Orange Ninja

I'm Morgan. Hello. Mathematician. 21. UK. I can solve all your problems.

[mylittleredgirl]

I keep trying to like red wine like a grown-up but like … it’s rotten grapes, guys. You can drink things that don’t taste like rotten grapes. Why

[mycaptainsharon-deactivated2017]

Okay I don’t know when this post is from (I came across it stalking multiple blogs). But in case this might help, here is a brief science/wine lesson.

To start off, some facts:

-White wine is made from sweet pulp inside of the grape (minus the seeds).

-Red wine is made from both the skin and the grape (and the seeds and stems…sometimes? Can’t remember).

-Tannin is the substance found in red wines, coffee, dark chocolate. Tannins are responsible for the bitter taste in those foods.

-Tannins are found in the skin of the grape, as well as the seeds and the stems. Therefore, most red wines will have tannins, versus most whites will not have tannins.

-Red wines vary in level of tannins, depending on variety of grape, climate, and fermentation process. Pinot noir tends to be very low tannin. Shiraz/Syrah, choice of poison for our beloved brunette surgeon, is very heavy on the tannins.

-Some white wines (most commonly Chardonnay) are aged in oak barrels instead of metal containers. Oak barrels have tannins, which seeps into the wine during the fermentation process. That’s why Chardonnays tend to be “drier” aka it has tannins.

-White wines like Sauvingnon Blancs are usually fermented in steel barrels (aka no tannins. Aka usually very fruity and light and sweet).

Your ability to taste tannins is genetic.

There is a genetic marker determining whether your taste cells are sensitive to tannins.

Basically two people can drink the exact same wine and have wildly different reactions because: 1. Person A can’t taste tannins, so they taste the actual wine flavor. 2. Person B can taste tannins, and that tends to overpower ALL the other flavors in the wine. Basically all they taste is tannins and none of the wine.

I am super tannin sensitive, so if I drink a wine like Cabernet Sauvignon (very tannin heavy, aka “very dry”, it tastes like bitter ethanol alcohol to me, whereas my best friend can’t taste tannins so the same wine is maybe a little bitter but they can actually taste the grape and different flavors. To her, a wine like Sauv Blanc is too sweet, tastes like sugar water. But to me it tastes good.

So unless it’s the taste of the alcohol or all wines you hate, chances are you might hate the taste of red wine, especially the heavier red wines, because taste the tannin overpowers everything else. And all you taste is bitter bitter ethanol bitter more ethanol. 

More tannin info: -Tannins bind to fat.

-This is why tannin heavy wines are recommended with fatty foods (Shiraz and steak). Whenever you eat food with high fat content, the fat builds up on your tongue. A sip of red wine will bind with the fat on your tongue and clear it away. That’s why the sip of wine between bites of fat heavy foods is considered a palate cleanser.

-By that logic, this is why white wines are recommended with low fat foods, like fish. Salmon is fattier than most fish, which is why Chardonnay (tannin heavy white wine) or Pinot Noir (low tannin red wine) is recommended with salmon.

-People who are sensitive to tannins can drink tannin heavy red wines with fatty food and generally the wine won’t taste gross. The fat on your tongue (from that steak) will bind with the tannin and neutralize the tannin taste. Aka the only time I ever drink Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz is with a steak or heavy, creamy pasta. Aka never bc I don’t often eat either.

-The reason dairy helps coffee taste better is because the fat in milk/creams binds with the tannins in coffee and neutralizes the bitter taste. This is why people who can’t taste tannins can generally drink coffee black without milk (sugar is a different story). It’s also why almond milk in coffee is the worst idea (almond milk is already bitter and has no fat).

More wine facts: -90% of the “aromas” of wine are marketing BS

-You know the labels that say like “cherry with a hint of blackberry?” There’s no real way to infuse cherry or blackberry into grape wine without screwing with the fermentation process. It’s all created by the wine marketing industry to sell you win. Sometimes if you smell cherry before you drink the wine, you might taste it in the wine (because majority of flavor comes from smell). Or if you think there is cherry flavor in the wine, your brain can trick your taste buds into tasting it.

-The only true flavors found in real grape wine are grapes (obviously), oak/earthy flavor (the barrels), vanilla (barrels, oak sticks), tannins. (There are a few others but can’t remember. I think maybe cinnamon?).

-People’s perception of wine often affect how good it tastes to them. Social psychology studies show that people will rate the exact same wine differently if they’re told the wines are different in price. (They rated the more expensive wine as tastier).

tl;dr Whether you can taste tannins is genetic. Exact same wines taste different for different people depending on your genetic makeup. If you’re sensitive to tannins, red wines won’t taste like anything other than bitter alcohol. Genetics/tannins are why people generally have preferences for red or whites.

[mylittleredgirl]

this is extremely informative and i have learned a thing about myself, which is that i CLEARLY inherited the tannin-tasting genes from my teatotaling mother and not from my dad who subsists entirely on espresso and cabernet sauvignon.

[immortalchild-deactivated201805]

honestly this just changed my life

[uninterruptednonsense]

@apteryxrowi likes wine and I hate it: science!

[quilld]

But you really didn't address the rotten grapes part

[biscuitsarenice]

imagine… Alma Deutscher: Finding Cinderella

Musical prodigy Alma Deutscher aged 11 (seen here with younger sister Helen), is staging her first full-length opera, Cinderella.

Composer, pianist, violinist… Alma learned to read music before she could read words. She began playing the piano aged two and at four years old she was composing her own music.

[gnars-house]

So like obviously this girl is super awesome but ALSO that is the coolest take on Cinderella I have EVER heard it’s giving me fucking chills

[quilld]

Wow.

[mentalflossr]

Mundal, Norway Is Home to More Books Than People

Books can be found in abandoned sheds and ferry waiting areas.

My kind of town.

[quilld]

I'm 100% certain that this applies to every western town, city or even village. Most people have at least one book tof their name... like why is this a revelation

[louisegluckpdf]

hey are y’all just straight lying about taz becoming heart-breakingly emotional? cause i’m like 20 episodes in and merle just dirty talked a plant

[louisegluckpdf]

nevermind i don’t remember what happiness is

[twocubes]

which is the best base?

In base 10, it’s easy to tell if things are multiples of 2 or 5. You just, look at the last digit, and if that’s a multiple of 2 (or 5) then the whole number is a multiple of 2 (or 5). There’s similarly easy ways to tell for any product of a power of 2 and a power of 5.

People sometimes argue that base 12 would be better than base 10 because in base 12, it’s easy to tell when things are divisible by 2 or 3 (or products of powers thereof) and multiples of 3 are more common than multiples of 5.

Ignoring briefly that you could say the same thing about base 6 this is all completely reasonable. It’s just that it misses something.

See, in base 10, there’s this trick that you can use to tell if something is a multiple of 3; what you do is you add up the digits, and if the thing at the end is a multiple of 3, then the whole thing was a multiple of 3 all along.

Is 2018 a multiple of 3? Well, 2+0+1+8 = 11, which isn’t a multiple of 3, so it isn’t. What about 20181201, today’s date but written as a big number? well, we have 2+0+1+8+1+2+0+1 = 15, which is a multiple of 3, so we indeed have that 20181201 is a multiple of 3.

There’s a more obscure trick to tell if a number is a multiple of 11. What you do is you alternatingly add and subtract the digits and check whether the thing at the end is a multiple of 11.

Is 2018 a multiple of 11? Well, 2-0+1-8 = -5 isn’t, so it isn’t. What about, 2321, the time that it is right now? well, 2-3+2-1 = 0 is, so it is.

But, like I said, that’s obscure, and the reason it’s obscure is that no one cares about 11. multiples of 11 are only 1/11ths of all the numbers, while multiples of 3 are 1/3rd, so obviously, people care more about the first than the second. The value of easily telling if a thing is divisible by 3 is 1/3, which is much larger than the value of being able to tell if a thing is divisible by 11, which is only 1/11.

But, ok, so it turns out that in general, in any base b, the 3s trick will work to tell when things are divisible by any factor of b-1, while the 11s trick will work to tell when things are divisible by any factor of b+1.

In fact, this allows us to do another trick: we can group digits! Basically, we take our number (let’s say 12345) in some base b, and then we can pretend that we’re in base b² by just… mushing the numbers together and thinking of it as 1′23′45, if you follow.

So, how do we tell if 34542 is a multiple of 101? well, we notice that 3 - 45 + 42 = 0, and thus we know that it is. (Frankly doing this with groups of digits or more is a pain so let’s just stay with groups of 2 digits) 

So, to find the best base b, what we want is to have as large a sum of the reciprocals of the distinct prime divisors of b, b-1, b+1, b²-1 and b²+1. But, also, since we don’t want to memorize multiplication and addition tables that are too large, let’s say that we don’t want any base that is larger than 20. So, with all that in mind, which is the best base? And the answer is…

13

we get 2 and 3 from 13-1 = 12, we get 7 from 13+1 = 14, we get 13 from 13 itself and we get 5 and 17 from 13²+1 = 170. This is better than any other base under 20.

strictly 21 is slightly better, since you get all those and also 11 from 21+1 = 22, but after that it doesn’t get any better until 34 (which only adds 89 from 34²+1 = 1157 = 13*89) but, I set the rules, so I’ll abide by them.

So, now you know. Have fun!

[bulbasaur-propaganda]

Only death separates a trainer and his Bulbasaur

Artist:  kusasugiruneko / Twitter

[quilld]

It's cartoons like this that make pets feel really underwhelming to me

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

“There is a copy of the NES game Golf in the firmware of every Switch system”

Me: Oh haha, what a weird thing, probably some remnant from the debugging process -

“Since that was a game that Satoru Iwata programmed himself, this could have been intended as a way of saying that Iwata is spiritually a part of every Switch and is watching over and protecting every system.”

Me:

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

Oh my God, so hackers have found out the way to enable you to play the game. You know how?

On July 11th*, the date of Iwata’s passing, doing Iwata’s “directly to you” motion with the Joy-Cons on the home screen will play a sound clip of Iwata and launch the game.

(* Before you try this yourself, note that simply changing the date on your system will not work, as this runs off the Switch’s internal internet-synced clock, meaning that changing the date manually will only work if the system has never been connected to the internet)

I… I can’t…

[lunarhalo24]

It goes even further than that.

Firstly, opening the game like this person is in the video is only possible with a brand new unit on system version 1.0.0 that has never been connected to the Internet. Because of this, opening it is pretty hard to replicate, unless if you have a completely brand new Switch. So, even if the system’s internal date is on July 11, it still won’t open if the system version is up to date.

The thing is, it’s not supposed to be opened.

The hidden Golf game has been described as an omamori, which, in Japanese culture, is a charm usually bought at shrines that offers spiritual protection and good luck if you keep it close to you. Sometimes they’re made of cloth, and look like a tiny bag, which can contain a written prayer. People often tie them to something like a purse or a backpack, so that it’s always with them. Here are a bunch of different ones:

Omamori are not supposed to be opened, as doing so is said to remove its blessing.

Seeing as the hidden Golf game on the Switch is so difficult to run under normal circumstances, it’s probably not supposed to be opened in the first place. It’s likely meant to represent an omamori in Iwata’s honor. Its very fitting, because of how portable the Switch is, since people are likely to take it with them like they would with an omamori strapped to a purse or backpack.

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

Hey, everyone. Since we’re now in July and this post is still making the rounds, I’m sure there are people who are going to want to try to activate the Golf game on their Switch on the 11th. So I wanted to provide an update to this:

All of the files of Golf in the Switch system were removed in an update back in late December.

As @lunarhalo24 helpfully pointed out, this inclusion of Golf in the Switch system was meant to be an omamori, a blessing from Iwata. And there’s another important cultural thing about omamori to note here:

An omamori’s blessing is only good until the end of the year, after which it expires and the omamori is traditionally disposed of in a sacred fire. So the files being deleted at the end of last year seems as though it was symbolic of the blessing’s time expiring.

So yes, there is now almost no way to actually access it. Because it was never meant to be accessed.

[diversegaminglists]

Reblogging because this is a really interesting way of combining tradition and technology in someone’s memory and as a good luck charm.

You can read more about the different kinds of omamori here.

[fandomsandfeminism]

I like this

[chaoticgood-queer]

Straight men who embrace their femininity, express emotions in a healthy way and help advocate for minority groups without speaking over them? Big dick energy.

[cyborg-and-the-chamber-of-chisme]

You mean

[hellokaren]

I’m on mobile so the pics won’t load but i know this has to be terry crews/jeffords

[majinneda]

I was listening to My Brother, My Brother and Me episode 97 from 2012, and this bit made me emotional:

Griffin: God damn, I miss Dungeons & Dragons.

Travis: Yeah…

Justin: Me too, man.

Travis: It’s a-it’s a good time.

Griffin: Can’t we start, like, a DnD podcast-

Travis: Sure!

Justin: Yeah!

Griffin: -so I have, like, an excuse to do this every week?

Justin: Why don’t we-

Travis: Is this something we can do over the internet?

Justin: Let’s just turn this dumb show into a weekly DnD session! *laughs* We don’t need to do advice anymore! *whispers* Let’s fucking go on a quest!

Travis: We can do DnD advice.

Griffin: Yeah.

Justin: That’s what our advice…we’ll roll for initiative…Hey, we should do that as…a, as a bonus episode. Instead of our current plan. Just play DnD together! *mutters* Make people listen to it.

Griffin: I mean, I got all the stuff, if we need it.

Justin: Eh, this is getting too close to reality.

Griffin: *laughs* I want it to be on reality! I want it to be on and in it.

Travis: Well…well, let’s think about it, and let’s not do anything too hasty. I don’t want to rush into it. And then later have to fake my own death.

[taz-quotes]

this was over 5 years ago… holy crap

[quilld]

I also listened to this episode this week! It's crazy how many old bits of mbmbam have appeared in taz since then too

[pokemon]

Humans. Pokémon. Ryan Reynolds.

Wait—Ryan Reynolds?!

Get ready for a Pokémon adventure like you’ve never seen before, Trainers—POKÉMON Detective Pikachu hits theaters in Summer 2019!

[geekstudio]

Okay when this was first announced I thought it was gonna be dumb but it actually looks awesome!

[quilld]

w.h.a.t

[berniesrevolution]

[tokupedia]

This whole bankruptcy thing was a money making scam by the suits who bought out the company back in the 2000s and ran it into the ground. 

Not only is the toy store brand not dead, but 30,000 people are now angry as this scheme blocked them out of severance pay and they are now unemployed and unable to return to work when they start up again.

Many toy companies including Hasbro are raising eyebrows at this, as the initial bankruptcy cost them millions of dollars in sales revenue and their stocks took a nasty hit (Mattel being the worst off from it, as Toys R Us closing compounded with steadily falling sales of their products). Advocates are calling this a “bad PR stunt” since the suits want the company to make sales for the holidays. 

Hopefully, this will cause enough of a stink to kill it off for good. I’d rather say goodbye Geoffrey as I knew him than have him come back as a reanimated corpse controlled by greedy hucksters who put thousands of people out of work for no other reason than to line thier own pockets and escape the consequences of their own failings.

[max-out-of-ten]

@nuber1gamer

[super256colors]

This one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen done by any company in years 

[mrevergood]

Seriously. Share this. Impact sales. I wanna see Toy’s R Us driven in the ground for this shit-fucking hard. No mercy, just good old fashioned, cutthroat capitalism where the market says “FUCK YOU” in bright neon letters…just like the greedy fucks who orchestrated this whole thing like-except they won’t like it when the “FUCK YOU” sign is for them.

[quilld]

 UGH GROSS

[thebibliosphere]

So my therapist has been helping me get to grips with my ADHD, and also the concept that I’m not shit at being an adult, I just can’t do things the way everyone has always told me to do them. Like every single “organize your life” books have always left me wanting to cry with frustration, and after I got hold of a copy of Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD by Susan Pinsky I realized that was because they primarily focus on “aesthetic” over “function”. And the function of most standard “organize your life books” is to “make things look Show Home Perfect”.

So the standard “hide all your unsightly things by doing xyz” may look nice for the first week or so, but by the end of the week it’ll look like a tornado made of pure inhuman frustration ripped through the house as I try to find the fucking advil.

To give you an example of the kind of hell I’ve been fumbling my way through the last 20 odd years: dishes will be washed and left in the drying wrack but never put away. Which means I can’t wash more dishes, which means dishes pile up, which means I can’t make food, which means I don’t eat, which means my CFS gets worse, which means I don’t have the energy to put the dishes away, and so on so forth until I have a meltdown, cry to ETD (who also likely has ADHD but has never had it confirmed) about how I can’t cope with life, and then we fix it for a while, but inevitably end up back at square one within about a week.

Pinsky’s solution to this was “remove an obstacle between you and your goal, if that means taking all the doors off your kitchen cabinets to make things easier, so be it.”

And lemme tell you, fucking revolutionary.

Laundry never ends up in the hamper??? why???? is it a closed hamper??? Remove the lid. Throw it out the window. Clothes are now miraculously finding their way into the hamper??? Rejoice????

Mail ends up spread out over every available flat surface? Put a sorting station right where your mail arrives. Put a shredder or “junk” basket under it. Shred or dump the junk immediately. Realize you only actually have two real letters that need attention, feel less overwhelmed, pay your bills on time.

Like I’m not saying this book is miraculous, but it did help me realize that I was effectively torturing myself by trying to conform to certain ideals of “perfect house keeping”, and presenting a certain image rather than just allowing myself to live in my space as effectively as possible. And why? Why was I doing that? Cause people with different lives and capabilities are perceived as the norm? Fuck that. If this was a physical problem I wouldn’t be forcing myself to conform to an ableist standard, so why am I doing it with this?

My lived space will never look a certain way, and that’s okay. It will never look show home perfect, and that’s okay. It will likely always be cluttered and eclectic where nothing matches, and that’s okay. Sometimes I will have odd socks on because sorting them out required too much mental energy, and that’s okay. Actually fuck sorting socks, just buy all your socks in the same color. Problem solved. Boring sure, but also one less thing to do, which means more time to hyper fixate on fun things. Which really, what else is my life for if not to write screeds and screeds of vampire shit posts, I ask you.

[quilld]

Thank you for this insight, it's given me perspective 

[hardlocke]

One thing I love about maths is how utterly divorced the concepts of “took a long time” and “is actually really difficult” are.

“It can’t be that easy,” says the history major in an effort to cheer up his maths friends, “if it’s taking you so long.”

“No no,” maintain the mathematicians, who have been trying to come up with a solution for four hours straight without success, “it really is an utter triviality. We just can’t figure it out right now.”

[quilld]

The common conflation of "easy" and "simple" is a devilish faux pas for a mathematician...

[kropotkhristian-deactivated2019]

I can’t believe this needs to be said, but the rich are not doing you a service by employing you. They require you. Everything they have is contingent on the fact that you work for them and do what they say. Without you, the rich have literally nothing. Workers have power over the entire economy.

It is actually workers doing a major service to their employers by not unionizing and not starting a revolution, since literally the only thing workers need to do to grind the entire economy to a halt is put their hands behind their back and stop working. That is it. Workers could crash the entire machine in one moment if they wanted.

Stop calling them “job creators.” They aren’t. They literally require you. But you dont require them. You are wealth creators. And you have the power to take it back whenever you want. You just have to organize.

[judiciousimprecation]

One of the most useful insights my father ever gave me was that “your employer owes you money”. At any given moment, you have done work that your employer has not yet written you a check for. They owe you money, and you owe them nothing

[sprmint-bkgsoda]

From the mouth of a One Percenter -

Abigail Disney

[mantaphase]

!!!!!!!!!!!

[marthawells-deactivated20181223]

“Yes, there is a superyachtinvestor.com. Go look at it and it will make you so angry, you could chew glass.”

[anarcho-smarmyism]

we stan class traitors on this blog

[cenobitic-anchorite]

Abigail Disney has no control or input on the operations of the corporation, she is a Disney heiress and, in that respect, nothing else. She puts her money towards philanthropy, especially women’s movements around the globe and peace organizations like Peace is Loud and the Global Fund for Women. She is a documentary filmmaker who explores these themes as well.

There are problematic family investments she earns money from that, legally, she cannot divest from. Instead, she donates these profits to charities that counter to those investments.

[wolverinedoctorwho]

Reblogging this version because I needed to read this after watching the video

[solvatochrome]

justin mcelroy opened a podcast recording studio open to the public for rent in huntington, to let people who may not have the equipment share their voices and tell stories that deserve to be told 

this man. is a good man. he is such a good good man

[questbedhead]

Here’s an article about it!!

[untitled55181]

That’s so cool!! And super affordable too! And he’s also teaching podcast classes?? Man if anyone would be qualified to teach podcasting skills it’s him, I’m glad he’s doing this!

[quilld]

Shame I can't read the article, but hype!!