slugs and bugs

[fleshadept]

you guys know you can get USB connectable CD, dvd, and blu-ray players right. and you can buy external hard drives with crazy amounts of space for an amount of money that would make the average person from 2009’s head explode bc of how cheap it is. and if you do this and get ripping software such as handbrake for CDs and DVDs and makeMKV for blurays you can both own a physical copy of whatever media you want and make it accessible to yourself no matter where you are. do you guys know this

[fleshadept]

lots of people are reblogging this and tagging it #piracy—i should clarify, this is not piracy! ripping DVDs and CDs to have your own copy is fully legal, because it’s your legal right to do what you will with your property individually. it only becomes illegal if you then distribute that file on the internet.

[detectivehole]

some of you are miserable because you're mean. like you're just mean to people and things

[detectivehole]

"why don't i have any friends" because you are mean

[detectivehole]

this can be fixed at least in part very easily though! just stop being mean. i believe in all of you 👍

[eeriedeer-deactivated20240803]

[clairelutra]

re-reblogging this with actual advice because sometimes it really isn't that self-evident how to Not Be Mean

DO

celebrate other people's good news (tell them that what happened was great, they earned/deserve it, you're happy for them, elaborate on how it's a good thing and why they deserve to be happy about it)

sympathize with other people's troubles (tell them what they're going through sucks, they did their best, point out that not all is lost (use examples of what they still have going for them) but it can still fucking suck)

react and ask questions related to what people say to you (ask for elaborations or explanations, ask about future plans, ask how things went before, relate the things they've said now to things they've said in the past, use their name sometimes, add your own (positive or neutral) perspective on the events, share related experiences)

if someone is instigating a fight or pissing you off, just walk away -- or, if it's all online, block them (it'll make you look better, i promise)

ask about their day/state and pay attention to what they say, and apply the first three as needed

snark or make jokes/puns, if you have them, and be willing to laugh at other people's jokes/snark/puns

share good events, interesting things, and the things that make you happy/excited (try not to 'qualify' these, i.e. add on reasons why you should be sad about the news, or why the news wasn't actually that great -- it's not the end of the world if you do, but it does defeat the purpose a bit)

share bad events or things you're unhappy about (it's important to open up, and it's unreasonable to expect yourself to be happy all the time; just make sure it's balanced out by the positives as well)

remember that nobody does things that are senseless, and the sooner you can figure out why someone is doing what they're doing, the easier it'll be to deal with and negotiate (common reasons for baffling or harmful actions are: distress, self-interest, misguided altruism, unquestioned biases, peer pressure, thoughtlessness)

keep in mind that everyone (including you) is doing their best at any given time, and sometimes that 'best' just isn't that good

TRY NOT TO

be harsh about or insult yourself (keeping in mind that that is taking side swipes at other people who have those traits, regardless of how you mean it)

point out why people should feel bad about the things they're happy about

ignore all the specifics of what the person you're speaking with is saying

spend a significant amount of time mocking other people (we all need to vent and we all have our moments; the operative word here is significant -- don't make it your personality)

put down to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity (don't assume someone is being cruel when they could just as well be doing it because they're dumb/oblivious)

dismiss or belittle other people's distress (it's not a competition, and their distress is real regardless)

dismiss or belittle other people's happiness or interest (it's not a competition, and their happiness is something you want in order to Not Be Mean)

(this is both non-exhaustive and not ironclad, simply a list of general things to aim for and skills to practice)

basically, 'people will largely stick by you through pretty dark shit if you make their lives brighter the rest of the time' is super legit and something to lean into

[clyobate]

Bulborb

Bulborbs (チャッピー?, lit.: "Chappy") are the most common, standard, and well-known enemies in the Pikmin games. They were originally called Spotty Bulborbs in Pikmin, and then Red Bulborbs in Pikmin 2, before being simply called Bulborbs in Pikmin 3 and later games. Due to their unparalleled prominence in the series as enemies, they are often just as much a staple for the games as the Pikmin and Olimar, getting significant exposure via marketing and spin-off media.

[mo]

Jingle Bells for you

By the way, if you've just discovered the Jingle Bells on the top of the menu, and been playing around with them, have you also discovered that you can play with the bells by using the search bar?

Copy the below:

1155665_4433221_5544332_5544332_1155665_4433221

Click on a bell. Paste it into the search bar. Enjoy.

[beardedmrbean]

[theman]

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

[noctivae]

friendly reminder that findtags is the best way to search tumblr’s absolutely destroyed tag system. it actually accurately looks through the tags without omitting results. it’s the only thing i use at this point because it’s the only thing that works

[angelnumbers]

this was always going to happen.

matthew stover, david levithan, margarita karapanou, aeschylus, karese burrows, richard siken

[sandmandaddy69]

[woefully-undercaffeinated]

This does not even begin to cover the weirdness of cathode ray televisions.

They are literally particle accelerators that you point at your face.

And for eighty years, Americans’ favorite thing to do was turn them on and stare at them for hours.

If you overcharge them, they emit gamma radiation.

Servicing them is like disarming a bomb – their capacitors are enormous and are usually charged to hundreds or thousands of volts, and most of them have no bleed system that drains that charge, meaning that they can still be dangerous months or years after the last time they were powered up. A discharge can not only electrocute you, it can cause tools to melt or explode.

A black-and-white cathode ray TV driven by an unmodulated analog signal is theoretically capable of resolution that would require a microscope to perceive.

[jesuisloupseul]

Old school CRT monitors had the same issues.

Back when, I worked at a small whitebox pc manufacturer. One day, a service tech brought back an older, gigantic (30 inch or so) AutoCAD monitor from a service call. The customer said “Made me feel nauseous”

So, we put it on the bench and fired it up. You immediately felt the hair on your body stand up, and my co worker put his hand up close to turn the power off, and his hand and forearm started spasming - I yanked the power cord from the wall as the tingle I was feeling began to feel hot.

No idea what was wrong with the thing, but it was kicking out some serious electro magnetic radiation.

[funnelcloudd]

Remembering the almost imperceptible high pitched buzzing that let you know the tv was still on even when nothing was on the screen. Also putting your forearm near the screen and watching the hairs stand up

[commodorez]

It’s a few dozen kilovolts of charge stored in a CRT, but that’s what flings the electrons from the guns at the back to the phosphors on the screen. The key is to discharge the tube safely before servicing, and when you’ve got to do certain calibrations while it’s powered on (like convergence alignment), you use insulated tools and follow the one-hand rule: only let one hand into the chassis at a time. The idea is not to give the electricity a path to discharge from one arm through your heart out the other arm. I tend to keep one arm behind my back while working on CRTs as a result.

[nathalia-sod]

@modmad​

[modmad]

been tryin to tell people for years CRT tvs are cryptids

[dduane]

Too easy to believe. Anybody else remember when you turned the TV off, and the image collapsed into a little white eye-looking dot that faded slooooooowly away… looking at you all the time?

(shiver)

[petermorwood]

Anybody remember the crrrackle-sss or the PAF! noises really old TVs and monitors used to make when you turned them on? (For those who don’t, the sound was like a Ghostbusters proton pack in miniature…)

I lived with CRT TVs and monitors for years - odd sounds stopped being standard on-off procedure and became a sign of problems, so weren’t anything like as common - but having read the reason for the old ones, the memory of those sounds makes the hair on my arms stand up for reasons that have nothing to do with electrostatics.

And yes, The Little White Dot…

For a long time on BBC over here always closed with a religious bit called “The Epilogue” on Sundays, as well as the National Anthem nightly there and on every other channel. After which, nothing, so you turned the TV off and the last thing on screen was The Little White Dot.

Which implied, if imagination was that way inclined, that God was watching on Sunday to make sure you went to bed, and Queen Liz on every other night…

[literallybyronic]

[acidhues]

mushroom chat just dropped

[lastvalyrian]

[normal-horoscopes]

I want to log on to the mushroom chat so bad

[anywigwilldo]

Reblog, click the picture, and prepare for battle.

[vikingserket]

after a while i became convinced that the words were mocking me

[whisperrun-blog]

Nothing happened. 

I WAS PROMISED A BATTLE

*throws down gauntlet*

Edit: Went back. This is the best thing to happen to my dashboard ever.

[whisperrun-blog]

Reblogging again because my followers need to see this. To be clear, rebog, go to your actual blog, then click the picture. 

[sludgewizard666]

if it sucks hit da bricks <- litany against sunk cost

take it easy but take it <- litany against burnout/apathy cycle

fuck it we ball <- litany against perfectionism

now say something beautiful and true <- litany against irony poisoning

[srsfunny]

[kawaiimunism]

Download Firefox

Install uBlock Origin

If you use Chrome, Firefox has a feature to import your bookmarks, passwords, and other data when you switch.

You deserve software that doesn’t hate you, switch to Firefox <3 🦊

[kawaiimunism]

Other good extensions:

Privacy Possum is an anti-tracking extension that not only blocks commercial trackers, it also fucks with them by generating nonsense data.

Forget Me Not is a cookie management tool that lets you choose whether/how sites can store cookies on your computer on a site-by-site basis.

Bypass Paywalls Clean does exactly what it says: allows you to bypass paywalls on news sites and the like.

SponsorBlock uses crowd-sourced data to block sponsored segments on YouTube videos. Now you never have to hear about NordVPN or Raycon ever again!

Breakthrough Twitter Login Wall is another “what it says on the tin” extension. It stops Twitter from trying to force you to log in, so you can browse anonymously in peace.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

One of the worst flaws of d20-era (a.k.a. post-3e) D&D is that despite its attempts to codify mechanics for SO MUCH shit that would just be adjudicated on the fly by the GM in previous editions, they lack codified mechanics for enemy morale and I think that’s a big reason why combat encounters tend to become so drawn-out and tedious.

Like, my first edition was 3.5e and I remember the Dungeon Mater’s book had this little section about how most creatures probably wouldn’t fight to the death unless they’re like mindless undead, but it lacked any sort of advice on WHEN it might be appropriate to make creatures surrender, flee, negotiate, etc. I think 5e has a weaksauce attempt at a morale roll using a wisdom saving throw, but it’s presented as an optional rule and most people ignore those. (Also like. Even when people do decide to use it. Using a wisdom saving throw means that creatures with higher wisdom are more likely to stay and fight to the death, which is just stupid)

All pre-3e editions (OD&D, B/X, BECMI, AD&D, etc) had this really simple but cool morale system that’s still used by A LOT of OSR games, where every creature’s stat block had a morale value between 2 and 12, measuring their courage and loyalty. In combat, the GM would test morale for every enemy:

The first time they see a creature on their side die

When 50% of their group has been defeated

(This isn’t in the original D&D morale rules but a lot of OSR games add it too) When their leader is defeated.

The GM would roll 2d6 for every enemy, and if the result was greater than their morale, they’d attempt to flee or surrender. It’s simple, it’s elegant, it takes the guesswork out of when it’s appropriate for monsters to flee, and it provides an easy way to characterize certain enemies as more or less likely to stay and fight to the death. 

[saturniidays]

My gift to you: An Atlas of Insect Morphology free pdf

[laeffy]

Sims 4 page on Steam. Not to be controversial but I think the CEO of EA should be beheaded for this

[cutual]

if anyone got the game from origin heres an unlocker for dlc + links to the dlc files to download that an anon sent me a while back :] its worked perfectly for my game but jus make sure u have enough storage for the packs

[aelynmidnattheir-deactivated202]

AND REMEMBER, DO NOT SEARCH ANADIUS REPACK SIMS 4 DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE, BECAUSE THEN YOU WILL FIND AN EASY WAY TO DOWNLOAD THE SIMS 4 WITH EVERY DLC FOR FREE. VERY EASY TO INSTALL.

THAT’S ILLEGAL AND WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO PIRATE THIS GAME, DESPITE BEING SO INCREDIBLY PRICEY. NOPE. WE DO NOT WANT THAT. WINK. WINK.

[cloudselkie]

NINE LIVES SPREAD

From the Cat's Eye Tarot by Debra M. Givin, DMV

"A cat has nine lives; 3 he plays, 3 he strays, and 3 he stays."

The Nine Lives Spread is based on this old prov erb. Cat lives and human lives rarely follow an uninterrupted path from start to finish. Our lives tend to occur in stages; a vision, a jour ney, and a destination. We repeat these stages over a lifetime, learning new skills, following new paths, and reaching different destinations in our youth, middle age, and maturity. Use this spread when you are asking the tarot about where you are, where you have been, how you got there, and where you are going next.

Shuffle the deck and then lay out nine cards face down in three stair-step columns, as shown. The first column is youth. The second column is middle age. The third column is ma turity. Start by turning over the card that best corresponds to your current life stage. In each life stage, we "play" with new skills and form a vision of where we want to go. With the next step, we "stray" from the safety of the familiar on our way to a new destination/goal. With the final step, we "stay" (at least for a while) hav ing reached a goal or a milestone. Study this card and then work your way backwards and forwards until you have revealed all of the cards. Look at each of them and notice how they relate to each other and to your life expe rience. What story do they tell?

[peelingmandarins]

“After thirty years of intensive research, we can now answer many of the questions posed earlier. The recycle rate of a human being is around sixteen hours. After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail. Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours. Three full nights of recovery sleep (i.e., more nights than a weekend) are insufficient to restore performance back to normal levels after a week of short sleeping. Finally, the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived.”

— Matthew Walker PhD, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (via themedicalstate)

[patricide1885]

Jesus christ

[hockeyheart]

Sleep is a super power

[lady-griffin]

That last bit makes a whole lot of sense and it honestly astounds me, that I never once considered it.

But yeah that seems very obvious.

Finally, the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived.

[ivycrowned]

This explains why i am literally unconscious for the entire weekend. When the lockdown first happened I slept a full three days.