Natural Flights of the Human Mind @aspicystrum - Tumblr Blog

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depsidase

#unionize #I said unionise motherfuckers #please my fuckers of mothers for the love of your livelihoods please unionise

dsmsix

naamahdarling

"In the same way that your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, then the universe cares. If you don't, then it doesn't." -- Brennan Lee Mulligan, D20, Fantasy High

evilsoup

the cultural object of the black hole is kind of remarkable. It's almost an anti-God in a sense, a negative infinity. Yeah there's this kind of dead sun that's collapsed into an infinitely dense point, and if you fall past its event horizon you're fucked. Every schoolchild knows this. A black hole can be introduced in a superhero blockbuster without any explanation except for its established look and the name "black hole", and this will be understood as the ultimate natural disaster, which even superman could not hope to defeat. truly S-tier cosmic object

not-terezi-pyrope

If there's any proof we need that our reality is made of math, it's that graph function singularities exist as physical features of our world. Undefined algebraic points exist, we can see them, they float around space touching things and fucking them up beyond all recognition, and they look like marauding black death wrapped in a spherical gradient of tortured spacetime.

Like, words literally cannot describe how cool black holes are. If they did not actually exist, I doubt that the world's 100 top rated sci-fi writers locked in a room for a month brainstorming could come up with anything nearly as good. When do you ever get something that is as top tier psychologically impactful as it is so deeply rooted in fundamental scientific truth about reality?

persephones-domain

Physicist here!

Black holes are the ultimate astronomical phenomena. They are regions where the very structure of reality is contorted into something alien. Defined not by substance but by the warping of spacetime, a black hole is a solution to Einstein’s field equations wherein the metric tensor collapses into a singularity—an infinitesimal point of infinite density, where curvature diverges and our mathematical descriptions disintegrate. The event horizon, delineated by the Schwarzschild radius , marks a boundary beyond which causal relationships cease to propagate outward. Nothing—not matter, not light, not information—can escape. From within, the geometry of spacetime becomes so distorted that all paths, all timelike geodesics, inevitably lead inward, like water down an infinite drain.

Time bizzarelt dilates near the horizon; a distant observer would see infalling matter slow, redshift, and fade, asymptotically frozen in time, somewhat like a hologram eternally flickering at the border. Simultaneously for the falling observer, however, the descent is finite and inexorable as space collapses inward, and the singularity looms in a finite proper time. Should one hypothetically remain on the event horizon itself, a null surface traversed only at the speed of light, the geometry becomes especially... strange: light emitted tangentially could orbit indefinitely along the photon sphere, forming a closed loop. So in this scenario, were you to gaze precisely forward, the curvature would distort light rays around the hole to the point you'd witness the back of your own head—an optical recursion born not of mirrors but of warped topology.

Even the notion of mass becomes disquieting here. A black hole's presence is encoded in the curvature it imposes, describable via the Einstein tensor and its coupling to the stress-energy tensor , yet the interior contains no structure! No matter, no surface, only the singularity at , where predictability ends. The laws of physics as we understand them yield only silence in response. And yet, paradoxically, black holes are not immutable. Quantum field theory on curved backgrounds predicts Hawking radiation: virtual particle pairs near the horizon become real, draining the hole of mass over unimaginable timescales, leading to eventual evaporation. What remains, if anything at all, is unknown. In this way, black holes are less objects than they are boundaries of comprehension: blind spots in our cosmology where mathematics hints at truths too extreme, too indifferent, to be made fully human.

that-gay-jedi

"All monsters must die bloody, and by a hero's hands, and soon," he says over brunch.

He doesn't think it's a rude thing to say in front of a monster. There are no rude things to say to monsters, only rude things monsters say.

"Don't worry," she says between bites, "You're one of the good ones."

"But I am still a monster," I do not say. I do not say that I love my claws and teeth, my prehensile shadow and my glowing eyes. That I cannot imagine giving them up even for survival, that to hide my shadow and trim my claws for them makes me feel diminished. In public I cannot say that I do not wish to be human.

They're progressives, this bunch, even if he carries a hero's banner with its proud history and none of them ask him to put it away. They know there are good monsters, monsters who can speak eloquently and hold the fork right, monsters you can be seen with in public. Some of their best friends are monsters.

They do not know the monster who is invited to brunch knows solidarity with the monster who is not. Believes and understands the monster who is not invited more than the human who does the inviting.

"Isn't that a little harsh?" says a third human, and I have not forgotten I am outnumbered. "We have ways of killing monsters without blood now, painlessly. And, of course, a monster should be allowed to live if it never growls."

He has never seen me growl. Yet how loudly and endlessly I will, when I'm out of earshot. He's talking about killing monsters who cannot stoop to civility, about mother and brother and lover who were never able to mute themselves like me, and does he not know how small a child who can only growl is?

"To growl is not to kill," I say, and all heads turn toward me. It is one of those rude things monsters say.

#monsters

rudeteens

Everything needs to be glass, if it can’t be glass it needs to be ceramic, if it can’t be ceramic it needs to be wood, if it can’t be wood it needs to be stainless steel, if it can’t be stainless steel it needs to be stone, if it can’t be stone it needs to be glass

wabbledab

@alagaisia's tags are too true to leave out

villainessbian

aluminium needs to enter the rotation too

aspicystrum

Hot take, but I actually think way less medical stuff needs to be plastic than is.

Old-school sterilisable equipment like syringes used to exist. Pretty sure certain types of drug vials could be re-used too. We even used to re-use endo-tracheal tubes. They used to be made out of rubber. Admittedly, I think that might be a step too far for safety reasons (rubber is harder to sterilise and going back to opaque tubes when all are transparent now would probably increase the incidence of airway-related incidents). So definitely some stuff is off limits until we have another major step in materials science.

But most surgical equipment is already re-usable. Plenty of hospitals use material, re-sterilisable drapes and gowns. Even the plastic fibre and packaging that the sterilised equipment gets sterilised in is able to get recycled at the minimum. I’d maybe even suggest that we, as humans, have the technology and ability to re-use (or even just recycle) sterile and even non-sterile gloves, if we really put our heads together.

It’s just that for most current medical consumables, we don’t have the re-use, sterilisation or recycling infrastructure systems that we need to switch from cheap, disposable plastic manufacturing, and the investment required is probably not considered worth the effort for most healthcare systems.

#healthcare #recycling #plastic #hospitals

catchymemes

evilkaito

i dont think whites understand how being white makes literally everything easier.

it effects everything.

being trans is easier when youre white.

being gay is easier when youre white.

being disabled is easier when youre white.

being a woman is easier when youre white.

being autistic is easier when youre white.

oppression is eased when you are white, as you get extra privileges, and your whiteness is seen as a positive characteristic that in some ways counter-balances your other forms of being a minority. whiteness controls everything.

you are automatically way more innocent in your own oppression as a gay, trans, disabled person because of your whiteness.

never forget this.

raccoon-piss

three things:

1. it’s true

2. white people get pissed when i bring this up/wear this shirt

3. the comments to this thread melted my fucking eyeballs seriously why the fuck are y’all like this

lady-hibiscus

white people you don’t need to say you’re white when you reblog this btw. you don’t even need to mention it btw

clownboybebop

if you’re ever in the position to choose between giving up and accepting defeat, and actually trying to fight the ancient unkillable god that is about to peel apart reality like a string cheese, remember this: scientifically speaking, you might as well give it a shot!

1.there were trees at the beginning of the world! there were trees so long ago that they predate bacteria that causes wood to decay. when a tree fell, it would lie there in stasis and there wasn’t any way of breaking down wood xylem on a molecular level in that way.

2. it seems obvious to say, but wood eating bacteria are literally incapable of comprehending what they’re breaking down. It’s just not information conciously available to a microorganism. they don’t know what they’re deconstructing, where it came from, bacteria have no way to even fathom the existence of a tree as a concept.

3. Regardless of the facts above, the world we live in today is a world where wood inevitably decomposes

it is worth fighting the unkillable god no matter how pointless it seems. it is worth taking the risk even though youre trying to accomplish something impossible. the reality in which you live was also once reality in which trees didn’t rot. You live in a reality that allows for existence before the possibility of destruction. you live in a reality where uncomprehending microbes break down matter that is so far beyond the scope of their comprehension that it feels comical to specify something so obvious. you live in a reality that occasionally allows unshakeable physical truths to be altered with no warning.

It is worth fighting the unkillable god because trees are so old they predate the source of their destruction, and it still did not spare them. It is worth fighting the unkillable god because bacteria rots unthinkingly, because there is room in our cosmos for destruction without comprehension on the part of the destroyer. It is worth fighting the unkillable god because now and then reality retracts the promise of immortality without fanfare, and when that happens there is no mercy for the ancient. the unmaking is not softer for the desecrators ignorance. for all things, existence is endless until the exact point where it ends.

so you might as well try to kill the unkillable god. it doesn’t seem likely, but at the beginning of the world, trees didn’t rot. so you never know! you never know

#Trees #Monch #Bacteria #Insurmountable ideas

largishcat

there have been 774664 studies on basic income and the results of every single one have been “wow! we gave people money and literally everything improved! crime rates are down! the actual sky is bluer! my (the researcher’s) wife decided not to leave me after all!” but these have all been short studies, just a couple years. i think what’s really missing from the field is a proper long form study, with a broader, bolder demographic, to really get us those numbers we need. a truly diverse study pool like, say, everyone. forever

gorbling

Im enjoying the longevity of tumblrs recontextualization style of humor. a seemingly innocuous post followed by like "posts that a gnome would make" or like "are you a phone"

gorbling

hapalopus

More from the notes:

vexwerewolf

I love this post

karifaevt

The horse thinks as it scratches an itch

annabelle--cane

schrodinger's chekhov's gun. a detail in a story that looks like it should have some big payoff but it's too early to tell if that's relevant or if the author just has a passion for lovingly describing guns.

fallowsthorn

schrodinger's chekov's occam's razor: you find an inconsistent or inaccurate detail in a work that would be brilliant if it was foreshadowing a plot twist later on, but it's too early to tell whether the author expects you to be smart, and the simplest explanation is that they fucked up

magical-agatha

aspicystrum

One day, I aspire to be able to write this.

Preferably as both just a gunblade weapon, and a gunblade metaphor and something else completely inane and something completely important. And, have the audience argue at the end over whether or not it was a gun or a blade or whether it was both a gun and a blade and whether it meant anything at all or whether it was the whole point. Did I put it there to teach you something, or am I just fucking with you?

And then name the story Schrokovam: All or Nothing. (Did you see it coming, or have you always known? Was it even there in the first place?) Or something stupid like that.

toptony

Does anybody else get legitimately worried when a fanfic author who was updating regularly just suddenly disappears with no warning? Like, is it a serious case of writers block or are they in a coma? Did they just up and quit? Was it me? Were my reviews not good enough?! Did they die 😳?! Were they kidnapped? Do I need to file a missing persons report? Excuse me officer, there’s been 13 weekly updates and now nothing for months! Find them! What’s their name?! Name!? I don’t know their name but they write 3k+ chapters and I need them safe and back in my life!

naughtylupine-deactivated202305

Sir, that’s my emotional support fanfic author.

drarrymylove

Officer: i’m sorry, but you can’t file this person missing.

Me: you don’t have all the facts.

Officer: which are?

Me: i love them.

phinarei

So, painful story, but I’ve really needed to tell it for a while.

My best friend, the woman I loved for 13 years, was a fic writer in the middle of an especially long piece. She updated on a schedule and had for years. She had a small, but loyal following.

And then she died out of nowhere. One day we were laughing, the next she was in a coma, 3 days later she was dead. She hadn’t been ill and to this day we don’t know what took her. She was just gone.

I knew she had friends all over the world so I went into her email to see if I could find addresses and notify people after a week of blind grief. In her inbox were about a dozen concerned messages from her readers. I cried. I cried and cried and I responded to all of them, telling people she had passed.

And the messages kept coming. Those people spread the word and message after message came in, most of them addressed to me now, as I had given those original readers my contact info. There were words of comfort and grief and just every emotion imaginable in that scenario. I wrote back to them all, thanking them and comforting them.

For months after she died, during the worst of my grief, I had those messages. I had those people. And they had me. I really think I might not have made it to the other side without them.

So, the fact that you care? That you think of them? That these authors who became a presence in your world are missed when they aren’t there? It means something very real. On the off chance that the author did die? Anyone who has seen this post will find comfort during the loss of their friend or family member, knowing that you all exist. That they aren’t alone. That you CARE that the world now lacks their loved one.

So, yeah. I’ve seen this post and ones like it for years and wanted to share this story. I finally could today.

Thank you, every person who reblogged this post. People like you are the biggest reason I’m alive today.

gwyoi

hexpress

ty for stealing this one much appreciated

str0kethebigtree-deactivated202

people in the notes suggesting it was "improper" for the juror to do this or that it "introduced bias" to the court proceeding 🙄 the ice agent in question accused a moc of assaulting him / resisting arrest. how is the agent being a white supremacist not relevant. what universe are you living in

A juror was held in criminal contempt and fined more than $11k for researching his case online. The man, named as Stephen Miele, told other

3fluffies

As a member of the world’s SECOND oldest profession, I assure you this is just one of many ways the justice system is systematically fucked up.

a-method-in-it

For anyone who wants to know how to fact check something you are told while on jury duty without getting fined:

First, you need to understand that the rule that jurors can’t just google things is coming from a good place. Like imagine that you are on a jury that’s considering, say, a medical malpractice lawsuit and one of your fellow jurors comes into the jury room and says to you, “I think the victim’s expert was lying because WebMD totally contradicts everything they said.”

And you might be like, “But WebMD is notoriously unreliable website and the expert you’re talking about is a researcher from Mayo Clinic.” But this person cannot be swayed.

Like, we can all agree that would be bad.

So even though these rules can contribute to unjust outcomes as in the case above (and seriously, the fact that the defense attorney didn’t fact check that is probably grounds for legal malpractice), they also prevent jurors from just looking up bullshit online and taking it more seriously than the actual experts the court has put on. And I think in the era of anti-vaxxers/QAnon/COVID denial/etc., we can all understand why it’s a bad idea to trust that people can tell fact from bullshit online.

So in light of this, how do you as a juror fact check something?

The key here is that you have to ask the court for information. Jurors can ask questions of the court during deliberations, so if something you said sounds off to you, you can ask for more information.

The key term you want to use here is “credibility.”

The job of a jury is to decide what are called “questions of fact.” Long before the trial even starts, lawyers will have hashed out all the “questions of law” --- like, what the statute of limitations is; what laws, exactly, were allegedly broken; whether the court you’re in even has jurisdiction; stuff like that. Jurors are responsible for deciding which side’s version of the facts has more credibility.

For instance, if the prosecution’s witness says X and the defense’s witness says Y, the jury is responsible for deciding which is true, X or Y. And you do this by weighing which one is more credible.

So in this case, if the juror had known to, he could have told the judge, “In order to properly assess the ICE agent’s credibility, I need more information about his tattoo. I have doubts about whether he was telling the truth about it, which would impact how credible I would find his testimony. Can the agent please provide evidence that it really is what he says it is?”

There are a lot of problems with our legal system, and I think one of the biggest is that jurors aren’t educated about what they can and can’t do. Juries have a lot of power, if (and only if) they know how to use it.

lytefoot

Reblogging for that last post, because frankly, “what to do as a juror” is one of those things the schools should really be teaching us. Serving on a jury is one of the most powerful rights of citizenship and everyone should be educated in how to exercise it correctly.

zwoelffarben

It should also be noted that the system is set up such that it selects against good jurors who know how to work the system.

It's a known strategy that prosecutors are looking for the dullest crayon in the the toolshed: the people who'll believe what their told, and not question inconsistencies.

If you express that you have critical thinking skills or knowledge of legal rules, you'll be right out of the selection from the prosecution's prospective, and the prosecution has among other unfair systemic advantage, first turn advantage when picking juriors.

The first rule of being a good juror is getting on the jury. The first rule of getting on the jury is shutting the fuck up and answering the questions in such a way that it implies you're an bit below average in the crayons department but willing to hear the facts before making up your mind (because you don't want to piss off the defense either) without giving away the fact that you know what the words "jury nullification" mean nor that you fully understand how to navigate the rights and responsibilities of the position.

GETTING ON THE JURY IS YOUR FIRST AND ONLY PRIORITY DURY JURY SELECTION.

deficiencyincourtship-deactivat

void-flesh

this is the most realistic queer dialogue ive ever seen

zeverity

Important context: they’re married to each other.

spyder-on-the-wall

🕷️

anonymousdandelion

A general tip for students who are sending those dreaded Religious Absence Emails to your professors: Rather than asking permission to take the day(s) off, politely let them know that you will be taking the day(s) off.

In other words, consider not saying this:

"May I miss class on [date] so I can observe [holiday]?"

It's not that there's anything wrong with the above, per se. But because it's phrased as a request, it risks coming across as optional — a favor you hope to be granted. Problem is, favors are not owed, and so unfortunately asking permission opens the door for the professor to respond "Thanks for asking. No, you may not. :)"

Instead, try something along the lines of:

"I will need to miss class on [date] because I will be observing [holiday]. I wanted to let you know of this conflict now, and to ask your assistance in making arrangements for making up whatever material I may miss as a result of this absence."

This is pretty formal language (naturally, you can and should tweak it to sound more like your voice). But the important piece is that, while still being respectful, it shifts the focus of the discussion so that the question becomes not "Is it okay for me to observe my religion?", but rather, "How can we best accommodate my observance?"

Because the first question should not be up for debate: freedom of religion is a right, not a favor. And the second question is the subject you need to discuss.

(Ideally, do this after you've looked up your school's policy on religious absences, so you know what you're working within and that religious discrimination is illegal. Just in case your professor forgot.)

aspicystrum

I feel like this should be applied to sick days too.