Your average language Enthusiast @batmanslemontea - Tumblr Blog

Color charts of undifferentiated (top) and specialized (bottom) plumage of different warbler species from Charles Keeler's Evolution of the colors of North American land birds (1893).

Full text here.

not-afraid-of-laplaces-demon

I realize I’m probably the odd one out here but my ideal UI is a cross between early web 2.0 and like. Analytical instrumentation software, like a LabVIEW program running a $200k potentiostat.

You may not like it, but that’s just because you’re weak. This is what high performance UI looks like:

not-afraid-of-laplaces-demon

The over all trend from the last 10-15 years is that UI went from a tool you used to do stuff, from being an interface with the underlying software, to being something that is supposed to look pretty.

Instrumentation and productivity software is ugly. Logic Pro, Adobe Premiere, Blender, Autocad, SolidWorks, OBS: even for premium, expensive software, the UI design is always going to be extremely cluttered and messy to someone just starting out. That’s on purpose: the tools you’re likely to need should always be nearby, easily accessed and visible. As you learn the UI, you learn to process the visual noise faster and it stops feeling nearly so cluttered, and having everything available becomes a blessing.

UI has evolved in the opposite direction, into making everything simple, pretty, and polished. Each of these are on their own great virtues. All else equal, simple is better, pretty is better, polished is better.

But I can’t open the post editor without it overlaying the entire screen and stopping me from interacting with the rest of my dashboard. Conversations on this site break up into a sprawling tree structure! I’m not always responding to just what is being said in this exact thread, or even the notes of this particular post. But I can’t access the rest of tumblr while the post editor is open, making going back and forth between reading and writing a pain in the ass.

This is, to some extent, a power user problem. It’s a friction I run into because I’m an internet poisoned lunatic who’s been here following the other talkative internet poisoned lunatic for far too long. The benefit of certain potential UI features just don’t apply to someone who logs on for half an hour in the morning over coffee and just likes/reblogs a few posts without comment, and those people are in the majority. To much UI also scares off new users, which would be a death knell to an advertising dependent platform.

There is some sense in keeping the UI simple, pretty, and polished. I just hate it. I want my cluttered UI that does everything under the sun and comes with a 324 page manual that doesn’t even cover all the features. I want 3 different feeds and a pane of a post’s notes open, while I write two different posts at the same time, all while my messages and activity pane are in full view, and none of them should overlap at all. The screen real estate is there if you’re willing to tolerate more than 3 UI elements on the screen at any one time.

sukimas

really good post. here’s some more analytical instrumentation software

benjamoomin64

Good post but I never expected to need to add labview to my list of filtered tags

not-afraid-of-laplaces-demon

Hey, LabVIEW sucks for a lot of reasons, UI just isn’t one of them.

thebibliosphere

I need to send a "per your last email" email because the person I'm dealing with gave me conflicting information and is now trying to make me the problem.

They even had the audacity to screenshot their own email, so I've screenshot their most recent email in the same email thread that counters that other email, and now I'm trying to find a professional way to say, "this you?"

Fun times.

ms-demeanor

"My apologies, I was under the impression that we were moving forward on the information here [include most recent screenshot] - is that incorrect? Please clarify which is most accurate."

thebibliosphere

God, thank you. I've been staring at an empty text box for 20 minutes. You're a gem.

tieflingkisser

jessaerys

hate when im reading and theres a word i dont know so i search it in the dictionary and its like: beuperer. noun. a person who beupers. i'll fucking kill you

mshfar2a

I don't like to admit it, but sometimes I actually miss John Green.

sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog

Sometimes I can almost hear him.

salmonella-destroyer-of-worlds

Actual roman epitaph for a dog

disgruntled-foreign-patriarch

humans are the same

mornington-the-crescent

bedlamsbard

I’ve seen this one doing the rounds a few times (and it makes me cry every time I see it), but was curious about the original Latin text, so I did some digging: it’s a shortened version of CIL 10, 00659, a tombstone from Salernum (modern Salerno, Italy). (source; CIL is the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum).

Portaui lacrimis madidus te, nostra catella,

Quod feci lustris laetior ante tribus.

Ergo mihi, Patrice, iam non dabis oscula mille

Nec poteris collo grata cubare meo.

Tristis marmorea posui te sede merentem

Et iunxi semper manib(us) ipse meis

Morib(us) argutis hominem simulare paratam,

Perdidimus quales hei mihi delicias.

Tu, dulcis Patrice, nostras attingere mensas

Consueras, gremio poscere blanda cibos,

Lambere tu calicem lingua rapiente solebas,

Quem tibi saepe meae sustinuere manus,

Accipere et lassum cauda gaudente frequenter

And here’s my translation:

Wet with tears I have carried you, our little (female) dog, just as I did in happier times fifteen years earlier (lit. “three periods of five years). For myself, Patrice, now you will not give me a thousand kisses nor will you be able to lie lovingly around/against my neck. I have sorrowfully placed you, merit-worthy, in a marble tomb and I have joined you always to myself in death, as by your cleverness you matched a human. Alas, we lost such pleasures for myself! You, sweet Patrice, were accustomed to join us at our table, to beg charmingly for food (while sitting in our) laps. You were in the habit of greedily licking our cups with your tongue, which my hands often held for you. Frequently and joyfully (you) receive a weary one with your (wagging) tail...

tl;dr: this dog was named Patrice and was very, very loved. (another translation with some glossing of the text.)

red-faced-wolf-deactivated20251

ospreyonthemoon

It's the fact she's joined to them in death, it's the fact that she sat in her owner's arms and ate their food. That he held the cups down for her to drink from....

Hundreds of years and we still know she was loved. We still know how she liked to sleep. All these years!! Loving dogs is the same!!!!

thaylepo

gonna point out too that 15 years is an INSANELY long lifespan for a dog in ancient Rome. This dog was both well loved and well cared for to have lived so long. Obvs there's going to be some statistical overlap with ancient dogs with loving epitaphs having longer lifespans, but in a world without modern vetrinary science or medicine, no canine vaccines, and no nutritionally formulated dog food, this Roman's beloved pooch exceeded even the average pet dog lifespan today.

stricatul

"you're so chill" thanks i gave up

translatingpoststogerman

stricatul

"du bist so gechillt" danke ich habe aufgegeben

mawofthemagnetar

What do you mean “chat” is now referring to ChatGPT and not twitch chat? What? What? What the fuck? No?

When I address chat I am speaking to a presumed Greek chorus of real human people shitposting on their lunch break, not a machine that devours lakes to covert electricity into slop.

the-real-list-of-ominous-threats

I’m going to drink your bones

translatingpoststogerman

die-echte-liste-ominöser-bedrohungen

Ich werde eure Knochen trinken

translatingpostsintolatin

Ossa tua bibam

batsandboba

“scientists don’t want you know” is a phrase that always cracks me up because if you actually meet a scientist they will be shaking and crying like an overstimulated chihuahua with the need to let you know

ducissatenebrarum

For the first time in art history, the powerful depictions of "Saturn Devouring His Son" by Rubens (Left) and Goya (Right) are being presented together.