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thinking about when my professor told me how the boards of companies/orgs/etc. will sometimes hire on a CEO/whatever who they know will basically take a chainsaw to existing infrastructure, let them fuck as much shit up as possible, and then promptly fire them as soon as they've accomplished what the board wanted them to do. then they can point the finger at that guy & look like they're the heroes and the problem is resolved because he's gone now. and they still get to keep all the changes they wanted that nobody else did.

anyway I think it's fun and all to watch the two most divorced men on the planet publicly divorce each other. and also. maybe keep that in mind, is all.

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My secret is that my wife was in an extremely bad period in her life when she entered into a contest for knitting supplies. She loved knitting as a teenager and wanted to get back into it as an adult, but felt like we couldn't afford it. She wouldn't buy anything, and wouldn't let me get anything for her because it would be "a waste of money." So when she got an email from a knitting newsletter she followed talking about the contest, she entered and won third place - a little basic kit that got her excited to start and started pulling her out of her dark place.

This is when you go "aha. You cheeky devil. Did you cheat slmehow? Is that your secret?" But no. My secret is, I faked it all. I created a fake knitting blog, and sent it to her as "something I found." I ran it for a few months talking about made up craft projects with photos off the internet and things. Then I faked the contest, sold some of my possessions to buy the "prize" and let her win. Six months later I stopped posting and she didn't even notice. She still talks about that prize she won as turning her life around, and she'll never know I invented the whole thing.

Now this is some real lover shit!!!

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Story time:

In middle school biology, we did an experiment. We were given yams, which we would sprout in cups of water. We then had to make hypotheses about how the yams would grow, based on descriptions of yam plants in our books, and make notes of our observations as they grew.

Here’s what was supposed to happen: we were supposed to see that the actual growth of the plant did not resemble our hypotheses. We were then supposed to figure out that these were, in fact, sweet potatoes.

What actually happened was that every single student in every single class lied in their notes so that their observations perfectly matched their hypotheses. See, everyone assumed the mismatch meant they had done something wrong in the process of growing the plant or that they had misunderstood the dichotomous key or the plant identification terminology. And, thanks to the wonders of a public school education, everyone assumed the wrong results would get us a failing grade. We were trying to pass. We didn’t want to get bitched out by the teacher. Curiosity, learning, science - that had nothing to do with why we were sitting in that classroom. So we all lied.

The teacher was furious. She tried to fail every student, but the administration stepped in and told her she wasn’t allowed to because a 100% fail rate is recognized as a failure of the teacher, not the class. It wasn’t even her fault, really, though her being a notorious hard-ass didn’t help. It was a failure of the entire educational system.

So whenever I see crap like Elizabeth Holmes’s blood test scam or pharmaceutical trials which are unable to be replicated or industry-funded research that reaches wildly unscientific conclusions, I just remember those fucking sweet potatoes. I remember that curiosity dies when people are just trying to give their superiors the “right” answers, so they can get the grade, get the job, get the paycheck. It’s not about truth when it’s about paying rent. There’s no scientific integrity if you can’t control for human desperation.

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The whole “scientists use big words on purpose to be exclusive” is such a bunch of anti-intellectual bullshit. Specific and concise language exists for a reason; you need the right words to convey the right meaning, and explaining stuff right is a hugely important part of science. Cultures that live around loads of snow have loads of words to describe different types of snow; cultures that live in deserts have loads of words to describe different types of sand. Complex language is needed for complex meaning.

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OP: Dragon Boat Festival dragon boat racing scene (cr 小胡涂)

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Setting up a wildlife cam in my back garden and installing a series of progressively larger decorative windmills to determine the optimal size for trapping feral questing knights.

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it’s the “date of birth: 1303 BC” for me...

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Hey so I still see people utterly baffled by how religious fundies (still a majority in America and moreso its senate) react on certain issues so uhhh is it actually not common knowledge what the antichrist is all about? You guys know his defining characteristic is ending war, right? That he’s foretold to unite the world under his leadership by preaching global peace and solving basically every single problem in the world? So you know when you try to talk to these people about equality and togetherness they literally believe that’s what makes you an agent of the devil right???

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one kiss please

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At long, LONG last, my hand-embroidered Iron Bull wheel of fortune tarot card from Dragon Age Inquisition is FINISHED! It took 111 hours of work overall, by FAR the most elaborate piece in my embroidery series. 11.5x19.5 cm in size.

If you've been following along the very slow progress of this piece on IG, you won't be surprised that this one has been on the move with me now for about 7 months while I've been involved in theatre work. I'd add to it while backstage, during tech weeks, and in green rooms while relaxing with work friends. As such each section contains memories of where I was and what show I was doing while working on it.

I probably could have finished within a shorter span if I'd dedicated more of my free time to it (same amount of hours probably, in fewer months) but I engage with these pieces like I do with the Dragon Age franchise as a whole: to have something comforting to return to and enjoy when the time is right. I hope you've enjoyed the slow journey of this one as much as I have.

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No transphobes allowed, only transborbs.

Check out my stuff!

✧Read Namesake✧ ✧Read Crow Time✧ ✧Store✧ ✧Patreon✧

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Tim Curry with his GameBoy on the set of The Three Musketeers (1993)

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Text: decoupling pregnancy from femininity means accurate and more inclusive language and treatment, but it also allows cis women to refuse motherhood without refusing womanhood, which is great for feminism and terrifying for misogyny.

–THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS. As a sterile cis woman who doesn’t want to have children anyway I feel this is every ounce of my being. “Define woman” types tend to do so in a way that excludes me too, so I got to stand with my trans sisters.

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Dandelions have a symbiotic relationship with little kids who make wishes

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There's no such thing as too many pancakes. Right?