kiralamouse

[kiralamouse]

... does that pig wear lipstick? Eye makeup of every kind, sure, but Miss Piggy does not require lipstick, Miss Piggy is still perfect without, and therefore "lipstick on a pig" is still a decent metaphor for a pointless act.

the whole "lipstick on a pig" thing makes no sense because the second we gave a pig access to makeup she became god's cuntiest soldier

[kiralamouse]

Spin this wheel first and then this wheel second to generate the title of a YA fantasy novel!

(If the second wheel lands on an option ending with a plus sign, spin it again)

Share what you got!

[kiralamouse]

Bob was there, too.

(And for the interested, Bob was there too, and there too at the end.)

(Incidentally, you may note that this comic is by Andy Weir. The same man who six years after this strip published, published The Martian. I note that the commander of the spacecraft in The Martian is married to a barely-referenced character named Robert. Bob was there, too.)

it would be funny as fuck if the yelena/john/ava/bob teamup actually got away from valentina without bob getting shot. events proceed like normal. they meet up with alexei, who is even happier to see that yelena has made not two but THREE new friends. bucky still flips the limo.

of course, when he's interrogating them, he wants to know who bob is. "bob? bob is just a guy we found." "yeah. that's bob." "bob was in the basement." bucky is tearing his hair out. wtf are they hiding.

(they're not hiding anything. bob is literally just this random guy they dragged with them on their escape.)

bucky might actually succeed in dragging them to the impeachment hearing as evidence. congressman barnes gets up to speak. "evidence of valentina's crimes: she hired this assortment of assassins and spies and mercenaries. ex-captain america turned mercenary, john walker. ex-shield spy, ghost. ex-black widow, yelena belova. former soviet super soldier, red guardian."

pauses.

"and bob. he was definitely hired. for. something."

[kiralamouse]

Oh shit.

Might be wise to change your passwords.

ETA: Yeah, the article is a bit vague on some of the details. I note that, and will look into this further.

But frankly, some of my more crucial passwords are overdue for change,... so I'm changing them anyway.

[kiralamouse]

Selected Excerpts From The Fire Nation Royal Palace Servants' (Unofficial) Handbook

Or: Revisions To Normal Protocol After The Ascension Of Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko

1. Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko should not be referred to by his full titles and styles, no matter the context. This appears to annoy him. "Fire Lord Zuko" and "Lord Zuko" are acceptable, as well as "your majesty" and "my Lord".

1.1 "Lord Hotman", however, is unacceptable.

1.2. Even if the Avatar specifically requests you to address Fire Lord Zuko as that.

1.3. In fact, any attempts by the Avatar, the Lady Beifong, the honorable Tribesman Sokka or even Master Katara to get you to address Fire Lord Zuko by anything other than his proper title should be disregarded.

1.4. Referring to Ozai of the Fire Nation (titles rmvd, dishon.) as "The Loser Lord", however, is acceptable.

2. Fire Lord Zuko is aware of the concept of mortality, but does not seem to understand how it relates to His Majesty. Following activities should be discouraged: Free climbing, glider usage, contact with exotic animals larger than a turtleduck (or smaller, if the animal is known to be venomous), amateur theatre productions, cooking, sailing, spelunking, botany, please see full list in the Matron's office.

2.1. It should be noted that His Majesty's belief that mortality does not apply to him does not appear to be completely unfounded. After several "close calls", it has been decided that upon his demise, Fire Lord Zuko should lie in state for at least two weeks.

2.1.1. We do not want another incident.

3. The turtleducks in the Western Pond do not need to be fed by the servants any more.

3.1. However, the turtleducks should be rotated out at regular intervals in order to prevent overfeeding.

4. At any official social functions, at least three servants should be vigilant in case His Majesty tries to tell a joke.

4.1. It should be noted that there is no concern for His Majesty's jokes being offensive, crass or otherwise contrary to good taste. They are simply very bad. His Majesty always ends up embarrassed.

5. Any children left unattended in the Royal Palace for more than 15 degrees can be retrieved from the Fire Lord's office.

6. Should His Majesty go missing, the following places should be searched: roofs and any high places, cellars and secret passages, the fur of the Avatar's sky bison (which is surprisingly deep), and every place that an ordinary five-year-old would think to hide in during a game of "Hide and Explode."

6.1. All of the Imperial Firebenders as well as any soldier who wears a mask during the course of their duties should be questioned.

6.1.1. Important note: Some of the soldiers who are especially close to His Majesty can perform a passable imitation of him. Efforts should be made to prevent an uneducated soldier from, say, conducting a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture.

6.2. After the recent incident, that list is expanded to include the Kyoshi Warriors and any other groups that might wear concealing full face paint.

6.3. If all of these measures prove ineffective, a letter should be sent to The Dragon of the West, Prince Iroh, asking His Highness to return His Majesty.

6.4. If a ransom note is delivered, it should be immediately checked against the handwriting samples from the honorable Tribesman Sokka as well as Avatar Aang, before any other actions are taken.

6.4.1. Replying "Good luck, he's your problem now" to a ransom note is absolutely unacceptable.

6.4.1.1. To further drive home the point, the Royal Archives are required by law to preserve every single piece of royal correspondence. That thing will end up in a museum.

This handbook will be updated should it prove necessary.

[kiralamouse]

reblog if you think math doesn't deserve all that hate

[kiralamouse]

I'll tell you my trick for "change every 90 days": [securepassword][date of change]. ("Date of change" is an approximation like month or quarter, so I don't have to remember exactly. But yeah.)

Still a bloody headache, but at least I only have to futz around with remembering a few date possibilities instead of the entire password changing.

I fully endorse removing mandatory changes, though. I have a system for memorizing my passwords that really isn't a fair thing to ask most people to remember. Let's just keep it usable.

Me 5 seconds after my corpo mandated password change: Hey did you know mandated periodic password changes aren't considered good cybersecurity practice and in fact actually weaken password security? Just a funny little fact I thought you should know.

[kiralamouse]

Ah these children who always create problems for poor mothers....

[kiralamouse]

Crazy thing about #healing #recovery Small Victories is when you'll have some shit going on that's like, saying this would involve admitting how you used to be doing. You know? Like hey guys good news I'm gonna change my bedsheets this year

[kiralamouse]

Just saying. I wouldn't be near any volcano to begin with.

why didn't they just leave pompeii when the volcano erupted? were they stupid?

[kiralamouse]

I think I may never be sad ever again. There is a statue entitled "Farewell to Orpheus" on my college campus. It's been there since 1968, created by a Prof. Frederic Littman that use to work at the university. It sits in the middle of a fountain, and the fountain is often full of litter. I have taken it upon myself to clean the litter out when I see it (the skimmers only come by once a week at max). But because of my style of dress, this means that bystanders see a twenty-something on their hands and knees at the edge of the fountain, sleeves rolled up, trying not to splash dirty water on their slacks while their briefcase and suit coat sit nearby. This is fine, usually. But today was Saturday Market, which means the twenty or so people in the area suddenly became hundreds. So, obviously, somebody stopped to ask what I was doing. "This," I gestured at the statue, "is Eurydice. She was the wife of Orpheus, the greatest storyteller in Greece. And this litter is disrespectful." Then, on a whim, I squinted up at them. "Do you know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?" "No," they replied, shifting slightly to sit.

"Would you like to?"

"Sure!"

So I told them. I told them the story as I know it- and I've had a bit of practice. Orpheus, child of a wishing star, favorite of the messenger god, who had a hard-working, wonderful wife, Eurydice; his harp that could lull beasts to passivity, coax song from nymphs, and move mountains before him; and the men who, while he dreamed and composed, came to steal Eurydice away. I told of how she ran, and the water splashed up on my clothes. But I didn't care. I told of how the adder in the field bit her heel, and she died. I told of the Underworld- how Orpheus charmed the riverman, pacified Cerberus with a lullaby, and melted the hearts of the wise judges. I laughed as I remarked how lucky he was that it was winter- for Persephone was moved by his song where Hades was not. She convinced Hades to let Orpheus prove he was worthy of taking Eurydice. I tugged my coat back on, and said how Orpheus had to play and sing all the way out of the Underworld, without ever looking back to see if his beloved wife followed. And I told how, when he stopped for breath, he thought he heard her stumble and fall, and turned to help her up- but it was too late. I told the story four times after that, to four different groups, each larger than the last. And I must have cast a glance at the statue, something that said "I'm sorry, I miss you--" because when I finished my second to last retelling, a young boy piped up, perhaps seven or eight, and asked me a question that has made my day, and potentially my life: "Are you Orpheus?" I told the tale of the grieving bard so well, so convincingly, that in the eyes of a child I was telling not a story, but a memory. And while I laughed in the moment, with everyone else, I wept with gratitude and joy when I came home. This is more than I deserve, and I think I may never be sad again.

Here is the aforementioned statue, by the way.

[kiralamouse]

It does help that AO3 has quite a bit fewer works to catalog (Wikipedia says LOC is at 31M+ printed works, 61M+ manuscripts, and a bunch more stuff fitting other, smaller categories, while AO3 is just over 15M works as I type this) and that it's been only a couple decades since they categorized their first work, so their cataloging system hasn't had much decay from age. (Plus, AO3 only has to account for itself. If LOC changed its cataloguing system, many other libraries would also have to overhaul if they wanted to continue matching, and inertia is hard to overcome, especially when there's a lot of physical labeling and rearranging to manage.)

But still. AO3 is absolutely capitalizing on those advantages to have the absolute gold standard indexing system of any known archive, despite its major disadvantages of, y'know, not having dedicated paid staff with consistent professional training and experience. I love AO3.

at a conference I attended recently, a researcher pointed to the difficulty of finding material in archives because so much depends on the metadata and the terminology used to describe things changes over time. "it would be so helpful," the researcher said, "if I typed 'lesbian' into the library of congress database, it would also show me results that were categorised in the 50s, when the materials were interpreted as 'intimate female friendships'"

which is what tag wrangles at Archive Of Our Own do incredibly effectively: searching for "omegaverse" also leads to "alpha/beta/omega dynamics" and "alternate universe: a/b/o" and so on. but ao3 achieves this frankly incredible categorisation and indexing system by the power of countless volunteers putting in hours and hours of unpaid and unthanked free time, and it's completely understandable that most archives do not have that kind of infrastructure, but also how incredible that a fan-run website has better searchability, classification, and accessibility than the library of congress

[kiralamouse]

Murderbot meets ART (who knew transports could be smart enough to be MEAN)

[kiralamouse]

I just noticed that Baby keeps looking back at the adult in the corner who’s drumming the same rhythm… with opposite hands. Baby may be doing it reflection-style.

[kiralamouse]

Murderbot quoting Medcenter Argala in episodes 4 and 6

[kiralamouse]

My fave quote is re: Martha Wells pitching adaptation ideas with the writers.

When [Wilson] and Wells were first treated to screeners, the realization of that image gave her a thrill. She’s not the kind of person given over to squealing, but she jumped up and chirped, “They used my idea!” “Martha,” Wilson said. “They used your entire book.”

When an interviewer said the human characters on the show “come across as much bigger dipshits than they are in print—Wells got prickly. What she most admired about the show’s tone, she explained, is that it’s not nearly as dystopian as most televised science fiction. The hippie characters, who acknowledge their consensus decisions by holding one another’s hands and humming, “trust each other explicitly. It’s a different culture, one that doesn’t produce grim and gritty people.”

The interviewer criticized that the “TV show, unlike the books, depicts Murderbot’s favorite program—“The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon,” …as… “pure schlock.” She said, “I don’t care if my entertainment is schlock or not if I like it. I loathe the phrase ‘guilty pleasure.’ Is it child porn? No? Then it’s not a guilty pleasure. It was created by people to be enjoyed.” -