hermionebutwithmath

[hermionebutwithmath]

"hurts because i need to move more" and "hurts because i need to not move it at all" should really be different sensations. i should be able to troubleshoot my own body without just picking one and seeing if that makes it worse.

[hermionebutwithmath]

I find it really fascinating (and strange) that, to a degree, you can regulate yourself when something is overstimulating you if you just..... focus hard enough on the exact thing that's annoying. That's so counterintuitive and sounds fake af, but if there's just one thing that's sensory hell and otherwise you're fine, it can actually work. And I hate that because it sounds like "Have you tried yoga?", but it's just..... It can help!

For example there's a terrible buzzing noise nobody else hears. I focus on exactly that noise, what it sounds like when it begins, when it ends, if there's a change in pitch or frequency, etc. And while I do that I breathe slowly and deeply.

At some point my brain goes "Yeah, I analysed that noise and actually decided that we can't hear it anymore now. Not dangerous, no need to pay attention to it any longer."

Like, you focus on a single sensory input that's bothering you, and sometimes your brain decides that it's "not worth your attention™" and moves on.

Unfortunately, to actually focus on that thing, you first have to convince the frightened animal in your head that this sensory input isn't evil and dangerous. And it might take a while until it trusts you at all. And there may be setbacks at first.

But if your frightened animal trusts you and you focus on exactly what's bothering you, sometimes your brain just stops giving a fck about it.

[hermionebutwithmath]

[hermionebutwithmath]

I teach a lot of undergrads these days. About 3 years ago, I started dedicating a full two hours early every semester to a lecture and discussion about the history of the concept of plagiarism, because I was so annoyed that my students were walking into my classroom with the ironclad belief that they weren't plagiarizing when they were. Sure, the university had some official plagiarism guidelines that they could hypothetically read in a code of conduct somewhere, but they didn't. All they had was a vague memory of some teacher in Grade 8 telling them 'don't copy and paste from wikipedia' and a little learning from experience afterwards.

My hypothesis (which I was delighted to find is shared by Brian Deer, the journalist who broke the Wakefield story and who was the source Illuminaughti plagiarized in the hbomberguy video) is that the rise of automatic plagiarism checkers meant that, in the minds of many students, the formerly more abstract concept of plagiarism ('passing someone else's work off as your own') became a more concrete concept operationalized by the plagiarism checker. Under this concept, a text is plagiarized if (and, implicitly, only if) it is detected as plagiarism by the plagiarism checker. I have spent many hours with students sobbing in my office after I told them that their essays were plagiarized, and they all say that they thought changing the words around was sufficient to make it not plagiarized. Maybe some of them were lying for sympathy, maybe they all were, but I see no reason to not take them at their word. They think that what they're doing is dubious (hence the shame) but they don't think it falls under what they take to be the definition of plagiarism - the thing they can face sanction from the university for. They need to have it pointed out to them that there has been plagiarism for a lot longer than there have been automatic 'plagiarism checkers' and that as their professor, I'm the only plagiarism checker they really need to be concerned about.

It's really easy for me to get frustrated about this. It's frustrating to me that the American public high school system (the source of the majority of my students) has failed to prepare them to think about information, facts, and where they come from. It's frustrating that students can't be arsed to read the university's code of conduct and that the only way I know they have is if I read it straight to their faces. It's very frustrating to see the written scholarly word, a medium to which I have dedicated no small part of my life, treated like it's not worth anything. I'm frustrated to know that most students are not in my class, or in the class of someone else prepared to teach this lesson, so they'll go through their whole lives thinking that an uncited light paraphrase is enough to be worthy of credit. I'm frustrated that people with such a lax attitude towards information are my fellow voters. I once read a real fucking academic essay that was submitted for grades that cited a long quote from Arthur Conan Doyle that, when I traced it, was actually a quote from a fucking TJLC blog. That one isn't frustrating, I guess, that's just funny. It's not all bad.

I'm glad for the hbomberguy video. I hope it will make it easier to convince my students in future. It's too bad he didn't go into the academic context, but it's not like he was short on things to talk about already.

But this is a more general problem than just the video essay context shows. If we're not careful, the very concept of plagiarism can get eroded. I'm not a linguistic prescriptivist, either! If enough people start taking this new concept as plagiarism, that will be what it becomes. I think a world in which that notion of plagiarism is the relevant one would be a worse world. Don't let people erode the idea of credit. You're going to want it later.

[hermionebutwithmath]

me, sitting in the imperial palace in the middle of the Han dynasty, showing the emperor shit off my phone: ...So in the future, instead of having to keep your own council of eunuchs, there is a public one that anyone can go to for advice. They can't betray you because they're not loyal to you - hell, they don't even respect you, they are only loyal to their ideas of being right and correcting each other. They'll answer your questions unless they think that your question was stupid, in which case you're receiving a full downpour of their vitriol. No, they won't kill you if you offend them. The worst they can do is ban you from that particular subreddit.

[hermionebutwithmath]

You can teleport one (1) single individual live seagull into any time or place in history. Where would you choose to put it to best fuck with peoples' heads and cause as much confusion as possible?

I'd pick Tutankhamun's tomb, just behind the sealed door, 30 seconds before the seal is broken and the tomb is opened. Imagine throwing that into the curse myth - just as these people are about to crack open the greatest cold one in history, knowing that this is what they'll be known for from hereon, they open the door that must not be opened, and out scatters a frantic, deeply baffled bird, entirely healthy and intact, fluttering away never to be seen again, with no apparent way of how it got in.

[hermionebutwithmath]

slowly becoming the designated DIY guy of my household not because of any skill or training but because im the only person with the hubris to say 'fuck it hand me a drill how hard can it be." highly reccomend it because it gives a butch thrill that cannot be matched. i understand why suburban dads are like this now. im unstoppable.

[hermionebutwithmath]

Did you know that horses are still used for logging? Not just as a way to keep traditional handicrafts alive, but because horses are genuinely better at some jobs than machines?

Horses are much gentler on sensitive ecosystems, they're more flexible in rocky terrain, and they don't topple over on a hillside.

They can enter dense forests and drag out one specific tree without damaging the other trees and without compacting or eroding the soil.

They also run on hay instead of gas or electricity. Horses don't pollute the ecosystem with either oil leaks, gas stench, or noise.

In conclusion, draft horses are awesome c:

[hermionebutwithmath]

people will be like “i don’t see the problem with the government controlling who is and isn’t able to have children or a meaningful fulfilling life or maybe a life at all, because they’ve promised they’re only going to cull Official Bad People, which they also decide the definition of”

[hermionebutwithmath]

When somebody shares a quote by a famous author like it's something the author personally said and believed, but you know it was actually spoken by a character you're not supposed to like... 😐

[hermionebutwithmath]

"hurts because i need to move more" and "hurts because i need to not move it at all" should really be different sensations. i should be able to troubleshoot my own body without just picking one and seeing if that makes it worse.

[hermionebutwithmath]

you're so beautifol :) may i sense you with my feelers

[hermionebutwithmath]

I know I say that I'm kinda nuts for doing the amount of visual research I do, but at the same time: Specificity is SO much more compelling and real feeling, and imo not getting references often makes things look more amateur.

Eg. drawing a sofa- my mental image of a sofa is something like this:

Like. Its a sofa. It works. But it's not very convincing, the pillows are kinda wrong at the back, and it's not really giving any information about the owner. Even if you want a basic sofa... What kind of basic.

comfy and cheap?

kinda rigid?

inherited? ------

who does this comfy cheap ikea sofa belong to anyway?

guy living alone?

teenage girl?

Grandma?

Anyway I'll get off my soapbox but specificity is sexy and fun and it can do your storytelling for you!

[hermionebutwithmath]

a scene must be included PRIOR to sex where the characters READ their birth certificates OUT LOUD so the reader will know they were born on the SAME DATE to avoid any disgusting AGE GAPS

[hermionebutwithmath]

Utterly Relaxed Leopard

Photographer: Irene Nathanson

[hermionebutwithmath]

there's been plenty of pushback against youtube's plan to age-check users by using an AI to analyze everyone's watching habits, but amidst that, i spotted this playlist circulating among some teens:

(picture is a reconstruction to protect the kids identity)

interesting! they're trying to trick the AI by watching videos that have a primarily adult viewer demographic? well im a curious fella so naturally i have to take a look-see, and

[hermionebutwithmath]

languages that don't distinguish between formal and informal you are missing out on so much petty drama. my grandparents have two neighbours who once got into a huge fight over something honestly pretty trivial, so neighbour A said he was going to revoke neighbour B's du (informal you) privileges. neighbour B was like "okay but can i use du one last time?" and neighbour A was like "yeah go ahead", and neighbour B said "du arschloch" (you asshole). incredible.