At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields
technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.
Free Harvard courses.
Free Courses from Stanford.
Free Courses from MIT.
Free courses from Yale.
Free courses from Princeton.
Free courses on Coursera.
Free Courses on EDx
Free Courses on Alison
For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.
When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses."
Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.
alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
It is found from southern Mexico to Belize, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, as well as in Trinidad. The bats are nocturnal, sleeping during the day in an unusual formation: most of them line up, one after another, on a branch or wooden beam, nose to tail, in a straight row.
In the photo, the two bats on the lower left are carrying young.
Cursed to be stuck inside this ancient amulet for years but you know I was kind of getting used to it. The solitude had eaten away just enough of my sanity that I'm pretty sure it only would've been a few more days before I started hallucinating some really neat shit.
But then. THEN. This fuckass twink descendant of my mortal enemies picks up my amulet. Takes right out of the sacred chamber. I guess it was finally a ruin now? Worse timing possible, too late to stop me going insane and right before the insanity could pay off.
So some clueless idiot is actually wearing me for the first time in centuries. I'm gonna wreck this dude's shit, I don't care if he is weirdly nice and kind of pretty in the face department. The second I accumulate enough power I'm breaking out of here and making him regret being born.
Okay so I did accumulate enough energy that I might have been able to break out, maybe, but also probably not quite just yet. Which is why I had to use it to stop that dragon from killing Captain Fuckwit.
Like I had to do it. If the dragon kills him how am I supposed to be the one to do it? I didn't rot in that sealed chamber for centuries just so that the last living descendant of my most hated enemies could get offed by something that wasn't me. There's no poetic justice in that and also I am NOT owing any dragons any favors.
I've been thinking about how I'm going to kill this guy. I mean there's not a lot else to do, I'm still stuck in the amulet so mostly I'm limited to being spooky in his dreams until I suck up some more power. But it's going to happen. I'm out of the sealed chamber now there's so many opportunities and also I'm patient. I've learned to be extremely patient. Would be weird if I hadn't.
Anyway I'm not going to kill him right away. Where's the satisfaction in that? He's the last descendant of my enemies (pretty sure) so of course I gotta drag it out. This is the only revenge I might ever get. I'll have to capture him. Keep him sealed away for a long time, see how he likes it. But like. In a nicer placed than that fucking chamber because unlike some long dead assholes, I have standards. Plus I'm also going to spending a lot of my time there too, menacing him and shit, so it better be nice for me.
I'm thinking summer house on an otherwise uninhabited island. I keep him there where there are no dragons or ogres or demon kings to interrupt, and I tell him all about the shitty things his ancestors did, to like. Demoralize him. So that he knows that even though I'm a scary evil creature that's going to be his ending, he doesn't get as much moral high ground as he'd probably like. I make him eat meals with me just to draw out the tension, and then I give him nightmares, making him twist and writhe in his sweat-soaked sheets while his heart hammers against his ribs and he wonders if this will finally be the night I finish him.
Listen. Giving him command of the remnants of my dark army is just practical right now. I don't have the energy to communicate extensively with them myself, and they'll keep him alive long enough for me to take my elaborate revenge without me constantly having to intervene and sacrifice my own energy to do it. And anyway I have ceremonies to plan, it's going to be amazing, I'm going to round up every last remnant from the old days so that they can witness my final triumph when I claim his life and soul forever.
Also, he used them to humiliate that other fuckass descendant guy. Even I can begrudgingly admit it was pretty well done. Corrupting influence gain! I'm kind of surprised his allies haven't all abandoned him for using dark and sinister forces to save their lives, though, but I guess it's fine if they don't. Sure why not. We can be cool with raising cursed armies in this day and age apparently. Yeah that thing I was sealed away for for centuries is just not a big deal now. Cool cool cool.
You know what, I'm going to make his friends come to the ceremony too. So they can also witness my triumph and his utter defeat and subjugation at my hands.
Maybe I'll even let them visit him in his woeful imprisonment afterwards as well. Just to really hammer the point home. They're not the worst company, at least. Not as annoying as heroes used to be. We can have them over for dinner while I lord my victory above their helplessness. Real power move to just let them come and see the guy that they are nevertheless unable to free from my dark clutches.
I guess I better make sure they also don't all die either, if that's the case. It's a good thing I'm patient. So many fucking setbacks!
Those guys were supposed to be dead for centuries! And they're still ruining my life! Fucking. That fuckass other descendant managed to summon them and of course THEY are still not cool with me or my dark forces, although I'm going to be real, they weren't looking too noble and above-aboard themselves when they turned up. That was some hypocritical undead revenant bullshit.
Of course I ended up fighting them. They attacked first! Again! They were even trying to kill their own descendant! And those heinous bitches called me the monster. I've never tried to kill my own descendants. Probably because I don't have any but still. At least try and take over his body first or something!
Well actually they did try it, I think? But that hero of theirs had worn my amulet for so long that he was too corrupted for it to work. Ha!
Small victories.
I'm going to need to hang onto those.
Because now I'm sealed back in the fucking Chamber Eternal again.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKING---!!!!
Okay.
Alright.
I'm not going to lie this isn't looking good. I'm not in the amulet anymore but the seals on the chamber are strong, made with the souls of those fuckdamn ancient heroes. All my power is left with their descendant on the outside now. My plans are thwarted. I'm going to languish in this minimalist hell of a chamber until those ancient souls run out of juice, and currently they're forming a dome of spiritual energy so flush with power that the ghosts on the moon can probably see it.
It... it's going to be... I mean. It'll be fine. Back to getting to the good part of going insane, right?
I was really confused at first because, why would my sworn enemy who I've been plotting vengeance against this entire time free me from the chamber? At great effort and personal risk, no less? That fight was absolutely brutal, I'm not sure I could have even done it myself in his place, and I mean his situation without even bothering was quite good. He had all of my power. His ancestors were likewise distracted with sealing me away. He could have ascended to become the next Dark Lord or, I don't know, ran around doing his Power of Friendship bullshit for the next ten thousand years largely uncontested. Not only does he not have a further use for me but if anything, I present a massive threat to him if I can regain enough strength to take my power back.
But I think that's it! That Power of Friendship bullshit! Somehow, this guy has mistaken me for an ally.
I can work with this.
As long as he doesn't suspect that we're actually enemies, I can bide my time, restore my power, wrestle control of my armies back from his grasp, and then get him back on his knees.
I just need to pretend that I've actually been helping him out this entire time.
I really want him back on his knees. That was a good look on him. He's got like super long eyelashes for a dude. Plus you know that's where he belongs, groveling before my might! Mwahahaha!
Well this is going surprisingly well. Like I don't think it's even occurred to him to be suspicious of me? He hasn't even tried to drug me with truth serum or test me at a holy spring or drag me in front of any tribunals. When I caught one of his little friends passing information to his rivals he just... took my word for it. I could have been lying. I wasn't, because I was actually expecting him to check, but I could have been.
I'm almost starting to wonder if he really is descended from those ancient hero fuckers, he doesn't act like them at all. The apple must have rolled into a goddamn river and been carried off to sea after it fell off that tree.
Just because I'm pretending to be his ally doesn't mean I can't still sabotage him, of course. That one little traitor might have been a real mole, who is... somehow still in the group, and not beheaded or anything(????). But I'm pretty sure the king's son is genuinely devoted to his brother-in-arms, to my hero-enemy, and hasn't committed any convenient betrayals that I can dig out and wave around to get rid of him. If that even would get rid of him (see: traitor mole still in group). More's the pity.
Such a strong political alliance with the ruling family will further cement my hero's power in this region. Potentially, that will make it even harder to extricate him for my own purposes later on. Of course, it's not worth the risk if I do something too extreme and it gets traced back to me, so I can't simply kill the prince.
But I didn't study medicine at my grandmother's knee just to forget all the useful bits in my dark rise to power. That idiot won't be riding out to adventure alongside his 'sworn brother' tomorrow if he has too many embarrassing rashes to get into his saddle.
This might seem like a petty plot that is beneath me but it's tactically sound. I've thought about it a lot.
I take it back these people are abominably over-observant. I'd rather be caught trying to poison the prince again, but the hero's singular suspicious friend, that woman knight, just had to follow me to the abandoned shrine instead.
Cats are one of nature's most successful predators. Properly trained, a dark familiar is an excellent spy and helper, and I am in need of every advantage I can get right now. Everyone knows the best way to ingratiate yourself to animals is to get them young. Feeding kittens is a sinister action.
I mean it's good that it helps my cover that these people think otherwise, it's just that they're wrong. Half of my family was executed for feeding cats. Back in those days everyone knew what was up and nobody cooed about it.
Shit, shit, I knew we shouldn't have kept that mole around. Fucking sob story bullshit. The hero's captured. My dark feline army isn't ready! I'm going to have to turn to some other means of regaining him before the enemy steals my power from him. They can't be allowed to do that. It'd kill him but more importantly it would make it that much harder for me to ever reclaim it.
The only one allowed to strip him and put him in chains is me!!! ME!!! He's mine!!! I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FIRST TO DO THAT TO HIM!!!
Bastards! Hacks!
I didn't sell my soul to eight different devils to be upstaged by some fuckers who barely grasps the fundamentals of summoning circles. Fuck the low battery I don't need the dark forces of beyond to take these bitches out, their rituals are shit enough I'm going to end them with a piece of chalk and three drops of blood. Hold my fucking beer.
Hero says he needs to reward me for saving him when we get back. I should probably decline whatever it is, that's what all these people seem to do, but I'll at least see what he's offering first. Just in case it's worth cracking my cover for.
Yeah, isn’t that a cool picture? It’s the one someone showed me to point out what color the moon really is compared to the Earth! They both have the same amount of sunlight on them here.
The moon’s not white! It’s concrete-gray! It only looks so shiny when compared to the void of space!
I love learning things I didn’t expect to learn. Like when I learned that it’s called the “dark side” of the moon because it’s the side we don’t see, not because sunlight never hits it.
#fun fact the moon's most distinctive facial features are battle scars from fighting off meteors that otherwise would have hit earth #the far side of the moon got hit but it caused volcanic activity on the near side resulting in the dark “seas” of the moon #she's our valiant knight (via @biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist)
The real reason your sapient dragon character needs a "rider":
Dragons on the wing are vulnerable to being mobbed by smaller, more agile flyers, particularly in your large rear blind spot, like a bird of prey being mobbed by crows. Having a human armed with a long spear perched on your back helps to dissuade anyone from getting any funny ideas.
Breath weapons are impressive enough on the ground, but in flight they're really only good for strafing stationary targets; trying to use your breath weapon in an aerial dogfight is a good way to get fire up your nose. A real fight calls for sterner measures – and, concomitantly, a crew to aim and reload the cannons.
In today's competitive world, it's not enough to devour a flock of sheep and call it a day if you want to keep your edge. You're accompanied at all times by a qualified personal alchemist tasked with carefully regulating your internal furnace to ensure peak performance, and sometimes you even listen to them.
No dragon of any quality would be caught dead without their valet. It's not as though you can announce your numerous long-winded titles yourself when introductions are called for, can you? You suppose next you'll be expected to pick up the spoils of your conquests yourself, like a common brigand. Perish the thought!
So I’ve been posting this Transfem Jax series on Ao3 on anon for the last couple of months, but to celebrate posting the final chapter, I decided to 1) take it Off anon and 2) make an animatic about it!!! I’ve been wanting to do something with this song for Ages and it just seemed perfect for this!!!
I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s read the series and been so kind!!! And HUGE HUGE shout out to everyone who’s drawn art for it (which now that I’m off anon I can FINALLY reblog!!!)—it genuinely blew my mind that anyone would want to make something based on this thing I started writing on a whim back in September!!! I don’t know what kind of fics & art I’ll be making in the future, but this was such a brilliant experience!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! 🌈🌈🌈
(Video description under the cut)
VIDEO ID:
An animatic based on the events of the ‘I Know How to Live’ series by Clatter_pillar on AO3, set to the ending of ‘Finale: The Magic Store’ from The Muppet Movie.
The animatic starts with Juniper (Jax’s name post-coming out within the fanfiction) looking into a mirror, wearing a dress and admiring the reflection with surprise, before turning to Pomni—dressed in a jacket and hat resembling Caine’s—and taking her hand, to the lyrics ‘Life’s like a movie, write your own ending’.
‘Keep believing’, as Juniper and Pomni lie in the grass, Juniper looking at Pomni with a mix of teary hope and trepidation. ‘Keep pretending’, as Kinger and Juniper talk in the darkness of a forest, before cutting to a glowing vision of Ribbit and then Pomni.
‘We’ve done just what we set out to do’ is sung to the backdrop of a compilation of different scenes: Pomni, Ragatha, and Juniper balancing on small platforms in 80s/rave-style outfits; Pomni putting makeup on Juniper; Gangle showing Juniper her sketchbook while they’re sat in the dark in the common area; Caine floating above Juniper and talking to her in her room; Juniper and Ragatha stood silently facing the hallway, turned away from the camera; Juniper laughing at Pomni on the floor as they play DDR; Juniper talking to Kinger in the pillow fort; Zooble and Juniper stuck together in an elevator—and, finally, everyone together at the beach—Juniper, Pomni, Ragatha, and Zooble together in the water as Gangle and Kinger make sandcastles and sunbathe in the background.
‘Thanks to the lovers’; a close-up of the photo of Ribbit, Kaufmo, and Juniper pre-transition together held in her hand, cutting further away to reveal all the photos on Juniper’s wall flipped back over.
‘The dreamers’; Ragatha, Kinger, Gangle, Zooble, and Caine all gathered in Pomni’s room in pyjamas, sitting on the floor and looking like they’re laughing as Caine floats sleepily above them.
‘And you’. Pomni laying down beneath blankets, hand outstretched against the mattress and hopeful. Pomni and Juniper holding each other close, Pomni’s hands on Juniper’s face like she’s something precious and both smiling like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.
The video ends with Juniper’s final quote of the series, before a final fade to black: “yes, this is what I want life to look like.”
u know in retrospect my stomach shrimping wasn't even the worst part so far. it was the tube that went to third base with my floppy ass cardia. through my sinuses. just straight up cockwarmed a silly straw all the way thru my esophagus for 2 days
I'm a fool. a fucking fool. an absolute clown. do u know what happened minutes after I posted this.
I found out my body cannot handle opioids.
my muscles lock tf up and deliver the worst pain imaginable in every direction at once. I can't describe it. it's not just pain it's the sensation of every disgusting awful flu ache you've ever experienced in your life condensed into one square inch of your body, all over your body.
do u know what alternatives hospitals have to opioids? HA, HAHAHA
Stomach is back where it should be, I got some guts stapled and skin glued, and recited Dexter's Lab every time the nurses mixed powdered medicine in with my applesauce. I'm bored of drinking ramen and watching Resident Alien reruns so I'm gonna peruse the tags!
I cannot tell you how many times I unironically gazed into the middle distance and thought this
I've learned things can be true and also a shit post at the same time. unfortunately
starting to think maybe I've been saying this too much all my life and karmic justice just backed up in the pipes before exploding. still gonna obliterate those twinks tho. get back here Siffrin I'm not done with you yet
this guy is getting the true moral of this story
I HAVEN'T IN YEARS so either the AO3 curse has a disconcerting half-life, or it extends to discord servers and Google docs. both are horrifying and deserve a federal grant for further investigation
you and me both! isn't nature beautiful
you've made me realize my most recent fic in my gdocs is in fact the darkest thing I've written. so maybe all the ppl in the tags claiming AO3 curse aren't as wrong as I've been thinking they are
god's a bitch and I'm into omegaverse
I feel like I should get a medal for enduring something so fucked up that randos on the internet think I must be lying. yeah bro me too
honestly the worst part about all of this is the fact that I can't watch Murderbot. I want to so bad. but I refuse until I'm feeling halfway alive again
fuck life. I give myself lemons. AO3 on hospital Wi-Fi
you do not. like emphatically, I don't think that's a great idea
I'd say I'm sorry but tbh this seems very on theme for ISAT so
THANK you I need everyone to remember I'm a gamer first, god's favorite crusty sock in the bottom of the drawer second
the ARE a lot of people in the tags calling me Jesus Christ
I'll admit that one's on me. when I started being unable to eat anything, my first thought was not "stomach straight up saying the abdomen's haunted"
I hate that I was actually considering getting white haired anime boy haircut right before all this happened. could you fucking imagine
don't carbon date me like this
Rascal Flatts was right. life is a highway and it's riding me all night long
they snipped and stitched some things, yanked the whole sucker back down UNDER my diaphragm where it belongs, and did this thing called a fundoplication where they wrap and stitch the top of the stomach around the bottom of the esophagus. it’s supposed to help keep that little bastard in its assigned seating
what I had was a called a combination sliding hiatal hernia (stomach wants uppies) and paraesophageal hiatal hernia (stomach wants uppies but through a different hole in the diaphragm bc it’s not like other girls, making it look like it’s trying to phone home), along with combined organoaxial and mesenteroaxial gastric volvulus (stomach flops around like a dead fish and twists itself shut like a bread bag AND goes upside down). the former usually ends up cutting off blood flow and starts necrotizing the stomach (very dangerous), but I was extremely lucky that hadn’t happened yet!
the hernias are uncommon but not terribly rare. the stomach flopping around? that’s rare. the fact that I had both of these at the same time, where they both did ALL AVAILABLE BAD THINGS POSSIBLE?
to put it gently, according to one resident, I had surgeons fighting over me. pictures were taken. I had like six separate groups of medical professionals coming into my room regularly. my surgeon shook my hand like I was a celebrity. it was honest to god hilarious.
all in all, I spent 3 months thinking I was being a huge wimpy diaper baby, only to find out I narrowly evaded death bc my friend Moth told me to go to the ER right away, and it triggered a panic attack big enough to make me do just that. the poor ER doc came in sweating with the initial CT scans like “I’m gonna be real with you I’m not entirely sure I know what I’m looking at but it’s giving INCREDIBLE Emergency Surgery”
I’m upset I don’t get to birth an alien baby, but considering how it was Rapturing into my chest, it probably would have been a chest burster anyway. I want to kiss Miss Xenomorph as much as the next guy but I think I’ll just stick to sending prime numbers out into space until one returns my booty call
EDIT: btw I love the dog jokes lmao I had no idea volvulus was common in dogs! don't worry I'm not a werewolf (unfortunately), I simply have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos, which makes all my connective tissue soft and stretchy. So we're waaaay more prone to having organs (and joints) slip n slide around and do things they REALLY aren't supposed to. But I wish I was a werewolf even more now. when will it be my turn
my clowns in hellsite, I have no idea how my house is intact when there are trees uprooted by my mailbox. if I had less staples in me I'd bend over and moon the sky
I'm not gonna keep dragging this post on I swear I'm just still on pain meds (I can handle higher doses of weaker opioids for some reason! yippee!) so I'm gonna look through the tags one more time and address a couple things I've seen often
- no, I wasn't doing anything in particular to fuck up my guts. sometimes our organs just Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 right through the polygons. don't worry about it, it's rare and you get a fun story to tell ur friends
- yes, I was fired because I missed too many days nearly dying and requested more to recover from nearly dying. what can I say I'm a needy unreasonable bitch
- yes it's pretty lame to do this to someone right as they stumble off the operating table and get dumped with expensive medical bills. yes this is legal. yes I'm filing for unemployment. yes I would leave mouse poops in the CEO's coco rice krispies if given the chance. love and peace ✌️
- it's cool my dudes I live in the Midwest, basements are an evolutionary aspect of natural selection here. we've also got Steve Templeton I'm pretty sure he fights the tornadoes off himself
- Murderbot TV series good :)
- don't worry guys I know the original artist for Life is a Highway. Lightning McQueen
- there are a LOT of you offering advice on how to avoid the torment nexus. while having a Siffrin pfp. just an observation
- who the fuck is Job
please laugh. every drop of joy I squeeze from this karmic fart parade is another finger shoved firmly up god's withered asshole
can everyone stop being funnier than me for 2 minutes
I only fucked someone once and it was bc they replied to my reply on their comment to the fic I filled for their kink meme prompt on Livejournal. it was vore. and my name's not Jesus
no I'm going I want to ask Joshua how he got that gay
can y'all stop comparing me to deities I'm already on thin ice here with one or possibly more of them
no this is Patrick
I'm sorry to disappoint but I only have 2 weed smoking girlfriends. if anyone lets me borrow one of theirs tho it would really help the Make A Wish Foundation. I beg them once a week and they keep telling me I'm "not a child" and "already got two wishes fulfilled"
take a ticket and get in line if you're gonna make an attempt on my life, you goddamn heathen
you can't give me this after I was just accused of being Dave Strider
it’s a shame more vampire media doesn’t pull from vampire bat behavior because they’re such sweeties. they can only survive their incredibly specialized diet because bats will share blood with colony members that didn’t find a meal! there’s evidence that suggests the donors sometimes initiate this behavior themselves by approaching hungry bats! the colonies are mostly harems of females with a few males but they’ve been observed letting unrelated males in when it gets cold so they can all stay warm! cute little social critters!
bats are so fucking delightful#most insectivorous bats that make it to adulthood live long enough to meet five generations of descendants#and if they're female they'll nurse their great-great grandchildren because they're too arthritic to fly#and their descendants and friends and everyone else in the colony will bring them food#The oldest bats of large colonies are also the first to emerge from the roost at dusk#all the bats are in flight but circling near the exit#because there's hawks and owls and snakes and all kinds of predators waiting for them#once everyone is airborne the eldest bats lead that charge and draw the attention of all the preds#because bats are agile as hell and in groups they'll assault any pred that charges the flight#so the preds really only have one shot at a batsnack#It's not clear whether the eldest bats go first because they're the most experienced and have the best odds or surviving#or if they're taking that risk on behalf of their descendants#like the senior citizens that went into Fukushima rather than let someone still raising kids risk getting cancer#bats are our closest relatives after primates and I can't help but see the relation in the ways we conduct ourselves
I think it could be cool to put together a board of the top Tumblristas in the world, that could see previews of what's coming up and advise on strategic direction. Who should be on it?
Okay, look. We're gonna do it like this, Matt. I used to work in market research. This one is free, next time I expect a month of free premium and if there's a third time I expect a job.
TO EVERYONE ELSE:
A series of ten reblogs is about to follow, since you can only have one poll per reblog. Please answer all ten polls. If you don't see them all, check the notes (this shouldn't take me long so if it's more than like, fifteen minutes since I posted this one they should all be there.)
7) with the understanding that Tumblr needs to attract new users or convert more current free users to paying users in order to stay online, what do you think of Matt's "top tumblrista" idea?
Absolutely not--this is very famously the influencer-hating site
Absolutely not--this site is too diverse for that to work
Absolutely not, for other reasons
I'm actually liking this poll method
The poll method is clunky but something similar would be great
In the following question, "pre-social media" refers to platforms like LiveJournal, forums, alt.net boards, early MySpace, and similar spaces.
9) thinking about the given definition of "pre-social media," how much do you agree with the statement "I think most tumblr users I know would prefer pre-social media to modern platforms like Facebook and X"?
"Strongly agree" is not strong enough
Strongly agree
Agree
Kind of maybe agree?
Neutral/I don't know enough about pre-social media to say
I love the irony that if that new reblog change had actually happened, @prismatic-bell would have been getting all the notes for this post, making it completely useless for @photomatt for any sort of research purposes, because he happened to get reblogged by a more popular blog and would have not gotten all the notifications when people added comments
Like, I hope this clears up why we all hated that idea
This is an excellent point. I genuinely hope @photomatt looks at the answers here and finds them informative even though I definitely could have done better if I wasn't cranking it out in an hour while waiting for my machine at work to come back online.
I especially love that as of right now, almost 70% of respondents agree he should hire me. I'm being wasted in this 90-degree factory, Matt, I have no degree but I do have a good grasp on Tumblr culture and how to generate useful data. Listen to the people 😎
I think the fact that you made these polls in the first place, on your own time, really highlights what sets Tumblr apart from any other social media platform, which is that Tumblr users actually LIKE Tumblr
We don't see this platform as a means to an end, like how influencers use other platforms to make money off their followers and don't actually care what platform they're on, as long as it pays them... we see it as a community we are all part of, and that we want to see improve without losing the community aspect
Every other social media is just using algorithms to feed us non-stop ads, pumping out the most far-right Nazi content, and being completely overtaken by bots and AI. There's no "social" aspect left to most of them.
Tumblr also has a Nazi problem, and dealing with that would be a great change to implement, but aside from that, Tumblr is pretty much the only place you can go and interact with real people, without being sold to non-stop.
Influencer culture is dying out everywhere... this is NOT the time for Tumblr to hop on that bandwagon. It would literally kill this website... no one is going to join Tumblr because it become more like the other platforms that everyone's already sick of, and the more it becomes like Twitter or Tik Tok or whatever, the more current Tumblr users will abandon it, just like they did with every other platform.
Actually, that would make a good additional poll, I think:
What social media platform do you use DAILY, excluding Tumblr:
Facebook
Twitter (yes I will keep deadnaming Twitter til the day I die idc)
Tik Tok
Instagram
Reddit
LinkedIn????
Other????? (are there more??? I don't even know)
More than one of the above
None of the above, and I never have used any of them
None of the above BUT I used to, and have since deleted my accounts
I have accounts for one or more of the above, but RARELY use them
I have accounts for one or more of the above, but NEVER use them
Voting ended onMar 27
... for the purpose of this poll. rarely means more than never, but less than daily, I guess
I am not a market researcher, but I do love polls lol
I actually meant to have this as a question and then forgot it because I was doing it off the cuff rather than actually writing out and tweaking it ahead of time, because it's a deeply important one. So thank you for adding it.
Not pertinent to anything in particular but I do think it's kinda weird that we keep depicting cavemen in media crawling around on all fours covered in dirt with tangled, matted hair, speaking in broken, cobbled-together toddler language when like.
They were us.
Like literally genetically they were US, just like. A while ago.
Like
Would you trust a TV caveman with a baby? Probably not
A real life caveman though??? I think they'd be at least okay at it
This is actually really important and comes up in Anthropology classes all. The. Time.
As long as homo sapiens have existed, we have had the same emotional and mental capacity as you and I do today. You nailed it. They were US. Even Neaderthals existed alongside and had offspring with Homo Sapiens for many thousands of years.
There's much evidence that cavemen would have had complex spoken language, culture (learned information passed down), symbolic interpretation, and I think they most certainly would have been able to handle holding a baby. In fact I have my suspicisions that an ancient homo sapiens mother may be a more present, attentive, and knowledgable mom than I could be today.
Do not let media trick you into believing we are the pinnacle of humanity. Unilinial evolution theory (google it quick I beg) is BUNK, GARBAGE, and the root of so much evil.
We've been human for a long, long time, and we are not inherently better than all those who came before.
One the most profound experiences of my life was visiting Font de Gaume, which has 12 thousand year old paintings. They use a technique where the horses appeared to run across the wall when seen in flickering firelight. There was a bison the wall staring at us with such attitude, I could practically hear him. I had the most profound feeling of those ancient artists reaching forward to lay their hands on my shoulders. To say, "This was my world." It was a profoundly moving experience.
Some years later, I went to the Orkney islands where we visited a tiny family run museum of artifacts from the chambered tomb at the other end of the farm. They handed me a pestle once held by some neolithci human.They'd worn groves where the thumb and forefinger would be for better grip.
One time, in a French history class, my teacher randomly at the end of the class had all of us draw a sketch of a horse. And we were all like ??? Okay???
At the beginning of the next class, my teacher showed us a cave painting of a horse. And then he showed all of our horses, which he had scanned and put into the presentation.
He then pointed out all the ways that our horses looked similar to the prehistoric horse. Same features, drawn from the same angle, etc.
And then he asked us, "Isn't it cool that you draw horses the same way as someone who lived 20,000 years ago?"
In Spain, there's a cave full of ancient, ice age era drawings of bison and reindeer and other animals of that period... And one small section of chaotic scribbles just a little away from everything else. These scribblesv were so incomprehensible, they were originally just called the 'Panel of Enigmatic Signs'... Until it occurred to someone that drawings only three feet off the ground probably weren't made by adults.
Scientists are now pretty sure the scribbles were made by kids ages 3-6, more or less on their own. The adult cave artists were probably doing what any modern parent might do when they want to keep small children out of their hair for awhile: they gave the kids some drawing tools of their own and a small section of wall to work on, out of the way but still close enough to keep an eye on them, and let them have at it.
What's most charming about the whole thing is the way the cave scribbles look exactly like what you'd find on the wall of a preschool today. Artistic styles vary widely across different times and cultures, but child development is as near to a universal human experience as it gets.
Wisher made detailed 3D scans of the drawings, which helped her understand the uneven pressure applied to the charcoal and the direction the lines were drawn. The team then compared the panel’s composition with age-appropriate artistic efforts by modern children. Kids across cultures go through the same developmental stages, which influence their physical ability to draw, until about the age of 6, Amir notes.
The team compared the ancient art with the developmental stages exhibited by modern children: the furiously scribbled circles and push-pull lines typical of 3-year-olds just learning to control their bodies, for example, or the wobbly, right-angled figures of slightly older kids beginning to master fine motor skills.
Both are apparent in the cave, superimposed on each other as though two or more kids were drawing at once. That’s a clue the Las Monedas marks were likely made by “siblings or a mixed-age play group within the sphere of safety around adults, but also within their own space,” says co-author Felix Riede, an Aarhus archaeologist.
...
Adults at Las Monedas would have been aware of what the kids were doing and presumably had lit fires or torches; without ample firelight the cave is pitch black.
areudirty
origamiaround
yousharknotpass
janainaart
annaxmalina
titsay
gummygunk
stormborns
snowghoul
germansingergirl
