I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
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Cosmic Funnies
Cosimo Galluzzi
JBB: An Artblog!
titsay
Acquired Stardust
todays bird
🪼
⁂
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Not today Justin
Product Placement
RMH
pixel skylines
cherry valley forever
Jules of Nature
$LAYYYTER
styofa doing anything
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@uncannyforest
Pixel art I drew of me and my girlfriend, back in December. I printed it for her as a gift for when I saw her in February and didn't post it here at the time, because I wanted it to be a surprise. I made a couple others I'll queue for posting
Unscaled:
Context
i made a character sheet. free to use as you wish, feel free to change whatever you want XD open source ass thing. spent all of ~maybe an hour on it.
Credit: the text in the insert-image box comes from this video, and the text for the top three lines (intense, complex, fruity) comes from this post. The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.
this is GENUINELY one of the best character development sheets I've ever seen. Cuts right to the core of what you and your readers will glom onto, doesn't waste time on details that don't directly affect the narrative. Stupendous. Effervescent. Finally, some good fucking food
I kind of hate how when we talk about men's unrealistic expectations for women it's like porn stuff and when we talk about women's unrealistic expectations for men it's like. A guy who cares about her feelings
With this clarification—I think you are correct. But if it's not too off-topic, I want to mention that that's not mainly my experience.
I almost never have conversations with men saying "you're too focused on looks"—nor have I told my sister or female friends "you have too high of expectations around his care for your feelings". (And I would say those things if I thought they were true.)
Here's window into the kinds of conversations I have with men in my church:
Women don't always want to talk about philosophical/political stuff that isn't directly relevant to your lives—women do like deep conversations too but for most of them that involves a more personal connection to the topic
The right woman doesn't have to be a Bible study leader, devotion to God is often less public
[once when a friend and I were in bad relationships] "Do all women act like 'this is overwhelming and I can't do it, I need you to figure out' all the time or do some women have their stuff together?"
To be clear: all three of those things are in the category of "some women have exactly what you're looking for"—it's just about not making too many things a dealbreaker. Exception: I do have one friend whose had preferences clearly skewed by porn and he knew it was a problem already by the time the conversation came up between us.
And my main advice to picky (college) women has been "men usually develop the kind of assertiveness and competency you're looking for about 5 years into their career, so while they are positive qualities and in a better society that'd develop earlier, if you need a man to have them now just know you're implicitly filtering for older men"
But I know I'm weird. And I'm not privy to conversations between women on the subject but I suspect my first bullet above correlates to your point about what women say.
FUCK THIS LOL
Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and
The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over.
At its Google I/O conference on Tuesday, Google unveiled an AI-powered overhaul of Search centered around a reimagined “intelligent search box” — what the company describes as the biggest change to this entry point to the web since the search box debuted more than 25 years ago.
Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times. Google is also introducing tools that can dispatch “information agents” to gather information on a user’s behalf, along with tools that let users build personalized mini apps tailored to their needs.
The resulting experience will no longer look much like how people envision Google Search, which has long been defined by ranked links to websites that have the information you need.
With the revamped Search experience, the new search box simply expands to accommodate longer, more conversational queries, rather than making you decide what type of search experience or mode you want to choose at the start of your query. It will also have a new AI-powered query suggestion system that goes beyond autocomplete to help people craft more complex and nuanced queries, Google says.
Google’s AI Overviews will also allow users to ask follow-up questions in AI Mode, beginning Tuesday, the company noted.
gonna see if my army of ai blockers can counter this, and if it can't I am going to permanently switch to... basically anything else.
Want Google without AI? udm14 (default to Google's hidden links-only "Web" tab)
Want Google without AI or tracking? Startpage (they license results from Google)
And of course if you don't want Google at all there's DuckDuckGo etc. But I like Google just enough to use udm14 & Startpage for my needs
Freddie DeBoer's consistent education schtick is that teacher quality and approach has little bearing on student outcomes as measured by test scores/future income, and that therefore charter schools are either useless or net negative on society. As someone who used to be a big fan of the idea of charter schools, his arguments have provided strong evidence against my old views. But charter schools aren't even the pinnacle of meritocracy in the first place and sometimes actively discriminate rather than select students by ability.
However, though his goal is to defend public schools, I think his arguments provide plenty of fodder in argument for homeschooling/unschooling when possible. If it's really true that teacher quality doesn't matter—then parents really can't mess it up!
I assume he's right that a large percentage of the population continues to believe that one's income at age 30 is strongly affected by one's teachers at age 10, at that these people ought to be corrected on the facts of the matter. But to those of us for whom education is far more than skill transfer, not only is that argument beside the point, it further supports prioritizing educational settings on values with no regard to skill transfer—which may be most fulfilled by homeschooling, unschooling, or schools with alternative educational models.
[edited: first link was to the wrong site]
little cove
The headline on the left is hilarious, but the headline on the right is . . . hmmm, interesting point
My boyfriend has really vivid, elaborate dreams. He’ll often wake up and talk about some grand narrative- travel, exploration, politics, performances. I’ve always been a little jealous, he can hold really good plots together for them sometimes.
But anyway, this does have a downside; vivid, elaborate dreams make for vivid, elaborate nightmares. I can usually tell when it’s one of those nights, since he grinds his teeth pretty badly.
I was never quite sure what to do when I knew he was having a bad time of it, though the grinding alone was enough to worry me and push me towards intervening. I used to just shake him gently, hope to rouse him just enough to reset the dream or something, but it wasn’t too effective and anyway waking him up all the time isn’t good for rest.
I’m rather proud of the strategy I eventually settled on: gently, so as not to wake him up, I’d lay one arm across his hands, wrapping his fingers around me so that he was holding on. Nightmares being nightmares, I can usually count on a pretty tight grip when this happens.
It may seem a little odd, but consider that holding on to something with both hands is typically a very agentic frame of mind. We hold on to things that give us power, in one way or another, and possessing objects often makes us feel powerful in some respects. That has consequences, even for a dreaming mind.
I knew it was working when he woke up rather mystified from one such dream, and told me that he’d been running through the caverns of some dungeon or cave system, pursued by monsters, but then all of a sudden he was holding a giant anime sword and fought them off instead. So I got to be a sword for him that night, I was delighted.
I don’t usually get to know exactly what happened, since even for a very vivid dreamer like Ritter, nine tenths of these things get forgotten. But I know I’ve been things like door handles, steering wheels, stuff like that. And even when I don’t know what I am to him, he doesn’t grind his teeth nearly as much- the sleep is deeper and more peaceful, so I get plenty of feedback that it’s working.
It’s such a perfect encapsulation of love in microcosm, isn’t it? No matter how much you mean to them, and how much they mean to you, the gap between two conscious lives is fundamentally separating you. But fundamental does not mean insurmountable. There’s this whole world in him, full of dreams and perspectives that I’ll never truly experience. But I will be a part of those worlds all the same, finding little ways here and there to make sure that the dreams of me make him a better, stronger, and happier person.
Or at least, so one hopes. It’s a difficult challenge, and things often go awry. But usually you get at least a little lucky.
i just love it when my boss answers my "this or that" question with yes. im sorry. what do you mean "yes?" yes to what? this? that? both?
you can kindly fuck all the way off with that answer. i get that you're stressed but you clearly didn't read my question.
I know that answer's super frustrating but I have a practical tip for dealing with that sort of person
If possible, send questions to managers in the form of "I think I should do [your guess or personal preference]—is that fine or should I do [the alternative] instead?" Many managers prefer this and you technically got an answer.
If the question is a high-stakes one with a risk of something big going wrong, I would try to word the request in such a way that makes that clear and conveys "I really need you to read every word carefully here, this is an unusually big decision". But otherwise your boss's "yes" is all you needed—he's just communicated that he trusts and approves your judgment.
I've been using Javascript for 20 years and I only just learned that IDs in the HTML become global variables in the Javascript code (though it's better not to use that feature)
I'm trying to emphasize to my students that the Javascript doesn't know what's in the HTML unless you ask using "document.(something)" and the browser proved me wrong
Pixel Art by Philipp A. Urlich
I've always hated Discord, to be honest. It's a damned joke, and I hate how it's become the replacement for fora, Teamspeak, Steam messages, standard emails, and most everything else, it seems. It's always been a joke: when I signed up for it back in 2016, no one thought it would be grand. And it should have remained as an afterthought.
I also hate how Discord has replaced forums. If I need support on a software product, I want a public forum where I can search other people's issues in a web browser. I don't want to be told to join a Discord.
Nevertheless, I've not found a better tool for the situation where a group chat gets large enough to require multiple threads. The main alternatives are Slack (costs money for basic features), WhatsApp (not organized intuitively for this feature IMO), and GroupMe (I have so many complaints).
That's the main thing that keeps me and my friends from fully committing to WhatsApp, as much as I'd rather wean off Discord entirely. And I'll take Discord over GroupMe (the previous default) any day.
I hadn't heard of Teamspeak though, is it a good tool for non-gaming use cases?
Speed Highway
A Dark Thing Inside The Day by Linda Gregg
Can't believe this has to be said but you can't be an atheist and a Christian at the same time. If only we had the fervor here that we have against "Christian witches".
Finally blocking a bunch of people I should have blocked a long time ago. If you think that it's possible to be a Christian and an atheist at the same time, or that I'm "infighting" or that I'm being unnecessarily contentious by telling these people to stop pretending to represent Christianity, speak up now so I know how it is.
Far deeper objections may be felt—and have been expressed—against my use of the word Christian to mean one who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity. People ask: “Who are you, to lay down who is, and who is not a Christian?”: or “May not many a man who cannot believe these doctrines be far more truly a Christian, far closer to the spirit of Christ, than some who do?” Now this objection is in one sense very right, very charitable, very spiritual, very sensitive. It has every amiable quality except that of being useful. We simply cannot, without disaster, use language as these objectors want us to use it. I will try to make this clear by the history of another, and very much less important, word. The word gentleman originally meant something recognisable; one who had a coat of arms and some landed property. When you called someone “a gentleman” you were not paying him a compliment, but merely stating a fact. If you said he was not “a gentleman” you were not insulting him, but giving information. There was no contradiction in saying that John was a liar and a gentleman; any more than there now is in saying that James is a fool and an M.A. But then there came people who said—so rightly, charitably, spiritually, sensitively, so anything but usefully—“Ah, but surely the important thing about a gentleman is not the coat of arms and the land, but the behaviour? Surely he is the true gentleman who behaves as a gentleman should? Surely in that sense Edward is far more truly a gentleman than John?” They meant well. To be honourable and courteous and brave is of course a far better thing than to have a coat of arms. But it is not the same thing. . . . As a result, gentleman is now a useless word. We had lots of terms of approval already, so it was not needed for that use; on the other hand if anyone (say, in a historical work) wants to use it in its old sense, he cannot do so without explanations. It has been spoiled for that purpose.
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (bolding added by me)
what ppl defending kids on ipads don’t seem to understand is that there are other ways to keep kids occupied. my mom had a whole bag full of little toys and games for me to play with while waiting in lines at disney world. once your kid is like 7 or 8 they can read a book. they can color. or they can literally just sit there and imagine things. i did that a lot as a kid.
thanks for putting your wrong and bad commentary in the tags where i still have to read all of it. most of what you said is untrue.
OP: giving children too young to process things so much access to ipads isn’t good for them maybe.
People in the notes: So you hate moms??? You’re ableist?? You think we should go back to the Dark Ages?? (My personal favorite because it makes no sense) you’re poor shaming??
Why is it so difficult to explain that children not developing fine motor skills and losing their attention spans is bad actually??
also children can end up being entertained by just about anything. I remember building "bird nests" with sticks in the backyard when I was like 7 years old. That was it. It took up my whole afternoon and I was entertained the entire time.
I worked at a kindergarten for a year, and Jesus Christ these kids are falling behind on so many milestones
Everyone knows who the iPad kids are
I've seen it all from kids who don't know how to use scissors, and can't perform the motions right compared to other kids in that age group, to kids who can't write the alphabet or spell their names (the older ones)
And one of the most startling thing I encountered was every now and then we have a country day, where we choose a country, color in the country's flag in the colors and watch a little film about said country.
And I was overseeing the coloring, and one boy just refusing to color
It happens, stubbornness, bad days, 'just don't wanna' s happen, but I sit with him and continue to try and encourage him and figure out why he doesn't want to
And he keeps saying he doesn't know how to color
And I'm like ??? Just pick up the pencil and put it on the paper buddy, cmon
So I'm showing him how, and he refuses to try over and over
So then I try like, coloring while guiding his hand, and again this is a flag were coloring it's a giant rectangle, not much precision is needed
And I realize while I'm helping him, literally moving his hand to color for him, he's CLEARLY never colored before. He's 4, there is no excuse for this when kids start coloring at like, 2 maybe younger.
By 4-5 kids can generally color inside the lines well enough and draw recognizable figures like people and landscapes and pets
Eventually he got into it, understood how to do it and requested to continue on by himself, which was great! I told him I was proud of him and we continued on with our day but it absolutely shocked me that these iPad kids are so beyond stunted like jesus
He didn't know how to grip a pencil, he didn't know the wrist movements and motions, he didn't understand the pressure control, he had no control over where or how he was coloring like, these kids NEED TO learn these things it's STARTLING how many kids don't have these milestones and are just not developing these fine motor skills
Ask any kindergarten attendant and they'll tell you the same thing-
The best thing you can do for a kid is buy them a shitton of construction paper, decorative child-safe scissors, and coloring books
Please please please kids need to cut paper up and color. It helps them develop so many fine motor skils
Now don't be mistaken, the percentage of these kids are low, for now. It's definitely not every kid, and thankfully not the majority but it is still a problem
Even if a parent SAYS, 'this is my son's iPad,' it's not his. it's an expensive piece of electronics with opaque rules, it has other functions than play, it needs to be charged, maybe it's parental-locked, and the parents control access to it at all. In the past, 'computer time' was different from 'play time', however much privacy a kid HAD using the computer because:
Toys, on the other hand, belong to the child. A specifically nasty parent may say otherwise, but children experience toys as their own. As stated above, anything can become a toy in a pinch, beyond the parents' control. Even if we just discuss electronic toys there's a serious difference in dynamic between "my son's gameboy" and "my son's iPad."
Even if we aren't talking about 'motor skills' and 'imagination', replacing toys with an ipad definitely sounds bad for kids because it pretty much eliminates the agency of 'my things!' and changes it to 'thing my mom lets me have/use!'
And compared to a desktop computer and even to a laptop, an iPad is REALLY easy to revoke, you don't even need to say 'no more computer time!' You can simply take it away, physically. It's hard to take EVERY TOY away from a kid unless you go to extremes.
And also, an iPad is a computer that doesn't teach any computer skills while using it.
This all seems like a good prep for being an eternal renter of all things, though.
You can call me Mr. Suspicious the way I get this message all the time nowadays
I finally switched from Google udm14 (nothing but actual search results) to Startpage as my main search engine because Google started giving me captchas on every search and I got tired of it real quick.
It's probably partly because I set my browser to clear tracking cookies regularly, but I did that for years and wasn't an issue until the last few months. I suspect it has something to do with the rise of AI agents
