#learning shit

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Just paid a guy $316 to fix the wiring in the well house, and I really feel like I could have done it myself, with just a little more knowledge. Well, I could've figured out how to do it with just a little, but confidence that I'd done it right, or diagnosing the problem if it hadn't been the one we suspected? Those would take a larger amount of knowledge, and experience.

J definitely could have fixed it, but he's working so much he doesn't have time time or energy, and we needed the water working. I need to learn how to do electrical repairs - I want to learn to do everything, and will enjoy the process, but there's so many things I don't know how to do.

I guess replacing the ancient plugs on my sewing machines will be baby step #1 on this topic.

[sharkiesnicker]

Btw this break week I think Imma try to learn to make plushies so keep an eye out for that. Also if you've got any suggestions on some patterns I would appreciate 👀

[prolibytherium]

One of my all time biggest pet peeves with historical(ish) fantasy is when the writer constructs a religion with a clear bias that it's stupid and false and therefore only the Stupid People and/or commoners believe in it and all the smart/elite main characters are like, quasi-atheists or otherwise just routinely flout established religious conventions of orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy because they're Too Smart for it or etc.

It's usually an extension of assumptions that people in the past were just less intelligent than in the contemporary, just being like "I know that the sun is a star millions of miles away that the earth orbits, but this ancient religion describes it as a chariot flying through the sky" and not really bothering to learn the context and just (consciously or subconsciously) settling on 'that's a crazy thing to think and was probably believed in because they were Stupid'.

And that whole attitude pisses me off so much. People were as 'smart' 10,000 years ago as they are today. These beliefs aren't just desperate, random flailing to explain phenomena that could not directly be accounted for either, it's not like people just looked at the sun and went "Uhhh I don't know what the fuck that thing is, actually. I guess it might be a chariot or a boat or something?? Yeah let's go with that." and based entire religious practices on this. Every well-established belief system exists within broader contexts of cultural values/subjective perceptions of reality/knowledge systems/etc, and exist as part of a historical continuum of religious practices that came before. Even when not Materially Correct, they have context and internal logic, they're not always dead literal with zero levels of allegory, and they're never a result of stupidity.

[dykemd]

the lack of dykes n more specifically butch dykes in post apocalyptic media is bizarre bc every single lesbian i know is the most prepared person in any room n not even for survivalist reasons we do that shit for fun

[stars-obsession-pit]

“Mom, why do you think ghosts are intrinsically evil?”

“It’s what the science says, of course!”

“No, I mean like, what were the studies? What did they actually observe”

“Ohh, I get what you mean, Danny! Well across all reputable reports of encounters with the ghosts strong enough to matter, they’ve always attacked first and never responded to attempts at communication! There’s no reason for them to do that if they’re not evil!”

“Huh…”

…

Danny, learning about Ghost Speak and how humans can’t understand it: hmm.

Danny, learning that ghosts greet each other and bond by fighting: hmmm.

[bioshzrd]

this random ass guy who’s entire bit is that he can move like this is the only good wesker fan ever

[squidsmeister]

dungeon meshi is my favorite road-trip comedy film

[lotus-pear]

partners in crime or smt idk

[demigods-posts]

percy doing better than annabeth in college is one my favorite developments in the rrverse. if we reflect on percy and annabeth's academic upbringing. annabeth living at camp allowed her to receive accommodations for her adhd and dyslexia and surround herself with like-minded campers who had the same limitations. whereas percy was ridiculed, belittled, and routinely humiliated because of his adhd and dyslexia. even more so, percy's friends and family leave him out of the loop on so many important issue (no chb orientation film, no information about the great prophecy) which perpetuates his subpar confidence and self-esteem in his skills as a student and a demigod. but going to college at NRU changes his mindset because he receives the accommodations he should have gotten years ago and fucking thrives to the point of getting higher grades than annabeth — a person he deems way smarter and more prepared than him in every way. the most important thing percy is learning now is that a supportive environment makes all the difference, and he is more capable than he initially thought.

[wormdebut]

So stick with me here.

Steve and Robin minding their damn business at a diner. Steve’s got his hair all slicked back and pretty like it usually is, he’s got a preppy little jacket on and is literally just existing but an angry little alternative guy comes marching up to their booth.

Because see, Steve is wearing a very old shirt of his boyfriend’s very successful band, Corroded Coffin. Simply because he likes it, and Eddie is on tour so he left it at home with Steve, because he’s fucking sweet like that.

But anyway, angry alternative bro comes marching up saying, “I bet you don’t even know Corroded Coffin. Name three songs.”

Steve is shocked actually because CC’s fans are usually pretty fucking chill and also very aware of Steve, but he can’t help but laugh at Robins eyes going wide at the question. She goes to speak and Steve cuts her off, looking at the guy.

“This is my boyfriend’s shirt actually. I could FaceTime him and see if he could name three?”

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

so in an attempt to actually use positive thinking, anytime i fuck up and my brain reacts as if ive cause a minor apocalyptic event, i compare my fuck up to the 4 minute fuck up committed by the crew of the uss william d porter.

and only today, as i was having to explain what happened to my mom when i was explaining the whole comparison thing, did i realise that most people dont know about it and ive decided that needs to change because its objectively hilarious.

...which is a weird thing to say about an event that occured on a warship in 1943, specifically november 14th.

see the uss william d porter was a fletcher-class destroyer but you dont need to know what that means, just that she had guns that went bang bang and that she was escorting another ship, the uss iowa, to cairo.

while they were on their way there, they performed some gun trials like testing the anti-aircraft guns or the torpedos. and while they were running a torpedo drill, the crew of the porter managed to fire a live torpedo straight at the iowa which you know, in terms of a list of things to do while escorting a ship, shooting a torpedo at them is not on that list.

especially if the president of the united states is on board.

yeah so fdr was on board and the gun trials were actually his idea, and part of the trials was that they were conducted under radio silence.

and that means the crew of the porter couldnt just call the iowa to be like "move out the way, we accidentally shot a torpedo at you."

but they did have signal lamps and you know, the signalman on board was trained to signal this exact kind of message.

...and uh never mind, the signalman did manage to successfully tell the iowa that a torpedo was coming toward them but wasnt as successful when it came to the direction the torpedo was coming from.

not all hope is lost though because the signalman could still use the signal lamp to correct his previous mistake and-, never mind, he announced that the porter was reversing, which she wasnt.

yeah so at catastrophic mistake number 3, they broke radio silence to warn the iowa and she managed to turn out of the way just in time which meant no one got hurt. and even though the inquiry into the incident led to chief torpedoman (fantastic job title btw) lawton dawson being sentences to hard labour, fdr intervened and waved away his sentence, saying it was all an accident.

but yeah, so thats my new measure for "how much did i really fuck up?" and when i compared accidentally picking up a pencil case without a tag on it in wilko, turns out it was a very minor fuck-up. yes, the cashier had to ask another worker to grab a duplicate so they could scan the barcode, but i didnt nearly kill the president during wartime via accidental friendly fire

[mokeonn]

"But if college was free, then people would abuse that and get useless degrees" hell yeah I would! If I could go to college without debt I would make it my job to get a degree in every little thing that interested me. I'd get a doctorate in film studies. I'd have a bachelor's degree for every science I like. I'd try to learn at least 5 languages with varying results. I would learn something "useful" like coding and then follow it up with a ""useless"" degree like art history. I'd be the world record speed run holder for getting every degree possible.

But I can't afford college without going into massive debt, so instead I spent the last 5 years trying to figure out what I am passionate enough about to consider going into debt over, because unfortunately being passionate about everything is extremely expensive to pursue.

[inkblot-skyz]

I didn't get my student maintenance even though I was supposed to today because it turns out my university didn't fgucking tell student finance I've been enrolled for over a month I am going to start killing

[justshipsandstuff]

Post canon spoilers!

Lately I’ve really enjoyed drawing Mithrun just living life and interacting with other people

[mearchy]

The best fics are the ones that recognize that although Luke Skywalker may APPEAR on the outside to be a normal friendly twink who happens to have cool powers, especially when contrasted with such ship partners as Boba or Din or even Han, he is arguably the scariest person alive in the galaxy around the prequel era. AND, crucially, he is also a fundamentally weird guy. This man was homeschooled on a rural farm his entire life and then apprenticed to a swamp gremlin who showed him how to tap into the cosmic power of the universe. He blew up the death star age 19, killing approx 2 million-ish Imperials. He is a vortex of Force power that can communicate with the ghosts of dead Jedi. He’s staring into the distance and mumbling to himself and doing Yoda aphorisms and casually pulling out the “yeah I could crush that guy into a paste with my mind (:” and nobody around him knows what to do with that. I think he is a character who has very little frame of reference for how a Jedi or a person in general is supposed to act and there is some thing about him that is by necessity really fucking weird and a little scary but he’s so nice that it can throw you off the scent a little bit. Thanks for coming to my TED talk

[brightlotusmoon]

To quote someone on Facebook:

"So for anyone who didn't know, there's a thing ADHD brains do sometimes, which is thinking about doing a thing is roughly equivalent in our brain to doing the thing, so our brain checks off having done the thing EVEN THOUGH WE DIDN'T DO THE THING"

_

*raises hand* Me. I didn't do the thing I thought I did.