they/them, xie/xiem, vae/vaem | over 18 | jewish✡️ | transmasc nonbinary | there's not really any kind of organization system here, it's just a big mess
you may have noticed that my blog is disorganized and thematically incoherent and my tag game is weaker by the day. this is commentary on the chaos of modern existence
undiagnosed autistic people will be like "I don't get upset when my routine changes though!!" and it's because they've built a set of if-then loops in their head to pick from one of 6 different strict routines and they do get incredibly upset when they're unable to keep to any of the 6 scripts. I'm john normal
This is called a fault tree. You will always know how to act if your fault tree captures all possible scenarios. In NASA Mission Control during mission critical events like landings there are huge binders with fault tree protocols, kind of like choose your own adventure books except you’re not the one making the choices, the universe is making them for you and you’re just trying to keep up.
The engineers who develop fault trees, I am told, often imagine new ways for their precious spacecraft to die (new branches on the fault trees) either while in the shower or lying awake at 3am, because human
Was just thinking about this the other day. Yeah I have a favorite seat on the bus (middle of the bus, near the back doors, slightly elevated, facing forward), but I don’t get upset if someone is already sitting there, I just pick one of my other favorite spots. Then I realized that most people probably don’t have a favorite bus seat, let alone a series of backup favorites.
Then you’re gonna love this photo of Annie Jump Canon.
Working at Harvard in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s as a “Computer”, Annie Jump Cannon cataloged stars using their spectra from photographic plates, in an effort to understand the mysteries and peculiarities of stellar spectra.
This was hard, detailed, nuanced work. By 1889, three years into her work, she had classified over 1,000 stars. By 1913, she could classify 200 stars an hour. She could classify three stars a minute, just by sight. Using a magnifying glass, she could classify stars down to 9th magnitude, 16 times fainter than the human eye can see. And she did this all with exceptional accuracy.
Over the course of her career, she personally classified more than 350,000 stars, accounting for a mind-boggling 98% of all contemporary stellar spectra classifications, a feat that wouldn’t be bested until the 1990’s with automated digital sky surveys.
Cannon used these classifications to develop the Harvard spectral classification system (O–B–A–F–G–K–M), organizing stars by surface temperature and physical properties.
It is hard to overstate just how foundational her work was to modern astronomy and astrophysics. Her classifications have enabled more than a century of breakthroughs in stellar structure and evolution, including the understanding of how stars change over time and how temperature, luminosity, and composition are related. The system underpins the Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagram, one of the most important tools in astrophysics, and remains embedded in modern research, from stellar population studies to galaxy evolution.
The immense scale of her work was itself a massive contribution to astronomy. For comparison, before Cannon, star catalogs contained between 600 and 4,000 stars. Her work single-handedly proved that large-scale stellar classification was both feasible and scientifically valuable. She helped establish systematic star catalogs as a core method of modern astronomy and laid the groundwork for astrophysical research on stellar structure, evolution, and populations that continues today.
Annie Jump Cannon features as a character in the play Silent Sky, which focuses on another woman computer, Henrietta Leavitt. If you can find a showing near you, it’s a wonderful piece.
Nature Documentary: these deep sea creatures can withstand crushing pressures of thousands of pounds per square inch!
Me: they’re not withstanding a goddamn thing. The pressure is a part of them. Their interiors and exteriors are equalized. Just because your respiratory system is built around a pair of fragile poppable bubbles-
Sorry, Millennials, but recent paleontologist findings and hyolaryngeal apparatus reconstructions no longer support the hypothesis that "rawr" means "I love you" in dinosaur.
I'm instituting a new policy of "if I can't easily read your crusty scanned PDF then I'm sending it back to you, telling you to get your shit together and save your .docx as .pdf, and causing snakes to manifest inside your house"
this but also if you are in accounting and you have an Excel file please do not save it as a PDF or take a screenshot of it and then paste it into another Excel file
Good afternoon to everyone in the notes having a horrible time! Y'all are fighting demons I never knew existed!! I think every person that makes you do stupid time wasting shit like this because they refuse to learn basic computer literacy should be fired!!
Image description was too long for the alt tag, so it's going under this cut!
A large poster with a background of yellow and blue comic book style pops, speech bubbles, and dots. A speech bubble at the top says, "Jewish American Heritage Month: Comic Books & Superheroes," leading to a panel of Kitty Pryde intensely saying, "I AM Jewish. I AM a mutant. And I want people to know who and what I am. I tell people because, hey, if we're going to have a problem with it… I'd like to know." Her name has a bi flag flying above it.
White panels outlined in heavy black pencil are scattered down the middle of the poster, saying: "1933 was the worst year of the Great Depression. The whole world was struggling. So a Jewish salesman named MAX GAINES created a fun little zine that reprinted Sunday comics, to cheer people up. Max made their colors brighter, and added a brand new comic called "SCRIBBLY." It was about a boy cartoonist, based on its Jewish creator, SHELDON MAYER. This became the WORLD'S FIRST COMIC BOOK. People across America loved it! Soon, Max met a new friend, JACK LIEBOWITZ. Jack was a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, just like Max's parents. He and Max created their own comic book company, DETECTIVE COMICS. We now know it as DC."
Here, the white panels of text are interrupted by one of the comic book panels illustrating a Jewish character. In this one, a rabbi says, "It may be difficult in the face of hardship, but it will always carry you through. Hold on to your faith, just as the Maccabees did. Your miracle will arrive soon enough." In the next panel, RAGMAN, gazing at a menorah with seven lit candles and holding the shamash - the helper candle that lights the others - says, "I hope you're right, rabbi." The rabbi smiles at him encouragingly.
The text panels continue: "JERRY SIEGEL and his best friend JOE SHUSTER, two more kids of low-income Jewish immigrants, started writing and drawing SUPERMAN in high school. They tried to get published in newspapers for FOUR YEARS. Finally, in 1937, SHELDON MAYER saw their work and told Max Gaines that this would be 'THE NEXT BIG THING.' DC bought Siegel and Shuster's work, kicking off THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMICS.
"Jewish artists went on to create Archie Comics, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man, Avengers, X-Men, Silver Surfer, AND MORE."
Superman himself is floating in the top right corner, saying, "It's not about where you were born or the powers you have or what you wear on your chest; it's about what you do."
A yellow and blue banner across him says, "Who was the first superhero?" followed by an explosion-style bubble with the answer: "Superman! He isn't Jewish himself - just created by Jewish artists. Here are a few canonically Jewish characters! They're often whitewashed. But we know the truth."
Clockwise down this side of the poster and up the other side, there's a panel of Billy Caplan wearing a kippah at his wedding, kissing his new husband, Teddy Altman (Hulkling). A rainbow pride flag sticker flies over the frame. To his right, Gert Yorkes (from The Runaways) hugs her dinosaur friend.
Below them are icons for Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake - Batman and Robin - with a small bi flag for Tim Drake - next to a large panel in which Harley Quinn (bi flag) tightly hugs Kate "Batwoman" Kane (lesbian flag) saying, "Just for that, you don't have to buy me anything for Hanukkah!" Kate is saying, "I WASN'T going to buy you anyth… ugh! STOP!"
Below them is Ben Grimm (The Thing), saying, "Nothing two dozen knishes to go from King's won't fix! They're worth traveling the entire galaxy for!" The baker pressing the bag of knishes into his hand says, "You're too kind, Ben. Zayt mir gezunt un shtark!" A small footnote translates the Yiddish: "Be well for me!"
The bottom left corner of the poster has Kevin Cole (White Tiger) lying across his partner's lap. She is saying, "This poor kid -- half Korean, quarter black, quarter Jewish…." He banters back, "the good quarter. We'll serve bulgogi and ribs at his bar mitzvah."
Above this, Moon Knight is saying, "That's the thing, Dr. Sterman. No one has. No one who will still talk to me, that is. As you might have guessed, I'm not exactly on the Avengers' Hanukkah card list. Though oddly enough, Ben Grimm never fails to send me one every year. I think he needs to meet more Jewish super heroes."
Kitty Pryde asks Magneto, "You were a hero?" and he monologues back: "Hardly. In those days, heroism meant holding onto one's humanity, while the Nazis tried their best to turn us until animals. The way to defy them -- to defeat them -- was to lie, to hold onto hope, no matter what. Believe me, Kitty, I was no one special. If I am a hero, then so is every other man and woman who survived."
And lastly, Peter Parker (Spiderman) is being asked, "I don't know where my friend is and you're making light?" He replies, "I'm sorry. I'm not making light. Jet lag. I haven't slept since Shavous. I'm loopy."
Adjusted value of Bees. Now that was a special one… because every item in the game had a minimum value, and a beehive was a container for bees, which each had a minimum value… which meant the moment one of your dwarves picked up a beehive, your entire fortress’ net worth skyrocketed… a value used in determining how powerful the foes that visit and try to murder you are.
Actually I lied it’s the one where after a major update werewolves and vampires started climbing the nearest tree and refusing to come down. It turned out that he’d given evil creatures the ability to sense each other, but forgotten to set a maximum range on it, so werewolves were aware Hell was underground and trying to flee by climbing
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