#just like linear graph :)

[faggot-friday]

all maths past a year 5 level should die forever and ever actually

[maccadeau]

i may have been wrong about the suicide devil (re: falling devil) but at least i was right about asa being a kms enjoyer

[thelostmagicians]

Booksmart | Steve Harrington

Summary: Steve Harrington’s head may be full of air, but his heart is full of love. [4.4k]

Fluff, comfort, slight angst, insecure Steve

♡

Steve Harrington isn’t a genius. He barely passed his classes in high school, couldn’t get into college, and can barely keep his minimum wage job. He’s been belittled by his parents too many times to care about their opinion and he knows compared to his friends he isn’t as clever or witty, but he’s okay with it - at least he thinks he is. It might sting when Robin and Eddie tease him for being too slow or when Dustin sighs in frustration because he can’t keep up, but the ache dissipates when they look at him in adoration. 

He blames his failing love life on his lack of intelligence. Although girls find his himbo-ness endearing, his relationships never last long.  Most of the dates he goes on end up as dirty hookups in the backseat of his car and on the off chance a girl stays longer than a month he can slowly see the irritation replace the endearment in her eyes. He was just something to do during the inbetween phase of graduation and moving out of Hawkins, a trophy to conquer - to finally have slept with the previously known King. He used to be okay with that at the beginning, he got his needs met while girls crossed him off their list, but over time he craved more. He saw how Nancy looked at Jonathan, how Joyce laughed with Hopper, and how Robin blushed around Vickie. He was desperate for that feeling of being wanted and loved. 

Even though he's surrounded by people who love and accept him as he is, he can't help but wonder if things would’ve been different if he was just a little smarter. 

_

“Robin I’m telling you she started speaking a different language halfway through dinner,” Steve grumbles as he’s shelving the horror section. 

Robin rolls her eyes at him, “Just because you don’t understand the words she’s using doesn’t mean she was speaking a different language, Steven. I don’t even think she knows anything but English. 

Steve sighs under his breath. 

He had gone on another date last night, but didn’t even make it past the appetizers before he made up an emergency and left. The night started off great, the Indiana summer evening had a cool breeze, he opened the door for her, and was rewarded with a kiss on his cheek when he presented her with  flowers. Valerie had been nice, beautiful, and smart - maybe a little too smart for Steve. Don’t get him wrong, Steve loves strong, smart, and capable women. He loved hearing Valerie speak about physics and graphing linear equations, he loved learning about what interested her, but as the night went on he could see the light in her eyes fading as he kept asking her questions. The final straw had been when he told her he hasn’t read a book since high school and she laughed lightly before saying “you really are only a pretty face.” 

“Maybe, I’m just destined to be alone, or like a back up plan for girls who come back to Hawkins after giving up on their big city dreams.”

Robin sighs and gives him a reassuring pat, “Steve, you’re a good man. You’ll find your one, trust me on this.”

Before he can say more the bell jingles as a gust of hot air is let in. Steve groans as he spots Dustin’s mop of curly hair and hears the chatter of 6 other teens. He holds the door open with his arm as he sees Lucas struggling with Max’s wheelchair. 

“You guys can’t keep coming in here, Robin and I actually have work to do you know.”

“We wanted to pick a movie for movie night,” Max says. 

He sighs softly as he meets her eyes. Steve’s always had a soft spot for Max ever since they’ve met and it’s only gotten softer since then, everyone knows this, but the kids tend to take advantage of this and use Max to get their way. 

“Alright two movies max and no rated r ones.”

As he hears the bell jingle again he starts his greeting in a monotone voice, “Welcome to Family Video, my name is St—” he chokes. 

“Oh my god, are you okay?” you ask softly. 

He’s still coughing and panting slightly as he tries to give you a reassuring nod. Robin makes her way to the front to hand Steve some water and finish introductions. 

“What he means to say is his name is Steve and I’m Robin. You can come get us if you have any questions.”

You nod politely, finally tearing your gaze away from Steve as you start browsing through the racks. Steve, however, can’t seem to stop looking at you. He’s seen a lot of beautiful women in his life, but none of them held a candle to you. Everything about you was just perfect to him and he didn’t even know you yet. His eyes repeatedly traced the slope of your nose, down to your plush lips, and back to your furrowed eyebrows as you read the back of a tape. 

You lift your head up and he blushes as you make eye contact. 

“Do you have any recommendations for sci-fi, I just moved to town and need something to keep me from getting bored?” you ask shyly. 

“Err- We have a sci-fi section over there” Steve points to the rack behind him where the kids are gathered and quietly arguing over which movie to pick. 

You speak as you make your way over, “Yeah, but do you have any recommendations for me? I feel like I’ve seen all the good ones already.”

Steve's face falls as he tries to come up with an answer. 

“Have you seen Star Wars?” Dustin speaks up

Max and El groan loudly as you shake your head. 

“I tend to stay away from franchises, but what’s it about?”

Before Dustin can answer, Mike beats him to it, “It’s about galactic adventures of these characters, it’s pretty cool.”

“We were planning on watching it tonight, we always have movie nights at Steve’s on Friday. You should join us!” Dustin exclaims as he tries to shoot Steve a sly wink. 

Your eyes grow wide at the sudden invitation as Steve rests his head in his hands too embarrassed to speak. 

“Is that alright with you, Steve?” You ask kindly. 

Steve’s breath hitches as he hears you say his name, he slowly meets your gaze as he gives you a slight nod trying to avoid choking on air again.

Robin smirks at Steve as she hands you a post-it, “Here’s Steve’s address. Movie starts at 7 and bring as many snacks as you’d like!”

You grab the post-it and shoot everyone a small wave “I’ll see you guys then!”

Steve feels like he can finally breathe after he hears the soft slam of the door behind you. 

_

“I can’t believe you would do that, just invite a stranger to my home like that,” Steve groans as he fixes his hair, again, in the hallway mirror. He glances down at his polo debating if he should change his shirt for the fourth time. 

“Steve, she agreed to come while seeing you in a Family Video vest, I don’t think your outfit is what you should be worried about,” Jonathan teases him as he passes him a coke. 

Steve shoots him a sarcastic smile before checking his watch. It’s 7:02, you should’ve shown up 2 minutes ago and he’s a nervous wreck. He sees your headlights before anyone else does and trips over Will’s backpack as he waits to open the door on the very first knock. 

“Sorry I’m late, the petit fours took longer than expected.” You smile at him holding out a large container filled with small cakes. 

He gives you a confused look too embarrassed to ask what petit fours are, so instead he takes the container and waves you in. 

“What brings you to Hawkins?” Eddie asks.

“I actually came here for work, Hawkins laboratory needed another scientist to look at all the crazy stuff that’s happened here.”

Everyone basks in the uncomfortable silence as you mention the lab before Nancy speaks up, “You work as a scientist? You seem pretty young.”

You hesitate slightly, folding your hands in your lap, “I am young, but I graduated college at 16 and recently got my PhD and my advisor recommended me for this job, so here I am.”

Steve’s heart falls to his stomach, you were a genius, a child prodigy of some sort and you’ve accomplished so much at such a young age. There was no way you would even be slightly interested in him, but part of him was willing to take that risk - be okay with whatever you spared him because it was better than not having you in his life at all. 

The movie is ignored as everyone pays more attention to you and your genius-ness. He hears voices all at once but all he can focus on is yours. The way your laugh ends in a higher pitch than it starts in, the way you softly reassure Nancy that college isn’t hard, but his favorite is when you say his name when you ask for his opinion on the theories the kids present to you. It makes him feel important like you care about what he has to say and you value his thoughts just as much as you would anyone else’s. 

Steve might’ve only met you today, but he was already enamored. You might’ve knowingly opened the door only to Family Video, but you also unknowingly opened the door to his heart and started to fill every corner of it with you. 

_

Steve doesn’t think he’s read this much in his entire existence as he has this month.

The first thing he did the morning after movie night was go to the library and check out as many books as he could about everything that sounded smart. He’s inhaled almost every book on poetry (specifically Shakespeare), astrophysics and European history. You’ve come to every movie night since the first one and you try your best to visit Family Video after work just to chat with Steve and Robin. He was slowly falling in love with you and he wasn’t going to let his dumb brain be the reason he lost you. He forcefully read every book from cover to cover, prying his eyes open with the memory of your impressed smile anytime he fell asleep. He’s made countless flashcards and pesters Robin to quiz them during their shift. 

After two months of revising and memorizing he thinks he finally finds the courage to ask you out. You’re the last one to leave tonight, helping Steve clean up after everyone either left or claimed a spare room. 

Steve’s hands are clammy as he ties the trash bag into a pretty bow, “I was wondering if… I mean you don’t have to… but umm, like if you wanted to go out. With me, I mean.”

Your eyes trace his face as you clench the empty red vines wrapper, “You mean like a date?”

Steve nods, unsure of your reaction. Part of him hopes you’ll say no and put him out of his misery, so he can finally stop learning, but a bigger part of him hopes you’ll give him a chance. 

Your lips upturn in a shy smile as you fiddle your thumbs, “Yeah, I’d like that a lot. What did you have in mind?”

“How about next Friday, we ditch the losers and have our movie night? I’ll pick you up at 7 and we can catch a movie?”

You respond with a quick kiss on his cheek as you grab your purse and head out. Steve rests his head on the back of the door as he pumps his fist in the air and tries his hardest to not  wake Robin and Eddie with his cheering. 

_

You’re nervous as you pace in front of your door. Steve makes you nervous, but you don’t hate the feeling. You’ve never felt this way about a boy before, boys always had a competition with you, a majority of your dates ended up with the two of you trying to up each other with accomplishments, but with Steve everything is different. Even though the facts he tells are wrong, it was still endearing to watch him try. 

You’re broken out of your thoughts with a knock on your door. You smooth down your dress and look in the mirror once more before swinging the door open. Steve stands there in all his glory, hair perfectly done, snug jeans, and a bouquet of flowers covering his stupidly handsome face. 

“These are for you,” he pushes the bouquet towards you with a surprise force that you have to step back to avoid them pressing into your nose. 

“Thanks Steve, they’re beautiful.” You set them down gently at the nearby table mentally making a note to find a vase after you come back home. 

He opens his car door for you, waiting until you’re settled in before jogging back to his side. “There’s a French movie playing tonight, I think it’s about Marie - Annette, you know the queen who liked cake?” 

You giggle quietly but opt to ignore his mistake because he just looked too fucking cute with furrowed eyebrows and a nervous smile. 

“And after the movie I was thinking we can stop by somewhere for a late night snack?”

You nod excitedly eager to finally spend time with him far away from the eyes of your prying friends, “I didn’t know you knew French?”

“Uh, yeah.”

The movie was… boring and bland. Steve didn’t understand anything happening so instead spent the entire time admiring you, the furrow of your eyebrows, the tilt of your head, and the gentle bite of your lip. He remembered you mentioning to Robin that you were fluent in French, so thought a foreign film would be a good idea for a first date, but now he regrets his choice especially since you spent the drive to the diner asking him questions about the movie. Questions he didn’t know the answer to. Steve has charmed his way through life, but he wasn’t sure how much longer his charm would last with you, he had an inkling that sooner or later you would be able to see through his facade and you would see him as a disappointment.

_

You had a hunch that Steve was lying about knowing French and your hunch was confirmed when his shoulders tensed as the ticket guy told him the movie didn’t have English subtitles. He played it off with a laugh and a wave of his hand, but you could tell it made him nervous. You thought the movie was alright, but your favorite part was feeling Steve’s eyes on you. You try to be mindful when asking him questions, keeping them vague and more about opinions rather than asking him questions that have a right or wrong answer. He responds as vaguely as possible, gauging your reaction to see if you’re pleased with his answer or if he needs to backtrack and fix his opinion. 

Your conversation at the diner starts to get more personal as you ask each other about your likes and dislikes. You learn that Steve broke his arm learning to ride a bike, his favorite color is green, and he’s always wanted a dog. Everything you learn about Steve just makes you like him even more and the potential of falling in love with him makes you giddy with happiness. Your hands brush occasionally as you walk back to his car. He bites his lip hesitating to grab your hand as he peeks at you from the corner of his eye. You make the decision for the both of you and take a hold of his hand swinging both your arms as he blushes. 

“You’re really cute Steve Harrington,” you say as you force him to face you before gently pushing your lips to his. 

_

You spend every free time you have with Steve now. It’s been a month since your first date and since then you’ve gone out plenty of times and if you’re not physically together then you’re talking for hours on the phone. Steve’s able to open up to you more than he has to anyone else and it’s only been a few months of knowing you but he knows he’s in love, yet he can’t ask you to be his girlfriend. He does everything a boyfriend should do, calling you during breaks, kissing your bad days away, and hugging you just right when you’re on the verge of tears, but he still can’t find the courage to ask you to be his, officially. 

You express your concern to Nancy and Robin at an impromptu girls night, thrown together after a rough week for all of you. 

“I just don’t know why he won’t ask me, I always want to ask him myself before I see him, but then I lose my nerve. Maybe he doesn’t even like me like that and I’m just reading into things,” you whine as you smear a homemade face mask on Robin's face. 

“Trust me, Steve is a goner for you,” Nancy replies as she squints to make sure her brushes on the nail polish perfectly. 

“Nance is right, Steve is in love with you, but you just make him nervous.”

“I don’t understand why though, how do I make him nervous when he’s Steve Harrington,” you sigh dreamily. 

Nancy and Robin giggle as they see the childish frown on your face. You push your face into a pillow whining into it like a petulant child. 

Nancy rubs your back gently, “Look it’s not my place to say, but Steve isn’t the smartest tool academically. And you’re this child prodigy and that makes him nervous.”

Robin nods in agreement, “Yeah, you do know he spent months reading all sorts of books just to impress you right? He isn’t actually as smart as he pretends to be. He just memorizes a bunch of stuff the days leading up to your date.”

You huff in annoyance, “Yeah, I knew that on our first date when he took me to that French film. But I don’t love him because he can tell me facts about the mesozoic era. I love him because he’s him.”

Nancy and Robin share a knowing look.

“You love him?” Robin whispers.

“What?”

“You just said you love him,” Nancy clarifies.

You breathe in deeply before letting it out, the weight of what you said finally sinking in. “Yeah, I do. I really do.”

Both girls squeal as they pull you into a hug, face masks and nail polish quickly forgotten. 

You fall asleep that night knowing the next time you see Steve you’ll tell him. Tell him how much you love him and how he means to you.

_

Unfortunately for you and Steve, you aren’t able to spend any time alone lately. Work is crazy for the both of you and any time you have off it’s spent with the group. While you love spending time with your friends, you’re dying for a second alone with Steve. A second that only you both can cherish when you finally tell him how you feel. 

You’re hoping you can finally catch a moment alone with Steve at the summer bonfire by Lover’s Lake. Almost every young adult in Hawkins comes out of hiding for this annual bonfire, usually thrown by college kids as a final hurrah before summer break is officially over. You hung out with Nancy and Robin for a while and meet some new people, but you’re aren’t able to find the one person you want to see. You finally spot him parking his car and hurriedly shoving his family video vest in the trunk, but before you call out to him you’re blocked by a freckled boy wearing a smug smile. 

“Well if it isn’t the new genius of Hawkins,” the boy teases, voice filled with malice.

You smile politely, “I’m sorry you’re–”

“I’m Hagan. Tommy Hagan, surprised Steve hasn’t mentioned me considering we used to be the best of friends before he became a loser.”

You’ve heard about Tommy, mostly through passing from Nancy and Jonathan and based on Steve’s disgruntled face every time his name was mentioned, you decided Tommy Hagan wasn’t worth your time. 

“How can I help you?” You ask in a monotone voice to show how disinterested you are. 

Before Tommy can start you feel a pair of arms wrap around your waist and lips brush against the side of your head. You turn to see Steve’s grimace at Tommy before his eyes soften landing on you. 

“Hi hon,” he whispers gently, his left arm moving from caressing your hip to soothing the ache in your shoulder. 

“Hey baby.” For a second it’s just the two of you lost in each other’s eyes, you wonder if everyone else can see how lovesick you are for Steve. Before you can whisk him away for yourself Tommy interrupts again.

“Damn, Harrington. Didn’t think I’d see you go all soft again after what Wheeler did to you.”

You rolled your eyes at the mention of Nancy. It’s been years, both Steve and Nancy were over it, being happy for each other and supporting each other as friends. Yet everyone still brought it up because they had no other dirt on Steve. 

“Didn’t know you were home for the summer Tommy,” Steve replies ready to end the conversation with his former friend. 

At this point you see Jonathan and Eddie glancing from their spot near the fire. Both of them looking at Steve, silently asking him if he needed them. Steve shakes his head at them and squeezes your shoulder readying to lead you away. 

“Yeah, summer is the only time I have off now. Between college and my internship. It’s hard out there man, but you wouldn’t know that, would you?” Tommy smirks knowingly as he pushes Steve’s buttons. He knows college has always been a sore spot for Steve especially since he was still stuck working at Family Video. 

Steve grunts in response hoping his disinterest is enough to stray Tommy away from the both of you, but with Steve’s luck Tommy turns his attention to you. 

“Surprised he can keep up with a genius like you sweetheart.”

You wrinkled your nose in disgust, the term of endearment turning sour coming from a mouth other than Steve’s.

Tommy continues to go on, swaying from the few too many drinks he’s had. “Did he tell you he barely passed high school? His dad complained to mine about how much of a disappointment he turned out to be. Can’t even get a job at his dad’s firm with the brain he has.”

Steve loosens his grip around your shoulder, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. 

“You’re telling me your girl hasn’t caught on to the kind of screw up you are Harrington? You sure she’s a genius, or maybe you found someone that aligns with your IQ.”

At this point everyone is watching the words fly out of Tommy’s mouth, some snickering others shooting Steve looks of pity. Tommy Hagan is ripping him to shreds in front of everyone and yet all he can focus on is you. A look of disappointment mixed with frustration glazing over your otherwise sweet disposition. He sees his friends pushing their way through the crowd but before they could defend him he hears your honey like voice calling out for Tommy. 

“What university did you say you go to, Tommy?” you ask sweetly.

“Indiana University of Business,” he smirks behind his beer.

“And I’m assuming your daddy paid for it? Cause you sure as hell didn’t get into school by your merit, considering you spent most of high school with your head so far up people’s asses that you couldn’t get enough oxygen to your brain. Hence, why you and your stupid ass are still playing into high school politics at your grown ass age.”

The smugness on Tommy’s face disappears. 

“And what do you want to do with your future Tommy? Join daddy’s business? Turn out exactly like him? Cause last I heard he spends more time with his new family than he does with you. Maybe he finally got a child he actually loves.”

You knew it was a low blow, bringing up Tommy’s family issues, but you couldn’t care less. After everything he said to Steve, he had it coming and you only wish you were around in high school so you could’ve put him in his place earlier. 

You heard a low whistle from Eddie, “Well guess the shows over folks. And looks like we have a clear winner.”

People start clearing out going back to mind their own business and you grab Steve’s arm leading him far away from Tommy’s frozen stance. 

“Guess the secret’s out,” Steve mumbles.

“Huh?”

“Now you know I’m not really smart, so..” he trails off.

You smile, arms twisting around his waist pulling him close. “You know, I’ve met a lot of smart people in my life, but don't you dare, even for a second take Tommy’s words to heart. Because I know you, and I know that you’re the greatest person I’ve ever met.”

Steve pinches your chin, holding your gaze before whispering out a shy “yeah?” 

You hear the insecurity laced in his voice as you nod fervently. “I kinda figured you weren’t as smart as you let on from our first date, but I said yes because even though you aren’t a brainiac you have a heart of gold. I see the way you take care of the kids, how you take care of your friends. And I love how you take care of me. I love you and everything about you, Steve Harrington.”

Steve blushes, his cheeks turn a rosy hue as he grabs your waist pressing his lips to yours in a kiss so sweet you think you’ll get a toothache. 

“You really love me?”

“I really do.”

Steve presses another kiss before murmuring out an I love you against your lips.

Yeah, Steve Harrington is stupid. Stupidly in love with you. 

[janmisali]

the "what number comes next?" problem

here's a sequence of numbers:

3198, 11, 734, 11, 1115, 11, 1440...

can you guess what number comes next?

that's right, it's another eleven! but what comes after that?

well, in this case it happens to be 1936. can you figure out the pattern? how far into the sequence could you predict?

this is a pretty hard problem, and in the most general form (I give you any sequence of numbers and ask you what number comes next) there's literally no way to solve it perfectly. the possibilities are endless!

but just because something is impossible to do perfectly doesn't mean you can't try. in the sequence at the start of the post, even though there was no guarantee that there's another eleven next, there's a sense in which that's the most "sensible" continuation, the one that follows the pattern most closely.

here's another sequence:

24794, 24794, 24794, 24794, 24794, 24794...

wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the next number is another 24794? you might even be able to use some fancy statistical model to specify exactly how confident you are that the next number is another 24794.

but of course, without knowing the underlying meta-pattern that generates these patterns, there's no real reason to assume that any one pattern will be more likely than another.

so what if instead of just showing you one sequence of numbers, I showed you a lot of sequences of numbers? is there is a method of discovering this meta-pattern, assuming one exists?

the answer is, sorta! it depends on how many examples you're given and on how chaotic the underlying meta-pattern is.

so, you know how when you have a bunch of data plotted on a graph you can find the "best-fit line"? the closer the data is to being a line in the first place, the better this approximation will work.

defining a line only uses two parameters (mx+b), but the thing is that if you make a more complicated function with more parameters to play around with (as long as you're clever about it), you can define a relatively-simple mathematical equation that gets arbitrarily close to any data, no matter how messy that data is! you can just keep adding more parameters until you have enough to model the complexity of the given data.

now, the more parameters you have the more expensive it is computationally to find what configuration of all the parameters gets your fancy approximation as close to the data as possible (there are some linear algebra and calculus tricks that help!), but depending on the application, you can use this sort of method to get good-enough approximations to whatever data it is that you want to model!

however, this doesn't mean you've actually found the underlying meta-pattern. it's just a fancier version of looking at data you've already seen and drawing lines between points to interpolate between things. any approximation made this way will be in a sense "smoother" than what it's modeling, always predicting (for this application) that the next number in the sequence is the "average" in some sense of all the things that could come next, gravitating towards the most default and "boring" patterns.

anyway that's how chatgpt works

[canmom]

I've been watching Star Trek, and also been learning about boats. Like, a big boat is more stable in the water, so you don't get tossed and turned so much when it's rocked by waves or turning.

Now, on Star Trek, they do the dramatic tilt-y cam and actors flinging themselves around. This makes sense when the ship is hit by weapons, but sometimes they do it when they are navigating asteroid fields and such. The original Enterprise (from the 60s) is 288m long, similar to a modern cruise liner, 127m wide, 73m wide, and 190,000 tonnes. Surely even a high-speed jaunt through an asteroid field would be barely felt on the bridge (which is the tiny raised part in the centre of the saucer)?

Hello anon! You're not wrong that like, there is a lot of artistic license in Star Trek's treatment of astrophysics.

The 'asteroid fields' seen in Wars and Trek are presumably inspired by the asteroid belt in our solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is true that there are a lot more big space rocks in the asteroid belt than there are in much of the rest of the solar system. However, space is really very big so there's a lot of room for big rocks. Spacecraft are routinely able to pass through the asteroid belt without coming anywhere near an asteroid (which is good, because at space velocities, collisions are really catastrophic).

The largest asteroids such as Ceres are nowadays classified as 'dwarf planets'; they might be as big as around 1000 kilometres in diameter, which is about 1/12 the diameter of the Earth. Many other asteroids are also hundreds of kilometres big. With the dimensions you've given me, if the Enterprise collided with such an asteroid, it would be a 'bug on a windscreen' kind of situation and the Enterprise would certainly not come off better for the experience.

However, most asteroids aren't quite so big. Here's a log-linear graph of the size distribution of asteroids:

There's about a million asteroids a kilometre big, and about ten million a hundred metres across; at some point the asteroids become too small for us to track, but I assume this approximately power-law distribution holds down to some small size.

Now, that sounds like a lot of asteroids, but the thing is they're spread across an absolutely enormous region of space. They cover a range of orbital radii of about 1 AU, which is to say the distance between the Earth and the sun, and a range of orbital inclinations about 20 degrees:

So, assuming we had about 10 million asteroids of 100m or bigger, that turns out to be about 1E-27 asteroids of that size per cubic metre of space. Which is to say you'd need to explore a cube of about 900,000km on a side to find even one asteroid that big. Space is really, truly, extremely very big. So, far from this kind of scene (src)...

...you'd be lucky to see even one rock outside the window. As Wikipedia puts it:

Contrary to popular imagery, the asteroid belt is mostly empty. The asteroids are spread over such a large volume that reaching an asteroid without aiming carefully would be improbable.

Now, OK, that's our solar system's asteroid belt. What about in deeper space? The thing is, big space rocks don't tend to just hang out. Our solar system's asteroid belt is presently thought to be a result of Jupiter disrupting the coalescence of planetesimals into a planet during the formation of the solar system. So in general, without a Jupiter, either your big bundle of space rocks has enough kinetic energy to spread out into space like a gas, or it doesn't and their mutual gravity causes them to collapse into a big clump, forming something planetish.

The Star Trek/Wars picture of a bunch of space rocks just kind of floating around doesn't make any sense on astrophysical timescales; about the only way you might see that is if some kind of much bigger rock has very recently exploded, and especially if you're in orbit around something or other which can keep the particles reasonably close together. The rings of Saturn are a great example, consisting mainly of bits of ice smaller than 10m. Saturn's rings are probably the closest place we know to a scifi asteroid field, but they are also incredibly thin, in many parts only tens of metres across.

So in short 'asteroid fields' in the depths of space are kind of not a thing. But what if they were?

On a boat, you are held against the water by gravity; you have various restoring forces, e.g. if the boat dips under water, it gets pushed back out by buoyancy. This causes, in physics-speak, oscillations on various timescales. The dynamics of ships are very complicated, but it has a lot to do with the buoyancy of water rather than collisions with solid objects. Here's Casual Navigation, pretty much my go-to source for any questions about how boats work, explaining the physics of ships rolling, and ways we mitigate that:

Water buoyancy applies a kind of 'soft' force spread relatively evenly across the surface of a ship, so the ship responds mostly rigidly by rolling around, maybe flexing a bit. But when ships actually hit something hard, even something like a sandbank, it tends to go very poorly for them.

In general, a spaceship is not very much like a boat. Space is, notably, a place where there aren't any fluids. Most of the ways that vehicles move on Earth don't really apply in space.

On the ocean, land or even air, objects in motion tend to stop (or at least fall downwards) due to friction and drag, and you need a constant supply of energy to stay moving in a straight line. In space, the opposite is true - you keep moving along your orbit unless you provide energy to change direction. Rocket acceleration is very limited and you try to do as little as possible. With real spacecraft, you mostly move along a ballistic trajectory, applying 'burns' with your rocket at just the right moment to push you onto a new trajectory - or you have a very weak but efficient engine like an ion drive which very gradually nudges you onto the trajectory you want.

In hardish scifi, we can handwave a lot of this complexity away by imagining amazing futuristic technologies like fusion torches and antimatter drives, which allow us to follow 'brachistochrone' trajectories, where you accelerate at something like 1g all the way up to the midpoint of your trajectory and then flip around and slow down. These have their own worldbuilding implications (which is to say the difference between a really fast spaceship and a weapon of mass destruction is basically which way you point it), but it allows you to get on with your plot without having your characters spending years in transit.

Star Trek is not hard scifi, although it sometimes likes to cosplay as it, so trying to apply this kind of standard is a fool's errand. Still, let's consider it. In Star Trek, spaceships move around in two ways. They have something called a warp drive, which allows FTL by distorting spacetime - it is presumably inspired by the Alcubierre metric (edit: no it isn't, it actually predates Alcubierre and he took inspiration from star trek in naming his solution a 'warp drive'), a solution to the field equations of general relativity that allows you to move a 'bubble' of spacetime at FTL speeds. There are many reasons to think the Alcubierre metric wouldn't actually work, or be survivable inside the bubble if it did; how it would interact with matter in the path of the bubble is unclear, but it seems quite likely it would scrape it all up at the front of the bubble and then perhaps release it at the destination in a blast of ultra-high-energy radiation. At least getting hit by asteroids is not a concern...

For slower-than-light travel, Star Trek ships apparently move around with something called an 'impulse drive', which is just a fusion rocket. (We shouldn't ask questions like 'where do you keep the reaction mass' or 'why doesn't the spaceship spin when the force vector is off-axis').

So, as far as space rocks, the big concern is that at high velocities, collisions with any tiny meteorites on your path have more and more energy, much like being shot with a bullet. It's less about shaking the ship around and more about damaging it, because at this kind of scale and energy, rigid things don't tend to stay rigid when they collide. Real solutions to this problem include things like layers of thin 'whipple shields' which break up the meteorite into small fragments before they hit the spacecraft. There's some crazier ideas out there, like spraying hot droplets from your engine's cooling system ahead of the ship to intercept dust grains and catching them with magnetic fields as you accelerate forwards.

I don't know that much Trek lore, but my understanding is they have some kind of magic 'shield' that prevents damage when they git hit by weapons. This presumably stops any space rocks from smashing right through the decks. But as you observe, the rapid camera shaking doesn't make a lot of sense either: it suggests some kind of shock going through the structure of the vessel. The ship is somehow getting hit by something with enough momentum to shake it violently but not throw it off course or severely damage it. That's not really how structures on this kind of scale work.

Of course, the main purpose of the screen shake is dramatic: you need to convey the characters are in a dangerous situation, and if they're all just sitting calmly in the set watching things play out on the screen, that doesn't really 'sell' it. Just like a wrestler pretending to be injured, you need your actors to convey the stakes of the space battle, and throwing themselves around the set is a very cheap way to do it. The asteroid field serves as a scifi version of a choppy sea or ice floe, adding an extra element of constant tension; it doesn't really matter that it doesn't make sense.

Much the same dramatic techniques are still used in more recent scifi, even relatively hard scifi such as The Expanse - observe the use of camera shake (though milder than in Star Trek), reaction shots, characters helpfully providing commentary ('they were expecting that', 'I'm putting us into a spin'). Or this scene; we link the action 'outside' (the full 3DCG space scenes) to the action 'inside' by changes of lighting (there's no real reason for turning the lights blue during combat except that it looks cool), bullets punching through the ship (so scary), and characters getting pushed around by g-forces. The plot contrives for the ships to do a close flyby while strafing each other with machine guns. This is a thrilling scene, and it relies on much later iterations of the 'shake the camera' concept - to link what is happening 'outside' to the characters we care about 'inside'.

Here is a breakdown of what is apparently the first, iconic Star Trek battle scene from which everything else follows:

This sequence is essentially taking most of its cues from submarine movies such as The Enemy Below: the two ships are attempting to figure out where the other is and get in an advantageous position. It is mostly a prediction battle between the two captains, both presented as honourable gentlemen types in what is essentially a duel. The mechanics of the ships is largely based on thin scifi skins over boat stuff.

In general, Star Trek takes various measures to make the captain and bridge crew the main people who 'matter' to a story, which keeps the cast and sets to a manageable size. The thing is, of course, that modern ships are much bigger than the sort of historical ships that could be imagined to be led by a charismatic captain having heroic exploits. There are thousands of people supposedly on board the Enterprise, but you wouldn't know it from the way the characters act.

It's notable that the inspiration here is a WWII movie, pretty much the last time big ships fought big ships. (Star Wars also takes most of its cues from WWII). The principle activity of modern warships seems mostly to be making a political gesture by floating around somewhere, maybe launching some missiles or planes. It's been a long time since we've seen ships having battles with other ships, and ships were a lot smaller then. A military officer is, as I understand it, someone who's a lot more like a politician or company manager, whose job is to keep a large and complex organisation running smoothly. (No doubt you remember the old saying about logistics and tactics.)

So more than the dubious engineering of having the bridge rattle around, I think 'the bridge crew are all charismatic geniuses from whom all the action flows' is the really big liberty that Star Trek takes with its storytelling, from which a lot of other things follow.

Everything in the sequence from Balance of Terror is designed to ratchet up tension for the bridge officers as much as possible - and we see the screen shake and actors getting thrown about here too. In a naval battle, this makes sense: a big explosion near your ship will cause a wave in the water which will rock the ship. In space... not so much. For example, a big shake happens when a nuclear weapon goes off near the Enterprise. A nuclear weapon deployed in space is mainly there to cause heating, not to push things around. But the big moves of the battle are punctuated by everyone getting thrown about: it's a way of saying 'something important just happened'. If the nuke went off and we didn't hear anything, but Kirk was just like 'ok cool, that missed us, good job' it would feel less significant.

Over time I'm sure this device got diluted down until nearly anything would result in people flopping about! But yeah, tl;dr: it is purely a dramatic convention leaning hard on WWII movies, not something that makes a lot of within-the-fiction sense if you think about it at all.

What would space battles look like in real life? We can only speculate, of course, it may never come to pass at all. But if it does, probably it's going to be more a story of shooting expensive missiles at extremely long range to hit things that are too far away to see without a telescope, rather than thrilling close-range dogfights or tense naval mind games. And with humans being very squishy and not taking well to extreme acceleration, you probably want to avoid having them on your ships if you can help it. Which is a bit of an obstacle for a dramatic presentation, unless you want to focus on the disconnect between the comfy air-conditioned drone control room and the horrible destruction being wrought on the ground - and honestly that is a very relevant thing to want to do in the present era.

Plenty of people would still presumably be in harm's way in the space war. But the problem is that in general, the story that people want to tell with military fiction is about heroic characters whose individual efforts make a difference to the course of The War. Not just someone having a bunch of meetings full of incomprehensible acronyms and then randomly dying to a missile that was launched from the other side of the solar system that their side's interceptor system failed to catch.

[palmettoshenanigans]

Usually I want to avoid discourse at all costs but like,,, if I don't say this once I'll explode

Riko is the prime example of the "I was treated this way so I'm going to treat others this way" abused to abuser pipeline.

Andrew is the prime example of the "I was treated this way so I refuse to treat others this way" abused to not abuser pipeline.

(And even those two above statements are dis-including nuance that I don't have time to dissect)

Every other character seems to lie somewhere on the spectrum of this idea. Neil lies closer to where Andrew lies. Grayson lies closer to where Riko lies. Etc etc. And their positions on that spectrum are not fixed points but rather dynamic positions based on their choices made every day of their lives. Choice and agency and yadda yadda

All this back and forth about whether or not acknowledging the truth that Riko was abused erases the truth that Riko was an abuser is just missing the fundamental truth that I honestly think is Andrew's whole main Principle Of Life:

Everyone, no matter how kind they seem, is capable of the greatest atrocities. It just depends on what might push them to that point and how much they resist the temptation when brought to it. And everyone, no matter how fucked up they seem, could fall or have fallen prey to the greatest atrocities of others. Because "the shit people did to me" and "the shit I do to others" is not a fucking linear graph with a one to one ratio in any fucking configuration. People get what they get and it's not about "deserving". And people do what they do and whether they're held accountable follows the same logic as above. The universe is apathetic about human morals and humans are biased and fallible and easily manipulated when we try to uphold and enforce our morals in its stead - and humans don't even universally agree on morals in the first place so it's a fucking mess from the start.

And honestly, sometimes those people who don't grasp this idea are like Jeremy "But they're your parents, they're supposed to love you" Knox. That's a sentiment of morality, not an observation of how reality actually plays out. I see the best you are capable of and I see the worst you are capable of but I expect nothing because I don't have perfect foresight, I don't have perfect information, nor can I read minds.

Riko was a victim of abuse. Riko was a perpetrator of abuse. These two truths exist in harmony and cannot be separated. Whatever you feel or think about him after that is your fucking business and exists as separate from those two truths because it is born from you and not from Riko or any truths regarding him.

"Hurt people hurt people" is TRUE and "You'll never know the violence it took to be this gentle" is TRUE but not all truths manifest in all people but that doesn't make them less true!!! It just makes humans the canvas of infinite possibilities each born from the same finite palette of colors!

But at that point we're talking about nuance and discourse doesn't like nuance and also these characters aren't real people in the first place so imma shut up now I guess

[lousycapy]

The McLaren drivers dilemma

Alright, I wanted to explore the comparison between Lando and Oscar in term of where each of them is in their career to understand better how McLaren should manage them this year. This is gonna be a long post because I love deep dives so buckle up, and if you do wanna go through it I’d love to read your opinion on this matter.

So, let’s start this off by a simple graph representing someone’s hypothetical development in function of the time they’ve spent practising a certain activity. This relation works because the more time you spend working on something, the more time you have to develop it. Here is our control line :

This will be our control, the starting point is (0;0), since if you spent no time on something you don’t develop it at all, and our finish point is an imaginary limit, because you time is limited wether it is through death or in case of formula 1 racing retirement. Thus, your development will also reach an end-point.

Now when we look at Lando and Oscar, an important factor is that they don’t have the same amount of time spent in formula 1. Oscar is ˜2 years along and Lando is ˜6 years along. We can represent it on our graph like this :

If we were to consider development through time as a linear function, the comparison would end here and there wouldn’t be much of interest to it. However, the function ISN’T linear. When you start practising an activity you tend to learn more then because there are low-hanging fruits in comparison to when you have been practising for a long time, because you’ve already discovered the easy improvements and the next ones are more difficult to identify and could imply that you need to modify what you’ve already trained yourself to do. The function would probably be more of an exponential one like that:

You improve really fast at the start and then start trending towards a plateau, which represents the most that you can achieve before your time of development is up. Another important factor to note is that not everybody develops at the same rate, some will learn faster and some slower. Let’s consider the red curve our standard function, and the one which Lando has been following through his career to make the comparison easier. Here are 3 scenarios that could represent the situation when both drivers reach towards the same end point but with different development rates :

Depending on Oscar’s rate of development, we can observe that his gap to Lando varies from barely anything to quite noticeable. But no matter how fast he develops, in this situation Lando will always be further ahead and thus closer to the end-point. Where the comparison gets interesting is when we recognize that not everyone has the same end-point.

Despite all development being limited by a certain time-frame, the maximum development is naturally higher or lower from one person to another. Maybe one has sharper reflexes or a metabolism that produces important hormones when it comes to their focus more efficiently, the point is that naturally some will have advantages and disadvantages in comparison to others which cannot be diminished through practice of the activity.

And now the question is where do McLaren situate Oscar in comparison to Lando when it comes to his end-point. Because at this point in time it is pretty clear that Lando still has the edge, he usually pulls a tenth-ish over Oscar in qualifying and despite being beaten from time to time, he still generally has the better tire management. But does McLaren think Oscar has the yellow or purple curve of development?

The question is complicated, because you need to identify what is an upward trajectory and what is probably a plateau. When it comes to Lando, his weakness at race starts has been pretty consistent throughout his formula 1 career, and even in the junior series. Over such a long stretch of time, it can be assumed that he has reached a sort of plateau in that regard. This is not a dig at him or anything, just a fact. When you haven’t improved in a decade of practising, it probably indicates that you’ve trained yourself to do something a certain way and are incapable of teaching yourself to do it differently, or that you simply only have incremental gains left.

On the other hand, an upward trend can be observed when we look at Oscar’s tire management. At the start of the year, such as in Australia, Japan and China, the weakness was very obvious especially when in similar conditions to Lando. But the improvement has been noticeable, Spa especially has been clear since both were on two-stoppers and in dirty air, but he’s also been solid in Monza, Hungary and Silverstone. Looking at the tracks he has improved the most on the ones on which he has raced in junior categories, and lacks the most on the ones he hasn’t. Thus we can assume that the more experience he gains on tracks he is relatively unfamiliar with, the more his tire management will improve there.

McLaren’s problem is that at this moment in time, they need to create a hierarchy between their drivers to give them the best chance to clinch a driver’s championship. However, the situation is different from the Max/Checo one, because when Checo came in both were experienced drivers with a few years under their belt, the potential gains to be made were marginal and thus it was easier to determine a first and second driver assuming they were reaching their plateau.

For McLaren, Lando is a relatively experienced driver with a few year under his belt, so a known quantity with an approximate development curve established. But Oscar is a developing driver, we haven’t seen enough of him yet to determine what his development curve should look like. You can’t assume someone’s development rate when they haven’t raced more than once or twice on a given circuit in their career, I’d say once you have 5 data sets it is reasonable to establish what the curve looks like (because you can’t make a curve with two dots, it could be as much of a linear function as an exponential one).

The issue is that they don’t know what to think of Oscar yet. To name him as second driver would be clipping his wings, and you don’t want that. You want your developing drivers to learn and explore, to discover those low-hanging fruits and to improve as fast as they can. By pushing a role onto them you risk stopping this development to the limits you impose. However, right now Lando is in a potential championship fight, and he’d need a second driver to support him throughout the next few gps in order to maximize his chances of winning.

The question is, do they bet on Lando’s chances as of now at the extent of limiting Oscar’s growth, or do they gamble on Oscar’s potential at the extent of reducing Lando’s chances? How long do they want to keep them on the team, would it be better long-term to let Oscar develop into a complete racing driver but to sacrifice some of Lando’s faith in the team, or to alienate Oscar so soon in his career to guarantee Lando’s loyalty? Are they supposed to be teammates for the next decade, or only for the next year? How would forcing Oscar into a second driver role affect his relation to Lando and how the team views him, would they start naturally giving Lando the better strategies at the expense of expressing his full talent? Would keeping them on an equal standing annoy Lando and sour his relation with the team, would he get impatient and jump ship in order to get the first driver status he would deserve if both him and Oscar were at the same point on the time axis? Do they believe they’ll still be competitive in the next few years and thus can afford to sacrifice the 2024 Lando driver’s championship shout, or is this a once in a lifetime opportunity and it is worth confining Oscar to a limiting role in order to get Lando’s championship?

So many factors, so many variables, the McLaren lineup is certainly an interesting pair. It must be headache-inducing to decide how to deal with them, because of these different points in their career they both are at. The dilemma of whether a hierarchy should be established between the drivers is a complex thing, but I’ll still offer my conclusion here.

I’d say considering the drivers are signed until 2026 a minima each, and that they both have similar preferences when it comes to the direction of development of the car (we’ve seen with Lando and Daniel for example, who both have very different preferences, that having to compromise will always leave a driver performing worse than what he is capable of), that it is in McLaren’s best interest to maintain this lineup.

The best course of action in my opinion would be to not establish a first and second driver, because Oscar does noticeably better on tracks he is familiar with. Tracks he is not familiar with are coming up, so that means he should naturally be lacking a bit more there than Lando. Thus, he should naturally fall into a role of rear gunner, without McLaren having to confirm he is their second driver. This way, Oscar doesn’t feel alienated and limited to a second driver role pushed onto him, and Lando still gets the best chance for the driver’s championship. The only downside would be that McLaren don’t acknowledge publicly that Lando is the number one driver, and thus Lando could feel annoyed to publicly be put on the same footing as his less experienced teammate when he has more of a chance at a championship. However, if the team intends on keeping this lineup long term, this feels like the best solution in my mind, as long as the assumption that Oscar will perform at a lower level in unfamiliar tracks is correct.

That’s my piece on the matter, feel free to tell me if you don’t agree with anything I said because I’d love to see different perspectives which are not straight bashing of drivers because GOD I’m tired of seeing underdeveloped takes on the situation at McLaren.

[scriggle-scraggle]

Due South Fic Recs

Academic Punk by TheHoyden (RayK/Fraser): The quintessential college professor AU

Busted & its sequel Tapestry by JiM: A year after CoTW, and a life-changing experience, Ray goes back to Canada

Like a House on Fire by @bethbethbeth01 & kelliem (RayK/Fraser): “In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, ‘It’s deja vu all over again.’”

With Six You Get Eggroll by @cesperanza (RayK/Fraser): The story of how Ray & Fraser ended up with six kids.

Ray Is Not Actually Graphing The History Of His Relationship With Fraser–That Would Be Pathetic, And Ray Is Not Pathetic–But If He Was Graphing It, Even Just In His Own Stressed-Out, Messed-Up Brain, It Might Look Something Like This by sprat (RayK/Fraser): The sex has never not been good. That is not the confusing part of Ray-and-Fraser. They are naturals at the sex; the sex is their friend. If there was some kind of sexathalon, the two of them would be All-State, trophy-winning champs.

Like a House on Fire by Beth H (bethbethbeth): "In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, 'It's deja vu all over again.'"

Ping by Speranza: I am not the only person here who wants a do-over.

Tip, Slide, Tumble by j_s_cavalcante: Ray knew when he found the body in the alley it was going to change someone's life. He just didn't expect that life would be his.

All the Comforts of Home by rattlecatcher: post-CotW

Family Portrait by Journey [archived by dsa_archivist]: A slightly AU Ray Kowalski meets Constable Benton Fraser.

This Is Us Series by AuKestrel: how was the decision reached between Kowalski and Fraser to embark on the quest for the Hand of Franklin?

Near Wild Heaven Series by AuKestrel: This was, almost literally, the first thing I wrote, and certainly the first long thing I ever wrote. (Coming to Terms was the first "short" story I wrote and posted.) I worked on this off and on for over a year and did not write it in any kind of linear fashion. The first part was actually finished last, in part because I was stuck in getting them to a plausible misunderstanding that was necessary for the plot (such as it was). It's rough, and could have done with more work, although I did fix a lot of the (popular at the time, I swear!) dialect.

I'm posting it in part because I had SUCH a great time writing it (in fact, there are still parts of it that make me laugh), because I learned so much by/while writing it, and also because it's sort of "historical": a lot of the tropes in dS fandom did not exist when this was written (hard to believe, but there were only 27 F/K stories on Hexwood when I came into the fandom, and only about 5 of those had any kind of M/M sex!), and I thought it would be fun for other people to see how we earlier writers managed such things as tropes before they were tropes. But, in essence, you are about to read a "first novel," with all the alarm bells that ought to ring in your head.

Hawks and Hands by Dira Sudis (dsudis): Eighteen sex scenes strung together with angst and hockey.

Finding the Words by Berty: When luck finally runs out, who's there to pick up the pieces?

Wildly Courteous Ways by Starfish [archived by dsa_archivist]: A new assignment has Ray worried until Fraser steps in to help.

When the Ice Goes Out by Kellie Matthews [archived by dsa_archivist]: Long past CotW, Fraser and Ray K. discover that life both it and isn't as simple as it seems.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Wolves by Penelope Whistle [archived by dsa_archivist]: From stake-out to make-out.

Unguarded Protectorate by Bone [archived by dsa_archivist], Mairead Triste [archived by dsa_archivist]: Smut and angst. This story was previously published in the zine SERGE PROTECTOR.

Somewhere Else to Be by Kellie Matthews [archived by dsa_archivist]: This is an AU. Fraser's not a Mountie, Ray's not a cop, but as someone once said, things once linked remain that way. In any universe, they are meant to be partners.

The Reaching Out One by Alex51324: (AO3 account required) It's ten years after the events of CoTW (in other words, the present day). After the Quest, Fraser and Ray went back to their regular lives--

The Course by Bone [archived by dsa_archivist], Aristide [archived by dsa_archivist]: Randomness. Inevitability. Smut.

If It Walks Like A Duck . . . by Beth H (bethbethbeth): When an old friend of Ray Kowalksi's returns to Chicago, it takes almost no time at all for her to draw the obvious - and erroneous - conclusion about Ray and his "partner."

Genesis by kalena: In the beginning, Ray Kowalski meets Benton Fraser, geologist and volcano cowboy, in Hawaii. AU.

[countrymusiclover]

2 - Possible Futures

Part 3

It's About Time

Tags just ask - @lover-of-books-and-tea @bvbwestfall l @bubble-blu @liesanddreams @bethanymccauley @skeletonontheroad

Rain was pouring against the windows of the Cooper house. Georgie and I were laying on his bed since I had finished my homework earlier so my parents let me go over to hang out with the oldest Cooper. Georgie was reading a magazine of women in bikinis and I was looking at one of Sheldon’s comic books from his room. “Georgie. Dad told me to help you study for the math test.”

“I don't need your help. Get lost.” Georgie grumbled eyeing his closed bedroom door.

His father George Sr hollered from the living room. “Georgie, let him help you!”

“Come in!” Georgie yelled and his younger brother came in seeing the dirty room floor. “What's your problem?”

Sheldon started picking things up by the end of his pencil. “No problem. I'll just...tidy while we talk. Before we start, I'd like to get a sense - of how much algebra you know. Do you understand solving and graphing - linear inequalities?”

Georgie flipped to another page. “Sure.”

“Explain it to me.” Sheldon challenged him.

Georgie paused before he answered. “Uh...first you solve 'em...and then you graph 'em.”

“And how do you do that?” Sheldon challenged him a second time.

“Uh, you know, carefully.” Georgie answered him before Sheldon left the room in a huff.

Rolling my eyes at my best friend I closed my book rolling over to hold myself up on my elbows. “You do realize if you fail the test you won’t play football anymore right?”

“Yeah I know. But I’ve got this.” He answered me closing his magazine.

I glared at him, eyeing his uniform hanging in the corner closest of his bedroom. “Just let him help you. Otherwise I’ll have to deploy my secret weapon.”

“Oh yeah and what’s that?” Georgie challenged me.

I smirked getting up in his face grabbing at some locks of his curly brown hair. “I’ll cut your hair.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Georgie gasped sitting upright on the bed.

I sat upright getting in his face even more so where our noses were touching. The smirk didn’t drop from my face. “I bet I can run to the kitchen and get them faster than you could.”

“Don’t start a fight you won’t win.” Georgie got up from the bed and I scrambled to my feet too.

He narrowed his brown eyes at me. “Sounds like a bet to me, Cooper.” I bolted out of his bedroom door slamming the door in his face where he flung it open chasing after me down the short hallway.

The wooden floor underneath the carpet creaked until my feet hit the kitchen floor and I yanked open the drawer inches from grabbing the scissors. “Ah Georgie!” I screamed, feeling arms wrapping around my waist and we stumbled to the harsh tile.

“I won’t let ya cut my hair.” Georgie pinned me on the ground holding my wrists down with his hands.

I glared for a second before I busted out laughing. “I’m only messing with ya, Georgie. I love your hair.”

“I do too.” He smiles down at me releasing my wrists hearing someone coming in our direction.

Missy stopped in her tracks carrying her doll named Celeste. “Woah. We’re you two about to make out?”

“No.” I quickly answered her, blushing like a tomato.

Georgie snapped, waving her off and getting to his feet helping me up afterwards. “No we weren’t. Get out of here!” I tucked my hair behind my ear thinking back to our last year of middle school.

“Woo-hoo!” I giggled hanging off the tire swing that my dad had put in my family backyard of my house.

A bicycle skids to a stop in the driveway where I stopped swinging around super fast to see who it was. “Y/n, I finally know what I want to be when I grow up.” Georgie dropped his bike in the grass rushing over to me.

I kept slowly moving the tire swing around, holding tightly onto the rope to not fall off. “Oh yeah. What ya got?”

“You know the rich bad guy from Back to the Future who has the hot and skinny wife?” He asked me.

I replied back. “Yes.”

“I want to be like him.” He said back.

I leaned my body into the rope that I was holding onto. “So where am I in this future of yours?”

“If we're lucky my hot and skinny wife might have a hot brother you could marry.”

I snorted out a laugh. “Marriage and kids don't sound too bad.”

“With a hot and rich husband.” Georgie chuckles climbing up on the tire swing beginning to sway us around where we were pressed up against the other hoping to not fall off.

Lifting my gaze up to his I felt my face starting to turn red and it was in that moment I realized that I had my first ever crush on my best friend. “Right with a hot and rich husband…” I mean who would be foolish enough to turn him down.

“Hey, I got some matches and fireworks in the garage stored away. I was thinking we try'em out.” He jumped off the tire waiting for me to follow him. Getting off the swing I grabbed my bike and we rode back to his house.

Peddling my bike by his I got a little distracted thinking back on what he said about his future. If i was lucky maybe down the road in a few years he would feel the same. “I was thinking I might marry you when we get older.” We pulled into his driveway and that night we accidentally blew up one of the neighbors mailboxes which had to be the coolest thing ever.

The next evening after we had all passed the test Sheldon knocked on his door again. “Georgie? I need to ask a favor. It's private. Can I come in?”

“Come on. What do you want?” Georgie was reading another one of his magazines and I was just laying beside him. We had been chatting until he interrupted us.

Sheldon came to stand at the foot of the bed. “It occurs to me you have something in common with Captain Kirk.”

“We both have cool hair?” Georgie asked him.

Sheldon corrected his brother’s statement. “In order to succeed, you both play fast and loose with the rules.”

Georgie shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, I suppose we do.”

“When you cheated on the math test, what was your strategy?” The nine year old genesis asked.

I made a face at the younger boy. “You’re asking him for advice on how to lie. I thought I’d never see the day.”

“Me neither, Y/n.” His brother glanced at me thinking back on his plan. “Well, I guess the most important part was not stepping on anything wet before the test. And not getting an "A."

Sheldon knitted his brows. “Why wouldn't you want an "A"?”

“'Cause that would raise suspicions. Who would believe I got an "A"?” Georgie shakes his head at his ridiculous question.

Sheldon gasped. “Wow. Tell me more.”

“Okay, when you're telling a lie, it's important to throw in some details. Like, when I was wanted to spend the night at Ricky's house, and Mom asked me if his mom and dad were gonna be home, I said, not only are they be gonna be home, his dad was gonna teach us how to cook turkey legs in the smoker.” Georgie explained his story.

Sheldon responded, making me facepalm my face into my hands embarrassed. “I like turkey legs. Were they good?”

“There weren't any turkey legs, you dope. His parents were in Branson.” Georgie chuckles slightly annoyed at him.

Sheldon walked over to the door opening it to leave the room. “That's incredible. I totally believed you.”

“Now get out of here, I got to finish reading this.” Georgie opened his magazine once more when the door shut behind Sheldon. He could feel my gaze focused on him so he sat the magazine down in his lap. “What you gotta say?”

I shifted to lay back down against his pillows. “You know you teaching him to lie ain’t gonna end well for him.”

“I don’t care. He never gets in trouble for anything. If he gets caught maybe he won’t be such a pain.” He shakes his head, sending me a half smile.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

[genericpuff]

Hey weird question but what’s your recommend pen pressure for clip studio??? I had the program for a while and enjoying but I can’t seem to get the pressure to feel right

ouu this really will depend on you, some people require different amounts of tension / pressure in their pen grip to feel "right". It also depends on your tablet, some tablets come with a wider range of pressure output - right now the standard across the board seems to be 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, but other models can come with less and that can limit your range in what's possible (I remember the days when 2048 levels was mind-blowing LMAO and now I'm learning that 8192 is the new norm ?? wild). That said, levels of pressure sensitivity are kind of like resolution differences in TV's - there comes a point where you can't even feasibly see the difference anymore so a higher number in pressure sensitivity isn't necessarily going to make any sort of significant difference for you.

Ultimately what I will suggest is to pick a pen pressure that lightens the burden on your wrist and tablet, you shouldn't have to be digging the pen hard into the surface of the tablet to get lines at their full size. If you find yourself doing that, you should try and lighten the curve of pressure sensitivity in your settings, your tablet surface and joints will thank you.

It should also be noted that you can change both global and brush-specific pen pressure settings. So while I have a general global pen pressure setting that applies to the entire program, some brushes I apply lower - or higher - minimum size values depending on the purpose of the brush. Lining pens for detailed work I'll typically have lower minimum values, whereas large painting brushes I'll keep at a static pressure size because they don't need to get too small for detail and are best expressed with sweeping motions that can be achieved with just a few levels of pressure. And some brushes I just have pressure sensitivity turned off entirely because they're meant to be the same uniform shape throughout!

You should also check your pen tablet's specific pen pressure settings as well. IDK what brand of tablet you're using but they usually require drivers to work and if you start those driver hubs you can find pressure sensitivity settings to apply not just to Clip Studio, but across all software.

I'll share with you my settings if you want to try them, but again, you'll have to adjust them to your needs as what I find comfortable isn't necessarily going to be comfortable for you.

Huion Tablet pen pressure settings:

(I have these set to a linear default, it just means that any customizing I do is exclusive to the program I work in, makes things less complicated for me)

Clip Studio Global pen pressure settings:

You can find this option under File > Pen Pressure Settings; it's where you can adjust the global pen pressure to apply to the entire program regardless of what brush you're using. What's nice about this is that you can actually draw while this is active and it will adjust your settings accordingly to match your technique!

Here's a lil' video demonstrating it:

And of course, just note that regardless of whether you're changing global settings or specific brushes - a higher curve means less pressure is required to achieve the targeted brush size, a lower curve means more pressure is required to achieve the targeted brush size. So if you have a brush set to a size of 15, a higher curve means you won't need as much pressure to get to that size, whereas a lower curve will require more (but that means you can achieve a wider range of smaller sizes leading up to size 15 with a lower curve). Where those curves fall on the graph determines that curve of pressure - if a high curve is immediate, then the range of pressure is very very low; if a curve starts off low but gradually builds up to and ends in a high curve, you'll have to travel that curve of pressure through your technique to achieve that highest point, meaning wider range of size expression, but not necessarily beneficial if you don't need that wide range and want to be able to get from small to big quickly and without much pressure needed.

Specific brush pen pressure settings:

So what's basically happening here is that some brushes have more unique pressure settings tailored to that specific brush (such as the DAUB Basiliscus brush which, iirc, came packaged with those pressure settings, meaning it has unique properties that don't specifically adhere to the global pressure settings I showed above); whereas other brushes have the pen pressure turned off entirely either to prevent it from having dynamic lines, OR to allow it to be manipulated through other pressure settings like tilt/thickness/opacity rather than size.

All of this is why my specific tablet driver has a default linear path for its pen pressure, so that I can alter the necessities of my brushes and software as needed. By default, I don't like having to put too much pressure on my pen to achieve the targeted size value, so my general settings curve in CSP looks like this:

Which means I can achieve that maximum value without too much pressure; if that upper curve was further away from the start point, I would need to apply more pressure to hit it.

Whereas if I need a specific brush to achieve a wide range of pressure expression through a slowly-building curve, then I'll edit those brushes settings to do so! (the DAUB Basiliscus brush seen above is, again, a good example of this, because its pressure curve is the complete OPPOSITE of my global pen pressure settings.)

And if anyone's still struggling to grasp the concept of the pen pressure graph, I think the best way I can compare it is to something like volume, or even video editing fade-outs or animation frame timing. It's all in the timing, if something gets bigger faster you don't get a chance to see what came between point zero and point 100. Here's a visualization with examples in terms of music that is fundamentally the same in how pen pressure operates:

I hope that all makes sense and helps! I probably went into way more detail than necessary but I figure if I'm answering the question anyways, may as well go into more detail for those who might also benefit from this! Especially when it involves graphs LMAO (I'm awful at math but graphs are my jam hahaha)

[shepherds-of-haven]

Among the inner circle, who does Riel have the easiest->hardest time reading? I assume it's a pretty negligible difference at this point just because everyone interacts so regularly, but does Chase's chaos energy successfully throw him off?

It absolutely does! I would say it generally goes like this, though it may not be a super linear scale and resembles more of a scatterplot graph:

Shery (displays all of her emotions prominently)

Briony (ditto to Shery, though sometimes her motivations/backstory can add some complexities)

Red (easy for Riel to read his emotions, not as easy for him to read his strategies or logical lines of thought)

Ayla (pretty much the same as Briony, her emotions seem easy to read but the actual thoughts she's thinking behind them and the context/backstory she comes from make her a bit more opaque at times than expected)

Halek (his poker face makes it hard to gauge his actual emotions, but his behavior falls within enough of a pattern/predictable routine that Riel can still successfully "read" him or plan for what he's going to do or say without having to know his exact thoughts)

Trouble (similar to Red, where Riel can easily read his emotional state but not always his plans or actions: Trouble can be unpredictably really smart and level-headed or really impulsive at different times, so he consistently surprises Riel, who has a hard time predicting exactly what he's going to do next)

Lavinet (dependent on the situation; hardest to read when she's actively politicking. Court training makes her harder to read than the average person, but she's not a completely closed castle)

Blade (Riel needs more data on Ket facial expressions and body language, so he's not as confident with Blade as with most people, as the cultural differences can make a really big difference. He can't always read Blade's thoughts or feelings unless Blade is caught off-guard, but Blade's behavior is also governed by a rigid enough pattern that it can become easier for Riel to predict, except in areas where his skillset overtakes Riel's (for example, don't ask Riel to predict what Blade is going to do in battle))

Tallys (similar to Blade, Elven mannerisms and body language do differ enough that Riel is hesitant to say with confidence he knows exactly what Tallys is thinking/feeling, plus with her age, experience, and general composed personality, he finds her the most difficult person to read in the Shepherds, with one notable exception. He's well aware that his mortal experience is so vastly different from her own perspective that he won't act like he can know exactly how she thinks so lightly)

Chase (he hates the chaos man. he hates him. Chase's body language and topography make NO sense and can be so detached from his actual emotions that he's just impossible to read accurately. lackadaisical slouch when he's seethingly angry?? half-lidded smile and boneless draping over the couch when he's actually plotting Awful Things?? and let's not get started on his general unpredictability, off-the-cuff improvisation, and chaotic impulsiveness and complete lack of logic. he operates off of Vibes Only, except the Vibes are undetectable to anyone else but the ones plugged into the awful Chaos dimension. If Riel were tracking the linear flight patterns of, like, bumblebees moving from flower to flower, Chase is a dragonfly. oh he's going to land there--WHOOP he did a 98 degree turn at the last possible second and ZIPPED straight up into the sky for no discernible reason! Riel insists through gritted teeth that it's impossible to read someone's thoughts when there are no thoughts going on in their head at all. Even Chase can't explain how his mind works, so how are you expecting Riel to??

Most people's thoughts, to Riel:

Chase:

[shit-my-asexual-friend-says]

Question for the romantic spectrum peeps! (Regardless of where on that spectrum you are, aro to allo.)

Something got me thinking about this the other day.

I'm allosexual with a high libido and alloromantic as a hopeless romantic, while my best friend is solidly aroace, sex-repulsed, and generally put off by romantic advances. We both tend to have strong queerplatonic relationships. So, I think about relationship spectra a lot.

I was thinking about how the sexual attraction spectrum, while not exactly linear, does seem to follow a pretty easy to track pattern: the map of how many sex partners you tend to want very roughly correlates with how strong your sense of sexual attraction is. Asexuals at the far end of the spectrum never desire sex, demi people will only experience sexual attraction very rarely, high-libido allos like myself might choose to be celibate but kind of want to have sex with anyone who fits our personal needs. Needless to say, there is a huge amount of nuance about people who desire sex for other reasons or who are allosexual and high-libido but don't want sex, but very roughly that's the line we're working on.

The thing is: as a hopeless romantic, that isn't true of romance. @why-are-the-allos-like-this has never had a romantic partner because they don't experience romantic attraction. I, on the other hand, have had very few romantic partners because I feel romance very strongly. My current long-term partner is the only long-term partner I have ever had, because I already knew what being in love was "supposed to" feel like, and couldn't bring myself to try dating anyone who I wasn't in love with.

There are a few other people who I nearly fell in love with before him, but never became a partner to for one reason or another (usually because of a practical incompatibility). There are a lot of people who I had crushes on in a childish, unrealizeable way, but never pursued because it wasn't realistic and I knew it wouldn't hold up if I got to know them better. Then, I actually fell in love properly - we had the spark, it was mutual, and the circumstances were ripe for it to develop, and from there there was no going back.

Please note that I'm not demiromantic. The criteria necessary for me to develop a crush aren't particularly strict, and I actually still get crushes, even though I'm totally romantically satisfied and have zero interest in pursuing them. But because I have such a strong romantic streak, you have to pass a certain threshold before I'm willing to give you a shot.

In other words: if sexual attraction can be approximated by a line graph, romantic attraction seems to be more of a bell curve. If you don't experience romantic attraction, you are less likely to have romantic partners. If you do experience it, you might have a string of them. If you experience it extremely strongly, like I do, you go back to having very few if any romantic partners.

So, here's the question I have for other people who are thoughtful about romantic attraction:

Is this just me? What are y'alls's experiences?

[lipshits-continuous]

Topological Spaces 1: Introduction and Metric Spaces

Welcome to the first of several posts about general topology! The goal of these posts is to give an overview and introduction to key concepts in topology. I will try to give intuitions about definitions and results so that even if you're not as aquainted with formal mathematics you can still get something from this. Whilst there aren't any prerequisties per say (for the reason above), for those who are interested in the moral formal aspects it will be helpful to be familiar with real analysis. Some familiarity with linear algebra is also helpful in this post though probably won't play a role going forward.

Topology is such a broad subject that assigning one goal is quite hard. One early goal is to generalise the notion of continuity and other familiar notions, which we shall do. Topology certainly doesn't stop there. One large goal is to find properties which are invariant under homeomorphism (bijective continuous maps whose inverse is also continuous). We shall see some examples of this as we go further!

The goal of this post is to give context to the definitions of topological spaces and continuity via the study of metric spaces. The definition of a topological space can seem quite dry and like it's been plucked out of thin air when just presented without motivation. In this sense, metric spaces are the bridge between familiar concepts in real analysis and the more general setting of topology.

1.1: Metric Spaces:

As the name might suggest, metric spaces are sets with an appropriate notion of distance between points in the set. For the real numbers, we have an intuitive sense of distance between two numbers: the absolute value of their difference. From this, we can immediately get three desirable properties we'd want a notion of distance to have:

Positivity: |x-y|≥0

|x-y|=0 if and only if x=y

Symmetry: |x-y|=|y-x|.

These are desirable because this says, in order, that distance is always positive, two points are the same only when the distance between then is 0, and the distance beween x and y is the same as the distance between y and x.

The last property is not as immediately obvious from the definition but is still a fairly intuitive property that we'd expect a notion of distance to have: the triangle inequality. Formally, for any x,y, and z real number we have |x-y|≤|x-z|+|z-y|. This just says that the distance between two points is always shorter than the distance achieved by adding an intermediate point. The name comes from visiualising this with lengths of a triangle! The proof that this holds for the absolute value can be found here.

You might ask whether there are any more properties we'd like but it turns out that this is enough to generalise a lot of concepts in real analysis in an appropriate way. That is, we still maintain a lot of nice results without requiring too many rules. So let us finally see the definition!

Definition 1.1:

Note: It's common to combine the first two axioms together but for the sake of clarity, I have separated them.

Examples 1.2:

The details of why each of these is a metric can be found in this post.

A result of the second example is that metric spaces are also an appropriate generalisation of normed vector spaces. The fact they are a generalisation is seen from the fact that the discrete metric cannot be seen as the result of a norm and isn't restricted to vector spaces.

1.2: Continuity:

Intuitively, continuous functions are ones that don't have gaps or sudden jumps. In the case of functions from the real numbers to itself, we can view this as "we can draw its graph without lifting the pencil". This can be restated as "points that are close to each other remain close to each other after the function is applied". But how does one formalise "closeness"? With distances of course!

Definition 1.3:

Remark: Continuity departs on the metrics. A function that is continuous in one metric isn't necessarily continuous in another.

Examples 1.4:

Now I'd like to prove a fairly common result to further demonstrate continuity.

Proposition 1.5:

1.3: Open Sets in Metric Spaces

Now we shall see the first aspects of topology creeping in. One way to think about open sets which don't have any points "at the edge". This is immediately clear in the definition we will give below but when we generalise the notion of an open set, we will seemingly lose this. However, we will see that this intuition will still hold!

Definition 1.6:

Example 1.7:

We will now define the notion of an open set using these open balls.

Definition 1.8:

This does indeed formalise "no points at the edge" since for open sets, all points close enough to x are always in U.

Remark: Openness depends on the metric. For example, {0} is open in the real numbers with the discrete metric but not with the absolute value metric.

Now, "open ball" would be a silly name for it if they weren't indeed open in the sense of definition 1.8 but luckily they are!

Proposition 1.9:

Example 1.10:

Open intervals of real numbers are indeed open with respect to the absolute value. If we have the open interval I=(a,b) for finite a<b, we may view I as an open ball by setting x=(b+a)/2 and r=|b-a|/2. Then I=B(x;r).

Now we shall prove a very important result about open sets that lets you build new open sets out of old opens but will also be the foundation upon which we generalise the notion of open sets!

Lemma 1.11:

Proof:

Remark: Finiteness is important for 3. If we consider the real numbers with the absolute value metric then (-1/n,1/n) is open for all (non-zero) natural numbers. However their intersection over all n is {0} which is not open in this metric.

Typically, courses would usually talk about closed sets now. However, since the discussion doesn't vary much between metric spaces and topological spaces, we will hold off for now.

1.4: Continuity in terms of open sets

This is a very important step in our journey in generalising continuity. This section with along with the next section will suggest that open sets are actually the structures we'd like to study!

Lemma 1.12:

Before we prove this, I'd like to just comment on why this still alligns with our intution about continuity. The right hand side is saying that points end up close together in Y must've been close together in X.

Remark: It is important to note that U open in X does not necessarily imply f(U) is open in Y when f if continuous. For example, take f(x)=x² in ℝ with its usual notion of continuity, then (-1,1) is open but f((-1,1))=[0,1) which is not open. Maps for which open sets are mapped to open sets are called open maps.

We will see examples of how to use the property on the right hand side in the next post!

1.5: Equivalent Metrics

The goal of this section is to see that sometimes different metrics will give rise to the same open sets!

Definition 1.13:

Example 1.14:

I will omit the details of the proof for brievity. Not that the 2 on the right hand side comes from the fact we're in ℝ² and isn't related to the 2 in the metric.

Remark: Not all metrics are equivalent. The discrete metric and d₂ are not equivalent metrics.

Proposition 1.15:

Corollary 1.16:

This ultimately means that some metrics generate the same open sets. Then Lemma 1.12 tells us that equivalent metrics give the same continuous funcitons since we can view continuity in terms of open sets. This suggests that what really matters here is which sets are open. This is what we shall exploit to generalise continuity even further! But that shall have to wait til the next post!

[girl-that-writes]

Healing is not a linear graph, I do know that. But practicing self care isn't either. Some days you'll do every step of that one skin care routine that you saw on youtube months ago which makes you feel like you are glowing. On other days, maybe even looking at your toothbrush filled you with dread yet you still went and actually brushed your teeth. It is still self care too. It's is not an aesthetic standard that you need to meet every single time for it to be valid. It literally is just caring for your own self. Doing either once does not negate the importance of doing another at a much different time and during much different circumstances.

[sexhaver]

as a mathematician who doesn’t know any engineers, I’ve always been curious… how much math do engineers actually take? calc 3 and linear algebra? more, less? or do you just learn large parts like, on the fly during engineering classes.

calc 3 and linear algebra are the big ones because most engineering classes build on calculus concepts a lot, specifically integrals and derivatives. did you know that if you graph something's velocity over time and find the area under the curve, you've calculated its displacement? crazy shit

[alethiosr]

Daemointus vs Daemonism

Thought I'd make this post to explain the differences between my own system and the idea of Daemonism. The mechanics won't be explained much here and will be dedicated to a different post or an official document. This is also not meant to put down Daemonism in any way, and you’re free to practice whatever you wish. I have my own feelings towards Daemonism, but they are irrelevant.

The term Daemointus comes from the word daemon and the Latin word for "inside", which is intus. It is meant to further illustrate that in the system of Daemointus, daemons are a natural part of who you are. Unlike Daemonism, there's no creating them and they've existed as long as the rest of your spirit has. You are forever linked and destroying the link between you and your daemon has profound consequences.

One significant difference between Daemointus and Daemonism is that Daemointus uses a stricter spiritual/occult model, while Daemonism tends to use a very loose mental/psychological model. Instead of the idea that everyone has the capacity for having a daemon, in Daemointus your daemon already exists and every single person has one and only one. Meanwhile, in Daemonism you can have multiple daemons and their development isn't linear with your life. A daemon within the system of Daemonism can either never settle in a form, have a select few forms, or be formless until a form is "discovered" by the daemian. This directly conflicts with Daemointus, where your daemon settles regardless of if you know them or not. An adult who's unaware of their daemon will only discover theirs in their settled form. It is important to note though that that doesn't mean you automatically know what your daemon's form is, just that it is unchanging. Many daemians view their daemons as psychological constructs nearly identical to other psychological thoughtforms, while in Daemointus daemons are not constructs to be made but are always present.

Another key difference is that Daemonism is often included in plurality and daemons are usually inside your mind like a headmate/alter, while in Daemointus your daemon never has any control over your body and isn’t a part of your mind. Your daemon is typically united with yourself, and as they separate from you they appear outside your body. Daemons who are separated to the same degree of those from Lyra's World have strong and sustainable subtle bodies and only lack a physical body, which is impossible for them to gain. At that level, reintegration is most likely impossible and likely has adverse effects if attempted. Daemointus cannot be compared with plurality and daemons are not the same as thoughtforms, tulpas, servitors, or any other artificially created entity within or without ones mind.

I am still working heavily on the concept of Daemointus, which is made harder by myself being the only practitioner. I hope if anyone sees this they find it to be interesting at the very least. I have more projects in the works, including some diagrams and graphs. I'm unsure whether to post them individually or in a document/larger post, but I'll figure it out. As always, input is always appreciated. I tried to represent Daemonism as accurately as possible, but there's many people with different views, ideas, and personal experiences. One person's experiences can be totally different than another's, and that's perfectly okay.