion i think is that i don't actually like the idea of "fairly compensated labor" (stay with me) because i don't really like the idea that output is connected to your ability to survive at all.

like. the word "fairly" implies here that there is some sort of objective balance between "effort" and "payment," and it's not something we made up based on current cost of living and all that. which has the somewhat nasty corollary that if you DON'T work, you haven't earned that payment, do not deserve it, and in fact you getting it is "unfair." it's also....just really confusing and conceptual? like, you're trying to put a concrete number on someone's time, their concentration, their experience, their materials, AND weigh that against how much food and shelter costs. it's the problem of "unskilled labor," anyone can come along and disagree with you about what any of those things is worth. and the solution can't just be "all labor is worth whatever it costs to live," because again, we start to get into sick days and disability and children and elderly, and it gets muddied again. it makes far more sense to me to say "living is a human right," and then "labor is a social obligation, like voting or jury duty." you pay into society because that's what a society is, not because you need to in order to eat.

to be clear, i am NOT saying people should work for free. and within our current system, we should pay people as best we can to keep them alive and comfortable. i just think when envisioning the future, it's a mistake to continue trying to quantify someone's Societal Contribution with some sort of hard number.

[genericpuff]

Webtoon Canvas is pay-to-win now, I guess.

DISCLAIMER: All of the series I show here is for the sake of comparing statistics and criticizing Webtoons' Super Likes system. I have nothing personal against these series or their creators and I do not want anyone to get the impression that I am encouraging any sort of action against these creators. The following rant is merely my own observations and opinions concerning Webtoons itself as a platform.

I found out today that Webtoon has implemented a Super Likes ranking board.

This does exactly what it sounds like - it ranks Canvas series based on how many Super Likes they have. Whether or not this ranking board is on a weekly rotation (like the Originals rankings) or just overall, I don't know, but something immediately felt off with this system and it took very little time at all to realize what was really going on here.

When you actually click on the series listed here, it'll tell you how many Super Likes they've accrued overall. The first thing that made me raise an eyebrow was the fact that the Super Likes listed in the ranking boards isn't the same as what's listed in the comics' landing pages, but I chalked that up to a simple delay on WT's end as I can assume the ranking board doesn't refresh at pace with whatever Super Likes are coming in.

But the real red flag was this:

Limitless : Untold is a series with 1,657 followers and seems to get an average of 35-45 likes per episode.

But it somehow has 1,715 Super Likes?

Anyone who's run a Patreon, Ko-Fi, Ad Revenue, or any other sort of revenue-based system with their content will probably realize how that doesn't add up. The reality is that regardless of how many readers / followers you have, only a small fraction of them will actually spend money on your work or to support you. Not every person reading an Originals series is FastPassing. Not every person reading a webcomic is supporting the creator on Patreon. This ratio is even apparent outside of income-based statistics - for example, not every person who follows will read new updates each week and hit the like button (which is why you can have a comic with 1700 followers that only gets a few hundred views and a handful of likes per update). This ratio can be influenced by all sorts of different things, but one thing that doesn't typically happen is for the ratio to flip itself in this fashion.

To put it bluntly: how can a comic with a high of 45 likes in the past 3 months possibly accrue 1,715 Super Likes since it was launched just last week? You've probably already come to the conclusion on your own, but for those who haven't: there's very strong evidence to suggest that creators are buying their own Super Likes to get on this ranking board.

That's assuming the worst of this, though - after all, maybe some of these creators just have super supportive friends who are tossing them a ton of Super Likes? It costs $1 for 5 of them, in this example the amount of Super Likes comes out to approximately $343 (assuming my math is right lmao) which isn't massive amounts of money but it's, again, still really impressive for a comic with only 40 likes on average.

Bu Limitless : Untold isn't the only one in the rankings board that's like this. In fact, the top three spots are occupied by webtoons with the same tilted ratio.

But then, suddenly, after those top three positions, the following webtoons Super Likes totals that make a LOT more sense and reflect the usual ratio more accurately:

The Little Trashmaid, one of the most popular Canvas webtoons of all time and the first one to hit the 1 million subscriber mark in the Canvas section has only accrued 355 Super Likes so far... and you seriously want me to believe a comic like Limitless : Untold with only 0.08% of its readership is somehow genuinely earning five times the amount of Super Likes?

I want to make it clear yet again that I have nothing against the series that have managed to break the system in their own favor. None of this is meant to "slam" them or judge their work or anything of the sort, I'm simply comparing the numbers here and coming to a very reasonable conclusion as someone who's well aware of how ratios like this tend to work in webcomics and content creation. It's just not feasible for the top three comics in the Super Likes ranking boards to organically earn that many Super Likes relative to the sizes of their audiences, especially when compared to the bigger comics that are only pulling in a fraction of that amount. The ratios of Super Likes : actual likes for those bigger comics actually looks reasonable and expected, the ratios for the smaller comics that are sitting at the top are not.

If anything, Webtoons has created a broken system and these creators are simply using that system to their advantage. And I'm not necessarily going to fault them for that because I can get wanting to do whatever it takes to get eyes on your work.

But it does raise the question of what kind of system Webtoons has cultivated here - a system where creators are resorting to Super Liking their own episodes to bump themselves up in the leaderboards.

And before anyone asks me how I can be so sure that these creators are Super Liking their own works - I literally opted into the Super Likes system myself and proceeded to Super Like one of my own episodes.

(this is like the one helpful thing with my work still being on WT even though I'm not updating there anymore, it lets me test shit like this LOL)

So yes, this is a thing that creators can do and it would certainly explain the massive discrepancy in the ratio of Super Likes : regular likes for these smaller series.

This is literally pay-to-win. And who do we have to blame for this? Webtoons, full stop. Not only for implementing a ranking board for an optional monetization service while still allowing creators to use that monetization system to support themselves as a way to climb up that ranking board, but for creating this gross psychological dependency on the platform as the "only way" to build an audience, to the point that people are now paying Webtoons out of their own pocket just to have their thumbnail visible in a ranking board and maybe get some extra views (and 49% of their money back if they hit that $100 threshold). And on top of all that, further putting on the pressure of competition and 'exclusivity' among many budding creators who are doing what they do for free and for fun. Why are creators now being forced to compete in a metric that's solely determined by how much expendable income their own audience has?

Sure, at least this means creators can get themselves into a ranking board by their own power unlike the other categories that are hand-picked by Webtoons and / or determined by daily stats, but at what cost? The literal financial hit of paying for advertising with extra steps, and the ethical dilemma of essentially paying for potential views with microtransactions. This is no better than paying bots on Instagram to follow your profile and inflate your worth to those who aren't following you. None of it is real, it will not legitimize your work to throw money at Webtoons just to have your thumbnail visible in a ranking board. These are microtransactions meant to benefit Webtoons, not you, the creator.

[callipraxia]

I was just asked to share a favorite writing tip, and as I wrote, it sort of organically expanded from the realm of writing tips I have received and into the realm of writing tips I’ve worked out for myself. I cut most of that from the original response because it wasn’t really what was being asked, but for anyone who might find it helpful - here are six notes on writing from someone who’s been doing it for twenty-something years and has no Agenda, financial or academic, to steer me much astray from confession of my actual practices:

Tip #1: my favorite writing tip I ever got from an outside source is (paraphrasing) “if you want to write like Tolkien, the key isn’t to stick a bunch of dwarves and elves in a low-medieval setting. The key is to write about subjects that you love as much as Professor Tolkien loved Northern European languages and mythology and the pre-Industrial English countryside and Catholic theology and etc.” It isn’t the details of what creatures you have in there that gives something that particular engaging quality that will carry it through and overrule a lot of its inevitable flaws - it is, instead, a subtle, difficult-to-define sort of energy the work will have that, as far as I can tell (and I’ve tried, many times, with concepts and projects that just didn’t work out), cannot be faked.

Tip #2: Based on my own experience as it applies to Tip #1, start trying to figure out what your interests are as early as possible and never stop looking even once you think you’ve found them. There’s a plethora of low-to-no-cost, low-to-no-commitment ways to pick up at least the basics of topics you know nothing about***, so give something a try every now and then, you might surprise yourself. For another personal anecdote, I grew up with the firm belief that physics was something I would a) find really boring and b) not be smart enough to get even the vaguest grasp on no matter how hard I worked, and that even trying was therefore probably a waste of time. I still can’t do the math and would probably flunk any real exams, but physics writing, obtained from the public library’s New Arrivals section, has ended up being one of the richest sources for my writing that I’ve ever encountered.

Tip #3: if you truly can’t find a subject in the world you find yourself especially interested in, that’s probably either the depression or the after effects of bad educational experiences talking. Or both - both is always an option. Start addressing that stuff and the world will most likely become a much more interesting place and you will most likely become a much more interesting writer.

Tip #4: if you find yourself with a sort of author crush, with someone (including other fan authors!) whose work you really, really admire, and you desperately want to be like them when you grow up - find out what they read and read it, too. This doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it is often a productive exercise; the reason I tend to include so many footnotes in my fics is because I’ve benefited so much from other people who left footnotes with reading recommendations or trivia explanations on their fics.

Tip #5, the Big One: Combine multiple things you are geeking out about into one story. The best writing I probably ever did began with how certain characters were represented in three different fanfics in two different fandoms. The presentation of Character A from Franchise 1 in two fics reminded me, in ways she normally wouldn’t, of the presentation of Character B from one fic from Franchise 2. I also just really liked Character C and thought it might be fun to introduce some elements of Character D to him and then see what happened, so I isolated some of the things I liked about those characterizations and combined a character trait or two from each in order to form two ‘new’ basic characters who would form the ‘center’ of the story. I then ran them both through additional filters: the first filter was some specific other interests (ornithology and tea culture) I happened to have, and then the second was the general impressions I’d gotten of family lives and dynamics from reading a couple of blogs for several years****. And then I topped this concoction off by dusting it lightly with references to and elements from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and an old Cage the Elephant song. Yeah. Other sources of musical inspiration have included, but are far, far from limited to, songs from Breaking Benjamin, Foster the People, Hozier, Lana del Rey, The Mountain Goats, The Offspring, and The Smashing Pumpkins. Even I kind of roll my eyes at that list, but hey, if it works, it works.

Tip #6: Don’t get the wrong idea from Tip #5 - I don’t recommend approaching stories or subjects with the aim of finding something to combine with something else in mind. The example I gave coalesced in my head over the course of several years before I ever put any of it into writing. The ideas will form in their own time, and I think the best thing to do is to just absorb as much enjoyable media and neat information as you can and then let your brain gradually do its own thing in its own time. It’s frustrating, but trying to think of things to jam together for a story or character idea on purpose doesn’t work nearly as well in my experience - maybe it can be pulled off for a one-off, preferably one that is a direct homage to or parody of the original, but when it comes to longer-term and more nuanced stuff, it’s rare for a deliberately sought out mash-up to ever quite get that Certain Something that I talked about back in Tip #1.

*** I can only really speak for the U.S. here, but with that caveat - I cannot overstate the utility of public library resources like inter-library loan and Friends of the Library bag sales, along with the contents of the library itself and particularly the New Arrivals sections if one is fortunate enough to be within reasonable driving distance of an even moderately well-stocked public library. If they’ve got a subscription to something like JSTOR or another academic database, so much the better, though you can find a surprising amount of information just through free articles and excerpts on JSTOR at least. The website and app Coursera also has a modest but useful collection of free courses, some of which are designed to be completed in as little as two days, and the similar website/app edX has quite a few classes where you can access the materials freely enough and just won’t get credit toward any professional certificates unless you pay them. I’ve done some studies also through Modern States, which is completely free as far as I remember and aimed at preparing people for exams that could, in theory, allow someone to test out of their freshman year of college or university. I have the very vague impression that Khan Academy sometimes gets mixed reviews, but I’ve found it a useful resource before. I’m sure this list also only just scratches the surface of what’s out there, too, since these are just resources I’ve personally used.

**** One of these was a LiveJournal, to give you some idea of how long ago this was…The other, in the category of “less obvious places to look,” was a collection of tea-tasting logs from a website called steepster; some users use/at least used to use their logs as a sort of journal/social media as well as a place to review teas, and some of those people are really good writers. Haven’t been to steepster in a while, though, should probably peek in sometime to see if it and/or any of my favorite loggers are still around….

[improbable-implosions]

Remember how I said the puncetto valsesiano didn't quite hit the spot just right for the mends I needed? Here's how I fixed it!

First up, we throw some stitches down to apply the patch fabric! I tend to keep my edge stitching, as I kinda enjoy the framing effect it applies to patterns, so I'm a bit more careful about the spacing of the straight stitches I use. Usually, I just see people kinda toss some tack stitches down they remove, and honestly, there's value to that too, make it so there's _just_ the pattern, y'know?

First up, over the puncetto, is the horizontal stitching. I'm using a pattern from wrenbirdarts, and It's intended that you do some weaving after the end of this pattern, but I wound up liking the look of it with just the stitching.

The pattern is really coming together with the vertical stitching here! That, and it's really coming across how well stitching through the puncetto is working out! If that didn't use so much thread for so little space, I might keep this particular order of techniques around! (Perhaps I'll have to use it for those ceylon stitched patches, eventually?)

Last but not least for the puncetto area, we've got the two diagonal sets of stitches! You're meant to weave between the small crosses in the "offset" area between the crosses with diagonals, but honestly, I looked at the way that finished piece looked, and didn't care for it. There's another woven pattern I've seen around that makes a sort of hexagon grid that I might take a shot at on another piece, though!

Next up, for the opposite side of the seam from the puncetto, I decided I wanted to make my own pattern based on a stitched example online! The idea of this is meant to evoke woven reeds in a basket, but I also thought it gave a sort of tetris-esque pattern. With some simple math (and a lot of help from a ruler!) I put down these lines Just So on the dissolvable backing.

Horizontal and vertical sets of stitches later, we've got a completed basketweave sashiko! This wound up being a really entertaining pattern to do, especially at this relatively small scale, because I could breeze through each line in, practically, one pass each!

Slightly unfortunately, the pattern doesn't really read at this small of a scale, so maybe I need to keep the basketweave pattern to be used on larger patches, instead. It's a real shame, because it's such a fun pattern conceptually! Oh well, guess I enjoyed the process more than the finished product this time :)

Last but not least, busted out the speed loom to do a little darn to cover a hole that expanded past its patch, ever so rudely (i actually misplaced the patch, like with the pride flag mends) (doesn't make the hole any less rude though) (especially since I didn't whip stitch the hole to hold still so I had to add this block of ceylon stitching after two or three wears to block the still expanding hole from further friction)

[anarcho-physicist]

Hi, hello ^^

I just saw the post about describing your research in 4 words, and I saw you work with bird flocking math, that's so cool! I have not gone through your blog yet, so I literally know nothing more, still I have a question if you don't mind: I assume this is about the movement of birds who fly in big flocks, is their movement similar to some other material movement, is it like fluid or resembles air currents or idk? I assume you work on the math part more (I really should have looked you up more before this ask, there are too many assumptions here lol), are you considering bird behaviour or is it just trying to model the flocking based on recorded data? Do you know, or do you think their movements are similar to schools of fish or other animals who move in big groups?

Sorry that's a lot of questions 😅 You don't really have to answer them all

Main thing is I think your research is cool and I hope you're having a good time :))

Thank you for the interest!! I love talking about this stuff so I'm always happy to practice my writing skills

So potentially disappointingly, I don't actually study the real, living animals that most people mean when they refer to birds; I study what a theoretical physicist would call a bird, which means any particle/clump of matter that:

Has a broken polar symmetry (meaning it has a well-defined head and tail)

Is actively self-propelled in the direction of its polarity (e.g. by wings in air, or by fins or flagella in water)

Changes its direction of self-propulsion in response to interactions with other birds around it (e.g. aligning its polarity with its neighbors to form a flock)

When you have a bunch of "birds" (which in nature might be actual birds, or fish, or bacteria, or in experiments might be tiny colloidal particles or robots) that are densely packed together and interacting/aligning with each other, we call that phase of matter an "active polar fluid". Just based on the symmetries of the flock of birds/fish/whatever, we can propose different specific mathematical models for how the fluid evolves in time, and try to explain/predict what sorts of large-scale behaviors it exhibits. But because the different models are constrained by the symmetries of the fluid, they'll all exhibit some universal behaviors.

I've been studying and trying to understand the bifurcation structure in the equations behind one such behavior, the formation of long-wavelength density waves (like sound waves) in such flocks. These are seen both in natural flocks and precisely controlled experiments of synthetic flocking colloids. So I spend all day manipulating and simulating these equations, which are one of the simplest models you can write for a flock:

My hope is that once I've finished putting together some results that I've been deriving for the past few months, they might lead to a prediction about the dynamical phases exhibited by real, living polar active fluids. If I get to that point, maybe then I'll get to look at some real birds!

But until then it's just math, with some occasional pretty graphs

[kouslut]

@shoujo-brain-masahiro

Kousuke had always thought himself a decently lucky person, one fortunate enough to have been born to a good enough family, into decent wealth, with a fairly good draw from the genetic lottery and a set of handy gifts at his disposal that he'd have called enviable if not for the fact that, as he'd been kindly informed around the time he had moved up to middle school, that would've counted as bragging and would have come off as "douchey". The thing was that, though he had for a short period of time considered himself something of an outlier, something of an exceptional genius of sorts who could succeed in just about any field so long as he put his mind to it, he'd come to see, with the little maturity he'd acquired over the years, that he was no different from everyone else or the norm, after all, and that he really had just had a little more luck than most people he'd encountered in his youth.

As time had passed, however, and his ego had inflated in tandem with his self-confidence crashing with the realization that he'd have had to accept his own mediocrity, what had come to light was that his luck was something of an extraordinary talent in and of itself, one with a will of its own that was dead set on ignoring its owner's desires. A force to be reckoned with, more than fate itself.

That was, at least, the only real, though dramatic, explanation he could have given as to how he had gone from being just another Math bachelor student at UTokyo to some kind of overnight celebrity.

It had started with a modelling job he'd taken for the fun of it along with a friend who'd pushed him into it, and it had ended with... being cast as the lead in some new drama that was, as the producer claimed, going to be a very big deal, after a bunch of acting roles he'd gone through as his popularity in magazine polls had incredibly surprisingly risen. Not that Kousuke didn't have a good idea of what he looked like or the fact that many people seemed to be into it, between the girls and guys he'd happened to frequent, but, in all frankness, he hadn't thought that would have been enough to make up for the shit personality he also knew he had, along with his pretty face. Not that he minded all that- being put on a pedestal to the point that it was hardly him people were looking at anymore, but rather a projection of what they believed he most likely was like based on what twitter had taken to calling his "angel face" and "very breedable" body or whatever.

He didn't mind any of that, in the same way that he hadn't minded dropping out of uni when he'd been asked to. Anything to make his life just a little less dull, even if it meant giving up the one thing he really had been passionate about since the start.

When he'd been offered the role in this upcoming drama his agent was oh so excited about, he'd known from the start that he'd have accepted the gig- for a number of reasons. The first of all being that it had honestly flattered him to know he'd been the first to be asked. The second that he was getting bored of the routine of mindless interviews, mind numbing work out programs and doomscrolling in his off time. The third that it would have possibly damaged his reputation to refuse.

When he'd been handed the actual pitch, he'd had a half panic attack over what the actual job would have implied, and had, for a moment, wondered if he had somehow accidentally come out to someone involved in production or some such, but, of course, that wasn't the case. It just happened to be a story about two men. More importantly than that, his character had just the life he'd have probably found himself living if not for his sudden and unexpected scouting- that of a high school math teacher. That had most definitely ended up catching and holding his attention. Whatever the rest of the plot implied, he didn't quite care. He'd have done as he usually did- which was apparently good enough to be cast without even trying- and it would have all turned out well.

That was, of course, not what he had said to the many reporters and magazines who had begged for an interview upon the release of the news- that he'd be the star in the new awaited and anticipated drama that was to come out.

---

Casting had been proceeding decently, according to the people who seemed to care more than he did- meaning pretty much everyone, if he had to be honest- right up until the moment in which the director had decided that he'd have needed him in the studio to ensure there would be good chemistry between him and the one who was to be his co-star. He'd found the whole thing to be incredibly performative, to the point that he'd assumed the staff was hoping they'd lure some more popular actors in by swinging his name around. He frankly didn't believe in "chemistry", not when it came to something like a job. A decent actor would have been able to act, full stop. And he'd have done the same, because that was how he'd gotten to that point, not because he'd happened to be elevated by some chemistry magic when he'd encountered the actual stars of his field.

Whatever. His agent had thought it a great idea, for networking also- not that Kousuke thought he'd have needed any more vapid connections- and he had ended up accepting right away since, once again, it was his job to go along with whatever artistic velleity the staff would have wanted to pull. He was there to pretend hard enough to believe in it so that everyone else could be fooled into thinking there was something great going on, when, really, he always had just been some dude, with a decent enough face, and a disproportionate and almost unfortunate amount of luck to his name.

It had been boring, for the most part. Boring as in normal for the job- recite the few lines the casting script has in it and smile kindly at anyone and everyone who meets your gaze. The ground rules, to him. Most of the morning had gone by already, and Kousuke was really, really craving a smoke. Not that he could have- all the talking was straining his throat on its own, he'd have had to wait until the evening to finally- finally take a drag.

That was when a boy he'd have not thought older than 17 or so walked into the booth, led by the casting assistant. The man readily whipped out his smile to greet the yet unnamed boy as he would any applicant coming to him for their "make or break" session.

"Hey," he called with a practiced, easygoing wave. "It'll be my pleasure to work with-"

That was when his observation skills actually caught up with him and the autopilot deactivated, leaving him to remember where he was, what he was doing and wonder just what that young looking kid was doing there. Bleached hair and piercings. That sure was a look. And, now, he'd seen all kinds of styles from fellow actors, but all of them had been a product of a pr stunt mixed with their personal taste, with a LOT of care put into making whatever it was they were trying to pull off look professional despite its nature- whatever it was. That was not what he was looking at at that very moment. Most definitely not. That hair had been bleached at home and it hadn't seen a hairdresser in- not ever, if he had to guess. Was the kid even an actor? Was he actually there to try for the role? He'd been let in, so he could only assume that that was the case- he'd have rather mistaken a handyman for an actor than the opposite.

He recomposed himself, if only a little, deeply aware of the questioning look on his face. He didn't think he could really be blamed- the guy looked like a kid, and a delinquent at that. He had the look. But not the attitude. Admittedly, Kousuke was a little intrigued.

"Pleased to meet you...?" he tried again, extending his right arm for a casual handshake.

[king-of-men]

Humans in Space

Variation on the "humans are orks" thing: Sure, we're pretty tough by non-Earth standards, and we breed fast. But also, our machines don't actually work.

When used by entities not steeped in our collective psychic field and our belief that they damn well should work, that is.

Of course, you can see the theory that we're basing our belief on: Sure, you put an explosive at the bottom of a cylinder and light a match to it, then yeah, it'll push a piston upwards and you can extract useful work. In principle. Once. But, my dude, those are explosives you're playing with. To then put the piston back in its starting position, flush out the exhaust gases (automatically, by the motion of the piston!) and put in more explosives, to repeat the cycle? Haha no. Not in actual real life, with ordinary materials and the sort of tolerances you can get with a hammer. Unless, that is, your whole species consists of extremely powerful psychics who believe in this sort of hubristic Mad Engineering. Although, to be fair, why shouldn't we? It's always worked for us before!

No other species has ever gotten into space without first inventing solid-state electronics and, more importantly, contragrav theory, whose implementation doesn't have any moving parts. To reach orbit by quite literally lighting a fire under your ass and expecting to survive the resulting explosion? And not only survive it, but actually reach your intended destination? (Various alien equivalents of "shaking my head" go here.) Only you guys. And not only that but you think you're doing math!

(The rant about the sheer chutzpah of just assuming that a number exists and defining it to be zero, as in the first Peano axiom, will have to await another day. Alien mathematicians do not get along with their human counterparts. How can you talk sensibly to a species that thinks they're being 'rigorous' when they define the base case and then go "and so on", without actually going through the construction of whatever number it is they need for their proof? Next they'll be thinking that infinity is a number, and dividing by it to get back that zero that they didn't prove exists!)

Oh, and guns, of course. We didn't even mention guns yet. Like, just ignore everything we said about explosives. Obviously when you insist on putting a powerful explosive in a sealed chamber that you hold in your hand, and then carefully setting fire to it, the result is that you blow your hand off. Duh. But ignore that for right now. Also ignore that you seemingly believe you can repeatedly set off explosives in finely-machined metal without deforming it, so that even if by some miracle it worked once, it most certainly won't work the same way again. We already covered that up above. Never mind the Mad Engineering, what about the Mad Science? Look even humans understand that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So explain how you fire a bullet at an enemy, without suffering anything worse than a bruised shoulder yourself? "Never thought about it", is it? Yes well. That's a nice psychic power you got there. Shame if anyone were to point it out to you and make it not work any more.

[glassfullofsass]

reasons not to use generative ai (forgive the non-clickable links. Im on the mobile browser):

Its an insane energy drain

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-energy-demands-water-impact-internet-hyper-consumption-era/

Its probably wrong

https://tech.co/news/list-ai-failures-mistakes-errors

You don't learn. I cant find the kind of article I want on this one, but I've got one on why learning is important and some thoughts, just briefly, based on my experiences and discussions with educators:

https://www.edutopia.org/neuroscience-brain-based-learning-neuroplasticity

You learn by *doing*. You learn by *engaging*.

When you read a book and write a report on it, you're synthesizing information; processing the story and the structure and the metaphors, and forming options about all of that. You're learning how to organize your thoughts in ways that can be understood and you're learning when to include citations to give weight to your conclusions. Sure, students have been skimming books and using spark notes for ages, but even taking the information from summaries and using the prompts provided by sparknotes/etc still requires you to form those ideas into an arguement.

In math, a calculator is a tool. The fancy ones can do all sorts of processes for you, including some 300-400 level calculations...but generally you still have to understand enough of those calculations to input them correctly. And if you're given a scenario, you have to translate the data into calculations. Real world applications? Literally any research science position. Marketing and sales too. Tons of jobs require you to collect data and turn that into useable information. Public health? Lab scientists and epidemiologists have an absurd amount of data that has to be wrangled into decisions that have major and very noticeable effects on peoples lives.

Plugging scenarios with data points into generative ai just shows that you lack the understanding of what you're doing, and that you're willing to risk a fancy bit of code misinterpreting the information you feed it.

Feeding an essay prompt into generative ai removes all mental burden from your workload...and you don't create any of the neurological pathways that actually having your own thoughs create.

ur future nurse is using chapgpt to glide thru school u better take care of urself

[x---23]

remembering how in school i hated homework, so i always sped thru it all in class(my chicken scratchy handwritting being a product of that). and if homework wasnt being graded, i could just skip it(my terrible spelling skills being a product of that. cuz our spelling homework was never mandatory)

thats kinda how i feel with my spiritual journey too. the way i do it may be illegible at times, but im still speeding thru faster than most

i actually wasnt that much of an idiot in school, i just prefer to say i was. i mostly got B’s n A’s, but i missed so many assignments in highschool due to my mental health that my grades just..got worse. then i moved to an alt school. then in 10th grade i stopped doing academic subjects and just stuck to art n film n english. then a year after 12th i went and got my adult degree(only had to do math, even tho i definitely didnt have enough of the other subjects). it was a weird miracle, that for plot reasons was mostly about the english assignments i did as well(i had to do one other subject, so i chose english 12 again)

did i ever post about one of the pieces that stuck out to me? whatever, here it is

it was a vent piece based on myself, but the endings a lie. i did wanna remember. tho now i know that theres probably nothing to remember.

i was thinking about it again tonight actually, sorting thru any memories that stood out to me and trying to figure out what could be the start of something bad, since in my dream last night i was trying to understand why i know what stuff feels like/looks like(my dream self is always so curious, even when he doesnt know hes dreaming). but if nothing bad is felt in response, then i should stop worrying so much. you’d think the violent sensations would worry me more. like, if my brain can accept that stuff like that never happened, then why not believe its all some kinda dream magic?(especially the stuff thats literally impossible for me to know based on..anatomy). none of its tied to any real memories anyway, its all just feelings. so who gives a shit

[lcatala]

I wonder if people so strongly object to the suggestion that something is subjective because they think "subjective" is synonymous with "false", "relative" or "arbitrary", when in fact all these notions aree distinct.

Let's take the octave.

When you hear a tone that resonates at 100Hz (a hundred vibration per second), and another tone that resonates at 200Hz, your brain categorize them as "the same tone". Not strictly as identical, but as belonging to the same category. It views the 200Hz tone as "the same but higher".

Now this is absolutely subjective, that is, it's not a property of the sound itself, it's a property of how your brain interpret the sound.

200Hz is objectively not the same as 100Hz. You'd think that say, 140Hz sounds closer to 100Hz than 200Hz does to your brain, but now, turns out 140Hz sounds much much more different than 200Hz. Your brain's way of categorizing thing clearly has a logic of its own that is not fully grounded in the laws of accoustics.

But.

This is not false. People really do perceive octaves accurately. The phenomena is entirely in our brain, it's an interpretive phenomenon, but it's a real phenomenon.

This is not relative. All people with a healthy brain and ears perceive the octave. It's a psychological phenomenon, but it's a universal phenomenon.

This is not arbitrary. It turns out that in nature, you never hear pure tones. Rather, the sound of nature have "subharmonics" that are integer multiples of the base frequency. When you heard a 100Hz sound in nature, what you actually hear is a fundamental frequency of 100Hz, a lower volume subharmonic of 200Hz, an even lower subharmonic of 300Hz, an even lower subharmonic of 400Hz, etc. Which means that due to how maths work, a the subharmonics of a 200Hz tone are also all contained within the subharmonics of a 100Hz tone. So there is a sort of categorical sense in which a 200Hz tone is closer to a 100Hz tone than to any other other tone. The perception of the octave is a trick your brain use to make this categorial proximity apparent. It's an artificial phenomenon, but it's a motivated phenomenon.

[swashbucklery]

OK but I want to talk in detail about like. How much I love the Legends 100 but specifically why.

Because at it’s heart it’s a love letter to the series, and often the 100th episode of any series is, that’s not so surprising. But I think that what really got me about the Legends 100 is how much it felt like they’d finally figured out what the fuck the show actually is, you know?  They just got it so right and it felt sort of like they’d finally articulated the thesis statement for the series and I want to talk about it for 45 years.

Like, Legends has always been this show that’s, to be generous, difficult to explain. And it was such a joy to me to see in this episode that - this is a show where I see it recced and people are like “don’t watch the first several seasons, it’s garbage, start at [whenever, usually S3].” I have said that too - although I never say S1 is garbage - because even though I love S1 and S2 with my whole heart, them very off-putting and don’t want to stick with the show! And what I loved about the 100 as a tribute to past Legends is that instead of allowing themselves to stay in that paradigm of sort of apologizing for the show’s first few seasons, they really made an effort to say like, you know what? No. The first season is good and you should watch it and it lays the groundwork for where this show ended up, so fuck you.

And you know what? YEAH. It IS and it DOES.

This show has always had this motif of each season having a flavour, and really shaping itself around the villain or arc of the season, but despite this there is a core throughline. I don’t think it was intentional necessarily, but when they shifted the vibe of the show between S1 and S2 the things they kept became the common thread to all seven seasons. And really that throughline has been this: the Legends are all heroes that have real, significant limitations.

Lots of superheroes have a backstory of transformative trauma or adversity, but the Legends have always been heroes who specifically like. They have that backstory, but they came out of it transformed in a way that isn’t always classically heroic. Often they’re genuinely limited by however that defining backstory has affected them - typically in ways that are either overt or fairly-easy-to-interpret proxies for mental health diagnoses or other atypical neurotypes.

In different hands or with a different direction, this could have made for a fairly dark show. And what I love about Legends and I think what they really celebrated in the 100 is the way that the show really takes the perspective of: this thing limits you, but it’s also the thing that makes you most qualified to save the world. Doing good is not about being the best or the strongest or the toughest, but it’s about showing up and trying and your trying specifically in your way may not be enough on its own, but if we all try in our own imperfect ways, that’s going to be what makes the difference.

So much time travel media is based off of like. Time loops and diverging timelines and physics to the point where it gets bogged down in it, and often the crux of it is that really with all this math you must be a genius to time travel OR ELSE DISASTER. And the beauty of Legends has always been approaching that mythology and saying: what if you’re super not. What if you’re not very smart and pretty bad at everything and on paper are totally unqualified but that’s what makes you great. What if the people who insist you need to be a certain type of person to save time can’t see the forest for the trees, and are missing the vital ways that you contribute, even with broken and wobbly parts of you. What if you showing up with whatever it is that you have in this moment is the thing that will save the world.

That’s always been what I’ve loved about Legends deep down, and I love that this episode and this season the show has been able to appreciate that like. This is the thing they’ve been doing right all along by accident, but now they’re going to do it on purpose.

[bisquid]

"Kill nothing but time" only works when you have an intact trophic system - which can itself include humans! I don't have any information on it because it's not my area of research but I would not be surprised if one of the effects of the genocide that occurred during the colonisation were ecological effects not unlike those of a major trophic disruption (any data on this would ofc be muddied by the much more direct ecological destruction happening, unfortunately). I know there were food forests on the east coast so productive the settlers thought they'd found Eden, which ~mysteriously~ disappeared not long afterwards. Because they had been managed, but because they didn't look like what the Europeans were used to - arable fields and coppiced woodlands and so on - it was assumed to be a pristine wilderness, and a massive free resource.

One of the things that frustrates me as an ecologist in the rewilding 'sector' is the number of well meaning people consciously or unconsciously valuing 'pristine wilderness' higher or considering it the only real 'end goal' and being sort of sniffy about 'half measures' like protecting field margins and wilding urban green spaces. 'those things are important but they're just a stopgap measure! We need to protect more land and give it back to nature!' which is a well meaning but incredibly frustrating attitude to take, honestly.

One: I am based in Scotland, which has an incredibly low percentage of actually 'pristine' (another word that's more open to interpretation than people think but I won't get into that now) landscape because.. well. Centuries of deforestation, land clearances, intensive farming and monoculture timber plantations, among other things. Today Scotland can boast slightly less (or slightly more, depending how you define it) than one percent of its native pinewood. 'Pristine wilderness' is a pipe dream, here.

Two: there is no way in hell, heaven, or earth that Scotland is going to give up vast areas of productive land - pasture or arable - for 'giving back to nature'. It just won't happen. And, frankly, it doesn't need to happen. The existence of farming is not the problem. Food production is not the problem. Modern farming techniques are the problem, and those problems can be solved, or at least mitigated, with the cooperation of the farmers. Incredible things can be achieved like that! The problem - as everything seems to be these days, seriously, it's exhausting - is this false dichotomy that you can only have 'good untouched wilderness' or 'evil arable farms'. Obviously people don't think it's literally one or the other, but there's a definite inclination towards 'this land can either be for nature or people, not both'. Which is... wildly unhelpful, for obvious reasons. It's also deeply untrue, and between the rewilding I'm involved in professionally and all the Deer Math and associated research I've been doing for fun, it's becoming ever more clear that it's not only possible but far easier than it seems to be able to produce resources including food at a scale significant enough to be a genuine alternative to traditional farming. Especially if you combine it with more 'eco friendly' methods of eg construction.

Coppiced hazel and willow can generate insane quantities of - essentially - small gauge timber, as well as producing haws - theoretically human edible but also a valuable source of food for wildlife. Any fruit bearing tree, again, can provide food for humans and wildlife. Let wild garlic grow where it wants. Plant blackberries and raspberries and manage their spread. Let pigs roam and rootle to grow fat on oak and beech mast, use the winter deer cull to stock your larders with venison rich with winter preparation. Seed riverbanks with cress and alder to shade the water and watch otters playing among their roots. Let elder trees hang heavy with a white foam of flowers in the sunlight in clearings full of wildflowers and the heady buzz of bees at work. Fish in streams and rivers packed with trout and salmon while the swifts and martins dip and dive overhead and the heron stands still as a statue in the shallows.

You don't have to choose between food and nature. You can have both. I promise.

I would far, far rather see a million acres of Aberdeenshire Managed Food Forests than nine hundred thousand acres of traditional intensive farming and a thousand acres of untouched nature reserve.

“National parks have been vital in protecting huge swaths of land, including sacred sites and unique ecosystems, from land developers and other forms of destruction and are some of the last places in the continental United States where many animals are able to live safely from overhunting and unnecessary culls.”

and

“National parks are, just like the rest of the US, land stolen from indigenous people who are now denied access to the lands that their ancestors lived on and cared for for thousands of years, even when having access is vital for a community’s survival, whether that’s through food sources in the form of hunting/fishing/gathering or the ability to continue cultural practices.”

and

“National parks provide places for people to feel connected to nature and to able to observe plants and animals and land masses that they’d never be able to see otherwise, and many national parks also include other services like horseback riding lessons and educational events to help people better understand their planet.“

and

“National parks, including with the famous motto ‘take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints,’ push an ahistorical and frankly dangerous narrative that separates humans from nature, turning people into observers of our world instead of active participants, and does damage to the plants that adapted and evolved at the hands of foragers to benefit the most when they’re harvested.“

[yjwhatif]

Since we’ve now seen Bart create a time sphere from little to nothing and we assume that he also created his time machine all on his own, does this make Bart one of the smartest characters in the series? I mean, maybe not Vandal Savage intelligent or as smart as Batman but, we haven’t seen any other character come close to making any sort of Time Machine or device like it, at least, not without help. After all, he created these all on his own. It’s actually incredible. What do you think?

(Thank you for resending this!!)

I’ll be honest, when I originally read this I was of the mind that he was definitely very smart but there were probably others who would outsmart him… but now, I genuinely think he could be one of the smartest characters in the show! You’re right Anon, nobody seems to be even trying to create a physical time machine - Wally said it was pure theory the things they had considered about the subject. They’re still trying to crack long distance zeta travel - or at the most have only recently got their heads around it - I really don’t think those on earth are anywhere close to attempting time travel yet. They might not have even considered it possible yet until Bart proves it is - and that’s even if it’s common knowledge that Bart’s from the future - the league might wanna keep that secret to protect him - he is still a minor and we know how strongly he feels about divulging information - but eager scientists aren’t going to care about that. Also, (I talked about this a bit here) we don’t know if Bart’s time machine was actually the first successful one to ever exist - if so, then yes, absolutely Bart is one of the smartest characters in the series. (That’s my short answer, below is my overly long breakdown of why Bart is a genius in my opinion. Strap in folks…)

The thing about ‘smartness’ is its subjective - at least from my perspective it is anyway - it’s hard to judge who’s smarter when all the candidates have different areas of expertise. Though I’ve been thinking about this and I think there are three catagories you could fit all areas into…

Strategic smarts — logistical thinking, planning, organisation, tactics

Technical smarts - subject based thinking, maths, science, engineering, medicine, computers

Emotional smarts - people based thinking, empathy, reading people and deceiving people, emotional expression, understanding yourself and how emotion affects a person or situation

And so in this ranking system I just made up in my head and nobody asked for - most people (YJ characters) show strength in at least one maybe two areas, but should anyone excel in all three categories - then they are a genius. Let’s begin…

First off, you mention Batman and Vandal, both extremely smart in actually very similar ways. They’re both strategical thinkers highly focused on the mission at hand - they have a very good eye for planning ahead and determining all the possible outcomes and the strategies to combat them. While they probably do have a lot of technical knowledge as well, they tend to delegate those tasks to others more often than not - so it’s hard to determine my opinion on that. Then there’s the final category where I think it’s safe to say both ain’t so proficient in - that’s not to say they’re robots, but most the time they don’t really value an emotional perspective over logic. My point in this being - while they are very smart they do still falter in certain areas - and let’s be real, those are usually the areas that tend get them caught and/or their plans defeated. Now, while no one asked for this, a quick run through of the OG team would be… I’d say Dick and Kaldur are very similar to Bats - maybe Zatanna also but she’s more technically skilled than strategic. Wally had technical smarts and was possibly gaining some emotional smarts by S2. M’gann is emotional/technical - she’s not very strategic. I’m not quite sure with Will and Raquel yet. Then there’s Conner and Artemis who I’d say do actually show strengths in all three areas.

That brings us onto Bart, who has definitely pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes as to how smart he actually is. From the glimpses of things we’ve seen from him over these three seasons, I’d say there’s evidence that he also excels in all three categories…

Strategic smarts… I mean the obvious example of this is his original mission to save humanity from the Reach apocalypse. That’s a plan that will have taken a serious amount of research and logistical thinking to get to such a standard that’s worth executing - and he seems to have done it all whilst enslaved by aliens in the worst of conditions with possibly only Neut to help and all at the ripe old age of 13. Then there’s the moments like his first scene in the cave and his manipulating the legion - he knows to play along until the moment is right to strike. That sort of response shows a lot of self control to ignore the natural defensive response of putting up a fight or immediately trying to escape the situation - its strategic instead of emotional or impulsive (rather ironic for the kid who took on the nom de guerre of ‘Impulse’ - wouldn’t you think? 🤔) . Bart plays the game - bidding his time until he gains the upper hand and ultimately gets exactly what he wants without breaking much of a sweat… do speedsters sweat? Never mind, moving on…

Technical smarts… Bart clearly has a strong understanding of engineering, since, like you said, this is the second time we’ve see him construct a time machine seemingly on his own and from little more than scraps - and he’s not even out of his teens yet. That is insanely impressive. He’s clearly an expert in engineering and possibly other areas, as I’m sure there’s maths and science elements involved in making a machine travel through space and time. What’s even more impressive is the fact that, other than the legion, it seems like no one actually knows how skilled he is. We’ve certainly never seen him do anything techy during his time in the show or heard anyone suggest that maybe Bart should take a look at something because of his tech know how. For all we know they may still believe he’s “not a chronal expert” - though I am gonna presume they worked out he wasn’t a tourist. The other thing about this new time machine is that it’s a completely different design to the original one he came in. We don’t know whether his speed played any part in that first one - but he was definitely sat in it, so unless it had peddles - there was no treadmill to generate his kinetic energy. This means he clearly has a full understanding of what is needed to make time travel happen - rather than simply memorising a design well enough to keep reproducing it. Again that shows serious smarts. Also he didn’t just recreate the legions time bubble either, he created something new that successfully integrated into bioships systems and also requires his presence to actually work - because, as others have pointed out to me, he’s not just gonna let complete strangers go off into the time stream with his tech to do who knows what. That shows his technical knowledge combining with his strategical thinking to ensure the best plan possible… which leads us onto the final category…

Emotional smarts… the boy has definitely got them. He shows genuine understanding of the emotions of others and is able to read when a situation requires goofball Bart verses genuine Bart. The best example of this is during Elder Wisdom, as Jay gives his lecture about his and the leagues irresponsibility towards allowing the outsiders to form, Bart doesn’t counter with some enthusiastic speech or criticise Jay for not understanding their cause, instead he simply and respectfully reminds the man of his recent loss and how those feelings are clouding his current mindset. He grew up in an apocalypse, Bart likely knows exactly what grief looks like and the effects it can have. He recognises the pain and fear behind Jay’s anger - emotions Jay may not even consciously be aware of, and so he tables his own desires to first comfort and support Jay through that. He’s not blinded by his own emotional desires to misinterpret a situation or act against him, and he’s not so logically minded that he avoids acknowledging the emotional influences of such a situation. Bart may put on the goofball act (I’ll come back to that) but he understands when it’s inappropriate and will drop it in order to show the compassion needed. Unlike Bats, he’s not so set in his ways as being seen as a certain way that he won’t break characters when the moment requires it. He’s adaptable - he might not enjoy acknowledging that side of himself, but he will do it.

Now, back to the goofball persona - if that genuinely is an act - then holy shit that is a serious commitment to successfully keep up with for all these years - especially for someone so young - and no one suspects anything. Essentially, Bart’s duped them all - to do that requires reading and deceiving people at an emotional level which convinces them of the person you’re portraying. The major example is when he mirrors Barry’s “back in a flash” pun as he says his fake goodbyes to everyone in Bloodlines - he acknowledges the emotional reaction Barry got from everyone, then mimics him to gain the same reaction which subconsciously implants the idea that Bart is just like Barry in their minds. He’s not intending to hurt anyone doing this but it is another instance of his manipulation to establish trust and access the things he wants. That shows him using his emotional smarts to ensure the strategical advantage he wants - fitting into this time and quickly being accepted with as few questions as possible.

Bart is seriously a genius!

Now, all of this is my personal interpretation of the things we’ve seen so far - there’s always a chance the show could prove me wrong on a few things - but for now, this is what I think (in as many words as possible… this got so long. 🤦‍♀️) We all know how smart he is, now it’s time for us to see the characters in the show realise how epically smart he is as well.

Thank you for sending this - it certainly got my brain working - and apologies for taking so long to respond… and making it such a long post. 😬

LB

[botwstoriesandsuch]

OK SHUT UP SHUSH SHUT THE FUCK UP IT’S 1AM BUT SHUSH LISTEN! HEY, LISTEN!

I AM GIVING YOU THE TOOLS TO FIND THE EXACT DISTANCE OF ANYTHING ANYWHERE IN HYRULE, CUSTOM MAKE YOUR FIC JOURNEYS TO THE METER, FIND THE AREA OF ANY TOWN OR LANDMARK, OR JUST FIND OUT HOW BIG (or small) HYRULE KINDGOM TRULY IS ONCE AND FOR ALL SO GO AHEAD AND SAVE THIS POST TO YOUR DRAFTS CAUSE YOU MIGHT WANNA SEE IT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

 Ok so this all starts with THIS

FEAST YOUR EYES LADIES, LADS, AND GENTLEFOLK ON THE ONLY PIECE OF INFORMATION IN ALL OF HYRULE CONCERNING DISTANCE AND TIME. 

[Image ID: A screenshot from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, depicting a picture of Ash Swamp hanging in Impa’s house. The dialogue box from Impa reads, “Does it look familiar? From this village, you should be able to get there in a half day’s time.” End ID]

Impa states that it would take you half a day, about 12 hours, to travel from Kakariko Village to the depicted 13th memory, which is at Ash Swamp by Fort Hateno. 

Now here is where I took this information. I took it to

objmap.zeldamods.org

A fantastic online Botw map resource with tons of features like finding specific objects, and highlighting areas, and placing pins, and the basics of showing the locations of everything like shrines and korok seeds and all that. 

BUT the thing that we care about today is this ability, here:

DRAW!

With those widgets on the right, I can specifically mark lines and shapes and the website will give me the distance of it in meters!

“But Kip, if the map already gives you the distance of anything you want then isn’t this entire post pointless?” Ashshshshshhshh no, shut the fuck up, shush shut, no, stop, silence, I am high on caffeine and I haven’t slept for two days. No. 

As great as the map is, the exact ratio isn’t the best. Like, it tells me that the length of Hyrule is only 10km, or 6.2 miles. 

I wager that realistically, Hyrule would be a bit bigger than that. And THAT, is where I come in. Or, more specifically, Impa.

Impa states that it takes 12 hours to travel from Kakariko to Fort Hateno. (I am saying Fort Hateno and not Ash Swamp because I am going of the nearest prominent landmark location near the 13th memory, and I highly doubt that Impa knew the exactly square foot patch of dirt that Link needed to stand on to activate his memory)

According to Google, it takes around 10 to 12 minutes to walk a kilometer. (I am assuming Impa was referring to walking and not riding, because I feel like she would have said, “You should be able to get there in half a day’s ride” or something of the sort. So, walking it is)

So: 

12 hours divided by 12 minutes 

(Which is 720 minutes / 12 minutes)

gives us

60

The distance between Fort Hateno and Kakariko village is 60 kilometers.

Badabing badaboom, great job! We did it. BUT NOW this is where our handy dandy online object map comes in.

[Image ID: A screenshot of the Breath of the Wild map showing the area of Kakariko Village and the plains in front of Fort Hateno. A blue line highlghts the path from the village to a marker on Fort Hateno. The line reads “1.89km.” End ID]

[Image ID: A screenshot of the Breath of the Wild map showing the area of Kakariko Village and the plains in front of Fort Hateno. The blue line from the previous image is still there, however, there is now a more prominent yellow line. The yellow line runs from Kakariko village, but ends at a marker point at the location of the 13th memory at Ash Swamp. The yellow line reads “1.55km.” End ID]

So while this map doesn’t give me distances that are exactly to my liking, it DOES give me a measuring means that will stay consistent. SO! As you can see, the map says Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 1.89km. (And just to be safe, I also did the distance exactly to the point of the 13th memory as shown in Impa’s picture, which came out to 1.55km. But! It’s doesn’t matter anyhow, because) We’re going to round this to 2km for the sake of my sanity because surprise surprise! I actually suck at, and hate, math. 

So the map says Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 2 kilometers, but we know that in real life, the distance is actually 60 kilometers. So, if you want to use this object map effectively, you have to make a means of converting the “false” measurements, (which I will be refering to as “zelda” (kilo)meters, or zm/zkm) from the actual ones. 

So THIS is what I fucking did oh my god help me it took me way too long even though it was really simple in hindsight I was just stupid and spent two hours trying to get the ratio equations right when really all I had to do was divide, it was a whole thing, anyhow, read away. 

[Image ID: A screenshot of MATH oh my god it’s fucking math...BUT it’s kinda color coded so that’s nice. The top left of the page depicts text. In red text reads “zkm (Zelda km) = per the measurement on the objmap.zeldamods.org” and below that, in black text, reads, “Kakariko to Fort Hateno = 1.89 zkm ~ 2zkm,” which is underlines in yellow. Another line of black text reads, “Impa says it takes half a day’s time to travel from Kakariko to the 13th memory location AKA 12 hours.” Another line of black text reads, “It takes about 10-12min to walk a kilometer,” which is underlines in green.

Handwritten in blue ink is the equation, 

“12 hours = 720 min

720/12 = 60″ 

The 12 is highlighted in green, and the 60 is underlined. In green text, below it, reads, “It takes 12 hours to walk 60 kilometers.” In black text under this, it reads “So Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 60 kilometers.” Another line of black text under this reads, “So based on that, we can find the actual values of a zkm (Zelda kilometer).” 

Handwritten in yellow ink is the equation,

“2zkm = 60km

1km = 30km” [typo, I meant 1zkm = 30km]

The 60km is in blue, and the equation 1zkm = 30km is circled. 

To the right of everything, in bigger, yellow text, reads “So: 1zkm = 30km 1zm = 30 meters

The map of Hyrule measures roughly 10zkm (length) by 8zkm (height) [typo, I meant width] giving it an area of 80 square zkm.

Therefore, the “true” size of Hyrule Kingdom os 2400 square kilometers.” End ID]

SO ARMED WITH THIS NEW KNOWLEDGE, you can now use this map to measure whatever you want, and by converting 1zm to 30 meters, you can get accurate result as to what that distance is. 

Chart the roads, measure the rivers, the map even gives area tools for polygons, squares, and circles! This entire post was born out of a desire to see how long the characters in my fic should rest for when travel between different stables. 

Now before anyone asks, yes! 2400 square kilometers is fairly small. That’s around 930 square miles. I believe even Wales is more than three times bigger than that. BUT! Considering Hyrule is a medieval kingdom that’s actually pretty sizable considering the average size of a Kingdom was 100 to 900 square kilometers. 

And juuuust to double check, I ran the size though a Medievil Demographics generator, and 2400 (under the conditions of Fertile Land with 64% of the land being arable since I figured roughly 46% for lakes, the ocean, plus unusable land was more than enough to cover the Hebra, Death Mountain, and the Gerudo Desert. Which honestly is even MORE generous considering there are races that occupy these areas, but I digress) This still gives Hyrule Kingdom a good population of 108,000 people! Before the Calamity when all of its villages were up and occupied, of course. So the area is definitely more than enough, and can still give Link a more realistic amount of time to travel between areas (when you add eating and rest of course. Don’t make my guy walk for 10 hours straight from the Great Plateau to Hebra D: plz)

TL;DR: Hyrule is 2400 square kilometers; use the map, plus the conversion 1 zelda meter to 30 meters to measure anything you want; I am tired

Quick Edit: Please note that this conversion is for the purposes of people out there who need more realistic means of measuring distances for larger scale travel and such, like for writing fic journeys, or dnd campaigns. This conversion isn’t the best for smaller scale measure like buildings and such (EX: I’ve checked with buildings in Castle Town and the Coliseum, and they come out much too big, just a symptom of game design ratios not being perfect since it’s hard to balance consistent measurements and the immersion and plan a creator has for their game world!) So if you are measuring those smaller entities using the linked map, just stick with the given zelda meters! (EX: The Coliseum radius in zelda meters matches up nicely with the real world Roman Colosseum, beating it out by a few dozen meters!)

Also if you are a true believer in the interpretation of Impa’s dialogue as “half the amount of daylight hours,” see the reblogs!

[pudding-parade]

Continuing on with this monster. In this part we actually get to, you know, the weather.

You are here: Part Two - Wait, I Thought This Mod Was About Weather?? (AKA, The Scary Math Part)

There are also these parts: Part One - The Easy Stuff, WTF Happened to My Plants, & Holidays Part Three - I've Seen Fire Snow and I've Seen Rain. Part Four - Creating Non-Default Weather Settings (AKA, Losing the Last Bit of Your Sanity)

Read on at your own risk. There is a little math involved, sort of, but if you comprehend basic division, you'll be OK.

OK, buckle up because now we get to the meat of the thing, the actual weather. I assume you’ve read Part One, so let’s just jump right in.

After you click on the city hall or any computer in your world to bring up Tempest's main menu, you click on "Weather" to bring up its sub-menu, which looks like this:

This is straight-forward. You’ll go through and adjust each season individually by clicking on the season you want to mess with. For the sake of this demonstration, I'm just going to look at fall, since it’s first on the list. All of the seasons work the same and have the same menus. So, the season-specific sub-menu looks like this:

You have two options. You can simply edit the default setting or you can add a new entry. (The presets I've shared alter only the default setting.) We'll cover editing the default first, while adding a new entry is covered in Part Four. As you can see above, by default, the default setting is set to be in effect for the entire season, which by default is seven days long. That's why it says 1:7 on this line. If you had set your seasons to be, say, 12 days long, it would say 1:12 instead. In other words, the default entry will always pick up however long you have the season in question set to be in the Game Options menu. For a default setting that lasts the whole season, you don't want to change this. Just click on that line to bring up the next menu, which looks like this:

The first eight lines on this menu have no sub-menus, so we'll go through them in order.

Current Day: If you're editing the current season, this will say what day of the season it currently is. Since I took these pics in a brand-new save, the current season is summer. Since I'm editing fall, it says "Off Season" because the season I'm editing isn't currently active.

Enabled: If you set this to false, it will disable the season entirely unless you add your own new settings for the season. That's really not the way to disable a season, though. You should do it in the game's Options settings. You should only disable this setting if you're adding your own settings to the seasons and you don't want to use the default one.

Range: This is the range of days in the season that this setting will be in effect. If you play the standard-length seasons or shorter, you should leave this alone. If you play longer seasons and you'll want to make further monthly and/or weekly non-default settings...Well, you'll probably still want to leave this alone but just disable the setting altogether and then make all-new non-default entries for the more-specific weather you want. We'll get to that, but we're not there yet.

Rename Profile: Since this is the default, you don't need to do anything with this. No clicky needed.

Temperature settings: There are four of them, as you can see, and they specify possible temperature ranges at different times of the day. The format is (Minimum temp):(Maximum temp). The game chooses the "target" temperature for each time and then fills in the temperatures for each hour between them as needed. So, these settings are pretty self-explanatory. IIRC, "night" is midnight, "morning" is 0600, "noon" is noon (DUH!), and "evening" is 1800. (Yes, I prefer the 24-hour-clock because I come from a military family. AM and PM bug the shit out of me.) The possible ranges can be whatever you want them to be. You can base them on real temperature data in a real place, or it can be complete fantasy. As far as I know, there is no upper or lower temperature limit, so if you're making a setting for an alien planet, you can have -200-degree nights or +250-degree days. The important thing is that, whatever your temperature ranges, you want overlap between them like you see in the default settings above or else you'll see weird jumps in the temperature throughout the day.

With default settings, there's not much you can do to affect what temperatures the game is likely to choose on any given day of the season, but it is coded to have a somewhat reasonable transition period of 2 days. This means that it will pick, for instance, lower temperatures within the allowed ranges on the last two days of a season when transitioning from a warmer season to a cooler one. This is fine if you stick to around the standard season lengths. I find it's fine with 12-day seasons, but if you get much longer than that, you will want this mod, which allows both longer seasons than 28 days and, more importantly, longer transition periods. On top of that, non-default Tempest settings can give you much more specific control of what temperature ranges are possible during specific stretches of days within a longer season but, again, we're not there yet.

So now, finally, we're at the weather patterns, which do require a bit of mathematical thinking on your part. As you can see, any season can have a maximum of five weather patterns for the game to choose from:

Some are more customizable than others. We'll go through fog, hail, and sunny in this part because they're easy, but first I need to explain how weighting works because it's the main influence over what weather pattern the game will choose at any given time and, when we get to the individual pattern settings, what intensity of precipitation the game will choose as well as how many transitions there can be between intensities in any one storm.

The weather pattern weighting is the numbers you see on the lines in the pic above that say, for instance, Weather:Fog. The important thing to remember is that the numbers themselves aren't that important. What is important is the ratios between the numbers because that's what determines how much more likely the game is to choose one weather pattern over another.

First, any patterns that have a weight of 0 are disabled for the particular season you're working on. (So, in this case, it will not snow at all by default in fall.) The non-zero numbers are weights. So, in the case of the default here, hail and rain have an equal weight of 1, meaning they are equally likely to happen if the temperature does not disallow one or the other or both. (We'll get to that.) Fog and Sunny, on the other hand, have equal weights of 4, which means that they are equally likely to happen if the temperature does not disallow one or the other. However, because of the 4:1 ratio, fog and sun are 4x more likely to happen than either hail or rain, assuming that the temperature is one where all four enabled patterns are possible.

Now, imagine that the weighting was like this instead:

Fog: 1 Hail: 1 Rain: 3 Snow: 2 Sunny: 4

Assume that the temperature is such that the game can choose between all five patterns, which would be unlikely in the real world, but for the sake of demonstration it's fine. This weighting would make fog and hail, with a weight of 1 each, equally likely. Snow, with a weight of 2, would be 2x more likely than both fog and hail because of the 2:1 ratio between their weights. Rain, with a weight of 3, would be 3x more likely than fog or hail (3:1 ratio) but only 1.5x more likely than snow because that's a 3:2 ratio and 3 divided by 2 is 1.5. Finally, sun would be 4x more likely than fog or hail (4:1 ratio), 2x more likely than snow (4:2 ratio, which is the same as 2:1), but only 1.33x more likely than rain because that ratio is 4:3 and 4 divided by 3 is 1.3333333333...

Now, say you wanted a situation where you want a tiny-but-still-possible chance of snow in winter. In that case, you need to make sure your temperature range in winter allows for snow, but you also must make it so that the other possible weather patterns greatly outweigh snow but do not greatly outweigh each other. So you might do something like this:

Snow: 1 Rain: 15 Sunny: 45

With this, again assume that the temperature is such that the game could choose any of the three patterns. The ratio of rain to snow is 15:1, making the game 15x more likely to choose rain than snow. The ratio of sun to snow is 45:1, so the game is 45x more likely to choose sun than snow. However, the ratio of sun to rain is 45:15, which reduced is 3:1, making sun only 3x more likely than rain, even though the weight numbers are much bigger than 3 and 1. Note that the above setting isn't likely to give you snow ever unless you play really, really long seasons and/or you play a save for a really long time. They're exaggerated for demonstration purposes. The point is that you use 1 for the weight of the pattern you want to greatly outweigh, then choose much bigger numbers for the other patterns, without the ratios between those bigger numbers being huge.

To sum up: When creating weather patterns, the two most influential things in terms of making the game more likely to choose one weather pattern over another are the weighting and the allowed temperature ranges that you set for each type of weather. Those are the things you need to pay the most attention to. The rest is details. Hopefully, you understand weighting now. (Feel free to ask questions if not!) Now we'll move on to the specifics of the individual weather patterns and what you can do with them, including setting allowed temperature ranges. Fog, hail, and sun are simple, so I’ll do those in this part. Rain and Snow are more complicated, so those will comprise the next part.

Fog: The sub-menu looks like this:

You can only change the possible duration (in hours, and the format is min:max) the required temperature, and the weighting for the pattern. Unfortunately, there are no intensities, so you can't have thin fogs or thick fogs, just game-standard fog, which is pretty thick.

Duration is self-explanatory, and we've gone over weighting in general, so all that’s left is required temperature. Required temperature is in degrees and the format is min:max. With this default in play, fog is only going to happen if the temperature is 50F/~10C or less. If the current temperature is outside of that range when the game is choosing a weather pattern, it cannot choose fog and will choose one of the other allowed patterns instead.

You may or may not want to give fog a required temperature range. I tend to use it to simulate misty or often-overcast atmospheres (Like a rain forest, for instance), and when that’s what I’m doing I just give it a -1000:1000 temperature range. But sometimes I only want it in a cooler part of a season, so I’ll cap it at the temperature threshold I want, just like the default range here.

Hail: The sub-menu looks like this:

It has the same three settings as fog. The thing is, in reality, hail happens during strong thunderstorms and mostly in specific parts of the world, most notably east of the Rocky Mountains in the US and Canada in the spring and summer. So, this one is hard to be realistic with. I'm pretty sure the devs sort of confused it with sleet, which is just frozen rain that happens in winter. But I don't know. Whatever. Generally, I only enable hail when I'm making a climate based on a place where it happens in the real world and, in those cases I give it an unlimited temperature range (-1000:1000) and weight it to be less common than rain. Also, I make it very short in duration, 0:1, since it usually happens in very strong but also fast-moving thunderstorms, so it doesn't hang around for long. That's the best that can be done in terms of realism for hail, I think.

Sun: The sub-menu looks like this, which ought to be familiar by now:

The way I see the sunny setting is that it has the power to break things up. Bear in mind that, because of required temperatures, the game can sometimes have only a few patterns to choose from when it needs to choose a new one. This makes it more likely that it will choose the same one multiple times in a row, so you can end up with some very long rain or snow storms, especially if you've set those to have long possible durations. Now, in the real world it doesn't generally rain or snow constantly for days on end like it can in the game under default settings. There are usually stretches of at least no rain, if not actual sun. So, the idea here is to try to weight sun and set its duration such that it will tend to outweigh its usual competitor (which is most often rain) but not by too much, unless you're going for a really sunny season. It's a delicate balance and requires testing. This is why it sometimes takes me a while to share a preset, because I'm busy trying to get this particular balance right in all four seasons. Generally speaking, I find that a 4:8 hour sun duration range is good for an averagely-sunny climate, but weighting of course is also a big factor. Tempest is a delicate dance, kids. :)

And that’s it for this part! The next part goes over the far more complicated rain and snow settings. Click here to go to Part Three.

[raineydays411]

You will remember my name

      Part 2 of Ember

A/N: Hello everyone! I’m so stoked y’all liked my first fic! I really appreciate all the love and support you guys have no idea. (This might have to stretch to three chapters lol)

Tony Stark X daughter!reader

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Tonys pov

A tense silence filled the halls of the Avengers tower. It’s been a week since Y/N left the tower in tears. It’s been two days since anyone has seen the girl to think of it.  The first few days it was thought the girl was just staying with a friend while she cooled off. But after the third day, a bad feeling settled in the stomachs of the heros. By the fourth day, they asked some of Y/Ns closest friends. 

No one has seen her.

Pepper called her aunt, Pamela Isely, but the women said that the last time she spoke to her god daughter was a week before this whole mess happened. 

By the time the week was over, it was concluded that Y/N Stark was missing. 

Tony Stark was not a perfect father. He knew that, of course he knew. I mean, he didn’t exactly have the positive male role models growing up other than Jarvis. He knew he wasn’t going to be a perfect father. He just never thought he’d screw up this badly.

He found out he had a daughter four months after the Battle of New York. He had gotten the news that an old fling of his had died during the attack. leaving behind a daughter. Feeling bad for the kid, he began to set up a college fund for her, as he knew what it was like to lose someone in a tragic way. At first he thought nothing of it, just simply seeing it as a good deed. But then one night, during one of his restless nights, he began doing the math and figured out that the age of the girl was just about nine months off from when he had...met her mother. Needless to say Pepper was shocked when she woke up to Tony passing out.

After a few minutes of being yelled at by Pepper and another hour of coming to terms with this discovery, Tony made plans to find the girl.

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Y/n pov

After explaining your situation with your father to the boy, you realize that you still didn’t know his name. Turning to him you ask for it. 

“Oh, my name is Daniel, Daniel Winston.”  You snort as you realize the irony of this ghost boys name. 

“You mean to tell me that your name is Daniel, and you’re a ghost with white hair??” He glares at you for a second then a small smile creeps on his face, “Well, despite the circumstances, it is kinda funny.”  You hum in agreement and let a comfortable silence take over as you try and figure out where you are and if you’re even in New York.

“Hey Danny?” You ask, “Where are you from?”  

“Bludhaven, I was walking home from school when I was taken. Why do you ask?” 

“Because” You reply,” I was taken from New York.” A heavy silence falls over you both as you realize that you’re both unfamiliar with your surroundings. There weren’t any markings to indicate where you were. The base was nestled in a corner of abandoned buildings that looked like factories. The sky was dark and you couldn’t see any stars. There was a strange scent in the air that you chalked up to air pollution. You both continue walking when you see a building with its lights on. 

“Danny, that’s the only building so far that has any lights, we should go check it out.” He looked hesitant, and he wasn’t wrong to be. The building was an old shoe factory, it was dark and looked as if a sneeze could take the whole thing down. Whoever was in there probably wasn’t good company.

“ Are you sure you want to go in there?’ Danny's voice full of doubt, “Maybe we should keep going till we actually get into town.” While his idea was the more logical one, you were starting to get tired, blowing up a building with freaky ghost powers takes a lot out a a young girl.

“I think we should go, I need to rest up and we don’t know how far the town will be. We don’t even know what town this is.” And with that, you start to make your way to the building, a hesitant ghost trailing behind you.

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Tony's POV

Tony realizes locking himself up in his lab really isn’t going to help find his missing daughter. He just can’t believe he screwed up this badly. His own child, thought she wasn’t loved. He did that to her. A rage filled his body as he angrily swept everything off his work table. The clatter of wrenches and pens filled his ears as he stared at the wall.

The sound of the door opening caught his attention. He turned to see Steve Rogers walking in with a box of chinese food and a stern face. Quietly, the blond man took a look at the state of the lab, shook his head and placed the food on the table.

“We picked straws to decide which one of us had to come convince you to come out.” Steve said breaking the silence between the two men. Tony said nothing as he continued to look at the wall.

“You know, you have some nerve to lock yourself away.” Tony jerked his head over and stared at the man . “ What did you just say?” 

“You damn well heard what I said.’ Steve shot back. “ Your daughter is missing. She disappeared into thin air. And you’re in here doing what? Throwing your tools around?” 

“Are you going to lecture me?” Tony said in a bored voice.” Because of you are, i want to take notes” 

“You know this is your problem. You don’t care.” Steve said angrily. “ You don’t care that your daughter is missing. You don’t care that for eight years, the longest conversation you’ve had with her was when you were introducing her to this team.” Steve stood up from the table and walked back to the door before Tony could say anything. “It’s been a week Tony. She’s been missing for a week.  We need to find her.” He walked out without another word.

And again, Tony was alone. Alone with his thoughts, and alone with his regrets. Then he realizes, if he wants a chance to make up all those years, he’s going to need to find you first.  

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Y/n POV:

Getting into the factory wasn’t too hard, considering you can just walk through walls now. The real hard part finding someone to help, as there was no one in the building. In fact, the only living thing in the factory was the surprising amount of vines and greenery over taking the space. 

“hey, Y/n.. maybe we shouldn’t be here...” Danny whispered, ‘” this place is creeping me out.” 

“D, you don’t have to whisper, I’m the only one who can hear you.”

 You answer as you look around, the room you were in seemed like an office of some sort. Then you noticed something.

“Danny, those vines...they lead out of the room” 

And with that you start walking towards the door, but before you can make it you hear loud voices, two women from what you can tell. 

“....mmy you can’t keep doing this to yourself....”

“i....never let her go with him....”

You can’t hear what they’re saying, you take a step forward and accidently step on a vine. 

“wait...there's someone here.” 

Oh shit. You look at Danny in surprise as there was no way these people would have known you were here.

Then suddenly, the room of plants came to life. Vines started thrashing around, searching for the intruder. 

“WHAT THE FUCK” Danny yelled as a vine goes through is body. “Y/N lets get out of here!” In your panic, you forget you can literally turn into a ghost, so you look for a window to get out of. Before you can climb, a vine suddenly wraps around your leg and pulls you out of the room.

“Y/N!!” 

You thrash as you are pulled down the hallway, around corners, and painfully down stairs. You scratch at the floor, desperate to find something to cut the vines.  Then your eyes start glowing. Your skin melting to a pale blue. You blast through the plant as you start floating upwards. You shoot the plants around you with a blue mist like energy.

“What is that?” “Aye whatta you doing here?”  Wait. You know that voice.

Looking up, you get distracted and a vine wraps around your body, restricting your movement. You struggle for a while till you hear it. 

“Y/N?” You stop and look up. You change back to your normal appearance, shocked.

“Aunt Pam?!”

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TONY’S POV

After Steves not lecture, Tony got to work. He had FRIDAY look for anything suspicious in and near New York. By doing that, he found out that there has been an influx of missing people ranging from ages twenty to fifteen. They were going missing from three specific cities: Bludhaven, Gotham, and...New York. Seeing this had Tony's heart sink. He ran into the conference room where the rest of the team was conducting their own investigation. But before he entered, he stopped to listen to the teams conversation.

“How can she just...disappear into thin air..” Sam said in a sad voice. The rest of the team sat in silence. 

“Maybe we missed something. There has to be something there.” Natasha said with a desperation no on has heard from her. “It’s been a week Steve, she wouldn’t just leave like that.” And that when Tony decided to make his presence known.

“Maybe she didn’t” He said making everyone jump, “There has been an increase in missing person cases in the cities of Gotham, Bludhaven, and New York. All around the same age as Y/N.”

“So,you’ve decided to step up” Clint said sarcastically. “Where have you been this past week Stark?”

“ Look I know I haven’t been the best parent” Tony said.

“that’s an understatement”, grumbled Clint.

“I love my daughter. I hate the thought of her not knowing that.” Tony finished looking around the room to see the disapproval of the team.

“Fighting isn’t going to find her.” Wanda said quietly. “We need to work together.”

“Wandas right.” Steve said, “FRIDAY ,can you find any abnormal activity in any of the cities?”

“I did a widespread search specifically in the Gotham bludhaven and New York areas. A building in the indrustrial area in Gotham spontaneously collapsed. When authorities searched through the rubble, they found bodies of thirty out of the ninety reported missing people.”

“Was there anyone matching Y/N description,” asked Natasha anxiously.

“FRIDAY bring up the missing kids files”

A long minute went by, and all the files uploaded. The Avengers were all on edge as they flipped through the thirty files. They were relieved when they realized that Y/n was not part of those thirty kids.

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