whodoyouthinkithinkiam

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Only if first calibrated with a gyro-controlled Sine-Wave Director, the output of which is of the cathode follower type. If only Cosine-wave Directors are available, their output must be first fed into a Phase Inverter with parametric negative-time compensators.

Would a turbo encabulator pay child support?

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

I'm sure OP is tired by now of the fact that every single reply is a proposed example of Ironic Magic (and man, there are some good ones there), but I finally worked out the work that had been itching at the back of my mind since reading the initial description:

Mage: the Ascension is an RPG where magic is caused by human belief. It's set in what looks like the modern world, but the rulebook makes it clear that all human technology, including basic stuff like agriculture, only works because everyone in the world believes it does. A few hundred years ago, a group calling themselves the Technocracy worked their most impressive magic to date, the Industrial Revolution, and through it took over the world. PCs are assumed to be a member of one of the last few dying magical traditions, which don't work so well any more because the Technocracy convinced people they wouldn't.

PCs (assuming you're not playing Technocracy) basically know about how the Technocracy conquered the world by convincing the masses their stuff worked, but at the same time, are expected to "know" that they are an initiate of one of the last magical traditions, and not really be aware of the fact that their stuff only works because they believe it does.

Your party is supposed to believe they are, essentially, different D&D classes using different power sources. Sure, when a Cleric casts Cure Light Wounds it's the same spell write-up as when an Alchemist does it, but they're calling on completely different magic systems when they do, y'know? But when a Celestial Chorister sings life back into their ally, it's the exact same spell as when a Son of Ether gives them an elixir, and the exact same as when a Technocrat NWO Agent uses cutting-edge healing goo. Life magic isn't even a favoured ability for any of them. The power, in every case, comes from within.

Players, of course, have to know all this stuff. Even if you never read the rulebook, it's right there on your character sheet.

Fake Hard Magic

Here's the beginner's distinction between hard magic and soft magic, just to set up some terms.

Hard magic systems have well-defined rules, limitations, and costs. They operate almost like a science, with consistent and predictable outcomes.

Soft magic systems, in contrast, maintain a sense of wonder and mystery. The rules are deliberately kept vague or unexplained, and magic often feels more mysterious and unpredictable.

One of the problems I've always had with this is this question: from whose perspective?

Fake hard magic comes when the magic "has rules" and "has limitations" within the logic of the story's world, but these rules aren't explained to the reader. The wizard has the aesthetic of science, he uses rulers and graphs, to him this is a science. But everything the wizard says must be taken for granted, because nothing that's said will ever help the reader to understand what's actually going on. It's "hard magic" on the character's level, but not the reader's.

Here's my chart!

Systemic magic is the type of hard magic that I would put the typical Brandon Sanderson story under. It's known to both character and reader, the rules are laid out and inform the plot, the reader can extrapolate from the rules, etc. Most "true" hard magic systems go here. There's a weaker version of this, where we have narrative rules, which I guess I would also put in this category. If we know that magic can start fires that burn plants, and this is set up such that in the climax someone does this, it's technically here, even if no mechanisms for how fire starts are related. There is a narrative expectation that sets up a narrative execution. The character knows, the reader knows, even if this is a single example of what's supposed to be a larger, more complex system.

Soft and "fake hard" are grouped together, and in practice this is just a matter of set dressing. I contend that a magic system does not become a hard magic system just because a wizard is wearing a lab coat and everyone in the story is treating the magic with science words and ISO standards.

Wild magic isn't quite right for its quadrant, but it's a variety of "soft magic" that no one in the story is pretending to understand, which does not follow concrete rules, and which comes and goes from the story on its own whims, usually to punctuate a point rather than to drive or resolve the plot. Quite a bit of magical realism belongs here.

Ironic magic is, as far as I know, theoretical. The reader understands the magic systems and the rules that it operates under, but the characters do not. I cannot recall seeing this, I do not think it has been directly named by anyone, but it's definitely a form of literary irony.

As simple as this is, there's a third viewpoint, which would make this into a three-dimensional grid: the author. It's very possible that the author has a written out comprehensive system, which the reader is just never privy to, and this is a slight wrinkle, but not a major one. Functionally, it's the same to the reader, unless they can point out some glaring contradictions in the text. Also, this would imply the existence of octants where the author is clueless but the reader knows what's happening, and ... I doubt there's a way for that to happen, unless you mean that readers construct a working system in the wake of what the author has written.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Recently I took my family to visit my grandfather, who I hadn't seen in a year and the rest of them hadn't in two and a half. He's 96 and his mind's still sharp.

Every so often, he kept saying "So, what's new?" and we'd respond awkwardly, because not much had happened in a while. School, illness, work, more school, more illness, more work. Whatever.

After we left, my wife pointed out that that was probably "older gentleman with no script for this" speak for "So, I see your husband is now your wife. Could you please do me the honour of reintroducing her?"

In my defense, it's been a while!

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Do the Tech-Priests in Warhammer 40K count as "Ironic Magic"? Neither the Priests nor the readers/players really understand the "magic system", but the readers know a lot more than the Priests do, such as that the liturgies to the Omnissiah do nothing.

Fake Hard Magic

Here's the beginner's distinction between hard magic and soft magic, just to set up some terms.

Hard magic systems have well-defined rules, limitations, and costs. They operate almost like a science, with consistent and predictable outcomes.

Soft magic systems, in contrast, maintain a sense of wonder and mystery. The rules are deliberately kept vague or unexplained, and magic often feels more mysterious and unpredictable.

One of the problems I've always had with this is this question: from whose perspective?

Fake hard magic comes when the magic "has rules" and "has limitations" within the logic of the story's world, but these rules aren't explained to the reader. The wizard has the aesthetic of science, he uses rulers and graphs, to him this is a science. But everything the wizard says must be taken for granted, because nothing that's said will ever help the reader to understand what's actually going on. It's "hard magic" on the character's level, but not the reader's.

Here's my chart!

Systemic magic is the type of hard magic that I would put the typical Brandon Sanderson story under. It's known to both character and reader, the rules are laid out and inform the plot, the reader can extrapolate from the rules, etc. Most "true" hard magic systems go here. There's a weaker version of this, where we have narrative rules, which I guess I would also put in this category. If we know that magic can start fires that burn plants, and this is set up such that in the climax someone does this, it's technically here, even if no mechanisms for how fire starts are related. There is a narrative expectation that sets up a narrative execution. The character knows, the reader knows, even if this is a single example of what's supposed to be a larger, more complex system.

Soft and "fake hard" are grouped together, and in practice this is just a matter of set dressing. I contend that a magic system does not become a hard magic system just because a wizard is wearing a lab coat and everyone in the story is treating the magic with science words and ISO standards.

Wild magic isn't quite right for its quadrant, but it's a variety of "soft magic" that no one in the story is pretending to understand, which does not follow concrete rules, and which comes and goes from the story on its own whims, usually to punctuate a point rather than to drive or resolve the plot. Quite a bit of magical realism belongs here.

Ironic magic is, as far as I know, theoretical. The reader understands the magic systems and the rules that it operates under, but the characters do not. I cannot recall seeing this, I do not think it has been directly named by anyone, but it's definitely a form of literary irony.

As simple as this is, there's a third viewpoint, which would make this into a three-dimensional grid: the author. It's very possible that the author has a written out comprehensive system, which the reader is just never privy to, and this is a slight wrinkle, but not a major one. Functionally, it's the same to the reader, unless they can point out some glaring contradictions in the text. Also, this would imply the existence of octants where the author is clueless but the reader knows what's happening, and ... I doubt there's a way for that to happen, unless you mean that readers construct a working system in the wake of what the author has written.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Swallowed by the fog

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

TIL that the reason lead levels in children’s blood have dropped 85% in the past thirty years is because of an unknown scientist who fought car companies to end leaded gasoline. He also removed it from paint, suggested its removal from pipes, and campaigned for the removal of lead solder from cans.

via ift.tt

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

I'm missing the point too, but potatoes would have completely changed Europe's tax system, which heavily relied on the crowns' ability to threaten to take all of the peasants' grain. If they had food that could be harvested whenever you needed it, instead of having to be harvested all at once and then preserved or stored in large silos, peasants would have been more able to resist the demands of the nobility.

I read a very good essay on this topic but I can't find it, so have this much-less-detailed-and-sourced Reddit exchange instead.

(This also makes me wonder, if the meeting of the continents had been more equitable, which Afro-Eurasian crops would have transformed the Americas the way the potato did Europe, instead of colonists just wholesale replacing the flora.)

👀

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

In the city where I grew up, there was a little strip mall on a corner that was like this. Mostly the businesses were less faddish, but equally doomed: things like Szechuan restaurants that just wouldn't work in the conservative little city.

Anyway, the funniest part was when the local MP moved his office there and, within six months, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada no longer existed.

i love commercial real estate that is essentially zoned exclusively for momentary fad businesses that will go bankrupt. hmm, ok, we are the 8th comic book store in this zip code, and, fuck, uhh, ok nobody is going to any comic book stores anywhere, hmm, ok, vape lounge, old robot style vapes, yep nope ok we don't really sell anything and we're bankrupt. now we're a Vape Store. ok we're the 8th one on this block. ok. they've changed the locks. hmm. what's next. Axe Throwing, Axe Throwing Will Be The Nex-oh, shit, fuck. ok. I got it. We sell fake weed.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

I remember feeling the same way. "If the player did not want to be tempted, why did they play a Paladin?" It's just sensible.

Then one day, a DM presented a group I was playing in with a dilemma. A Paladin had done something, ah, controversial (I was not tempted to think it was evil, but was aware that many people would have). We were supposed to figure out what to do about it.

And one of the other players said, "Has he fallen? Can he summon a magic horse? Then it's fine, let's go."

It wasn't exactly a compelling gameplay experience, but I suddenly understood why people wanted to play Paladins and not have it be about the temptations of falling. They wanted to be that shining light, to have others see them and know for sure at a glance that they had never once in their adventuring career done an evil deed.

It's a compelling fantasy if you think about it. A power fantasy for people plagued by doubts. And then other people notice the affordances the game offers and reasonably (if incorrectly) go, "Ah, this player wants to be plagued by doubts!" No, they came here because they wanted the exact opposite, but the error in the game design is very subtle.

Game Pile: The Affordances of Atonement

Watch this video on YouTube

This is a video of my article on this I wrote a few years ago!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Gather around, my young friends and fellow dinosaurs, let me tell you about some BULLSHIT no one ever tells you about. I'm talking about menopause and perimenopause. Now, menopause has a very stringent medical definition. You have to not have had a period for exactly 12 months and a day to be considered in menopause. All the bullshit before that day once you start going through The Change is considered perimenopause. Here's some bullshit you might experience that people actually talk about when you're in perimenopause:

- shorter time between periods

- irregular periods

- hot flashes and/or cold flashes

- fucked up sleep

- OMG NIGHT SWEATS

- Vagina as dry as the Sahara desert

- lighter periods and/or endless bleeding like it's The Flood but it's in your pants

- lack of interest in Adult Fun Times

This time of joy can last anywhere from a couple of years to a god damn decade and there's no medical way right now to predict it.

Here's some of the REAL bullshit they don't tell you about but your dinosaur aunt is here to let you know:

- You can start perimenopause in your 30s, don't listen to idiot doctors who tell you you're "too young" because they don't know your body like you do.

- Perimenopause will make you HELLA DUMB. Seriously, I'm talking Bigly broken brain. Brain fog? Check. Short term memory? Wave goodbye to it. Ability to make words form out of thoughts? Yeah, good luck to you.

- Perimenopause can cause horrible fatigue because in addition to losing estrogen, you're also losing testosterone. Oh and that also leads to muscle wasting, cool cool.

- Things might suddenly hurt more because estrogen is known to be neuroprotective.

- If you're super lucky like I am, and like to collect rare illnesses, you might even get Burning Mouth Syndrome 💀

- And meanwhile, while you're going through this bullshit, you'll be getting gaslit by doctors who are operating based on 30 year old debunked data about how HRT causes breast cancer (not really) and that they shouldn't put you on it until you're in actual menopause. (Data shows starting HRT early can potentially prevent Alzheimer's in later years.)

- There are entire online clinics right now (I use Midi Health) focused on providing care for peri and menopausal patients and they will happily prescribe you HRT even if your regular PCP or OBGYN do not (if you meet the criteria). I've been pretty impressed with how holistically they view the patient. For full disclosure, I learned about them from my integrative health doctor and they do not accept Medicare (yet).

I'm 46 years old right now and I've been symptomatic for perimenopause for the last 8 years, although it's gotten the most dramatic in the past 2 years or so, which I hope means I'm almost done, holy hell. Yeah I was on the early side, but if it can happen to me, it can happen to you, so it's never too early to think about these things. And I hope to at least spare some of you the mind-fuckery I've been through because no one told me about most of this stuff, including my own mother who just DOESN'T REMEMBER what happened to her and now I completely understand why. And because I also have a connective tissue disease, I used to just dismiss my pain and fatigue as being caused by that illness rather than the loss of hormones.

Anyways, this is why we need Elders in our lives, so they can do Grandma Story Hour like I just did and validate you when the entire medical field tries to gaslight you. I hope you've found some or all of this educational/useful. Please share with your friends because we really do NOT talk about this stuff enough. (Ewwww Moon Blood!)

Stay well, and don't let the bastards grind you down!

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Peer-reviewed tags by @unendingreblogging

Major Concern: Hey wait. Guys why is the gun able to be described as “Unshackled”?

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Ugh.

My daughter, at age five, noticed a Let's Play in the sidebar of her music video and clicked on it.

Immediately, half the recommended videos, were things like "[Name Redacted] DESTROYS Feminist in Debate".

Going back to music didn't help. Waiting a couple of months calmed it down a little. Now, over a year later, the Youtube front page on her browser only has one video of a Hollywood celebrity "destroying woke culture".

She never even clicked on a single one of those videos. (I was prepared to explain to her exactly why not, but she never even tried.) But video games are a Right Wing thing enough for Youtube to think this is a good idea despite it having never had a single hit in over a year.

(The game wasn't right-wing, one of those games people are known to throw slurs on, or even multiplayer, by the way. It was a Mario game.)

Youtube was the only social-media-esque thing we let her use, and it was a mistake. No more for years.

To get back to the original post, a link to something political won't turn their phone into a doomscrolling machine, but it might turn their brain into one. That would probably be a morally good thing (assuming they don't hit the conspiracy BS), but they would be less happy. Knowing what the world is like can do that.

i have a thought percolating about, like. engagement. the concept of engagement. and how i think it's a flawed concept in part because there's a significant segment of the population that's just... not going to do that. for whatever reason they are only really interested in consuming things passively. art, news, whatever. they are not interested in engaging. they will only ever get the surface-read on anything. if something demands engagement and doesn't allow for surface-level readings it's not for them. they will use whatever app or social network or website that allows them to use it as passively as possible.

mostly i am thinking about this in the context of engagement hacking and 'the algorithm'. posts designed to be infuriating to maximize engagement. headlines crafted to upset you for engagement. and for the right subset of people, it works. but for the passive people, i think they move on. instead of getting them to like and share or whatever it chases them off. the post made them feel bad, so they don't like it. they're going to find posts that don't make them feel bad, instead.

i am thinking about this in the context of living in deeply republican bumfuck nowhere, surrounded by trump supporters who have no idea who mitch mcconnell is. they are unclear on what the supreme court does or who is on it. they do not know the difference between the house and the senate. if you try to talk to them about politics or the news - not even a serious discussion, just trying to explain facts - they will say something like, "oh, i don't follow politics. i don't watch the news. it's all so bad. it just makes me upset. i avoid all of that." and if you keep trying to explain basic facts despite that, they will respond like you're trying to describe the graphic details of a snuff video. there are people who come into our office who my coworkers avoid by pretending to be on the phone, because if they don't, they might try to talk about the news.

the only news or politics they ever see is something that gets enough engagement from the people who care that it makes it onto their feed of funny animal videos and 5 minute crafts. they extrapolate that there's a whole world of nightmares out there that they can safely avoid by never looking. they don't know in any conscious way what it means to curate your feed, but they'll treat a link to anything 'political' like a virus that will turn their phone into a doomscrolling machine that makes you crazy.

i don't know if i'm expressing anything coherent here, i don't have a thesis statement or a hypothetical solution to whatever you would call this. i'm just tired.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

I had to make fanart of this song, but I can't draw. This was the best I could do.

and i don’t know why it feels like nothing gained at all and not a word to help accept what’s coming we’ve killed all gods and now gravity’s all that remains to call my name

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Love the garages cause there'll be songs like "I love my little blorbo <3 <3 <3" and then songs like "yeah we're just straight up murdering gods" and then songs like "I am unrelentingly sad and you should be too" and then songs like "Everything is burning. Everyone is screaming. Soon it will all be over. But while we are still here. We shall yell into the abyss how it has failed us. I would miss you but I shall soon lose the ability to miss anything. Are you fucking scared of death?"

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

Oh damn, I thought I was finally okay about Blaseball.

and i don’t know why it feels like nothing gained at all and not a word to help accept what’s coming we’ve killed all gods and now gravity’s all that remains to call my name

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

I didn't know about this, but I had to call squatter's rights once.

I answered an ad on my university-approved housing bulletin board for a single room. I didn't see anything sketchy about the place. Lived there for most of a year without issues. Then my landlord died... and his landlord showed up.

Yeah, I'd been paying in good faith, but he hadn't had the right to rent to me and in most other contexts this is known as "receiving stolen goods" and what I knew doesn't mean squat. In this case, it did mean squat. (Pun not originally intended but when I saw it I sure did embrace it.)

One of his other tenants was dealing with the landlord, and I never saw him in person, but I told her "tell him squatter's rights" and the demands went from "get out now" to "okay, you have a month."

Looking up more information I don't think this actually counted as squatter's rights because it requires years in my jurisdiction, but I think the landlord folded once he realized we knew we had any rights at all.

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

this starship has potentially infinite space,

Recently user Inchoatl finished a really cool Kidd Commander fic where they wrote 100 words for every prompt on a list of 100, every single day straight in a row. They've written some excellent fic for KC in the past and always have such fun insights about the characters, it was such a treat getting to read a little bit about someone new every day!! One of my favorites was number 67, which I wanted to draw immediately but y'all know how it goes. ANYWAY: go read it, my god.