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It would be funny if nuclear waste warning messages become an attraction for future historical linguists.

I mean look at this thing:

A parallel text in 7 languages, with 4 different scripts between them! And pictograms! All designed to be preserved intact!

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You know what’s always broken immersion for me? Jocasta Nu flippantly telling Obi-Wan that Kamino doesn’t exist if it’s not in the archives despite him having eyewitnesses and data of its gravitational effects.

George knew anything about librarians Jocasta Nu would have skipped her lunch to call up a dozen other repositories to see what they had and she’d have gone along with him just to document the error. Even after Kenobi telling her it’s okay, she can chill.

Somehow, I think she’d sense Dooku fucking messed with her goddamn data, too and she’d take that personally.

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ultimately i think kindness is the most radical thing you can do with your pain and your anger. it’s like, you take everything awful that’s ever been done to you, and you throw it back in the world’s teeth, and you say no, fuck you, i’m not going to take this.  you say this is unacceptable. you say that shit stops with me.

humans are fucking terrible and this awful world we live in will fucking kill you but if you are kind, if you are brave and clever and try really hard, you can defy it. you can impose on this bleak and monstrous structure something beautiful. even if it’s temporary. even if it doesn’t heal anything inside you that’s been hurt.  

i’m gonna sleep and i’m gonna wake up and i swear by everything in this deadly horrible universe i’m gonna make someone happy. 

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I told my dad today about the Passover frog debate and his response was that it was really one little frog which father bought for two zuzim so I think that puts an end to that debate

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Did you know that the overconsumption energy drinks may trigger the onset of POTS? See R Terlizzi et al., Reversible postural tachycardia syndrome due to inadvertent overuse of Red Bull, Clin Auton Res. 2008 Aug;18(4):221-3, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18682891. Back when I was diagnosed in 2011, this was one of only a handful of published studies on POTS. I already thought Red Bull was gross and after that I had zero interest in any energy drinks whatsoever.

I don't mean coffee or espresso. I mean drinks like Red Bull, etc.

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The Lincoln Assassination is really just wild if you think about it for a moment. The younger brother of one of the most famous actors in the country- himself a famous actor and heartthrob in his own right- killed the President in a theatre and yelled “Sic semper tyrannis,” a line often associated with Brutus, a character that his brother had famously played.

Like, imagine if Liam Hemsworth killed the Prime Minister of Australia at a red carpet movie premiere or something and yelled “I went for the head,” and Chris had to leave the Avengers press tour to tell everyone, “I swear I had nothing to do with this.” Imagine how weird that would be.

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“Meatless alternatives are getting so good, you should try them! I bet you wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference! In fact….”

Please

Please

Please stop trying to sneak-feed me meat alternatives.

I am willing to prepare and share a vegan meal with you, I’m willing to skip animal products in our group spaces.

Please.

Stop trying to sneak-feed me meat alternatives.

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My friend’s little brother (non-verbal) used to hide people’s shoes if he liked the person, because it meant they had to stay longer. The more difficult it was to find your shoes, the more he liked you.

One day my cousin came over, and she was a bitch. When it was time to leave, my friend’s brother handed her shoes directly to her and she went on and on about how he must have a crush on her because he only “helped” her.

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a friend of mine is a science educator. not a classroom teacher - he does the kind of programs you see in museums, fun experiments with lasers and dry ice and shit.

yesterday, a young girl asked him why he was allowed to pour liquid nitrogen all over his own arm but he didn’t want her doing it. I braced myself for some dumb “well I’m an adult so I’m allowed” non-answer, but instead he surprised me by giving some of the best science (and life) advice I think you can give a young person:

“well, it’s one of those rules designed to keep you safe. and following the rules really can help you stay safe, but they’re not perfect. sometimes, usually because they’re too simple, the rules let you do things that aren’t safe, or don’t let you do things that are safe if you know how to do them. one of the reasons I’m good at what I do as a scientist is I try to understand how things work so I can figure out my own rules for keeping myself safe. and sometimes my rules are little more complicated than what I might hear from other people, but they work better for me. like, I let myself play with liquid nitrogen, but only in really specific ways that I’ve spent time practicing. you should follow the rules you’re given at first, but if you take the time to understand how things work, maybe you can make your own, better rules.”

I loved this response. it’s a great encapsulation of two really important things I think people need to learn and re-learn all the time: on the one hand, listen to genuine authority figures; when someone knows more than you about a subject, don’t treat their expertise as “just another opinion” and act like your ignorance is just as good as their knowledge. but on the other hand, don’t obey anything or anyone blindly. recognize that rules and systems and established ideas are never perfect. question things, educate yourself, question things more.

and then, of course, a parent had to butt in and spoil this wonderful lesson by saying:

“but not the rules mom comes up with!”

everyone in the room laughed. except me. I gave her a death glare I’m pretty sure she didn’t notice.

because no. no. your rules are not above reproach if you’re a parent. the thing about the dictates of genuine authority figures - people who deserve to have power, and to have their positions respected - is that they are open to question. genuine authority figures are accountable. governments can be petitioned and protested and recalled. doctors must respect patients’ right to a second opinion. journalists have jobs terminated and credentials revoked if they fail to meet standards of integrity and diligence. scientists, to bring us back full circle, spend their entire careers trying to disprove their own hypotheses! you know who insists on being treated as infallible? megalomaniacal dictators, that’s who. oh, and parents.

I’m beyond sick and tired of this “my house my rules, this family is not a democracy, I want my child to think critically and stand up for themselves except to me ha ha” bullshit. my friend gave this kid the kind of advice that doesn’t just help people become good scientists - if enough people adopt the mentality he put forth to that girl, that’s the kind of advice that helps societies value knowledge and resist totalitarianism. and her mother shut it down because, what, she didn’t want to deal with the inconvenience of having someone question her edicts about whose job it is to wash the dishes on Mondays?

we already know you’re more likely to be a Trump supporter if you’re an authoritarian parent - and that this is a stronger predictor of your views on the current president than age, religiosity, gender, or race. I’ll say this another way in case you didn’t catch the full meaning: people who believe in the absolute, unquestionable authority of parents are more than two and a half times as likely to support Trump as people who don’t, and that’s just among Republicans. we can’t afford to treat the oppressive treatment of children or the injustice of ageist power structures in our society as a sideshow issue any longer. the mentality that parents should be treated by their children as beyond reproach and above dispute is a social cancer that has metastasized into the man currently trying to destroy the foundations of democracy in this country.

in short: parents, get the hell over yourselves before you get us all killed. and kids, learn as much as you can, and then make your own rules.

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Ava has resumed attempting to destroy my furniture, while, while less than ideal, is still a mood booster. She's less and less impressed at my insistence that she at least let me cap her feeding tube before she runs off to somewhere I am not.

Meanwhile my mom just had a major seizure despite being medicated for epilepsy, and also possibly a stroke, because there weren't enough things on fire in my life already. Stress triggers disability flares and makes dysphoria harder to cope with. Ava's recovery is the one thing going right at the moment. I'd appreciate a hand with her bills so I can cover both our medical costs.

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Shoutout to everyone who doesn't know if they're getting their ncluster fuck - even if it's already been submitted to payroll! - because of this clusterfuck. Ava calls BS and so do I.

Babygirl's follow-up is tomorrow and I still need to figure out how to cover her bill and my rent. Anything helps. Love all yall.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-sara-save-ava-urgent-medical-fund?attribution_id=sl:076874fe-fe9e-471c-82cf-101b68d0dbde&lang=en_US

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yeah.

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I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.