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Versylfa or Kira, trans lesbian, cat person, very Jewish. I've never changed my url or icon since joining tumblr in 2015, and I don't intend to do so now. I'm one of those elusive Math Gays irl, and I also write fanfic as @Flamesong on AO3.

[depsidase]

[wertfi-penguin]

Maybe the most damming thing about Nolans odyssey is i haven’t seen a single gifset from it

[geekyhistoriansunite]

[partywithponies]

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

[urlocalpyshcopan]

as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name

[brainsforbabyjesus]

for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!

[infamousbrad]

I think I know how this works.

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.

[kagedtiger]

Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm

[photos-of-space]

Today's NASA APOD: Total Solar Eclipse Over Spain

[caressthosecheekbones]

nasa is using a 3D world graphic for the solar eclipse thingy today where germany is still devided in east and west adjfglkafdhgadfg. buddies, it's been almost 40 years.

[chthonion]

So I showed this to a physicist and they were like "Oh! Yes! It's a figure from Fred Espenak's very old paper where he did a bunch of eclipse graphics! I've been looking at these my entire internet life, basically, for every solar eclipse! They called him Mr. Eclipse. He just passed away recently 🥺"

Anyway apparently Mr. Eclipse made 5000 years' worth of solar eclipse graphics, which you can find the simpler versions of here

So now instead of laughing at NASA for their outdated graphics I'm emotional about Mr. Eclipse and his hard work

[queer-ragnelle]

Okay we've seen the upper limits of what an astronomical budget for filmmaking can do. Let's cap the budget at $500,000 for a few years and see what film teams forced to get creative and utilize unknown actors produce.

[northern-punk-lad]

It’s going to be an interesting few weeks following this result and it will empower reform voters

[invisible-goats]

and now he has to actually face the enquiry he was trying to avoid

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

That is a much higher voteshare to Binface than we expected, and much lower to both Reclaim and British Democratic Party, lol.

All round, though, it doesn't look good for Farage. It was a sham one-party election, so he can't play the "See? No one cares about my multimillion pound bribes, they still voted me in" card he was banking on. His only competition was a bin, and the bin actually did well. Meanwhile, as Goats says, he's now subject to the enquiry he tried to avoid.

He played a strategy that was supposed to be win-win, but the other major parties totally hamstrung it. And, credit where credit's due, the idea for the others to not stand this time was an absolutely genius move that, in fact, came from the static TV screen of a brain that belongs to, of all people, Kemi fucking Badenoch. Stopped clocks and that.

Meanwhile, polling shows Farage has actually lost a LOT of his voter base and support from the bribe thing. Again - even Kemi Badenoch is able to go "Hardly the man of the working class like he claims". So... Yeah. As OP says - interesting next few weeks coming

[ilynpilled]

being forgiven by your victims and absolved from the harm you cause others is not a requirement for change of conduct and attempts at material restitution. i find it fruitless and frankly infuriating that “redemption” is fixated on as the former

[ilynpilled]

just because you are not entitled to people’s forgiveness or “absolution” doesn’t mean that it is meaningless to change. that should be your own battle

[ilynpilled]

you may get it, but you don’t need to get it. again, forgiven by who? absolved by who? there is not gonna be some universal supreme judgement that you will receive that can close this all up nicely and neatly for you, i’m sorry. someone you have harmed may give it to you, someone else might not. you will remain with yourself all the same

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: Why couldn’t traditional Chinese Yinpiao银票/silver drafts be forged if they were merely slips of paper? (cr大明宝钞，渐越)

Traditional Chinese yinpiao/silver drafts were paper vouchers issued by private banks starting from the Song Dynasty(960–1279). People could exchange these slips for physical silver at bank branches across the country.

Silver drafts were made in multiple copies with matching serrated seal edges. One copy went to the customer and others stayed at the bank. All edges had to fit perfectly together to withdraw silver. The unique split edge marks were almost impossible to copy.

This mechanism is known as qifeng骑缝 (split-joint seal) in China. It first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC). The Rites of Zhou records that contracts were written on bamboo or wooden slips in duplicate. Notches and marks were carved in the middle before splitting the slips, with each party keeping one half. The two halves would be matched by their notches for verification.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BC), this idea evolved into hufu虎符/tiger tally tokens. A military tally was split into two pieces with identical inscriptions carved along the split edge. Troops could only be deployed if the patterns and characters on both halves perfectly aligned, serving as a metal version of the split-joint anti-counterfeiting system.

The technology matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Government documents and private contracts commonly used split-joint seals stamped across the dividing line. The Chinese character "hetong合同" (contract) was written across the middle before the paper was torn apart, so the complete characters would only appear when the two halves were put together. This split-coupon system was later adopted for Song Dynasty (960–1279) jiaozi paper money and yinpiao/silver drafts of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912).

Official Song dynasty paper money (Jiaozi交子) was abolished in 1107. Private silver drafts issued by Qing-era piaohao票行 (ancient exchange banks) vanished completely in 1951, hit hard by modern banks and currency reforms. Nowadays silver drafts no longer circulate as currency. Their collectible value depends on their rarity and physical condition.

Split-joint seals (骑缝章qifengzhang)are still widely used on important paper documents in modern China, an anti-tampering technique passed down from ancient times. They are applied across the edge of multi-page contracts, bidding documents and official archives. If any page is removed or replaced, the broken seal pattern can prove the file has been altered.

[ariaste]

OMG I got so excited about this because they used a really similar (though far less refined) version of this for contracts in the European medieval period!

First they were called "chirographs", but later the word "indenture" (in its earliest meaning as just a legal document of any kind between two people) came to be used, originating from the practice of a contract being written twice on a single piece of parchment and then cut in half with serrated edges (as in dent, "teeth" -> indents -> indenture) in order for each party to take one half, so they could later piece them together and verify that there had been no forgery -- same as the Chinese silver drafts!

(Charter of the Clerecía de Ledesma, 1252, showing the serrated indents at the top -- presumably they are cutting rather than tearing because they're using parchment, which I expect is much harder to tear than wood-pulp paper like the Chinese were using)

Delights me when human beings find similar ways to solve the same problem at two different ends of the world. <3

[brittlepredatordemon]

Actually, no, I don't think that friendships dropping like flies in your late 20s and early 30s because no one has time for that between overwork and family obligations and marriage and kids and partners and the ritual of the time slayer is normal and ok. No I don't think deep conversations and spontaneous adventures being replaced with a tired coffee every six months is a normal part of growing up. I don't think that emotional intimacy and soul bonds disintegrating in the face of practical inconvenience is a fact of life. I think that means something is deeply deeply wrong with our society and I will never forgive it for the friends I've lost

[foxgirlpuddle]

Wishing everyone who sees this a very "getting to be around people you love, trust, and feel at ease with in person and being made to feel safer than you have in years" coming to a future near you

[lostxanadu]

the thing about being bullied for being weird as a kid is that even if you've always embraced being weird your brain is still always looking for the line where it's too much. you can be as proudly and intentionally weird as you want and you can love being weird but your mind is still convinced there's a point where you get too weird and people start treating you like a weird looking bug again. also it feels like you reach that point 500 times a day even if everyone you've spoken to today found you pleasant and likable and even if you're completely alone in your house with nobody looking at you at all.

[dubiousdisco]

[202crowqueen]

If you had to choose one president from history to be resurrected and take over the presidency who would you choose? Why? And what do you think he would do?

Only rules are that the president must be from before the 2000s election year and had held office for at least half a term (two years)

(So no William Henry Harrison)

The parties switched their positions in the mid 1900s so the party of chosen president would switch (republicans will become democratic and vice versa)

So who do you choose?

[zaprowsdower27]

LBJ. Most of the same advantages as FDR in terms of economic policy, but added benefit of being strongly pro-minority rights as well instead of bending to Dixiecrats at the cost of half the country.

His Vietnam record is... dicey, I'll admit, but it positions him well for understanding the current need to defend Ukraine.

His tendency to show off Jumbo and loom over people also plays well with how an inexplicable number of people seem to actively seek out machismo as a key politician trait.

[prismatic-bell]

Teddy Roosevelt.

I'm going to start by saying I understand his record in regard to racial minorities is uneven, with the better side of that unevenness being "....that's...really problematic, Ted," and going downhill from there. I'm not overlooking this. I'm weighing it against the fact that the original post did not indicate he'd have access to his historical cabinet from the 1900s, and so he'd be in a position where the most egregious of his racial views would be held in check by the people who would fill those roles in the modern day. And hey, he did value learning, so like...maybe we can also extrapolate at least a 50/50 that his better angels would come to the fore in what would be a necessary study of the last 110 years of US history. I'm picking a crisis president here--someone who can fix the worst of the damage we've suffered since 2016.

So why would I pick him? Here are five reasons, and they're in no particular order, except for the first two which are ABSOLUTELY my #1 and #2:

1) THE SQUARE DEAL. If you like the New Deal, you should know FDR cribbed it from his older cousin. TR fought for a balance between big business and the rights of the individual--the average Joe can't get $1000/hr and a pony for working in fast food, but neither can Jeff Bezos pay you in scrip or demand you piss in a bottle because using a proper bathroom will lower your numbers. It was off the back of this beginning that we'd later get the New Deal's minimum wage, Social Security, and the 40-hour work week as law. TR was also so big on anti-corruption that one of his nicknames in the day was "The Trustbuster." He went up against people like Rockefeller and Carnegie--I think he could be the hero we need against Amazon, Google, Disney, et. al. in creating a market rather than a monster. Likewise, I think that he'd be able to use the benefit of history to see why modern labor demands are actually in line with his goals and ideas (1902 Roosevelt didn't have the New Deal to look back on, but 2026 Roosevelt would).

2) NATURAL CONSERVATION WAS A MASSIVE PART OF HIS PLATFORM. I want to pause here and note that the way he went about it was not always right and in some cases was really fucking wrong. When I said his racial policies began with "that's....really problematic, Ted" and only got worse from there, part of that getting worse was "we're going to remove Natives from their own land to make national parks." I think any "hey Ted please help us with our current environmental woes" would have to be prefaced with an understanding from him that we respect the rights of all people these days, and protecting Natives in this bullet point is part of why I said picking him was contingent on him having a modern cabinet. So with the understanding that we are putting a leash on his "but they're brown" impulses: I think he'd be fascinated to learn about green energy and modern conservation, and I think he is exactly the kind of person who'd look at climate change, the assholes responsible for huge amounts of it (hey--remember what I said about him being The Trustbuster?), and the first thing he'd say is "you shouldn't have messed with a bull moose." I also think learning about Native-led conservation and the "primeval wilderness was a myth" thing might actually go a really decent way toward tempering his anti-Native views. It might have the unfortunate side effect of him swinging into magic pixie dream Natives, but like...given the choice between two bad choices, magic pixie dream Natives would probably be better. I will remind that I am picking him as a crisis president. I would love for him to be racially perfect. He wouldn't be. But he might help us survive long enough to get a president who's really good on racial issues. Digging out of MAGA's hole is the goal here.

3) HE WAS BOTH A BRAWLER AND A SCHOLAR. Ask him "brains or brawn?" and he'd say "yes." His athletic tendencies would endear him to the more conservative crowd and his love of learning would make him ideal in terms of catching up on modern policy and weighing consequences.

As a weird side-effect, I actually think he might put the final nail in the coffin on trans sports bans. Not because I think he'd understand trans people (he absolutely would not) or support trans rights in general (I don't think he'd have enough understanding to say one way or the other), but because I think his reaction would probably be "....so your problem is that you'd be forced to be a better athlete in order to compete? Well then, be better. We should all aspire to the strenuous life." Like he would basically answer "Atlanta" to "what is the capital of Georgia" by solving for the square root of two and adding aquamarine, but he'd get there. That's the important part.

4) HIS FOREIGN POLICIES WEREN'T ALWAYS GREAT. HIS METHOD OF ACHIEVING THEM WAS. TR is the guy who introduced "speak softly and carry a large stick" to the western world. TR stopped an entire-ass war by speaking softly and raising the stick. He didn't even have to hit anything. One of the two countries involved? RUSSIA. And he hated bullies. He would make Putin cry.

5) HE BELIEVED IN PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY. I mean, this one is really just what it says on the tin. It's been lacking in politics for an extremely long time.

So that's my pick. Imperfect and there are definitely things I wish we could just excise before turning him loose. But I think he's a lot of what we need to meet the moment.

[biglawbear]

I'm gonna go FDR, because my #1 priority since like 2014 has been the Supreme Court, because if you don't have the Supreme Court you don't have anything, and FDR has been the only president in the last 100+ years that made it a priority too and managed to cow them.

Plus the economic, industrial, and labor policies. To crib off PB, maybe a modern cabinet and Congress can curb the racism.

He was also a wartime president and could perhaps understand the fuckery of Russia, China, Iran, etc

[pagecommando]

Honestly? Since it's entirely speculative? Richard Milhous Nixon I want to see what Nixon does to the MAGA GOP and Russia and like. Everything. I want a Nixon Green New Deal. What even is that. Fuck 'em all, you get Nixon, we get an insane foreign and domestic policy, and we get the coolest buttons ever.

En serio Truman but like. Chaos option my dudes.

[damazcuz]

How did you get hacked?

I tried to pirate a game and did so wrong.

The thing about hackers, scammers, fraudsters-- is that they cast a very wide net knowing they'll get a few suckers caught in it. Let's say 10,000 people get an email saying "YOÜVE W0N!🤩 CLiCK N⁰W!?!" 9,997 of them delete it. For the three people who get sucked in, it's life ruining.

They rely on the fact that, at some point, they are going to get you while you're not thinking clearly. Maybe you're sick. Or tired. Or work is stressful. Or you just had a fight with someone and you're mad. Your kid is going through something, your dog is at the vet, your car broke down, you got fired. Or you're in the middle of planning a big event, or you're so super excited for a convention-- and something comes across your desk. Maybe it's an email, or a phone call, a link, a text, a file. But for whatever reason you're not thinking 100% clearly and you don't question it, you trust for a minute and that's all that they need. You are now one of those three caught in the net.

And now you're actually on their list of suckers! They will return to you over and over and over and over again for more, because hey! You fell for it once. They're counting on that your grandma who answered a scam call and provided her credit card number once WILL be scammable again. Maybe not right away, maybe not the same way, but they'll get her. (And more often than not, they're right.)

I think most people are inclined to want to trust one another. Or sometimes we're curious. Or we think, "Wow, I didn't know it would be this easy!" not stopping to ask WHY it's so easy to get something good for free.

I work at a financial institution and I help people all the time who have been hacked and lost hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are always terrified- will I get my money back? Am I safe?- but they are also consistently ashamed and embarrassed. They feel guilty for having trusted and for not having stopped to think for a second longer. They verbally berate themselves. "I'm so stupid. How could I have fallen for it?"

Currently I'm only out about $300, which I'm being told I'll get back. That number could go up-- I'm still working on securing everything. Do you know how many passwords I had stored in my browser? 192. I have no idea how many of those had a valid card attached, but so far one account was plenty to steal a couple hundred bucks from me. And I do feel stupid, and embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated. Scared. The hacker messaged everyone I had recently messaged on discord as well as every channel in every server to @/everyone with instructions to download their Spyware. Every single person I talk to knows I fell for something dumb.

It's embarrassing, it's upsetting, and I dont even know the full scope of what more is going to happen. I had tax documents on my computer-- how much of my identity is now in their hands? I've locked my credit and placed fraud alerts everywhere, but how safe am I? Who else is at risk now because of me? What other files do they have from me?

In this case, I happen to know that a number of people did what I did. I've seen a number of threads from others who ALSO tried to download tomodachi life from github. (For the record, this was not the floralith link.) I was excited, I was in a hurry. I thought, "this is so quick and easy and now I can play!" I didnt question why in the hell it would EVER be so easy. I haven't had a virus on my computer since I was a young teen, and then I went and installed a bunch of Trojans whilst going "la la la." Incredibly stupid stuff.

But that's the thing, these people are constantly TRYING to catch someone, anyone, YOU, and they count on that eventually, EVENTUALLY, someday they'll dangle just the right bait for you to latch on to. And in my case it was a fishy video game download.

[kerink]

it is INCREDIBLY easy to get scammed. no matter how safe or smart you think you are. you are more likely to get scammed than not.

i almost did this exact same thing in january of this year. i'd just applied for SSA disability and a day or two after i got an legitimate looking email saying they needed additional documents. i check my email first thing in the morning so i was physically tired and stressed in every way possible and in pain from still being post-surgical and i was scared of screwing up this process.

i downloaded the attached file. the only thing that saved me was my computer asking if i was sure i wanted to run this program.

what program? i thought this was a pdf?

no. turns out the icon was a pdf but the file type was something i wasn't familiar with.

i went back to the email and sure enough the sender was some stupid gibberish.

i dodged a bullet by an unspeakably slim margin. it terrifies me how legit the email had looked, it was properly formatted with correct spelling and grammar and had all the right logos and headers and it went to my focused inbox. this was not designed to filter people out. it terrifies me how they even knew i'd just applied and to try this.

i've had friends who've lost thousands to scams that got them at the wrong time.

it doesn't matter who you are, how protected you feel, how many defenses you've got in place, how locked down your shit seems, they will get you. it may not ruin your life, but in some way to some degree you will get got.

[harperhug]

You (and I) are not immune to social engineering.

[strawberrycamel]

we really should be calling it fanworks, not content

[strawberrycamel]

I'm here for fun and community not to rp a mega corporation's underpaid social media intern

[dragosballz]

movie called technically blonde where she goes to trade school instead

[inertial-reel]

No but you don't understand. Rocking up to Welding class with 100% barbie pink tools is such a POWER MOVE.

"Jeremy, I'd really like my orbital sander back ^_^"

"... didn't know it was yours..."

(Legit excited, no sarcasm) "Someone ELSE has the original Box 20-Volt Brushless Cordless Detail Sander with Dust Management?!?!?!?!"

"...no..."

Teacher walking up like "Miss Woods, is that a nail file"

(Elle, blasting compressed air to get rid of the nail file sand)

"Actually, its an emery board. But yes! :D It's a finer grit than what we have, and I've always found these easier to handle"

"...Ok, fair enough."

Elle making friends with the 6 year old daughter of one of her classmates. (Child care ain't cheap, I get it. Bring your kid to class)

Elle learning how to drive a forklift/motorcycle/semi-truck

Elle giving an impromptu lecture in the break room about what gifts to give their wives/girlfriends/mothers

Fucking laser cut "bless this mess" sign on her locker (I lied. It would totally be live, laugh, laser)

Elle's car breaks down and 20+ dudes coming out to show her how to fix it. (And realizing her mechanic is ripping her off)

Every single guy in the building filled with instant despair when she gets with one of the butch lesbians in the program.

Gimme plzzz

[kla1991]

Proposal: She takes her car to a mechanic and it's beat for beat like the original movie scene at the dress shop, where the mechanic *tries* to rip her off and she nods along and then eviscerates her with precise technical details.

The rest of Elle's class now shun that mechanics' shop and tell everyone else to as well, so that place ends up going out of businesss, which allows someone else in the class to open up a sparkling pink and perfectly trustworthy shop of his own.