L. Pardalinum

[queenofattolia]

i know it's a common talking point by now that our tech overlords read the wrong (by which i mean sexist, racist, colonial, etc.) mid-century scifi or failed to understand the specfic they claim to love (hitchhiker's guide, lotr, etc.) we've all made jokes about how maybe they wouldn't be so awful if they'd read more le guin or butler or delaney.

however i don't think i've seen people talk about the fact that these "techno-optimists" who are so looking forward to a "techno-utopia" never reference, cite, or allude to star trek, which is the single most influential techno-optimistic piece of media ever created.

and i mean, it's obvious why. star trek isn't just about exploring the stars, discovering new planets, creating cyborgs and computers and all kinds of futuristic technologies.

star trek is about about eliminating scarcity so that everyone can thrive. star trek is about a multicultural future of peace and prosperity for all. star trek is about infinite diversity in infinite combinations. star trek is about finding new life forms who look at the world completely differently than we do and learning from them. star trek is about a globalism that is rooted in humanism and peace. star trek is about providing role models for people (especially kids) who have never seen those who look like them in scifi, igniting their imaginations, and helping them think, "wow, there will be people like me in the future! even if i'm black, a woman, blind, trans, queer, not from the u.s.a., etc.!"

these guys HATE all of those things, and star trek is so explicitly about them that they can't even misunderstand it, misappropriate, or misuse it. so we get palantir, m*sk talking about how much he loves hitchhiker's guide, and j.d. vance naming his venture capital company after one of the rings from lotr. but we don't see anyone naming their robot data or their talking computer after majel barrett or talking about how star trek inspired them to get where they are now. because it didn't inspire them. because its vision was not the one they latched onto.

you also don't hear them citing, say, carl sagan. or hedy lamarr or ada lovelace or rosalind franklin. or any of the other stem-y people who were also deeply humanist and who profoundly love our little blue planet. they only care about stories they can believe are about white dudes accomplishing things through a domination mindset and being oh so special. they're obsessed with jung and campbell and their bullshit ideas about ~hero's journeys~ and anything they can twist to be about their misogynist, racist, ableist, queerphobic, imperialist agenda.

and i just think that is very telling.

[queenofattolia]

#but it's also because star trek is cringe and the wrong kind of nerdy and gay and camp and effiminate and cheap and weird (via @lastvalyrian)

[galaxianmothman]

Pssst!

Live in the US?

Need to call your representative or senator, but nervous about making the phone call?

Do it at 2 am!

I'm not kidding. It will go to voice mail and you don't have to talk to a human person, and your call still counts!

Signed, someone with major phone anxiety who has pushed through it to do this several times now.

You've got this!

[catchymemes]

Local council called out on Twitter

[missanthropicprinciple]

Maximum levels of petty.

[impiusangelus]

They dragged Darren to the pits of hell(which he deemed under 50mm)

[earl-jr]

Darren’s dragging was completely deserved and self inflicted

[ruinedchildhood]

[songsofwaterandnight]

That's such a sick baby picture to have. The rest of us are all like "oh this is me tripping in the backyard when I was 2" and that baby's gonna have "yeah that's me in my mom's arms as she wins a mortal Kombat tournament". Iconic.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Girl help they're selectively breeding the world's most powerful Mortal Kombat player.

[kaijuno]

[taradactyls]

More Bennet Family finances discussion - Ch26 end note of Trying to Tread Water

For those of you interested in the financial elements of Austen’s books, that statement of Mr Bennet’s about how much it would have taken to give their daughters £10,000 apiece is accurate. That’s more than they would be expected to have, as the general rule about ample dowries appeared to be about 3x the father’s yearly income, a number which certainly seems supported in the case of the Darcys and Bingleys (keeping in mind the late Mr Bingley must have had £140,000, if the daughters each had £20,000 and Mr Bingley has about £100,000).

SO, if we go by that rule and aim for each of the Bennets to have £6,000 (as Mr Bennet’s estate is £2,000/y) invested in the 4% like their mother’s settlement is, how much WOULD Mr and Mrs Bennet have had to be saving?

We can assume by the end of the book they have been married at least 23 years (and they should have been saving from the very beginning, regardless of their hope to end the entail), which means that if they’d reinvested the interest of Mrs Bennet’s £5,000 and added £450 a year, they would have £28,802 about when Jane, Elizabeth, and Lydia got married. Even if they were given a dowry immediately upon their marriages (meaning £18,000 is subtracted) it would only take two more years for the account to be over £12,000 again, ensuring all five daughters would have at least £6,000 after their parents were dead. (If it were invested in the 5% bonds, these savings go up to £34,001 after 23 years, and to get £29,858 after 23 years they would only need to be depositing £350).

But say that level of saving isn’t desired, as Mrs Bennet doesn’t want to live off £1,550/y. They could live off the £2,000/y estate and save only the interest of her £5,000 settlement (the £4,000 dowry plus additional £1,000 from Mr Bennet) and, in 23 years, have grown those savings to £12,324 (£15,358 in the 5%s). Which means that if Mr Bennet were to die tomorrow the family would still feel they were in genteel poverty, but would be more than twice as rich as they are in canon which is a DRASTIC difference. For context, in Sense and Sensibility, Mrs Dashwood and her daughters are living off the interest of about £10,000 and it seems Mrs and Miss Bates in Emma have interest from about £2,000-£2,500.

If they had saved even only £100/y on top of that interest the number shoots up to £15,985 (£19,501 at 5%), £200 saved becomes £19,647 (or £23,644), etc. It really wouldn’t have been hard for Mr and Mrs Bennet to save enough money so their daughters (and Mrs Bennet, if she’s the survivor) needn’t fear genteel poverty when the estate passes to Mr Collins. Catherine Moreland (of Northanger Abbey) is one of ten children whose father is almost certainly not as rich as Mr Bennet, but she has a dowry of £3,000, so there’s no reason to think Mr and Mrs Bennet couldn’t have achieved that. When Mr Darcy and the Bingley sisters are mocking the Miss Bennets’ wealth at the start of the book it’s not just the number they’re judging, but what it reveals about the priorities and fiscal savviness of their parents. Imagine if you knew a 1%er family who were constantly flirting with bankruptcy and 2/5 of their children were barely educated – you wouldn’t be wrong for assuming there were some drastic faults within that family. Mr Darcy and the Bingley sisters were horrible snobs about it, but it actually was a massive lapse of Mr and Mrs Bennet’s duty and they’re rich enough that there’s no excuse for it. After all, Mr Darcy is about five times richer (Mr Bingley is two or two-point-five times richer) than Mr Bennet, yet Georgiana is THIRTY times (and Caroline and Lousia twenty times) richer than the Miss Bennets. I know it’s easier for someone with Darcy levels of money to save, but wow is the failure drastic when you compare it directly.

[doingbad]

The plot of A Scandal in Bohemia is Irene Adler orchestrating an elaborate escape to get away from her abusive ex (the king hires people to stalk her, confront her, break into her home, steal from her, etc.). AND SHE ESCAPES! SHE'S FREE!

So every time an adaptation includes her as a criminal, love interest, or femme fatale who loses to Holmes it's not just missing the point, it's genuinely so fucking disrespectful.

[doingbad]

Exactly, exactly @skyriderwednesday

#SHE WINS!!!!!#THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF HER#she makes holmes see that he was the being used to do evil to an innocent woman because he didn't bother questioning the motive of the king#that's why he keeps her photograph imo#to remind him to keep his eyes open and question all sides of a case#it's a 'norbury' if you ask me#to open his desk drawer and see ms adler looking back at him#is to ask the question of himself ''am i in the right here?''#''am i aiding the correct party in this case?''#sherlock holmes

[rosettyller]

Behind the scenes of PROJECT HAIL MARY (2026)

[stitchlingbelle]

In societies that repress homosexual identities, all-male institutions such as the military serve to both exemplify the patriarchy and act as an unofficial refuge for same-sex attraction. Thus, Aral Vorkosigan's magnetism is not in spite of, but because of his sexuality and his embodiment of the duality of the Imperial Service. In this essay I will

[crabussy]

"being a human is so boring why can't I be one of the COOL animals" okay hey. I hear you. but I actually really super love being an omnivorous persistence hunting primate with a stomach capable of dissolving many literal poisons and the ability to smell geosmin (released in the soil after it rains) at five parts per trillion. I super enjoy being a bipedal terrifyingly agile mammal with some of the most efficient sweat glands in the animal kingdom. I find a lot of joy in being an endotherm with mimicry abilities that rival most other animals with vocal chords. it's sick as hell I'm having a lot of fun

[theundergroundwoman]

btw you should make sure to spend the infinite cycle of life, death, and rebirth with a bestie. it’s called ouroboros not myoboros

[sith-shenanigans]

*looks at polyamorous triad* so which of you is the soldier and which is the poet and which is the king

[sith-shenanigans]

this is the perfect reblog post cancelled

[depsidase]

[broken-horn-of-equius]

[squareallworthy]

Everyone will not just

If your solution to some problem relies on “If everyone would just…” then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At not time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now.

[fandom-man]

[scholarlypidgeot]

@moethh don't hide this in the tags

[ickaimp]

So this is not a plea for money. This is something that surprised me, and chatting with people on discord, they were unaware of as well.

Discovered last year I couldn’t look at my 2015 MacBook Air without it triggering nausea and migraines, and figured the screen died. Have been getting by on my phone, but concluded I really need a laptop again.

Saved up, realised I could afford a brand new MacBook Neo, and got one.

-And I couldn’t spend more than five minutes looking at the screen without massive eye strain, nausea, vertigo, and if I pushed it, I-need-to-lie-down-in-a-dark-room-for-hours migraines.

Looking up MacBook and Eyestrain explained what is going on. The liquid retina displays that Apple currently has uses Pulse Width Modulation or PWM. In order to give the screens a deeper depth of colour and contrast, PWM flickers between several hundred to thousand times a second.

And there is currently no way to turn it off. There are settings and apps to reduce it, but there is no way to stop the screen from flickering. Checked Apple forums, called Apple Support, and the time I could look at the screen kept shrinking. Got the laptop Tuesday, returned it Friday, today is Sunday and I’m still dealing with a vertigo migraine.

For MacBooks, it seems to vary on the computer model and the software it uses. In retrospect, the issue with my MacBook Air started after a major software update.

And it’s not just an Apple thing. Current Windows and Android screens do the same thing. There’s even a Reddit for people who are sensitive to PWM flickers to help find computers and screens that won’t trigger eyestrain and headaches.

So, yeah. This week has been a learning experience. But for those who are prone to headaches and migraines, this may be something to be aware of, cause I was not.

[vultures-nest]

im studying histology and i just like the little guys that work so hard to keep our organisms up and running