Applied Passion

Into darkness, into danger, into storms that rip the night... Are there mountains that surround us? Are there walls that block the way? Knock 'em down, strip 'em back, boys and forward and into the fray! Would-be-Hugger of Sith and lapsed Whovian Also: several flavors of Star Trek; occasionally Top Gear; Discworld; Victor Hugo; various takes on Holmes; and an additional assortment of intriguing ideas.

[rugessnome]

heptarch of just. putting Tyrious in a room and they talk treason. or trauma.

[importantcatpics]

[godsfavoritespecialangel]

The chances of your fish committing credit card fraud is low, but never 0

[tuxankhamun]

[bugshroom]

you have only experienced one singular lame as fuck blunt rotation in your life or what… “safety tips” is killing me Who does that. ykw actually everyone in this blunt rotation is my nightmare blunt rotation.

[untitledrockshow]

dream blunt rotation

[krakensdottir]

Pretty sure cowardice is a social construct, and we've just kind of willed ourselves into believing bravery and self-sacrifice are the human default.

Like it can be if it's something that matters to you. You might not even give it a thought then. But 9 times out of 10, running away from the bad situation is the smart and normal thing to do.

I hear about a character showing cowardice and I look and they're literally just fleeing a bad situation. 'That chickenshit took off as soon as the bullets started flying' Yeah? Obviously? Why didn't you?

Maybe it's like romance, and it's just one of those things I fundamentally can't grasp even though everyone else seems to know it when they see it. But it honestly feels like something that was invented by military recruiters to convince people that self-preservation is for pussies.

[darth-occlus-deactivated2019050]

Are there botanists in Star Wars who take advantage of space and artificial/controllable gravity to make plants do weird things with their stems? Like making trees continually confused about where “up” is and thus being able to make like… super complex trunk and branch patterns?

[whatthefoucault]

A very long time ago, someone asked if I'd ever painted the little boys from Star Trek Deep Spae Nine, and since I hadn't, I IMMEDIATELY NEEDED TO CORRECT THIS because I love them. So here's the Noh-Jay Consortium on a day off from their busy schedule of shenanigans.

[luminarai]

Oh nooo I hadn’t noticed that my cat’s automatic feeder was getting low on food so as usual she dashed off when she heard the machine start but I couldn’t hear the usual sound of her food falling into the bowl so I went to look and my poor cat was just. Sitting there. Staring at her empty food bowl. Then for a second she glanced up at me then right back to her bowl with the biggest, saddest, most bewildered eyes you could ever imagine on such a small creature. I filled her bowl and the machine right away ofc but I still feel a little guilty 😭

[luminarai]

Quick artist’s rendition

[luminarai]

HOW did this get this many notes in less than 24 hours?????

Also, in case anyone was worried, rest assured mim the local void is missing no meals

[aromanticduck]

Everything is either a false dichotomy or a true dichotomy.

[rugessnome]

everything is either a dichotomy or NOT a dichotomy

[haru-dipthong]

Did you know that the english word “star” and the japanese word 星（ほし）don’t actually mean the same thing?

Language does not simply name pre-existing categories; categories do not exist in 'the world'

— Daniel Chandler, Semiotics for Beginners

I read this quote a few years ago, but I don’t think I truly understood it until one day, when I was looking at the wikipedia article for “star” and I thought to check the Japanese article, see if I could get some Japanese reading practice in. I was surprised to find that the article was not titled 「星」, but 「恒星」, a word I’d never seen before. I’d always learnt that 星 was the direct translation for “star” (I knew the japanese also contained meanings the english didn’t, like “dot” or “bullseye”, but I thought these were just auxiliary definitions in addition to the direct translation of “star” as in "a celestial body made of hydrogen and helium plasma").

To try and clear things up for myself, I searched japanese wikipedia for 星. It was a disambiguation page, with the main links pointing to the articles for 天体 (astronomical object) and スター（記号）(star symbol). There was no article just called 「星」.

It’s an easy difference to miss, because in everyday conversation, 星 and star are equivalent. They both describe the shining lights in the night sky. They both describe this symbol: ★. They even both describe those enormous celestial objects made of plasma.

But they are different - different enough to not share a wikipedia article. 星 is used to describe any kind of celestial body, especially if it appears shiny and bright in the night sky. “Star” can be used this way too (like Venus being called the “morning star”), but it’s generally considered inaccurate to use the word like this, whereas there is no such inaccuracy with 星. You can say “oh that’s not actually a star, it’s a planet”, but you CAN’T say 「実はそれは星ではなく惑星だよ」 (TL: that’s not actually a hoshi, it’s a planet). A planet IS a 星.

星 is a very common word, essentially equivalent to “star”, but its meaning is closer to “celestial body”. I haven’t looked into the etymology/history but it’s almost like both english and japanese started out with a simple, common word for the lights in the sky - star/星 , but as we found out more about what these lights actually were, english doubled down on using the common word for the specific scientific concept, while japanese kept the common word generic and instead came up with a new word for the more specific concept. If this is actually what happened, I’d guess that kanji probably had something to do with it - 星 as a component kanji exists inside the word for planet, 惑星, and in the word for comet, 彗星, and in the scientific word for “star”, 恒星, so it makes sense that it would indicate a more general concept when used standalone.

This discovery helped me understand that quote - categories don’t exist in the world, we are the ones who create them. I thought that the concept of “star” was something that would be consistent across all languages, but it’s not, because the concept of “star” is not pre-existing. Each language had to decide how to name each of those similar star-like concepts (the ★ symbol, hot balls of gas, twinkling lights in the sky, planets, comets, etc), and obviously not every language is going to group those concepts under the same words with the same nuance.

Knowing this, one might be tempted to say that 恒星（こうせい） is the direct translation for “star”. But this isn’t true either. In most of the contexts that the word “star” is used in english, the equivalent japanese will be simply 星. Despite the meanings not lining up exactly, 星 will still be the best translation for “star” most of the time. This is the art of translation - knowing when the particulars are less important than the vibe or feel of a word. For any word, there will never be an exact perfect translation with all the same nuances and meanings. Translation is about finding the best solution to an unsolvable problem. That's why I love it.

[cosmonautroger]

capybara

[moniquill]

Guinea big.

[uncahier]

[paladin-n-cleric]

what are you wearing rn and is it representative of your style

[yesornopolls]

Do you think it is safe to walk around at night in your neighborhood?

(sent the previous ask too early, sorry!! -.-)

Do you think it is safe to walk around at night in your neighborhood?

Yes

No

Remaining time: 14 hours 53 minutes

[robotslenderman]

The recent hot VS cold polls have made me realise that a lot of people have no idea how to cool down.

As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:

WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!

Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.

In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.

Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.

Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.

Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.

Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.

If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.

Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.

Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.

Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.

Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.

If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.

Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.

Also keep in mind that the skinnier you are, the faster these will work. More fat means more insulation, means more heat, so you may need to be more patient with some of these or use them in combination.

[robotslenderman]

Bringing this back for my dying mutuals

[boatcats]

These! And do not treat possible heat exhaustion/heat stroke with a cold shower or bath. The shock to your system will be. Very Bad. Hospital Now levels of Very Bad.

Info on heat exhaustion

Also, on an unrelated to heat exhaustion note, if you have a freezer... freeze pops are fun!

[dduane]

Nasty and sophisticated scam: BEWARE of this!

That "Pending PayPal Charge" Email Is a Scam — Even Though It Really Came From PayPal

If an email recently landed in your inbox with a subject line like "Pending charge of USD 987.90 for account activation. Questions? Call 855

Don’t get caught off guard by this. It’s quite a slick one.

[kerryweaverlesbian]

What to actually do If you get one of these, the answer is boring and it works every time: Don't call the number. Don't reply. Don't click links in the email — not even the unsubscribe link. Open a fresh browser tab, type paypal.com yourself, and log into your account. Check your activity. You'll see either nothing, or a tiny incoming payment from a stranger that you can ignore. Then forward the original email as an attachment to [email protected] and delete it. If you want to go a step further, report the phone number to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov — every report makes it slightly harder for these operations to keep running. And if you've already called? Don't beat yourself up — these scams are designed by professionals to fool smart people. Hang up, run a malware scan if you installed anything they asked you to install, change your PayPal and bank passwords from a different device, and call your bank's real fraud line (the number on the back of your card) to flag your accounts. Move fast, but you don't need to panic.

from the above linked article. For the UK the email to forward phishing scams to is [email protected], texts can be forwarded on to 7726 (for free!) and as a victim of fraud you can report it here (or here for Scotland)

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

— If an email recently landed in your inbox with a subject line like "Pending charge of USD 987.90 for account activation. Questions? Call [phone]" — don't call that number. Don't click anything. And whatever you do, don't panic-dial to "stop the charge."

You're being targeted by one of the cleverest scams going right now, and the reason it works is uncomfortable: the email genuinely came from PayPal.

The trick is in the subject line, not the email

When most people think "phishing email," they picture sketchy senders, broken English, and links to weird domains. This scam is the opposite. The email passes every authenticity check — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, all green. It comes from PayPal's actual mail servers. The fonts are right. The footer is right. The unsubscribe link works. If you forwarded it to a security expert and asked "is this really from PayPal?" they'd have to say yes.

So how is it a scam?

Scammers have figured out that PayPal lets anyone send small amounts of money to anyone else, and that PayPal will dutifully email the recipient a notification. The scammer sends you a payout of, say, one Hungarian forint — about a quarter of a cent. PayPal's system then automatically generates and sends you a real, legitimate, fully-authenticated email confirming the transaction.

Here's the catch: the email's subject line is whatever the scammer typed when they set up the payout. PayPal doesn't sanitize it. So they write something terrifying like "Pending charge of USD 987.90 — call this number with questions" and PayPal's servers cheerfully deliver that subject line straight to your inbox, wrapped in a perfectly legitimate-looking notification.

The actual transaction in the email body is for 1 forint. There is no $987.90 charge. There never was. But by the time most people read carefully enough to notice that, they've already dialed the number. —

[bitchesgetriches]

Might be time to update our master list of scams...

10 Ways to Spot Financial Scams and How to Defend Yourself

[bramblepatch]

So like. What was going through Cobra Bubbles' head the first time he encountered Stitch?

He's trying to conduct a home visit. It's not going well. The last visit didn't go well. It's becoming more and more clear that he's probably going to have to separate this little girl from her only living relative, which he doesn't want to do. Nani's not helping her own case, and he's coming down pretty hard on her. And then suddenly this bizarre little blue creature pops up and flings a heavy book directly at his face. The sisters insist it's a dog, but it doesn't look, sound, or behave like any dog.

The thing is, Agent Bubbles knows about aliens. He knows for a fact that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists and that it knows about Earth. And yet he doesn't challenge the idea that Stitch is a dog or try to either immediately remove Lilo or demand that Stitch be sent away. He does specifically tell Lilo that the next time he sees Stitch he expects Stitch to be "a model citizen." Not under control or well trained, a model citizen.

Is he hoping that Stitch is a solution here? That this alien creature that, arguably, attacked him in defense of the Pelekai sisters, might represent a useful element of their support system if better socialized?

[bravelion96]

I'm not sure what's funnier, if he thinks Stitch is a low paperwork solution to not having to separate Lilo from Nani, or if his focus shifts to "This child with turbo autism may be the only thing able to control that thing without military intervention"

[lyricwritesprose]

I find it fascinating that Cobra Bubbles is initially presented as sort of a very mundane version of a "Man in Black," that is, a figure from the government who is antagonistic and threatening because of the authority he can wield and his position in the narrative, not necessarily because of any personal malice on his part. (I think there was a writer in an RPG book I once read who pointed out that Men in Black is not so much a defined thing as a person in a role who can push you around and make you do things you don't want to.) So we've got the mundane threat juxtaposed with the fantastic and you would almost expect them to resolve on two different levels, except—no, Bubbles isn't like an MiB, he is an MiB. Retired.

(He is also a galactic-level bullshit artist, in that he apparently saved the Earth by claiming that mosquitos are endangered. I mean, that's some brilliance. Because if it was like, cheetahs or something, they could always claim that the statutes only apply to Africa and wipe us out down the road if cheetahs do go extinct, but virtually anywhere on Earth, there is a very strong chance you can point to a stagnant puddle and be like, "Fuck off, ET, that's mosquito habitat." 10/10, no notes.)

[alexaloraetheris]

Cobra Bubbles is definitely a retired Man in Black, (probably called B), and I kinda imagine this is how it went

Cobra: Retirement, huh? Well, I've done enough for alien welfare, now it's time to focus on my own species. Being a social worker is basically like being a Man in Black, except for humans instead of aliens. They're even offering me a position in Hawaii. And everyone knows there are no aliens on Hawaii. Plus, if I accept the position on some of the smaller islands, I can have a smaller number of cases and really give my full attention to those that need my help. Yes, that's exactly the sort of easy retirement gig for me.

Stitch:

[anthonycolonthree]

(guy who's not getting anything done voice) I need to learn every skill and all information