#asynchronous learning

[good-beans]

Me: Woo I'm taking a copyediting class! I've done tons of writing/communications courses but editing has always just been something embedded in it -- it'll be really nice to get a focused look at the craft, take time to learn it, and really master it :D

Professor: Yeah so here are 5 novel manuscripts by other students in the program, start proofing these simultaneously on tight deadlines okay? Remember, these are your peers, they're counting on you 👍

Me:

[stimpunks]

An Inclusive Conference Model for Our Times

Most conferences do not include us Stimpunks as either presenters or attendees. Conferences are sensory and social overwhelm. Speaking in front of an audience is very stressful due to Exposure Anxiety, Situational Mutism, and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Meatspace conferences never include our “Five Ways to Welcome All Bodyminds to Your Learning Event”. Conference to Restore Humanity by Human…

[mysterious-prophetess]

Academic Blogging—Finals for Winter Session

Either I've just had the most honest batch of students in my 2.25 years of doing this, OR the dishonest ones are using chatbots, which I can't detect in an online setting.

[aeolianblues]

Preface: this is only in the body and not in tags because it’s difficult to format it in tags, it’s not meant to be read as more important than tags if you don’t want to, I’m just thinking out loud.

Seeing so many different takes on this in the notes — Some people arguing that disability will be negatively impacted by having accessibility aids taken away. Dyslexia and related conditions. Valid concerns. While I think it’s possible to accommodate that— I never knew a teacher to ever deduct more than half a mark on an entire test (overall) for bad handwriting or spelling, it’s possible to do away with deductions for these small things outside of like, grade 5 entirely. If teachers in my classes of 54 kids could do it in the 2010s, it’s possible to do it now too.

I’ve never liked nor understood mathematics on a computer. None of the symbols you need are available, rough work is impossible to do for calculations, it makes everything so messy. Same goes for physics, and chemistry formatting was also an absolute bitch digitally. That’s where pen/pencil and paper were absolutely needed. Even today, I prefer to do any non-text work by hand because what do you know! Tablets with pencils are still really expensive!

But on the other hand, writing for long hours was an absolute pain— many of us were worried that 3-hour long exams with long-format answers would actually give us some sort of wrist injury. I switched from playing the guitar righthanded (pressing the strings with your left hand) to playing the other way round, because after getting home from a 7h long school day my left (writing) hand could not take applying pressure while practising the guitar. As someone who’s job is coding on a computer and like dragging windows and spreadsheets, I do worry about things like carpal tunnel, though I still feel my hands are less stressed than when writing with a pen over 6 hours and really fast. I had to change how I write entirely to reduce finger and wrist stress.

Unless you (as the last person said) want to get rid of homework entirely and have kids do their work in front of you, writing won’t really reduce AI cheating. A kid on a time crunch will choose to handwrite an essay they got chat gpt to write for them than sit and take the precious time when late to come up with the contents and structure their arguments themselves. This is not me advocating for AI, but telling you that this is what I saw in my final years, which was just as AI was beginning to take off amongst university students.

You know how you tackle that? You teach your students time management. Facilitate their essay writing process in stages. Set smaller milestones that they need to meet. Professors who broke up a large assignment into smaller bits with incremental deadlines took SO much stress off my shoulders compared than ones who just assigned you one fuckoff-giant project and left you to flail. I built a whole compiler within a 3 month semester, and it was the least stressful project I’ve ever done because we had smaller and well-structured deadlines every two weeks that also helped us really understand the architecture of a compiler and helped me think through the process of building one.

And I know, some people will say ‘if university students in their 20s need to be taught basic things like time management then we’re all doomed’, but what else are you trying to teach kids when you get into the argument about whether AI helps or hinders? The material they need is mostly available either online or now easily structured through AI. You’re teaching them how to think about things, structure their ideas, put together larger pieces of work incrementally; doesn’t that also include teaching them how to spread out and structure their work? It’s literally what workplaces would call ‘project management.’

Teach them that, and a lot of things they may have previously been intimidated by and felt unable to start (you know when something’s so vast you don’t know where to start and just freeze instead?), they will all fall into place and make sense, and allow your students not only to begin their work, but to know how to break down bigger problems in future and also how to set themselves milestones to keep track of their (/their teams’) progress themselves. What do I know.

An ex-colleague of mine was complaining to me the other day about the ai problem in her students' papers, and I told her, "Just make your students hand-write them in class. Easy." She looked at me like I was insane and tried to explain how that would never work, but I just said,"That's how we did it for a thousand years. The invention of word processors doesn't erase all that."

To me it seems obvious. Readings are done out of class, handwritten essays are done within it. No more ai papers.

[as-if-and-only-if]

I'm interested in forming a sort of...math & physics reading group network. well, with some very important modifications to the concept of "reading group".

for example, right now, I'd like to learn algebraic geometry, qft, and/or refresh myself on representation theory with someone—maybe just one or two people—meaning that traditionally, we'd pick a text for one of these topics, discuss the material (asynchronously or synchronously?), exchange exercises, etc.

but currently (being Between Institutions), my best bet is posting on tumblr. and that's a pretty good bet, tbh! there are a lot of us here!

though, wouldn't it be great if there were a way to coordinate groups like this across institutions? you make a post proposing a group, specifying your goals and constraints...

even that would be a boon. but I think the concept of a "reading group" itself could be changed in interesting ways. this is what I'm really interested in.

there are variations among reading groups themselves already. sometimes you have directed reading groups, where someone already knows the material and "leads" it; some people are looking for more or less people involved; and there are probably things to explore for making sure that reading groups stick through it instead of falling apart when some motivation flags. default meeting times help with this, for example.

there are many experiments to be done! I think lessons for group-making can be taken from a maybe-surprising source: theater. there are a lot of things that make groups which put on shows more robust and rewarding than reading groups. a sense of building to something; many factors that create informal group cohesion (e.g. such a structure should make sure it creates more-informal "cafe" time in addition to more-formal "practice" time, just as rehearsal in physical spaces facilitates that casual sort of interaction on its periphery); ways to get into the right headspace during discussions (just as warm-ups do in theater; the engagement with this material is an event); clear goals (e.g. "understand ___"); successive shared accomplishments...to that end I wonder if it makes sense to form math troupes, which do successive reading groups together, drawn from its members.

it might be useful to envision some sort of public-facing artifact created as the culmination of this learning, whether a presentation, or an article, or some novel application or research...the crucial question is: how do we choose a goal that we find meaning in?

one idea, for example, is to have a collection parallel reading groups learning different things, and end by presenting to each other! that way we know what we learn will be meaningful to others, too, from the beginning. in general, I think it's important to feel that our own development of insight and understanding can be meaningful to others and to the group. it's nice to participate; it's nice to be able to offer something that is valued. what form can this take? how can you set up the interactions such that everyone has a part to play, and so this meaningfulness is tangled up in participation in the group?

I've also got a couple of ideas for "activities" that let us engage, re-engage, and play with the concepts we're learning with each other, beyond the text itself. how can we give ourselves the opportunity to toss around the concepts we're learning? I believe that the fun ultimately comes from the understanding itself, and therefore that any group exercise which lets us effectively play with the ideas will be fun.

it's a lot to ask people to come up with structure like that themselves, but using a pre-existing structure is not so difficult! sort of like how it's hard to make a TTRPG itself, so simply saying "go off and roleplay" isn't that helpful, but it's easy to use the structure of an existing one to run a game.

you might say, well, the existing form of a reading group is fine. okay! existing reading group structures can be low-stakes, relaxed, and accessible...but they can also fall apart easily (especially when not tied to an institution, in my experience), and you have to get lucky to find a truly rewarding one. I find reimagining our mechanisms of learning pretty exciting, and I think the space of ways to learn math with each other is underexplored at this level (emphasis on the with each other). there's a lot of potential!

anyway! reply or tag with "!" if this is something you could maybe be interested if done well? or if you're at least curious! I'm just taking a temperature. :)

[the-one-who-lambs]

Oh I am having an EVENING. I just got back to school, spent the last 2 days amazingly productive and prepping for finals, and an hour ago I tested positive for COVID.

So then I had to email my students over the Learning Management App (which doesn't keep the formatting of the email site) that class is going be asynchronous tomorrow. At the end of the email, I tried to copy and paste my usual signature. I pasted and hit send too quickly for me to realize it did not copy.

This is an excerpt from the next chapter of the fanfic I am writing.

[black-crested-jaybird]

All of this is true in my experience. And also:

I grew up both gifted and (it turns out!) neurodivergent. My "giftedness" (a better term for which is asynchronous development) was in language skills, which came so easily and early to me that I do not remember learning to read; mathematics, on the other hand, were a constant struggle, new concepts never really making sense to me until about a year after they were introduced in the curriculum.

Because of this imbalance, I discounted the things that came easily to me, believing they must be easy for everyone; and, since I was struggling with math, I assumed, and internalized the idea, that everyone who told me I was "gifted" just hadn't yet realized they were wrong about me. (Yeah, that was great for my self-esteem, why do you ask?)

Like @swordplease, I missed out on learning a number of skills in primary and secondary school because I was able to produce good work (at the last minute in a panic-fueled rush; why yes, I do have ADHD, it turns out) without using them. I learned to take notes in middle school and did - and do - take notes extremely well; but that's largely because it gives me something to do with my body - language is my jam, and note-taking is both information integration and fidget-stim for me. I almost never reviewed those notes, which I was taught was the entire reason to be taking them in the first place.

What I never did, until I was most of the way through college, was learn how to research, outline, draft, and rewrite a paper. Oh, I was taught the proper method: choose a topic; find information sources; take notes on index cards; come up with a thesis; create an outline; write a first draft, maybe a second; then write a final draft for submission. Many of my teachers tried to scaffold this process by setting incremental due dates for topics and thesis statements. It didn't matter. The paper itself would always be written in a haze of adrenaline the night before it was due. The only reason I managed to research, outline, and draft that singular paper in college was that it was due the day after I returned from a week-long trip overseas and I knew I had no choice. As it was, my luggage was heavy with texts and most of my research was done on layover.

It's been a few years since I was diagnosed with ADHD; almost a year since I started medicating for it. It's been a wild and revelatory ride since then. It was only last month that I realized: I didn't use outlines, notes, or rough drafts in school, not because, as I told myself, I didn't need them - after all, despite my brilliant overnight three-page essays, the idea of writing a ten or twenty-page report, let alone something like a dissertation or a book, seemed as impossible as growing wings and flying. No, it was the other way around: I had convinced myself that I didn't need those tools because, undiagnosed and untreated, I was not capable of using them; and admitting that, even to myself, would have been, like asking for help as @swordplease describes, making myself a failure - when I'd been told all my life that I was innately destined for success.

A friend of the family who specializes in child developmental support told me years ago that "can't" and "won't" look the same from the outside, but when you're dealing with kids, it's almost always "can't" - even if, from the outside, we aren't able to see why they can't. I never thought to apply that to the kid I used to be, but it's true for that kid, too...and I think it's often true for us as adults, as well.

people misunderstand what ‘gifted kid’ actually means but it’s ok it’s fine it’s cool it’s good

[andhumanslovedstories]

Writing prompt: death wants to retire

Thanks for the prompt! This sentence is a link to a video where you can watch me write it in real time!

I thought it'd be fun to record myself writing. Partially to keep myself focused, partially because I watch a lot of people play video games for background sound and I was like, "I can do that but nerdier," and partially because I thought other people might like writing along. We can all do one big asynchronous writing sprint together. It's available for free over on the Cracked Spines patreon, which seemed like the least intimidating way to post a 45 min video of me, alone, doing a creative work. It's like a lofi ASMR video. I talk very softly. I cannot stress how asleep everyone else in the house was while I did this.

I wrote the story below in about fifty mins. I wrote most of it by hand in thirty minutes. That's the video. Then I typed up what I wrote here, did some minor edits, and then actually tried to reach any conclusion. The ** below marks where the writing originally ended. I tried to stay true to the idea of free-writing by hand, so I just put down words and powered ahead.

First there was nothing. Then there was something. Then there was Brittany. In the name of efficiency, I am skipping over a few eons between my creation and Brittany's.

She wasn't a bad person. People who believe certain people should die young wouldn't have said she deserved such a fate. No one deserves anything. I am not a matter of morality. A quick survey of any tragedy will tell you such, and there has never been any shortage of tragedy to study.

She died in her bathroom. A lot of people die in the bathroom. That sounds undignified to those who care about such things, but I personally find the concept of dying at all anywhere from anything mortifying. It has never seemed to make much a difference what room of your house sees your end. Still, we must cater (or at least, I occasionally chose to cater) to the tender sensitivities of mortals. Especially those who have just learned how mortal they are.

"Can I please just pull up my pants?" what remained of Brittany asked me. The container than had once enclosed her was slumped face-down on the tile floor. The position looked like it would feel uncomfortable if the body had the capacity to feel.

"No," I said.

"Please?"

"It's not a matter of permission. I have no power to affect the physical world. Neither do you."

Brittany bent down and passed her hand through her corpse a few times. Humans never just believe you. "What if my unfinished business leads me to become a ghost? Do I get ghost powers? Can ghost powers do anything here?"

"There is not such thing as ghosts."

For the first time since I informed her that she was dead, Brittany looked surprised. "Then what am I right now?"

"A soul."

"How is that different from a ghost?"

"The idea of a ghost is that after a person has left their body, something of them remains behind."

"Which I am, right now," she said.

"You're not. I am getting you. After this, I will take you. There can never be such a thing as a ghost because I do my job."

"Every time?" she asked.

"Always."

"What about everyone else who died at the same time I did?"

"I am talking with them as well." I paused. "Most of them have already moved on."

"Sorry that my death is slowing you down." She did not sound sorry. Humans say things like that sometimes.

"It is not. Nothing slows me. Nothing stops me. This moment between us will never be longer than a moment."

Through force of habit, Brittany tried to check her phone. Because the habit was so deeply ingrained, she succeeded. Now separate from the imposed frame of the physical world, everything she was and had right now was whatever her mind could conceive it to be. "When did I die?" she asked, looking at the clock.

"You didn't at the precise moment that we are talking. You will never get another moment."

She kept looking down at her phone, though she didn't seem to see it. "I guess that's okay," she said at last. "Who wants to see their roommate find their dead body? God, do you think she'll even be sad?"

Insomuch as I can, my form being what it is, I shrugged. I did not have experience with aftermath. By definition, by the time it arrives, I am gone. "Come," I said.

"Hmm," she replied. "What if--hear me out--what if--"

"There is nothing you can do to rearrange your corpse."

"That's not what I'm asking."

I knew that. She was making her boring request. I received it more often than a human mind can conceive, and each time the person requesting it thought they might be the exception.

"No," I said.

"C'mon."

"Compelling argument."

"I'm not saying forever!" Brittany protested. "Just--not right now. A little more time."

"You may remain in this moment for as long as you see fit," I said. "Then, you will go."

"Do you stay with me the whole time?"

"Yes."

Brittany made an expression that a less detached manifestation of the universe might have found insulting. "So I can spend forever in this exact unchanging moment in time, stuck in the bathroom where I died on the toilet, with the Angel of Death who keeps tapping their foot and checking their watch."

Reader, I possess neither feet for a watch. This is one of the many ways in which Brittany Park misrepresented the situation.

"You are dead," I reminded her.

"But I don't want to be!" She threw up her hands. They were already less hand-shaped than they'd been when we'd first started talking. She was forgetting the shape she used to inhabit. It would not be long now.

"Please," she asked.

**There is no construct in all of creation that has been pleaded to more than I. Once--when I was just formed and new to the concept of myself, when the something that came out of the nothing had just realized that everything eventually ended--begging affected me more. You cannot let such appeals hold sway. As I told Brittany, this was not a matter of permission. She was asking gravity to not pull her down to earth. If gravity felt guilt, what use did that serve anyone?

"No one escapes death but Death," I told her.

She brightened up suddenly. "Okay! Then how do I become Death?"

No time passed in the forever moment we inhabited. If time had passed, you could have said there was an inordinately long pause that followed this statement.

"I am Death," I reminded her.

"Sure," Brittany said flippantly. "But like, forever?"

She completed the dying process shortly after this conversation. It was inevitable. Liquid water does not hold its shape when the vessel that contained it breaks. When she forgot herself entirely, when she could no longer conceive of the division between that which was her and that which was everything else, I swept her gently into my coin purse. Across the world, across the universe, across a vast endlessness that ate even now at the nothingness from which everything had emerged, I performed the same function for uncountable organisms on every scale of existence. I reaped a microbe. I reaped a star. I reaped Brittany. And the work continued, unchanged, as it had been unchanged since the beginning, as I had been unchanged since the distant agony of my first death, when I decided what I did could never again be allowed to hurt so deeply.

And yet I keep hearing the question: forever? She had said it the same way she had said, "C'mon." An appeal to my reason. Asking me to admit what we both knew was obvious, what we both knew was ridiculous. Forever? I am what I am forever?

The answer is in the affirmative. Anything else would be impossible. Humans enjoy pondering the counterfactual. I have never seen any reason to concern myself with more than what is. I will forget the words in time, as I have undoubtedly forgotten others like it. If the thought seems to linger, then there has simply not been enough time. I can wait. I have forever.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

Can’t agree more about that duolingo post you shared, the Irish course is *terrible*. Do you have any recommendations for other places to go to learn Irish for someone with practically no knowledge of the language?

dublin city university has asynchronous courses that run regularly on futurelearn, starting with irish 101 and going up to 208 (you might have to wait a little while for 101 to come around again because they don't all run simultaneously). they're a pretty good intro with more grammar explanations, written exercises, etc. my biggest issue with them was motivating myself to actually put the time in, because i found it tough to get through all the course in the amount of time i had available to give to them, but they're probably the best free online resource i know of, especially because they do have people there to answer questions and explain grammar

there are also various online courses on zoom etc but those tend to cost money. i do think after a certain point it's worth trying to get in an actual class (in person or online) for the conversation practice if nothing else, but something like the futurelearn courses is a good stepping stone to get going

for pure vocab, memrise has so far not fallen as far down the hole of "gamification of language apps at the expense of actual teaching" and you can make custom courses to learn vocab that you yourself actually need (e.g. lists from courses you're taking), but i know memrise is trying to push a new version of their "official" courses which may end up being at the expense of "community" courses (custom lists) so idk how long that'll last, and anyway it's more of a supplement to learning elsewhere than a way to learn in and of itself, in my experience

[codemerything]

A structured way to learn JavaScript.

I came across a post on Twitter that I thought would be helpful to share with those who are struggling to find a structured way to learn Javascript on their own. Personally, I wish I had access to this information when I first started learning in January. However, I am grateful for my learning journey so far, as I have covered most topics, albeit in a less structured manner.

N/B: Not everyone learns in the same way; it's important to find what works for you. This is a guide, not a rulebook.

EASY

What is JavaScript and its role in web development?

Brief history and evolution of JavaScript.

Basic syntax and structure of JavaScript code.

Understanding variables, constants, and their declaration.

Data types: numbers, strings, boolean, and null/undefined.

Arithmetic, assignment, comparison, and logical operators.

Combining operators to create expressions.

Conditional statements (if, else if, else) for decision making.

Loops (for, while) for repetitive tasks. - Switch statements for multiple conditional cases.

MEDIUM

Defining functions, including parameters and return values.

Function scope, closures, and their practical applications.

Creating and manipulating arrays.

Working with objects, properties, and methods.

Iterating through arrays and objects.Understanding the Document Object Model (DOM).

Selecting and modifying HTML elements with JavaScript.Handling events (click, submit, etc.) with event listeners.

Using try-catch blocks to handle exceptions.

Common error types and debugging techniques.

HARD

Callback functions and their limitations.

Dealing with asynchronous operations, such as AJAX requests.

Promises for handling asynchronous operations.

Async/await for cleaner asynchronous code.

Arrow functions for concise function syntax.

Template literals for flexible string interpolation.

Destructuring for unpacking values from arrays and objects.

Spread/rest operators.

Design Patterns.

Writing unit tests with testing frameworks.

Code optimization techniques.

That's it I guess!

[mysterious-prophetess]

You're telling me that the Academy was behind these ill-advised matchups?

Wow, that's really dumb on whoever assigned that's parts.

The Paldean gym leaders really said Fuck Them Kids

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

*grabbing you by the shoulders, shaking you violently, screaming in your face*

I WANT TO WRITE ESSAYS ABOUT PHANNIE CULTURE AND HUMOUR!!!! I WANT TO DO A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE PHANDOM AND OTHER FANDOMS AND WHY AND HOW THE PHANDOM CAME TO BE THE INFAMOUS AND NOW RELATIVELY ISOLATED PLACE THAT IT IS!!!!! I WANT TO DO RESEARCH STUDIES ON DAN AND PHIL’S APPEAL TO QUEER NEURODIVERGENT PEOPLE!!!!!! I WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHY WE ARE SO INVESTED IN THESE REAL PEOPLE IN A VERY UNIQUE AND SPECIFIC WAY!!!! I WANT TO KNOW THE CHANGING PERSPECTIVES AND BEHAVIOURS OF PHANNIES WHO HAVE BEEN HERE FOR 10 OR MORE YEARS!!!!! I WANT TO STUDY PHANDOM LINGUISTICS AND HOW OUR LEXICON CHANGES AND GROWS WITH DAN AND PHIL!!!!! I WANT TO DISCUSS AND DISSECT WHAT MAKES TWITTER PHANNIES AND TUMBLR PHANNIES HATE EACH OTHER WHEN ITS THE SAME PEOPLE AND HOW THE DIFFERENT CULTURES OF TUMBLR (COLLECTIVISM, ANONYMITY) VS TWITTER (INDIVIDUALISM, DIRECT INTERACTION WITH CREATORS, THE RESPONSE TO GETTING A NOTICE) IMPACT THIS DYNAMIC!!!! I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT THE CYCLE OF PHANDOM DISCOURSE AND WHY WHENEVER THERE IS A CONTENT DROUGHT PEOPLE START SHIT AND HOW WE CAN STOP DOING THAT BECAUSE ITS NOT GOOD FOR OUR MENTAL HEALTH!!!!! I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE PHANDOM’S POWER AND HOW WE ACCOMPLISH DIRECT ACTION ABNORMALLY FAST FOR AN ASYNCHRONOUS GROUP OF STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET!!!!! I WANT TO MAKE A PHOCUMENTARY AND EXPLORE THE WORLD OF DAN AND PHIL AND THE COMMUNITY AND INTERVIEW EVERY SINGLE VIEWER AND LEARN EVERY SINGLE PERSON’S EXPERIENCE!!!!!! I WANT TO DO AN IN DEPTH DISSECTION OF THE PHASES/ERAS OF THE PHANDOM!!!!! I WANT TO CONFRONT PHANNIES’ SUPERIORITY OVER EACH OTHER AND THE TENDENCY TOWARDS CONTEMPT AND OTHERING EACH OTHER BECAUSE OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE!!!!! I WANT TO GET INTO ACCESSIBILITY IN THE PHANDOM AND WHY ITS SUCKS AND HOW WE CAN IMPROVE IT!!!!!! I WANT TO HAVE A HUGE DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW DESPITE HOW LEFT WING THIS AUDIENCE IS WE HAVE A TENDENCY TO STEP ON AND SILENCE POC PHANNIES WHEN THEY EXPRESS BEING NEGATIVELY IMPACTED BY SOMETHING DNP SAID IN THEIR PAST AND HOW ITS GOOD ACTUALLY TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT SOMETHING WAS HARMFUL ESPECIALLY IF YOURE A FAN OF THAT PERSON AND WE SHOULD ENCOURAGE THESE DISCUSSIONS AND WE DONT NEED TO IMMEDIATELY GO ON THE DEFENSIVE WE CAN JUST LISTEN!!!!! I WANT TO TRULY THOROUGHLY EXPLORE THE ETHICS OF RPF AND WHERE THE LINES ARE AND BOUNDARIES!!!!! I WANT TO FIGURE OUT THE GENERAL OPINIONS OF PEOPLE ON LABELLING DAN AND PHIL AND WHY WE DO THAT AND WHAT IS OKAY AND WHAT ISNT!!!!!! I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT DEMON PHANNIES AND COMPLICITY AND DANNIES AND PHILLIES AND PHLESBIANS!!!!!!!! STOP TRYING TO ESCAPE ME I HAVE TO GET THIS OUT BEFORE THEY FORCE ME BACK INTO THE PHENCLOSURE!!!!!

[mythrilthread]

Took a stab at binding Asynchronous Circuit by @jessepinwheel (as typeset by Hoshruba (Tilism Bindery) for 2022 Renegade Exchange)

Learned a lot while doing this!

🌃 The cover features a marbled paper section with a vellum overlay;

🌃 The endges are painted with black ink;

🌃 The circuitry on the spine and on the head and tail of the book edges is done with brush pens.

[angst-and-fajitas]

Emma Cracks the Season 2 Timeline

To put it simply, there is a LOT of vagueness in Pantheon's timeline. It's the same with most shows tbh, but I'm hyperfixated on THIS one LOL

Although the events preceding the show's beginning are super confusing and often littered with inaccuracies that are impossible to rectify (the discord has been fighting to put it together and STRUGGLING), the events DURING the show are a bit easier to crack

Season 1 begins in November. We know this because Ellen mentions to Maddie's Principal in episode 1 that it's around the anniversary of David's death, and David died in November (as confirmed by the Holstrom AI in s2 ep1).

Season 1 takes place over the course of several months. The exact length of different spans within the season is really hard to track, sometimes days or weeks seem to pass between (and even within) episodes, but they're never given exactly. One concrete detail we do know is that at least two weeks, possibly more, pass between episodes 6 and 7 (Maddie mentions that David has gone dark for 2 weeks to conserve power).

Maybe another time I can try and crack the season 1 timeline, but HERE I'm focused specifically on season 2. The funny thing about season 2 is that, if you're not watching closely, it'll look like it happens all within a week. However, it actually lasts longer!

Season 2 begins about 40 days after the ending of season 1 ("40 days in the wilderness" as one TV/radio announcer describes in the beginning of s2 ep3). Maddie is now 15 (confirmed by someone who worked on the show who I talked to).

Season 2 (minus the last 2 eps) takes place sometime during the summer (Pope references midnight sun in Svalbard in s2 ep1) over the course of about a month.

Using travel times for the various parties and a few offhanded lines, I can actually track the timeline of season 2 almost down to the day!

Timeline under the cut because spoilers.

Let's get started!

S2 ep1 takes place over the course of 3 days. This accounts for the evening we see Maddie setting up the Lilypad network, the flight time it takes for Renee to go from Svalbard to California, the day we see Maddie spend with Justine and meet Renee, and then the flight time it takes to travel back to Svalbard and meet Caspian again.

S2 ep2 also takes place over the course of 2-3 days. We know this because Waxman is sent to DC to go testify towards the beginning of the episode, and by the time that Maddie and Caspian are escaping together, Caspian mentions that Waxman was "shipped out to DC two days ago". The flight time from Svalbard to DC then takes 18 hours direct.

S2 ep 3 actually takes place asynchronously. For Maddie and Caspian, it's 1 day. However, Renee's side takes place very differently. She left Svalbard at the same time as Maddie and Caspian, but traveled by boat to Germany--I've looked it up, that takes her about 8 days at a minimum, from what I've found on sites for ships that do travel to and from Svalbard.

Therefore, I estimate that at least 2 weeks, maybe 3 max, pass between episodes 3 and 4 because of this. At least a week for Renee to reach Germany and upload Holstrom to the military satellite, where he meets Chanda and Ping. Then, a few more days to about a week in which they escape to Holstrom's private server, giving time for Ping to get suspicious and decide to go after the cure by sending Caspian's info to the world governments, and then British MI6 spends at least the rest of that week verifying that intel before giving it to Olivia (we see her get frustrated in ep 4 when she finds out that they learned about the cure to the flaw "last week" and didn't tell her).

What were Maddie and Caspian doing meanwhile? Probably planning, making fake passports and IDs, and building MIST's body. We know that Safesurf only got announced and approved at the end of ep3, and it probably took a little while for the UN to distribute it widely enough to bring the internet back on. We can safely assume that public airports weren't in operation during the shutdown when UI threats were feared (or else you'd get UI 9/11 lol), so Maddie and Caspian wouldn't have been able to fly to Europe until they were up and running anyways.

S2 ep 4 is the shortest chronologically, it takes place in one afternoon. Ep 5 picks up in that same afternoon, and appears to take the rest of that day and then the rest of the next one too, accounting for Maddie's travel time to Cyprus and then putting together and executing the plan to rescue Caspian.

It's possible that more time passes between episodes 4/5 and 6, because I'm not sure how long it would take Holstrom to get his virus ready and for Renee to have all those Deepscan chairs built, but I'm not sure about this. If there is any, I don't think it's more than a few days, because there'd be a real sense of urgency for Maddie and Caspian to do something about Holstrom.

S2 ep6 takes place over about two days, I think. First day: Maddie and Caspian travel to Stockholm, while Waxman attempts to talk to the CDC. Second day: Maddie and Caspian travel to Svalbard by seaplane (unknown flight time), and have a few hours alone while Waxman and Ellen catch up to join them (18 hour flight time). The scan itself and the fight with Holstrom probably take less than an hour.

All in all, that gets us between about 25 days to a full month!

What's the point of this? For funsies, I guess lol. And I figure it could also be a resource for writing and analysis, maybe?

Also, if anyone has insights to add about the timeline, please share! Whether you wanna add something to this one, argue against any of it, or give ideas for the season 1 timeline details, I'd love to hear!

[girlvinland]

Man. So I’m kind of at this weird turning point in my life where I like where I’m heading with job stuff, but I also really just want to learn more and embed myself more in my field.

I think I’ve talked about it on occasion, but a really big regret of mine was never finishing my geology stuff. It’s a long story that idc about telling rn, but ultimately where I ended up was kind of strange. I have a lot of bg work in geology, I ended up actually getting my master’s in library/information sci, I worked at a geological survey for I think a combined total of seven years, and then the location/work culture of that specific place was starting to wear on me a lot (a lot of turnover for lower level positions so I’d have to take on extra work when people left, dealt with sexual harassment from two of the older men, didn’t like living in that city after school).

I moved Elsewhere, got a graduate certificate in GIS, and that helped me get the job I have now, which is still in earth science but more on the climate side of things with some data and archival work thrown in. I thought for a long time about looking into studying earth system sci but idk I didn’t like how much it tied into atmospheric science bc that’s just not really my Thing or whatever. Thought about getting back into geology and did apply to a sort of dream school for it, got accepted to the program, but then so many of my old classes were not transferable bc they’re just run differently at the new place that it left me kind of like. I don’t want to retake these classes and waste time and whatever, and the classes weren’t all asynchronous so it was going to be rough logistically. I’ve kind of scrapped that idea, which was a legitimately difficult decision to make, but not the end of the world.

SO. I’m long-winded and apologize if you’re reading this but. I tried looking into other programs I might be interested in. Turns out that the place where I got the GIS cert lets you put that cert towards a GIS master’s if you want. They also offer a master’s program in renewable energy/sustainability, which I am very interested in (probably top interest after pure geology fields). So I’m kind of stuck between deciding on what I’d like, but also it’s like. Would it be pointless to do that second one with the way this administration is? Would I just be setting myself up for some sort of failure going that route bc all of those jobs are being eliminated? Will we ever be able to make a comeback with renewable energy sources (solar/wind/geothermal)? GIS is very useful in a wide range of fields, and it comes with a decent amount of programming work which I am never going to turn down, but I am very fascinated by renewable energy (my dad worked in solar and wind at one point and it used to really feel encouraging, but now I don’t know).

I really don’t know what the answer is. I do hate how uncertain and precarious climate and energy is right now. Have had to see a lot of awesome people fall victim to everything that is happening, and it’s really demoralizing and difficult to watch. Existential-crisis-what-effect-is-this-going-to-have-on-everyone-level demoralization. Well. I do at least know I’d sell my soul before I worked in anything defense or homeland security-adjacent, so guess there’s that.

[machinavocis]

oh i forgot this one:

yeah no i refuse to believe that 170+ people have now successfully done all their remote learning course completions + tradesperson business license renewals on my stupid god damn web app.