hi.

29. I left tumblr for a while but came back to look at all my hyperfixations. personal posts/contributions are tagged "sam has decided it's open mic night on tumblr dot com"

[cosmoseinfeld]

[argumate]

instead of "people pleaser" it might be better to think "disapproval fearer" if that's the emotional stick that's motivating action; important to consider at least three reasons to do something:

it's a good thing to do

I want to do the thing

people will be mad if I don't do the thing

and if 3. is the most weighty reason then that's a potential problem.

[specialagentartemis]

Character has a PhD: they’re really smart and knowledgable about their field!

Character has 2 PhDs: either they did a dual degree program and are braggy about it, had a life-changing experience after their first degree and pivoted their whole career, or they find the structure of being a PhD student, despite all its stress, more comfortable and familiar than the stress of finding a Real Job and have a very indulgent advisor.

Character has 3 PhDs: who keeps accepting them to PhD programs. Either this person needs psychological help or their department needs to be investigated for its academic standards. Probably both

Character has 4+ PhDs: if they aren’t an undercover vampire or something then no they don’t lol

[specialagentartemis]

#this is why martin dubois weirds me out #who let him get phds in physics chemistry AND biology #does he have any industry experience at all

Funny enough this post was prompted by learning this fact about book!DuBois. Looking at Andy Weir saying “Dr. DuBois has three PhDs” straight in the face and going. Dude. No He Doesn’t.

The favorites people are tagging here include Bruce Banner (7 PhDs), Engineer Team Fortress 2 (11 PhDs), and Stanford Pines (12 PhDs), and like, of course that is not how it works, that is not how anything works, but they come from cartoony universes that operate on cartoon logic. Looking at TF2 and going “that’s not how that works” is not the point of it.

Andy Weir is supposedly trying really hard to make everything in his books realistic, or at least plausible. That’s his whole schtick! This is a world meant to be taken seriously! But his aversion to learning/acknowledging how human social institutions work in the name of Not Being Political™ produces some real howlers that are impossible to take seriously. Eva Stratt’s “I can do what I want” permit is the famous one, and the idea that Grace got a personal attack paper petty enough to end his career through peer review really strains credulity to me, but DuBois’s three PhDs in very closely related fields is another. That’s just not how PhD programs work. This is not about any given character’s capability, this is about how PhD programs are not things you just keep adding to like that—once you have one, you go on to do research, write research papers and monographs, not more PhDs. Your PhD already proves you know how to do research! That’s the point of it, you don’t go prove it again, and any subsequent PhD program you apply to will seriously question why exactly you want to! Weir presumably wants to convey that DuBois is both very smart and very accomplished, that Project Hail Mary recruited the best of the best. Instead I look at this and go “this is a fake character and Andy Weir does not know what he’s talking about” and it breaks my suspension of disbelief.

If I was inventing this character and wanted to immediately convey that he was incredibly smart, accomplished, and the best of the best, I’d say DuBois has a dual PhD in biology and chemistry, and Grace recognizes him as the guy who got a MacArthur fellowship after winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry two years ago. A dual degree, a MacArthur Fellowship, a Nobel Prize, several dozen published papers (or even better, a paper that Grace has cited at some point!), these are the kinds of markers anyone serious would give DuBois that actually convey what I assume Weir was going for, that “three PhDs” does not.

[the-hwaelweg]

Sometimes I have what I call "New Towel Blindness," which is basically where I forget I'm an adult with adult money that I can exchange for goods and services I would like, like say new towels instead of continuing to use my grandparents' hand-me-down towels they gave me when they downsized and I was in college.

And it is definitely one of those things exacerbated by growing up poor and then being a super poor twentysomething, but I think it's something many of us fall into.

Anyway today I bought a bra that doesn't cause my boobs physical pain, a purse in my style instead of continuing to use the poorly sized not-my-style purse I'd been gifted, and joined a gym because I remembered I can just give someone money in exchange for them teaching me how to lift weights instead of thinking "gosh strength training would be good to do as my body ages I wish I knew how."

[ekjohnston]

Sheets, towels, PILLOWS (omg REPLACE YOUR PILLOWS), socks, doormats, tea towels, bras, cutlery (sometimes)

[vinceaddams]

At my previous apartment I spent months plugging in my bedside lamp every night and unplugging it the next morning because using the nearest plug made the cord stretch across the middle of the room. Then I remembered extension cords exist and I went and got one for $5 and it was great.

Sometimes you don't even need to spend money to improve things, they just need to be rearranged! At my current place I don't like setting my water glass down on the hard stone bathroom counter top, so I'd been balancing it on a tin of ointment, but then I remembered I have coasters.

[vinceaddams]

A while ago the handle broke off a bottle of cleaning solution, and I spent multiple cleaning sessions painstakingly trying to line up the broken nub with the place it's supposed to press and juust managing to get it to spray. Recently I remembered I can pour the stuff into a new empty spray bottle from the dollar store! Wow!

[sam-sometimes-wise]

^^^ I've been sitting on this problem for ages because I knew there had to be some intermediate solution between "Do complicated spray bottle surgery on a thing covered in hazardous liquid" and "throw it out", lmao.

Voila! Thank you!

[halondrus]

[what-even-is-thiss]

don’t ask me why but I’m thinking of a version of Rapunzel with extremely curly hair that extends like a slinky or something

yeah I know that’s not how physics work but I’m thinking about it anyways

[sam-sometimes-wise]

she changes her mind about the prince halfway through so she just moves her head

he has to bounce

[lesbianshepard]

99% of all murders committed by women in ancient greek plays are completely justified

[lesbianshepard]

[ikariyuiofficial]

[ottermatopoeia]

Clytemnestra: crack? Is it crack you smoke?

[totearup]

After the wedding (and all of Ilya’s citizenship paperwork is secure so that a name change won't fuck everything up) their legal names are Hollander-Rozanov but they keep them the same for hockey to avoid confusion.

However, Ilya starts this bit where whenever someone at practice or at an event calls for Hollander he acts like he thought they were calling for him, usually saying something like "you said Hollander! I am a Hollander!" And it's so stupid but Shane is charmed and amused every time, and he starts doing the same thing when people say Rozanov.

Eventually the team just starts using their numbers to refer to them, and Ilya follows one time when Wiebe calls for "24" because "I am a 24 by marriage!" And the whole team groans at them and someone throws a ball of tape at Ilya's head.

[vyva-melinkolya]

Don’t make your younger self into your own dead wife.

[sam-sometimes-wise]

as a woman I just interpreted this as "don't die" at first and I was like "that's solid advice"

[recoiled4]

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

free-to-use “the only ship that is bad is censorship” badge

—> “proship & proud” badge

—> “no censorship allowed” badge

[axoliam]

bud you disabled comments

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

I disabled my comments section because it was full of bots trying to scam people

how someone sets their boundaries has absolutely nothing to do with censorship.

censorship is when someone tries to control other people what they can or can’t create and consume.

censorship is not about a random person disabling their own comments section for whatever reason. censorship is not about people blocking other people on social media as their way of setting boundaries and curating their internet experience. censorship is not about disrespecting other people’s boundaries and censorship is not about tolerating it when other people disrespect you or your boundaries.

so your comment is entirely irrelevant to the point. I say censorship is bad. you say but the sky is not green.

[wobubling]

girl with hair that glows like the sun vs girl whose hair sparkles like stars vs girl with hair like a black hole

[sam-sometimes-wise]

(just doing my thing, taking videos and hoarding images)

google, unasked: IF YOU DO NOT START PAYING US THREE DOLLARS A MONTH FOR MORE STORAGE YOUR PHONE WILL STOP BACKING UP. PEOPLE WILL DIE, PRACTICALLY. WE WILL JUMP INTO THE SUN

me: do a flip

[lixel-5]

the eridian welcoming committee about to do irreversible damage: dude i just found a new human idiom to use with grace

[sam-sometimes-wise]

grace, who is both used to and loving this shit: what the hell did they come up with this time

[rikacreature]

when u have the correct number of cinderblocks in ur enclosure

[valtsv]

me: BRING OUT THE DEATH RAY!!!

*my henchmen wheel a large glass tank containing a tiny stingray into the room*

[valtsv]

captive hero: aww!

me: QUIET! this is the deadliest ray known to man. one milli milli milligram of poison from its sting is enough to stop a grown man's heart in under a minute! and he answers only to me! behold your DOOM!

stingray: *nudges my hand*

me, getting down on my knees in front of the tank so i can look him in the eyes: Mortimer, please. i'm trying to be intimidating here.

[valtsv]

you will

[willjulep]

Prince whose noblest knight keeps insisting that he would throw himself upon his own blade to bleed himself dry of sin should his liege request it has to reassure concerned citizens, "I've never asked him to do that."