Untitled

him/it/they

[hamletthedane]

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

[hamletthedane]

Want to learn something new in 2023??

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

[inbabylontheywept]

Something that I find really interesting about probability in continuous systems is that you can have events that are technically possible despite having a probability of zero.

For example, if I'm trying to pick a number between 0 and 1, and the space is continuous, there are an infinite number of numbers available. The odds of it being any particular number in the set one out of infinity, which is to say, zero, yet at the end of the day its still one of those numbers.

A second thing that is interesting about probability in continuous spaces, that is faaaaaar weirder than even the above, is that there can be two events that both have a probability of zero, while one is infinitely more likely than the other.

For example.

Imagine a right triangle.

Imagine you are throwing a dart at this right triangle.

The odds of it landing in any particular region is just the area of the region divided by the area of the triangle. One dimensional points don't have an area, so the odds of it hitting any point is, obviously, zero, but lines also don't have an area, so the odds of hitting one of those is, again, zero. But! The odds of hitting anywhere on the line x=0.5 is infinitely more likely than hitting the exact point (0.5,0.5). And then being weirder still, the odds of hitting somewhere on the line x=0.5 is exactly half of what they'd be hitting somewhere on the line x=1, what with the vertical line at x=0.5 being half the length of the vertical line at x=1. So you can have a zero probability even that is infinitely more probably than another zero probability event, and also, exactly twice as likely as another zero probability event. But they're all still zero probability. Which doesn't mean that they can't happen, just that they won't.

(Not a mathematician, this was just sort of casually explained in my Baby Quantum for Dummy Electrical Engineers and we all left the room like this:)

[purronronner]

[luna-azzurra]

Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.

[lets-steal-an-archive]

ALT

View on Twitter

https://archive.org/details/vhsinstructionals

Instructional and Educational VHS Tapes : Free Movies : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive

[berlynn-wohl]

me browsing this folder: omg omG I don’t know which one I’m more excited to watch, this Frontline episode from 1992 or this NOVA episode from 1984!!!

the NSA agent who can hear everything through my phone:

[digital-magus]

Yes… YES! fucking hell I LOVE this! Give them all to me!!

[roach-works]

IMMEDIATELY hit gold, thank you OP, i am respectfully stripping for you (1987)

[roach-works]

[vinceaddams]

Yay, 11 results for sewing! I’m interested to see what Nancy has to show us about embroidering with a free motion foot.

Edit: Ooh, 61 results for sewing in the VHS vault collection.

[kawuli]

this is incredible

[parkayquarts]

so many amazing words in the english language. you have clandestine and precarious and serendipity and iconoclast and then you also have staunch and sludge and slurp and smudge

[movementnudge]

Movement nudge, hand mobility! 🙌

X

[ruffboi-mags]

1) do this even if you're under 40. seriously. I definitely should have been doing something like this for years and I only turned 40 a month and a half ago

2) if you're like me just now trying this going "oh god i've only done 15 and i think my hands are cramping" start lower than 30 and increase by 5 once whatever number you're doing no longer makes your hand cramp up. I can manage about 15 per exercise at the moment.

[creations-by-chaosfay]

If you're hypermobile, be especially gentle.

[gecko-with-a-greatsword]

*guy who doesn't know anything about sports and has never cared about sports in his life* hey did you know womens professional baseball is returning after 70 years and the games are going to be streamed for free on youtube and the season starts august 1st

[gecko-with-a-greatsword]

youtube link

Women's Pro Baseball League

Our time is now. The inaugural season of the WPBL begins August 1st, 2026.

website

[prokopetz]

Game where the ancient hero is awakened from the deathless sleep of centuries in the hour of their people's greatest need, only to find that civilisation is thriving and there are no obvious threats on the horizon; the game then becomes a fish-out-of-water detective sim as they try to figure out what woke them up, and also solve other, smaller mysteries along the way.

[nearo]

[boymounter]

[hemipenal-system]

ublock origin is pretty funny. oh? you want to show me an ad? damn buddy that sucks. L + ratio + assets.tumblr.com/pop/src/assets/images/house-rightrail-premium-with-patio-47ce20b6.gif$image into my filters immediately

[hemipenal-system]

there's more, for all my followers who don't know this, you can get ublock to just make the custom filter for you

see an annoying ui item you don't like?

click this to get to the ublock origin menu

click this

and hover over the ui item you dont like, like this

click on it, and in the window that pops up, hit "create"

now it's gone!

[longshrimp]

no more talking.

[hemipenal-system]

​​​​

[the-punforgiven]

I'm just saying, if you're going to worldbuild magic being a "raw, primal force, akin to and interweaving with nature itself" you gotta explain to me why animals don't use it

[the-punforgiven]

I know the normal answer is "they just aren't smart enough for it" but idk I've seen enough media where a character uses a spell in a moment of brain-off panic ilI feel like animals could probably stumble into a spell or two like, accidentally

[the-punforgiven]

Also how funny would it be to see a completely normal regular bear cast magic missile outta nowhere

[the-punforgiven]

Also there is no way ravens wouldn't figure out spells, tbh

They're smart fuckin birds, I believe in them

Either through observing or just figuring shit out ravens could 100% learn how to cast spells I'm sure of it

[the-punforgiven]

Dogs can also cast Magic Missile but every time they do the projectile is shaped like a bone or a stick and they chase after it

[prokopetz]

Fantasy setting where every species of animal has One Fucked Up Trick exactly like in medieval bestiaries (e.g., panthers hypnotising their prey with sweet breath, pelicans reviving the dead with their willingly shed blood, etc.), except these are actually learned magic spells passed down from parent to offspring, so different populations of the same animal in different regions might have a different spell.

(If a species is domesticated you can teach it any spell you want, as long as you start 'em young enough; every breed of dog has a different "standard" spell, and knowing the "wrong" one is considered both a grave departure from breed standards and a potential violation of animal husbandry ethics.)

[celestial-fang]

Instead of the new dogshit Odyssey film you should watch Iphigenia (1977). It’s made by actual Greek people and focuses on a mother-daughter relationship to explore how women are sacrificed by powerful men in times of war. Also the main actress has the face of an angel 🙏 the whole movie is available on YT with English subtitles.

[celestial-fang]

Plugging this once again to remind you that my queen Irene Papas is also in it!! It’s unfair just how gorgeous and ethereal everyone looks

[sketchtoons]

Accidentally made myself a nice brush

[francesderwent]

wish list for people who don’t want anything

aka possessions which are just possessions, but which have noticeably improved my quality of life: for when people ask you “what do you want for your birthday/Christmas/graduation” and you instantly transform into St Francis and pledge fealty to Lady Poverty because your mind went blank

nice. new. sheets. I cannot emphasize this one enough. if you’re still using the same sheets you had in college, you should probably get new ones. get yourself some 100% bamboo rayon sheets—they’re silky and perfect for summer and great for sensitive skin! or, if you’re cold all the time, flannel sheets!

kitchen knives. or even just one really good kitchen knife.

new curtains—blackout if you are a creature of the night like I am

fleece lined anything, but especially sweatpants and hoodies. wool lined socks are also good. if you don’t have the option of coming home after work and putting on an entire outfit that is loose and fuzzy, you should change that, because you deserve that option.

cookie sheets with a layer of air between the top and the bottom. the bottoms of your cookies will never burn again.

kitchen scale!!! no more leveling off flour with a knife and getting it all over the table!! now all your measuring is just shoveling stuff in and out of bowls like you’re at the beach. baking is both more accurate and also way more fun.

coffee bean grinder. if you want to upgrade your coffee experience, this is a great one-time purchase. just-ground beans have a much better flavor than pre-ground.

CDs!! ask for a gift card and expand your physical music collection! or a collection of the DVDs for your favorite show!

[thealphapigeon]

I follow the "leave nothing but footprints take nothing but photos" rule of state/national parks yeah because conservation. But also because when I was 11 i read a short story about a girl who went to a museum and stole a bandage flake off a mummy on display with the mentality of "im just one person one piece won't be missed" then at night she was visited by the mummy and it plucked a single hair from her head and then the next night a different mummy took another hair and she realized that there were only so many pieces to her before there would be nothing left and that story was forever wedged in my brain. Anyways leave cool rocks where you find them or the mummies will get you

[paintedhen]

[leafstem]

*while sewing*: you are a fabric. you can stay a fabric. you do not yearn to return to being string.

[batbetbitbotbut]

*while spinning*: you are a thread. you can stay a thread. you do not yarn to return to being fluff.

[strikeslip]

*while embroidering*: you are a thread on a needle. you can just exist as thread on a needle. you do knot yearn to become a tangle.

[mawofthemagnetar]

*while turning wood* you are timber on a lathe. You can stay as timber on a lathe. You do not yearn to become a live hand grenade.

[bugbbear]

*while adding chemicals to a reaction* you are a stable substance. you are neither too hot nor too agitated. you do not yearn to explode violently and poison everyone in the building.

[cyclicalaberration]

*Whilst throwing pottery* You are a wonderful mug. You can stay as a wonderful mug with walls. You do not yearn to return to a horrible lump of dirt.

[desertherm1t]

*while doing digital art* you are a paint bucket tool. you will fill only inside these lines. you do not yearn to turn the entire canvas into your color

[the-shade-system]

@stars-says-fuck

[what-even-is-thiss]

Yeah I saw the lovecraftian horrors and didn’t succumb to madness. What- no I’m not a cultist, James. For Christ’s sake. What you’re forgetting my friend is that HP Lovecraft wasn’t a flexible man. His brain simply wasn’t stretchy enough to take it all in. I however, have short term memory issues. Flexibility is the name of the game when you can’t remember if you ate lunch or not. What’s the size of the universe? Big. You knew that already, James. Come on now. You don’t need to witness the terrifying ocean at the base of the entirety of reality itself to know that. Pass the brandy.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You must imagine the character I’ve created here wearing a suit and a monocle, by the way.

[thesilvertophat]

During a Eldritch Horrors based tabletop RPG my character was a young dandy who wasn't particularly interested in all this monster mystery stuff but his father (my brother's character) was a researcher who WAS very into it, so Bertie went along to make sure the old man didn't get into too much trouble. It was your average Eldritch Horrors RPG in that you don't make your characters with the expectation that they will survive for very long, both the game itself and the genre are very intent on turning your characters inside out, driving them insane, and blowing them up in no particular order.

The thing was, everything in this nightmare hellscape just seemed to keep coming up Bertie because the man was too stupid to realize what genre he was in. Every time he had to roll for a sanity check whenever he saw something crazy, the dice treated him so well that he just... didn't get it. Gee that sure is a funny costume. There's something wrong with that dog. These mean guys in stupid hats are trying to hurt that young lady, we can't have that! I had not built him this way, his intelligence stats weren't even that bad, random chance just made it so that this man was living a scooby doo adventure while everyone else was being consumed by The Horrors. The final straw was at the end of an adventure when Bertie escaped from the cultist headquarters by breaking out through the mansion's front window on a motorcycle with a hot rescued sacrificial maiden clinging to his back and leading the cultists on a merry chase through the hedge maze while the other adventurers escaped. His sanity score? HIGHER than when the adventure had begun. He had found the whole experience quite thrilling and felt very good about life in general! Bertie retired from adventuring to marry the maiden he rescued and care for his aging father and delight and bemuse his friends at the gentleman's club with stories of his 'wacky' adventures. I didn't want to risk breaking his ridiculous lucky streak.