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According to the Talmud, the angels objected to God’s decision to give Moses the Torah on Mt. Sinai. They said that here was this incredibly precious divine artifact, which God had written 974 generations before the creation of the world (what? who was having these generations?), and humans were unworthy of it. Instead, God should give it to them, the angels, who were much holier and would be able to use it better.

God asked Moses to speak out in his own defense. Moses said that the Torah contained all of these commandments, like “honor your mother and father” and “don’t commit adultery” which made sense for humans but didn’t make sense for angels because angels didn’t have parents or get married. The angels all said “Huh, we never thought about that,” and agreed Moses should get the Torah, and gave him various pieces of angel-magic as a peace offering.

Leave aside for a moment how confused the angels would have to be not to consider the whole “a book about not commiting adultery isn’t relevant to angels” thing. The Torah is about 80% description of Moses’ life and deeds leading the Israelites through the desert. There is a part in the Torah about God giving the Torah to Moses. So what the angels are basically saying is “This book about Moses, which talks all about Moses’ life, and which contains a description of how you gave this book itself to Moses, why are you giving it to this random ‘Moses’ guy? Who the heck is he?”

And when Moses argues in his own defense, all he says is “Well, angels aren’t at risk of adultery, so there.” Not, “IT’S AN ENTIRE BOOK ABOUT ME,” let alone “IT SAYS IN THE BOOK THAT YOU GIVE ME THE BOOK, THAT’S ACTUALLY A BIG PART OF WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT.”

The Torah is kind of a strange loop.

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Why did the functions stop calling each other?

-Because they had constant arguments!

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Cognitive Trope Therapy

I have invented a new form of psychotherapy

I call it Cognitive Trope Therapy

the way it works is that when you have a thought, you write it down

like, say

"You are different from the others. You will never know their innocence… and that is why you should hate your own existence. Die. Die. Die."

then you figure out whether, if your life were a fantasy novel, these words would be spoken by figures wearing black robes, and speaking in a dry, whispering voice, and they are actually withered beings who touched the Stone of Evil

and if so then you don’t listen

I would write this up as a pop psych bestseller but it would be only two pages long

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This is the best photo ever taken of Terry Pratchett, and indeed one of the best photos ever taken of anybody. 

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Q: Do I have to kill the snake? A: University guidelines state that you have to “defeat” the snake. There are many ways to accomplish this. Lots of students choose to wrestle the snake. Some construct decoys and elaborate traps to confuse and then ensnare the snake. One student brought a flute and played a song to lull the snake to sleep. Then he threw the snake out a window. Q: Does everyone fight the same snake? A: No. You will fight one of the many snakes that are kept on campus by the facilities department. Q: Are the snakes big? A: We have lots of different snakes. The quality of your work determines which snake you will fight. The better your thesis is, the smaller the snake will be. Q: Does my thesis adviser pick the snake? A: No. Your adviser just tells the guy who picks the snakes how good your thesis was. Q: What does it mean if I get a small snake that is also very strong? A: Snake-picking is not an exact science. The size of the snake is the main factor. The snake may be very strong, or it may be very weak. It may be of Asian, African, or South American origin. It may constrict its victims and then swallow them whole, or it may use venom to blind and/or paralyze its prey. You shouldn’t read too much into these other characteristics. Although if you get a poisonous snake, it often means that there was a problem with the formatting of your bibliography. Q: When and where do I fight the snake? Does the school have some kind of pit or arena for snake fights? A: You fight the snake in the room you have reserved for your defense. The fight generally starts after you have finished answering questions about your thesis. However, the snake will be lurking in the room the whole time and it can strike at any point. If the snake attacks prematurely it’s obviously better to defeat it and get back to the rest of your defense as quickly as possible. Q: Would someone who wrote a bad thesis and defeated a large snake get the same grade as someone who wrote a good thesis and defeated a small snake? A: Yes. Q: So then couldn’t you just fight a snake in lieu of actually writing a thesis? A: Technically, yes. But in that case the snake would be very big. Very big, indeed. Q: Could the snake kill me? A: That almost never happens. But if you’re worried, just make sure that you write a good thesis. Q: Why do I have to do this? A: Snake fighting is one of the great traditions of higher education. It may seem somewhat antiquated and silly, like the robes we wear at graduation, but fighting a snake is an important part of the history and culture of every reputable university. Almost everyone with an advanced degree has gone through this process. Notable figures such as John Foster Dulles, Philip Roth, and Doris Kearns Goodwin (to name but a few) have all had to defeat at least one snake in single combat. Q: This whole snake thing is just a metaphor, right? A: I assure you, the snakes are very real.

"The Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defense" by Luke Burns (via inevitablerecursion)

I don’t know if this is a metaphor for something, but I am happy to appreciate it on the purely literal level.

(via slatestarscratchpad)

[coileysw]

You know who has an underappreciated perspective? Bowser. Imagine. You’re this warrior-despot. You’ve just conquered this place called “the Mushroom Kingdom”, sounds kind of dumb, but you’re a giant turtle so whatever. You set to work consolidating your gains, crushing rebellions, et cetera. You...

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How to write your name on the moon

It’s a common thing (warning: link goes to tvtropes) in sci-fi: somebody writes a huge message on the moon that people can read on Earth.

Well, maybe you want to do this too! I’m sure you have a very good reason. Here, then, is a scientific guide to writing on the moon.

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Night in the woods valentine cards for all your awkwardly needs.

:3

nightinthewoodsgame (c) Alec Holowka & Scott Benson

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http://www.nightinthewoods.com/

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Carlos and the Night Vale Puppy Infestation of ‘13.

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Here are the Best of THE BEST Photos I took of the Welcome To Night Vale Meet Up at MCM Expo. I absolutely loved you guys and I plan to cosplay a Night Vale Character in May (I just don’t know who!!)

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Cecil is me :3

Nightvale Cosplayers! These guys werplaying episodes of Welcome to Nightvale through a speaking in Cecil’s bag. They were a bunch of sweethearts!

Kevin - undenizen Hooded figure - skull-bearer Cecil - ??

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So me, undenizen, & skull-bearer went to MCM as Cecil, Kevin, and a Mysterious Hooded Figure (respectively) from Welcome To Night Vale.

And met dozens of other nightvalers! :D

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Flight with Death

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The thing you always have to remember about the Daily Mail is that the Daily Mail is old and very strange. It is also very bad, of course, but its malignancy is quite unlike, say, Murdoch’s. Murdoch knows what he wants and his newspapers are instruments for getting it - and inasmuch as what he wants is a world of laissez-faire economics with commercial media selling to a mostly self-interested population, he has succeeded. The tone of the Murdoch press is self-righteous, often angry, but never fearful. It’s a vigorous, scaleable model - it works in most countries.

There isn’t anything quite like the Mail in other countries, though, because the Mail isn’t like that. The Mail cannot win. The Mail is still at heart a Victorian paper in a world where most of what a Victorian paper might have cared about has been lost. The Mail is self-pitying, fearful, vicious and desperate. It is Gollum and “Great Britain”, Imperial Britain is its Precious. All the weirdness of the Victorian mind is there in the Daily Mail - its secret lusts (“all grown up”), its moralising, its self-loathing self-policing, its addiction to mysticism (you don’t get Crystal Skull and Bible Code bullshit in the Sun), its love of snake oil and quackery, its worship of hype, its infinite snobbery, and obviously its foundational horror of and fascination with the Other. The Sun presented its readers with a ready-made self-image, a character class they could adopt. The Mail has always drawn on what’s really there. The end of Empire is the great wound in British culture, and the Daily Mail is its endlessly picked scab.

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