[resalination]

I’m much more active on my fandom sideblog, so if you’ve gotten a follow or a bunch of likes from me and aren’t sure why, it’s probably because of that (:

NSFW content tagged with NSFW or NSFT.

This post is tagged with my own archival tags I use for tracking/theme purposes, as well as divider credits.

DNI: Zionists, TERFs, SWERFs, antisemites, white supremacists, bigots of any form.

[captain-price-returns]

Alan Moore in the Observer Q&A today

[dog-of-ulthar]

Wait but tell me more, what kind of math does our godforsaken measuring system make sense for? I'm horribly curious!

oh dear oh boy okay, I've tried to explain this to people and had them just get more annoyed, so I'll give it a shot, but no promises that it will make any sense. Disclaimer also that I don't really know what I'm talking about, I've just done a lot of baking, and ages ago I read something by Plato explaining why the musical scale is how it is, and I'm extrapolating from the two

(wow this turned out way longer than I meant it to because IT'S MIDNIGHT)

the metric system is a base 10 system, like most modern human math, so it is easy to use in the way people tend to do math these days - ie, by sitting down with either a piece of paper or a calculator and doing sums. It's a good system for a lot of things, especially scientific applications where you need to be VERY precise and don't want to waste time converting units, and need to do shit like calculus. It's a highly rational way of doing it...if you are literate.

if you aren't literate, or are less literate, it's not a sensible way to construct a measuring system at all. If you measure something and come up with 367.45 cm, that's nothing. You're going to forget it, and you can't easily divide it by anything, there's no way to go from here

But consider the English Foot. We've all been working with a base 12 system without realizing it, and without really utilizing it for what it's best for, which is easy mental division. This is where people get mad at me, they say math all gets terrible and ugly when you do it in feet, you end up trying to figure out how many sixteenths of an inch 0.135 is, or you end up with repeating decimals, and it all sucks super bad. To this I say yes, it does, because you're thinking like a modern algebra student, and not like a medieval bricklayer.

The base 12 system of the traditional English foot is fantastic for mental math, because 12 is a highly divisible number. It's easily divisible into halves, thirds, quarters, and sixths by most people in their heads. The inch is then typically divided into 1/16ths, which *super* suck to deal with on a calculator, but are really quite friendly if you just keep them as fractions like God and the Magna Carta intended. This is the kind of math most artisans need to do. You want supports placed evenly along a wall, to divide a piece of fabric in half, or to double a recipe. Nobody 1.7x's a recipe. Metric would be great for that, but why would you do that? It wouldn't be worth the math involved.

And listen, I also use a lot of metric baking recipes. Everything is in grams, you can measure everything the same way, and it's super accurate. They're great if you have a digital scale, but before the age of digital scales? Unfathomable. You (a medieval peasant) have a cup you've decided is The Cup, and sometimes you put in a half or a third or a quarter of that cup. THAT makes sense. Also, it's a lot easier to double something that calls for 1 cup of flour than it is when it calls for 136 grams of flour, and this is for me, a person who learned math in the typical modern way and always has a calculator in their pocket. I would have the sourdough recipe I make every week memorized if it wasn't in fucking grams. I DO have my pie crust recipe memorized. For every cup of flour you put in a third of a cup shortening, one tablespoon of butter, and start with 3 tablespoons of water (and a dash of salt). A double crust pie takes about 3 cups of flour, so that's one cup shortening. Easy! A third of a cup of shortening in grams is 68.3333333. That's nothing! That's garbage!

"Wouldn't it be more accurate to measure 68.3333333 grams, though?" Sure, but the amount of wet indigence you need to put in any baked thing changes with the fucking weather! That's why this recipe says "start with 3 tbs water." There's no need to be more accurate, and in fact it would make things more difficult.

Okay that turned into a tangent about how to make pie crust, a thing I think everyone should learn because pie crust is delicious, but i hope you get the idea. TLDR sometimes you just want to divide things in thirds and have it not suck ass. The eldritch sigil of measurement conversions is a little less threatening if you realize every step up or down is a factor of thirds or fourths

fuck oh no another half remembered piece of pop science coming at you - the largest number a typical human can hold in their head *without language* is 3. You don't need numbers to count to three, you don't need to count to be aware of three, you can just see three things and say "that's three." Don't believe me? That's the whole basis of Roman numerals. The numbers 1-3 are representational, after that they get more symbolic, and you never end up with more than three of the same symbol in a row. After III comes IV, not IIII, and it's just that III is much easier on the brain. For the same reason, a lot of English conversions are in factors of 4. There are 4 cups in a quart, and 4 quarts in a gallon, so you're only dealing with measurements that are easy to hold in your head without counting. You never have to count out 4 cups if you convert. You either need 3 cups or 1 quart. Does that make sense? Anyone who has done Big Cooking should know that if you have to count cups beyond 3 or 4 it becomes very easy to lose track.

Now i'm not saying it's all logical. It would be great if every step was a factor of 4, but they had to get fancy and throw pints in there. Pints aren't too bad, that's a factor of two, but I'll be the first to admit that it makes no sense for one tablespoon to equal three teaspoons instead of four. But because this is a system that evolved over time instead of being constructed intentionally, you have to cut it some slack. I'm sorry to anyone who decided to read this, I should be in bed, but I actually care a lot about this and I swear it's not just stockholm syndrome from Being American

[songscloset]

This is the best explanation of this system that I've ever seen and I'm so grateful to have found it, because now I can shove it into the face of every person who whines at me about preferring Imperial measurements for cooking.

[elfwreck]

Pound cake, traditional recipe:

1 pound flour. 1 pound butter. 1 pound sugar. 1 pound eggs. (Roughly 8-9 eggs.)

Nobody is going to make 450g cake.

Also:

Teaspoons used to be 1 fluid dram, which is 1/4 of a tablespoon, or 1/8 of an ounce. This was a widely used apothecary's measurement - there are even smaller ones for medicinal purposes. (Scruples & grains are smaller than drams.)

In the 17th century, tea was EXPENSIVE in England, so tea spoons and tea cups were SMOL. However, in the late 18th century, the tax on tea dropped from 119% to 12.5%... so more people could afford tea, and tea-drinking accessories - the cups and spoons - got bigger. Eventually teaspoons stabilized at 1/3 of a tablespoon.

[dog-of-ulthar]

This is the only response to this bizarrely successful post that I care about

[venusimleder]

The Face, January 1998.

Ph. Mark Alesky

[artofmaquenda]

This is kind of a follow-up to my knotwork xenomorph metal pin I designed a while back. I’m hoping to turn this into shirts soon! :)

Prints are available: https://artofmaquenda.etsy.com/listing/4339055432/knotwork-xenomorph-print-alien-jonesy

[mollyvega]

These six beauties will be available in my Etsy shop today at 6:00 PM EST 

[ohmovie]

I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want.

Labyrinth (1986) dir. Jim Henson

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Ramona Zordini

Guideline Routine 41 Cyanotype, 2024

[resalination]

while i the claustrophobe would Actually Rather Kill Myself than go spelunking, there is nonetheless a deeply primal sort of lizard brain appeal to the idea of curling up in a pocket of snug cool dirt to chill and sleep. you always hear cavers talking about how great cave naps are well unfortunately i believe them. can you imagine how good you’d nap if you were cuddled into a cool dark earthy niche in that complete and total silence. me i wouldn’t last five seconds before hyperventilation due to remembering i was in fact underground. but isn’t it nice to imagine

[wumblr]

all of the numbers that are divisible by 17 sound so absurd. 51? 68? 85? ridiculous. 102? absolutely not. and don't even get me started on 119

[wumblr]

34 and 136 i can believe, but i feel like i shouldn’t. it’s 102 in a trench coat

[red-swimmerz-deactivated2021082]

did we just run out of posts to make

[wumblr]

no, i haven't made a post about every number yet

[swinginsportscutebasketball]

I'm sorry to let you know that 100,000,001 (one hundred million and one) is divisible by 17 and because of that, so is every 16-digit number that is four digits repeated four times e.g. 1234123412341234

[wumblr]

[babs-butterfly]

Seriously what is wrong with 17

[detailedart]

Saturn peeking behind the Moon, seen from the top of the Mauna Kea Volcana, in Hawaii, in September 2024. Do you realise a person on Earth took that picture. Wow.

[memories-of-ancients]

Happy Fall of Constantinople Day!!!

Oh my two days ago was the 29th I'm a bit late! Happy belated Fall of Constantinople Day!!!!

[coeuralacreme]

[jaybird-todds]

My mom died and I'm the one who is taking care of everything while my sister does fuck all with her new boyfriend and leaving her kids with my grieving step-dad.

I have to play the funeral and her cremation and pay for mini urns for her brothers and my stepdad and my nieces and my aunt and stepdad and sister--

I need some support to get the funeral shit done because I'm apparently the only one who can do it and I have no help,,,

Venmo - CashApp - PayPal

I'm tired. I haven't even cried yet.

[blessyouhawkeye]

the A plot of hockey in 2026 is your classic fight of good versus evil. the B plot of hockey in 2026 is macklin celebrini and nathan mackinnon doing the favourite 2017 to sidney crosby. the C plot of hockey in 2026 is jakub dobeš getting hit with one million hammers

[boringkate]

You listen to music regularly? Why? Have you even tried quitting? Could you quit? You get music stuck in your head? Wow. You're so ruined and music brained. I bet you make your partners listen to music with you when you have sex. Music addiction has really ruined a whole generation. You know it's not realistic to expect reverb in real life, right? You're probably so desensitized that you don't even feel anything anymore when you hear a bird singing that it wants some fuck.

[paradigm-adrift]

I don't have a problem with people listening to music per se, but I do have a problem with the music industry exploiting & mistreating artists.

Personally, I abstain from all music in order to keep my hands clean but really music should just be illegal outright to protect musicians from abuse.

[terramythos]

holy shit this person in the notes

[discodyke-dogthing]

[annabelle--cane]

stop. analyse that text through the lens of its author's intentions and original historical context. okay now take the author out back and kill them dead and analyse that text as though it were published by your mutual yesterday and is in direct conversation with the contemporary discourse that's most relevant to your life. okay now pick your favorite angle of interpretation and come up with the strongest possible argument against it. now imagine that the text is your best friend and that it means you well and that you naturally give it every benefit of the doubt because you're on its side and you want the best for it. now imagine that the text wants you dead and it'll eat you if you don't eat it first. now pretend that you found this text locked away in a cave with no evidence of when or where it came from and you have to divine its meaning solely through its internal coherence and nothing else. okay now address the elephant in the room aspect of the text you've been ignoring because you find it boring or confusing or uncomfortable and become the number one expert on it. now spend forty minutes assigning all the characters dnd classes with at least three sentences of reasoning each. okay now do the cha cha slide.