newtsoftheworldunite

[newtsoftheworldunite]

Halakha PSA, relevant for anybody planning to fast this weekend.

saw a bunch of comments on tik tok from people saying they passed out or threw up today from fasting for yom kippur and y’all!!! please don’t stretch yourself this far!!!!!! PLEASE if you are fasting do NOT allow yourself to get to the point where you’re losing consciousness or vomiting. take a water bottle and/or juice and small snack with you even if you plan on fully fasting, and if you feel yourself getting woozy or nauseous then break your fast. and if you haven’t fasted before, then don’t jump right into a full 26 hour fast. start slow and build up to it. it gets easier when you recognize what your body can and can’t handle, but again if you’re fasting and start to feel ill, you are not only welcome to but obligated to break your fast. it’s a mitzvah to do so if your health is affected.

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shorthands for dumbassery that i have grown to love deeply

"how dare you say we piss on the poor" in response to someone misinterpreting your post

"_ isnt gonna fuck you" for suck up behavior

"woah. should we tell everyone? should we throw a party?" for who the fuck cares

"and what if the world was made of pudding" for when would this ever matter.

"and sharks are smooth both ways" for a group of people heatedly arguing with 1 guy who is fucking with them all

".. but its about a witch in the alps finding her lost cat" for someone trying to sanitize something to the point of absurdity

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cowards

apparently at one point in the 1960s the editors of dc comics had to make an official editorial rule that there would be “no more than one gorilla per month” over their different titles because the writers were just creating so many stories about gorillas and they were worried it’d be too much

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celebrating Disability Pride Month by being unbelievably fucking tired

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A leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx) emerges from the kelp on Bird Island, South Georgia

by Derren Fox

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It is done!

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Actually, in most of the world, if somebody is struggling to get to sleep, they brew a mug of chamokilometer tea.

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how do you think the calendar is organized in the atla universe? they have a twelve-month system like we do but what would those months each be called? do you think they have leap years?

Right off the bat, let me just say that hypothetical calendars and alternative timekeeping is one of my favorite topics to talk about so this reply is going to be lengthy.

First off, everything we know about the calendar system in Avatar comes from the planetary calendar room in Wan Shi Tong's library.

The innermost ring indicates the number of months in a year (12), the second ring indicates the number of days in a month (30), the third ring indicates the different Avatar eras (16 shown), and the outermost ring showcases all of the animals of the zodiac cycle (12). For this reply, we're only going to be focusing on the innermost and second innermost rings.

According to the episode, the ATLAverse appears to have only 12-month years, so no leap year 13th month like the East Asian lunar calendar. There also doesn't appear to be any months with more than 30 days, judging by the number of days shown on the calendar. This means that the maximum number of possible days for an Avatar year is 360. So it's safe to say that there are probably no leap years like ours in the ATLAverse. I guess their Earth's orbit is slightly shorter and more suited for timekeeping than ours.

As for what each month would be called in the ATLAverse, there's a couple of options. One option is to simply call the months by order: First month, second month, third month, etc. This actually ties back to Avatar's Chinese influence, as that's literally how months are named in Mandarin. This is straightforward, practical, and doesn't require any complex etymology or extensive worldbuilding.

However, I also think it would be fun to weave motifs into the calendar. Since there's so much emphasis on balance and cycles, why not divide the twelve months between the four elements? I imagine these months would be referred to as:

The 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Water Month

The 1st, 2nd & 3rd Earth Month

The 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Fire Month

The 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Air Month

For example, a person might say "I was born during the first water month, in the year of the rabbit." Naturally, there would be plenty of superstitions and horoscopes related to the combination of birth month and birth year.

The show also canonically mentions weeks passing by, although they never specify the number of days in their weeks. In a previous post, I mentioned that government officials during the Qin & Han Dynasty were given a day off every five days to bathe themselves. I think this would be a good basis for a week in the ATLAverse, four days of work and one day of rest. Each working day would be named after a cardinal direction (East-day, North-day, West-day, South-day) and the resting day would be called "Center-day", paralleling a compass.

In short, an ATLA month would be comprised of 6 five-day weeks and a year would be made up of 12 thirty-day months; the days would be themed around the cardinal directions and the months would be themed around the four elements. I think this would be a good way of adding texture to the world of Avatar, without weighing the setting down with too much worldbuilding or cultural baggage.

...And that would just be the default "world" calendar that spirit libraries and world travelers and international organizations would use. I think each nation would probably have their own unique calendar tailored to suit their own cultural and seasonal needs.

I might make a few posts on what each nation's calendar system might be, if anyone would like to read that.

Like what I’m doing? Tips always appreciated, never expected. ^_^

https://ko-fi.com/atlaculture

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Double page spread from a 16th-century pattern book for scribes created by Gregorius Bock. See more here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/16th-century-pattern-book-for-scribes

[newtsoftheworldunite]

i don't care if monday's bleak

tuesday matches wednesday's freak

thursday mispronouncing steak

it's friday, i'm in love

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me.

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Numbers can be tricky. On the day of my 110th birthday, I'll be one day younger than John Tukey was on his.

Tukey [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Text formatted as a block quote] "Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise."

John W. Tukey The Future of Data Analysis (1962)

Caption below the comic: Happy approximate birthday to John Tukey, author of my favorite statistics quote, who was born 110.000 years ago sometime this week.

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The Oresteia, but it's my friend who hates coleslaw cleaning up after the picnic

after Anne Carson

Friend, walking towards the trash can with slaw bowl in hand: I'll take care of you.

The fresh slaw, made just that afternoon: but that's for rotten food!

My friend: Not to me. Not if it's you.

[newtsoftheworldunite]

Beelieve it or not, this blue bee is the real deal! 🐝 Meet the blue carpenter bee (Xylocopa caerulea). This large bee can reach lengths of up to 1.1 in (2.8 cm); compare that to a European honey bee which typically grows up to 0.7 in (1.8 cm) long! Unlike honeybees, this critter doesn’t live in large hives, but instead spends most of its time alone. This insect can be found in parts of India, China, and Southeast Asia where it plays an important role in pollinating its habitat.

Photo: Cheongweei Gan, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

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[newtsoftheworldunite]

Listen if the study of ancient humans doesn’t make you at least a little bit emotional idk what to say.

I started crying today at the museum because they had reconstructed the shoes of Otzi the iceman.

Either he or someone he knew who cared about him made these shoes out of grass and bear skin and twine and he was wearing them when he died over five thousand years ago.

And a Czech researcher and his students did reconstructions of these shoes and wore them to the same place where he died to test them out and they were like yep! These shoes are really cozy and comfy and didn’t give us blisters while hiking!

Is that not just the coolest shit ever????