[andhetakesandhetakesandhetakes]

running a fool’s errand y’all need anything?

[bob-artist]

So last night I dreamed that it was winter and I was at a shopping mall and I looked outside and saw this guy walking his borzoi, who was wearing this giant snow suit.  But then the guy heard me laughing through the window and got REALLY mad at me.

Anyway, the dog looked like this.

[todaysbird]

DIRECT ACTION

[notorious-bee-comprised-entity]

Write drunk, decide not to edit when you’re sober

[mactiir]

There’s this weird culture of telling kids when they stress about school “u ain’t seen nothin yet hun! Wait till u do tax returns! Hahaha adulthood is fucking hell!” And i hate it b/c 

 1) it’s flat out untrue. Adulthood is a breeze compared to school. I have time to myself to do what I find fun and can make my own choices. Like, yeah, I’m poor and have to take care of myself, but the central activity of my life– work – is waaaaaay easier than school, mentally and emotionally. 

 2) Part of the reason school made me anxious to the point of considering suicide is that I had this wrong idea, drilled into my head by YEARS of people saying this, that if I didn’t do well in school, I would be a useless member of society, unable to be productive or do anything meaningful. Failing a class meant I might as well be dead. That’s the false equivalence this culture creates. But grades don’t mean SHIT in the workforce unless you’re trying to become a college professor or do something that requires a hella advanced degree. 

 3) it helps no one to say this! All it does is give mentally ill children, most of whom are already struggling to get through the DAY, the idea that it will only get much, much worse. I know I couldn’t cope with that thought. Any future planning past my 20s was blocked out in a haze of terror at the thought of having to persevere that long, only to get a shittier situation at the end. But it’s not shittier. I have to be more responsible, but this is a piece of goddamn cake compared to even High School. The only reason to say this to a teenager is to inflate your own sense of superiority over someone who is still learning how the world works.

 So like. Can we kill this culture? Please?

[byulcchi]

reblog because my first year of college is really hitting me right about now

[allthingslinguistic]

This is a public service announcement that you can now get an International Phonetic Alphabet layout in Gboard on Android, including a dizzying array of diacritics. (IPA apparently coming eventually for Gboard on iOS as well.)

How to get it: Update the app if necessary, longpress on the spacebar, and add International Phonetic Alphabet under languages. To switch to IPA once you’ve enabled it, longpress on the spacebar again.

I was previously using MultiLing keyboard to type IPA on Android, which was fine for most purposes but didn’t have full support for diacritics or other special punctuation, so Gboard now looks like a better option. 

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Liquid crystals could help deflect laser pointer attacks on aircraft

Aiming a laser beam at an aircraft isn’t a harmless prank: The sudden flash of bright light can incapacitate the pilot, risking the lives of passengers and crew. But because attacks can happen with different colored lasers, such as red, green or even blue, scientists have had a difficult time developing a single method to impede all wavelengths of laser light. Today, researchers report liquid crystals that could someday be incorporated into aircraft windshields to block any color of bright, focused light.

The researchers will present their results today at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Spring 2019 National Meeting & Exposition.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, 6,754 laser strikes on aircraft were reported in 2017. “We were approached by collaborators in the aviation department at our university about the growing problem happening at airports across the world, where people were shooting lasers at planes during takeoff and landing, the critical phases of flight,” says Jason Keleher, Ph.D., the project’s principal investigator. Such attacks, which cause bright flashes of light in the cockpit, can distract pilots or inflict temporary or permanent visual damage, depending on the wavelength and intensity of the laser.

Read more.

[acti-veg]

A case of man vs beast: the fight for nonhuman rights

Happy, a 47-year-old female Asian elephant, has been living in New York’s Bronx Zoo since 1977. For the past 13 years she has lived alone.

[post--grad]

here is a list of questions i have already answered about graduate school!! 

please check it before you send me a question about graduate school :) :) i hope it’s useful! xo // updated 12.18

basic info

what is the PhD and what can you do with it? (+) 

what does a literature PhD entail?

should i do a PhD if i have to pay tuition?

does it look bad to take time off between degrees?

what was your timeline like? 

what’s the difference between a terminal MA and a PhD? (+)

application process

how can i prepare for applying early in my undergrad career? (+) (+)

where should i start looking for programs?

should i choose a program based on rank or fit? (+)

how many programs should i apply to?

parts of the application

advice on the writing sample?

advice on the GRE? (+)

how should i ask for letters of recommendation?

how should i write a statement of purpose?

grad school application spreadsheet

how should i email potential advisors? (+)

how can i survive the waiting period? (+)

what should i ask at open house?

what should i do if i don’t think i can afford my grad school tuition?

what should i do the summer before i start my program?

seminars/coursework

how should i plan for grad seminar presentations? (+)

what are grad seminars like?

how can i get better at speaking during seminars?

reading

what should i have read before i start my lit grad program?

how much reading should i expect?

how can i read a lot without getting overwhelmed? (+)

how can i read efficiently? (+) (+)

quals-specific reading advice

how should i take notes on critical articles?

writing

how do i write a lit review?

how do i choose a dissertation topic? (+)

how do i plan for a long research paper?

money

what is adjuncting and why does it suck?

how do finances work in grad school?

misc

will grad school make my mental health issues worse? (+)

how should i deal with burnout? (+)

i think i want to quit

my advisor is ghosting me/disengaged with my work

how do i work with no structured schedule?

how do i balance my work & my teaching?

how can i beat imposter syndrome? (+)

[mathysphere]

Heads up: if you or your library/makerspace has a 3d printer you can use, this Pythagorean Theorem doodad is easy to print and fun to fiddle with. There’s something very satisfying about swiveling a2 and b2 over to c2… they fit there so perfectly.

The model is by mshscott and Isos, and is both educational and beautiful. 

[momo-de-avis]

If you ever wondered what does fuel shortage look like in the end of the world just look at portugal right now. Shit’s crazy

[momo-de-avis]

Truck drivers are on strike, specifically the ones who carry dangerous stuff—like gasoline. The strike was announced months ago, but nobody gave a shit, and since yesterday there has been no gas coming into the country. This has nothing to do with the government either, it’s a matter of private companies paying their employers less than 600€ a month to drive for hours carrying dangerous materials. As a result, people freaked out and flocked to gas stations everywhere to fill in their tanks. Where I live, the entire area, only two gas stations have gas left. In left than 12h, people sucked the country dry of gas out of fear. You’d stay in line for 30 minutes trying to get some gas, literally anywhere, and you’d risk the chance of there being nothing left for you. Buses and taxis have shortened their services because they can’t refill. Uber has sent out notes saying they can’t provide any more services. Our local ferries have announced they can’t cross the river after Friday because that’s how long their gas lasts. Airplanes aren’t flying, a lot of flights are being cancelled because they’re also short on fuel. The government had to call in the fucking military, though I’m not sure what for. Whatever gas is there left, government agencies are rationing it towards emergency vehicles. Literally the entire country is slowly freezing. My boyfriend only has enough gas til the weekend, if this situation hasn’t been solved until then, he can’t go to work. A lot of people are in the same situation. I cant be sure if I am able to get on a bus, but chances are, in a few days I won’t even be able to leave my fucking house lmao this is absolute chaos, I have never seen anything like this and it’s looking like this shit won’t be settled anytime soon because the employers absolute refuse to negotiate with the Union that set up the strike. Literally employers do not care that an entire country is frozen, with nothing, not even ambulances, and all because apparently they refuse to pay a little more than 600€

[momo-de-avis]

The entirety of Algarve is on the verge of touristic collapse. An entire region hasn’t got a single drop of gas, thousands of tourists stranded because they can’t fly home and cancellation after cancellation from others who refuse to come to this mess right now. I admit I never imagined the monumental impact gas has on our lives but it’s been a eye-opening experience

[natsukachie]

This is all true! And let me add another perspective.

My mom works in a retirement home. Half of her staff isn’t coming to work because they live halfway across the district, food isn’t coming because their cars have no gas.They still have enough for a week but yeah… And they were already understaffed.

My stepdad’s family owns a drinks distribution company (water, soda, milk) and their trucks also have barely any gas left so a lot of restaurants and cafés have started to suffer from them not being able to meet their needs.

[momo-de-avis]

LITERALLY EVERY INDUSTRY IN THE COUNTRY HAS STOPPED AND ALL BECAUSE A FEW PRIVATE COMPANIES REFUSE, ABSOLUTELY REFUSE, TO PAY MORE THAN MINIMUM WAGE TO THEIR WORKERS YAY CAPITALISM

[random-tuga-em-londres]

My flight to portugal is tomorrow … I guess I’ll walk to setubal then lol

[momo-de-avis]

If you take the train you’re safe. I think you should be able to make it from the airport and back if you take the subway and the train, but like it could be REALLY packed….

[momo-de-avis]

Info in english and more

[luckychrm]

https://www.google.pt/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-europe-47960359

https://www.google.pt/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/portugal-fuel-strike-petrol-flight-delay-disruption-airport-travel-a8873986.html%3famp

Even though is more of the same thing, there are two more links in english about what the fuck is going on in portugal

Portuguese fuel strike hits air passengers and drivers

At least four easyJet flights were forced to refuel en route between the Algarve and UK

Strike leads to fuel shortages across Portugal

Two days of action by tanker drivers leads to fears of nationwide disruption ahead of the Easter break.

[ultrafacts]

In 2009, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania stated that Australian wallabies had been found creating crop circles in fields of opium poppies, which are grown legally for medicinal use, after consuming some of the opiate-laden poppies and running in circles

In case anyone is wondering, here is what said crop circles look like.

(Fact Source)

Follow Ultrafacts for more facts

[wemblingfool]

Of all potential Crop Circle explanations, I don’t thing *anyone* saw “stoned wallabies” as a candidate, let alone the likely suspect.

[essentiallymediocre]

Let’s just take a minute.

[matan-matika]

Logarithm multiplication

The main reason that logarithms are such an integral part of the history of math is how they made computation a lot faster.

Let’s go over a few important facts about computing addition and multiplication:

1) If two numbers’ decimal representations have n digits, then adding them takes O(n) steps and multiplying them takes O(n2) steps.

2) For all positive real numbers x and y, log(x)+log(y)=log(x·y)

These combine to make something really shocking: if you can find logarithms and exponents (their inverse) fairly quickly, then it is quicker to do exp(log(x)+log(y)) than it is to directly do x·y

So, before there was a quick way to compute logs and exponents, people would have long books and reference tables of the values of the function, which are not hard to look up since everything is in a nice order.

There is a way to get this even faster.

To add two positive numbers, you can think of them as lengths, and just put them next to each other to find their sum.

Because it involves measurement, this process trades the accuracy of the algorithm for speed, since the time to add this way is about constant.

If we then add the logs of the two numbers on a log scale instead of on a regular scale…

…we get even faster multiplication.

This is the basis for the slide rule, which was used before mechanical calculators were big.

[napqueenfitblr-deactivated20190]

If you wanna be healthier, there’s no magical date or day or time. Start now. Start tomorrow. Next week. Whenever. But start when you’re ready. And, if that means starting on a date, day, time that’s significant to you, do that. Start on your own terms.

[notorious-bee-comprised-entity]

(the anon that asked acti-veg about vitamins) thanks for sharing links for the vitamins!! I'm gonna order those ones, thanks!! ♥

As usual I’m days late to my notifications lmao BUT thank you for letting me know, I’m glad that helped!!

[the-real-numbers-deactivated202]

Hell world

[yesterdaysprint]

The San Francisco Examiner, California, February 25, 1935