Random PHM thought that just occurred to me: for the sake of both controlling the spread of astrophage and also creating backups in the case of catastrophic extinction events, it makes sense to seed Taumoeba in every system that is being affected by astrophage. If nothing else, it makes it easier for any other races affected by astrophage in the future to find the cure. But that’s obviously an incredibly expensive undertaking, even with astrophage fuel.
So the only sensible way to do it is to add taumoeba-seeding probes, similar to the beetles but with an automatic deployment when they reach their destination, to missions that are on their way past other systems. And almost all the missions that will be launched in a post-taumoeba world will be to Erid.
Which means that, in time, the path of travel between Earth and Erid will be marked by a line of notably brighter stars. And if they ever are discovered by another species, eventually the paths between their world and the other two will also be brightened. Whenever a sentient species looks out to the sky, they’ll be able to see the bonds between peoples by looking for the connections of light.
Constellations made out of hope, shining against the darkness.
If you need to insult something else to say a compliment that's not a compliment, that's a rant to a random artist that you started by complimenting them. I promise no one gives a fuck that you hate a random ship.
my farming sim game will have animal butchery as a normalized part of the gameplay loop to act as a lightning rod to draw all the discourse and thinkpieces away from topics that would annoy me more
in my farming sim game that has animal butchery as a normalized part of the gameplay loop, shipped products will be sold on a weekly basis, not a daily one. you get a big windfall once a week and then you budget around that. if you want more money in the interim you have to go sell to the local merchants whatever products they specialize in.
in my farming sim game, getting married to one of the townspeople will have a significant impact on your gameplay. if you marry the rival farmer, their smaller farm will be merged with yours. if you marry the town alchemist/doctor you get a buff to all your alchemy and you wake up from getting knocked out in your own home instead of their clinic. if you marry the priestess she uh, idk she does weather related divine magic for you so you can choose the weather, idk i haven't thought too hard about that one yet
these tags are probably a joke but genuinely i do think that more games with romance candidates in general should require you to at least be on friendly terms with their family/close friends before they will romance/marry you. so yes. romancing the MILF will require attending her kid's pretend tea party first. to prove you mean business
The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.
Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.
#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op
The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.
Inspired by my walking past a home built in 1754 in my new neighborhood, which isn't even the oldest building in the city. As someone born and raised in the Western US (where we do have some very old buildings, contrary to popular belief, just not in the middle of most cities), it made me curious!
When was the oldest extant building you can reasonably walk to from your home built?
20th century
19th century
18th century
17th century
16th century
15th century
14th century
13th century
12th century
11th century
10th century or before
Remaining time: 2 days 19 hours
(Use your judgement for definitions of "extant," it doesn't have to be used for its original purpose but my intention is a building that could theoretically still be used, not just the remnants of one.)
Body Horror: Things that cannot happen in real life.
EX: The Thing, stomach mouths, eyes on hands, etc
Gore: Fresh injuries, often severe.
EX: Severed leg, gutspill, deep gashes, etc
NEITHER: Healed injuries and burns, congenital differences, missing appendages, etc. If I could theoretically go to the store and see that character browsing the isles- It isn't body horror or gore. That's just a person.
*AND the amount of people that tag, not just fictional characters, but real human beings as body horror is staggering. Its not solely a fandom issue, ableism and bigotry against anyone that looks sufficiently "different" is prevalent in real life and has devastating consequences.
Burn scars are not body horror, that includes chemical burn scars.
Prosthetics are not body horror.
NOT having prosthetics is also not body horror.
There is no disability aid that is body horror.
Congenital differences + disabilities are not body horror.
AND acquired differences + disabilities are also not body horror.
Real people are not body horror.
If you are uncomfortable or scared because someone looks different than you that is YOUR PROBLEM. It is your responsibility to get over it, or at the very least not make it everyone else's issue. Play the quiet game.
they need to invent clubbing for boring sober people who don't like loud music or crowded group dancing. what's the "she should be at the club" for this hypothetical not-me demographic.
roundup of various common suggestions in the notes:
"the library": a nice space to hang, granted, but not really the same fun social vibes.
"the night-library that serves pink drinks and tea": okay okay, now we're cooking.
"coffee shop": a bit more social and rambunctious than the average library, but still too plain imo.
"the museum": still a tad too formal I feel like but definitely not opposed.
"the book club": again, not opposed, but book clubs do have the catch of requiring you to plan ahead and do some homework to really enjoy it, not a very "I'm bored on a friday and want to go do something fun" activity.
"wine tasting":
"dnd/ttrpg nights": unfortunately I'm stupid and am bad at these games. I mean unfortunately these hypothetical people are stupid and bad at these games.
"arcades with cover fees at the door and then free games": won't even lie this sounds killer, gonna see if they have any of those in my area.
"babe the club is wherever you feel confident in yourself, life is a club and I’m just chilling at a bus stop": beautiful. poetic. heart warming. she should be at the bus stop.
okay so, guy at work, who i find out afterwards is famous at this place for being a sex pest, comes up and starts with what i also learn is his favorite opener to conversations where he’s going to be a sex pest, namely: “Do you know where the term ‘blow job’ comes from?”
and here he made his first fatal error. his moment of hubristic sex pesting. because of course i know where the term blow job comes from, i love learning about sex and the history of sexual terms! i know so much about oral sex that i could write a book on it!
his second error: approaching a little autistic freak with what he intended to be an uncomfortable sex question that would make me feel weird and gross. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I Have Never Misjudged A Man’s Intentions So Incredibly In My Life. because i did not realize he was trying to harass me. because i love talking about sex facts, albeit not usually at work. unless. someone prompts me. my coworkers are the kind of people who are generally online enough to know terms, but not exactly what they mean, and they realized they could ask me a while back and get good answers without the resulting awkwardness because i do not experience shame. i am primed to answer questions like the one he has proposed.
So I Answered It.
and well, really, what happened is that I began answering it, then realized the answer required a bit more context. I mean, you can’t just say “oh, well, the term first appears in writing in the 1940s” without first explaining that ‘blow’ by itself already had sexual connotations for centuries, and then, really, are we talking about the origin of the term or the origin of the act. and well we have a ton of literature and art depicting fellatio throughout human history, did you know a lot of it was men performing it on other men? oh, that reminds me, there are a multitude of latin words for oral sex performed on penises, and hold on let me quote you the entirety of catullus 16 from memory and explain it’s fascinating insights into the roman world of homosexuality-
i do not know how to turn any of this ^ off, by the way. i’m sure some people out there have a switch that disables their infodumping mid-speech. i do not. and i also didn’t realize he wasn’t looking for a real answer until my other coworker explained so hours later. he could not excuse himself from the conversation he started, and i made a conservative man at least 30 years older than me to listen to my catullus recitation. i will sodomize and facefuck you, indeed.
anyway, i think i got a bad grade in being sexually harassed. my pro tip is maybe don’t start with what a very autistic individual will misconstrue as you earnestly asking them to explain sex to you. the special interest shield will cause splashback damage.
I don't support Eva bashing that's emotional support environmental terrorist right there. What I'm interested in is the bad pr she is giving earth because the eridian ambassador is too invested in his flesh teddy bears life
"dont feed the trolls" is an even more important rule in an age where that troll is likely to be a chatbot trained on bad politics crawling tags specifically to waste ur time. do not engage
