hail satan

I like science, especially physics. Thirty and counting. nonbinary, acespec, transfem. They>she pronouns.

[nanadouken]

[prokopetz]

Spurious Latin plurals are great fun if you're a specific flavour of nerd, but improperly constructed verb tenses are a game anyone can play. The past tense of "screenshot" is "screenshat".

[wicker-and-scrap]

In an argument about D&D rules, I proposed that the past tense of "crit" is "crat". This was judged to be 'disgusting'.

[femininefreyanyctophile]

crit crat crote

[wuwojiti]

[drmanahan]

[orecchietta]

thank you to this post for making me look up irregular verbs because i discovered a word i never even realized was a verb: wit, as in the phrase "to wit," which before this moment i absolutely thought was some odd metaphorical construct like "to[ward] wit (n.)" and not just . an infinitive?

wikipedia discusses it like we're all perfectly aware that wit is a unique english verb. it reads like a native english speaker is supposed to read this and go "huh, i guess wit is pretty weird, isn't it?" and not "i have never heard this word in my life":

i wot?? i did not wit this ("wit" means "know," which ig makes sense)

...also, what is the third person conjugation if it doesn't have an -s?

you wost??? you wistest?????

every other english verb needs to pick up the slack, no one is doing it like wit, we need some more of these

[prokopetz]

The set phrase "to wit" isn't the only place this verb survives in modern English, mind; it's also fossilised in adjective "unwitting".

(As for the past tense, literally the only place I've ever heard it is in a couple of traditional ballads whose lyrics come to us via Middle English, which contain the phrase "[to go] where no-one wist" – which is of course a fancy way of saying "where the fuck did they go?")

[therottenkingsreckoning]

Could it be the origin of "wistful" or am I wrong?

[prokopetz]

Oddly, no; "wistful" apparently descends from the unrelated Middle English "whist", meaning "silence". (In its older usage, the term suggests silent contemplation; the modern connotation of longing or yearning is possibly influenced by confusion with "wishful".)

[xanaxfarts]

A redditor u/spottedgolfing shares the process of the penny floor they installed into their homes foyer.

[getwrenchd]

Re: the popular questions

[lolita-wardrobe]

FunCcino -Ragnarok- Lolita Shawl and Blouse Co-ords Inspiration

◆ Shawl's and Blouse's Shopping Link >>> https://lolitawardrobe.com/search/?Keyword=Ragnarok

[sparrowlucero]

like the most politically neutered movie of all time unironically

[sparrowlucero]

the book this is based on (the true meaning of smekday) is uh. more

[teaboot]

"1,003 years ago, God dies of asphyxiation"

[eflatminorseven]

thinking about edvard munch's "The Sun" (1911)

like yeah thats how it feels. thats what it feels like to exist sometimes. he gets it

[teddy2145]

Also very big! Takes up two stories!

[fishtrouts]

We've had a family/murder of crows visiting our garden for years now, and this season the chicks are soooo helpless! They just stand around expectantly with their mouths open as the mom crow eats. Which is what inspired this comic! :)

Stickers-socials-patreon!

[anditcametopost]

I got 1 task done today. I emptied the big trash can in my bedroom. That's one less fork to deal with.

I have severe executive dysfunction. I've been dealing with it by having myself do one small task a day. So far it's helped a lot. By doing it this way my brain doesn't freak out trying to tackle everything at once.

I got my inspiration for it from this Donald Duck comic:

[shitposting-hobbits-to-gallifrey]

Oh my God this is so fucking wholesome

[chongoblog]

“I saw the sunrise for the first time in years” moves me way more than it has any right to

[facts-i-just-made-up]

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Seriously. Bot or human or whatever you are, what triggered this? 

Was it Mozart, the cyanide, or the salmonella?

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I cannot believe they solved this.

[scrub-robin]

It's not even the first time something like this has happened. Seems like it's a family thing.

[tanadrin]

when two electrically neutral atoms form a covalent bond and release energy from the reaction, where exactly is that energy coming from? i presume some potential energy somewhere is being minimized re: the valence electrons?

[kwarrtz]

There’s two main effects. The first is simple Coulomb attraction: electrons want to be near nuclei, and sitting between two nuclei is better than just being near one. The second is more subtle. Quantum mechanics says that particles confined to a finite volume must have some minimum kinetic energy which is inversely proportional to that volume. Electrons which participate in covalent bonds are smeared out around both atoms instead of just one, i.e. the volume they occupy is larger, which means their kinetic energy can be smaller.

So, the energy comes from both the potential energy in the attraction between each atom’s nucleus and the other’s electrons, and the motion of the electrons themselves.

[tanadrin]

oh, dope, that makes perfect sense. thanks!

[bayesic-bitch]

@kwarrtz I don't quite follow the Coulomb part. Let's take O2 for instance -- you can draw a sphere around each, which is symmetric and contains zero charge. So by gauss's law, shouldn't the flux through the sphere be zero, and therefore the field is zero? Or does this reasoning stop working when the atoms are close enough that the orbitals would start to overlap?

[fuserofworlds]

The surface integral is zero, but is the field zero?

[aloeverawrites]

I don’t get how people will be like “farmers wouldn’t exploit animals, they’re not productive if they’re unwell!”

Buddy, your boss exploits you for labour. You’re not well. The only reason it isn’t worse is because you have basic rights, is it really unfathomable that an animal without those rights would be treated worse-

[pokkin]

ill eat worms. ill do it for free. you cannot physically stop me from eating more worms.

[batshit-auspol]

May 2014: Senator Bill Heffernan complains about the lack of metal detectors in parliament, tabling a pipe bomb he's brought with him as evidence

[inejschumacher-deactivated20240]

Here’s the gold medal-winning, Olympic-record breaking javelin throw by Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan. It is the first medal won in 32 years and first ever gold won at the Olympics for Pakistan.

A few facts:

He broke the Olympic record twice this round, with another throw of 91+m.

3/4 too throws this round were by him.

He is self taught, so notice how his footwork and overall stance isn’t top-tier when compared to other javelin throwers. All he has is brute-strength, which is exactly what he needed to succeed.

He used the same javelin spear for 8 years until it broke last March, when he went to the media begging for help, leading to the government importing one just for him.

He qualified for an athletics competition final for track and field for the first time in Pakistan’s history in Tokyo 2020, where he placed fifth. He is the first-ever Pakistani athlete to be on the Olympics track-and-field podium.

Pakistan has almost zero sports infrastructure, where even cricket suffers due to a lack of adequate leaders, coaches, and support. Almost every other sport? Virtually nothing.

He has truly cemented himself as a national treasure, and inshallah will continue to succeed in the future🇵🇰💚

[lucybellwood]

Lemme tell you a gay little story about an eagle.

Our town (~9,000 people) has a couple garages, but there's a big one on the main drag. My family has been going there for decades. I drive past it every day.

There used to be a huge pine tree on the corner of their lot, but last year it became a hazard and had to be taken down.

Shortly thereafter I drive by and see they've hired a guy to chainsaw sculpt the stump into a bald eagle.

Birds own my heart, but nationalism makes me twitchy. I withhold outright condemnation of the eagle, but I'm skeptical. (The original owner—an objectively Good Dude—sold the business to a younger couple a few years ago, and I don't have any knowledge of their whole deal.)

Then it turns out someone on staff is really into making costumes for the eagle. Every holiday. Every month. Stuffed turkey, witch costume, menorah headpiece, bunny ears. These people love to dress their bird.

The changing of the eagle suit becomes a source of joy every time I drive through town.

Until June, when the eagle is bare.

Now look, maybe I'm expecting too much asking my garage to celebrate Pride. But this is a small town. Every time I drive by that stupid eagle—this thing that has previously brought me so much joy—I feel hurt. I feel reminded that there are plenty of people in my liberal bubble who don't consider my community worthy of celebration. I drive to work, I feel bad. I drive home, I feel bad. The eagle is mocking me.

Then my A/C quits working.

So I book an appointent to bring my car in—and realize what I have to do.

I pick all this up at a thrift store for under ten bucks. I print the shirt with some weird heat-transfer fabric crayons I find in a cupboard. I loop gold elastic around the sunglasses and pray they'll fit on the eagle's head. (It is also important to draw your attention to the price of the feather boa.)

(Nice.)

My reasoning is thus: if I show up with a complete costume ready to go, someone will have to look me in the eye and say "We don't believe in that," at which point I'll be finding a new garage. But if they let me dress the eagle, then people in town get to have the joy I've been missing since the start of the month.

I listen to a lot of hype-up jams on my way over. I hate confrontation. I also don't wanna have to find another garage. I want to believe that this decision isn't actively antagonistic, but I'm not particularly hopeful.

I talk through the A/C issue with the guy at the desk, hand over my keys, then take a deep breath.

"Who's in charge of the eagle?"

"Oh, that's all Dylan. Second bay from the end."

I walk down the row of hydraulic lifts and find a disarmingly smiley middle-aged man pouring fluid through a funnel. I introduce myself and explain that, since the Pride parade is this Sunday and the eagle seems to be missing a costume, I have taken the liberty of making one myself, and can I get his blessing to go put it on?

Dylan grins this absolutely giant grin and goes

"Oh hell yeah."

So that's what's up now.

Happy Pride.

[lucybellwood]

UPDATE: I called this morning to figure out when the car was gonna be done and the desk guy talked me through it all and then said:

"Hey also: thanks for making that costume for the eagle. People can be touchy about it, but the guys love what you did. And it’s so smart to put "Love is love" on the shirt. Because we’re all for the LGBTQ community, but of course there's people who come in here who aren't. And what are they gonna do? Disagree with something like that?"

I admitted I’d been nervous to ask about it, and we had a laugh, and then he told me they actually have a monthly budget for the eagle now. There’s a spreadsheet full of holidays and everything.

Anyway, I’ve still gotta get my wheel bearings replaced.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

A Band-Aid for the heart? New 3D printing method makes this, and much more, possible

In the quest to develop life-like materials to replace and repair human body parts, scientists face a formidable challenge: Real tissues are often both strong and stretchable and vary in shape and size. A CU Boulder-led team, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, has taken a critical step toward cracking that code. They've developed a new way to 3D print material that is at once elastic enough to withstand a heart's persistent beating, tough enough to endure the crushing load placed on joints, and easily shapable to fit a patient's unique defects. Better yet, it sticks easily to wet tissue.

Read more.