spacecowboywhit

[spacecowboywhit]

giant redwood trees really are so cool, they just have something incredibly special going on. it's hard to describe if you haven't seen them

[spacecowboywhit]

I love the ending of Yakuza 3, where they forgot to give Mine a motive so they went with "hates orphans".

And that's after the Minister of Defense for All of Japan, sits your criminal ass down at the Diet Building and explains the plot to you. For 40 MINUTES.

And it still doesn't make sense!

Yakuza Forever!!

[spacecowboywhit]

Quick y3 thing cause I’m having trouble drawing all of the sudden

[spacecowboywhit]

medieval monks and accountants start using Italian millione ("one thousand" + augmentative suffix) to mean 10^6 by the 1200s; this spreads to other languages

Jehan Adam coins bymillion and trimillion to mean 10^12 and 10^18 in 1475

Nicolas Chuquet extends this scale up to nonyllion (10^54), with every step being another six orders of magnitude (million, byllion, tryllion, quadrillion, quyllion, sixlion, septyllion, ottylion, nonyllion) in 1484. Note that in this period, it was common to put the digit separator every six digits instead of every three.

Guillaume Budé refers to 10^9 as milliart in 1516, in a Latin text

But in 1549, Jacques Pelletier du Mans uses milliard to mean 10^12, citing Budé as a source

In the 1600s, people start putting digit separators every three digits. But some scientists and mathematicians define the numerical scale according to how digits are grouped, rather than the actual order of magnitude: thus, one billion becomes 10^9, one trillion becomes 10^12, etc, creating the short scale.

"Milliard" is eventually added to the long scale, meaning 10^9 (in keeping with Budé's usage); the first published example is from 1676

By 1729, the short-scale meaning of "billion" (10^9) has already crept into American usage

This is in keeping with French usage at the time: in 1762, the Académie Française dictionary cites billion as meaning 10^9.

By the early 19th century, France has almost completely converted to the short scale, and U.S. usage follows France; the long scale is referred to in some sources as "obsolete." But Britain is still using the long scale (and I assume Germany and most other European countries)

Over the course of the 20th century, the long scale begins to become more influential in France, presumably due to the influence of continental usage; while the short scale becomes more influential in Britain, presumably due to the influence of American English. Notably the SI system very specifically uses unique prefixes that are the same across languages, to prevent confusion!

In 1961, the French Government confirms that they're going to officially use the long scale from now on; in 1974, Britain officially switches over to the short scale, and many other English-speaking countries follow.

In 1975, the terms "short scale" and "long scale" are actually coined, by mathematician Geneviève Guitel.

One reason large number names could be so unstable for so long is, of course, that outside specialized usage they are rare, and were even more rare before modern science and large modern monetary amounts became commonplace points of discussion. Wikipedia says "milliard" wasn't common in German until 1923, when bank notes had to be overstamped during Weimar-era hyperinflation.

As it currently stands, English, Indonesian, Hebrew, Russian, Turkish, and most varieties of Arabic use the short scale; continental Europe and most varieties of Spanish outside Europe use the long scale. A few countries use both, usually in different languages, like South African English (short scale) and Afrikaans (long scale) or Canadian English (short scale) and Canadian French (long scale) . Puerto Rico uses the short scale in economic and technical usage, but the long scale in publications aimed at export.

Notably some languages use neither, having their own names for large numbers--South Asian languages have the Indian numbering system, and Bhutan, Cambodia, and various East Asian languages also have their own numbering systems. Greek, exceptionally, uses a native calque of the short scale rather than a borrowing.

[spacecowboywhit]

Does he have ridiculous sideburns? Does he die a gruesome death? Is he on screen less than ten minutes total?

I spent a full day making this "Guess who? (is stuck)" The Terror game! Inspired by countless conversations about how hard it is to tell these dudes apart on first watch (and endless shitpost ideas with @merlintintintin ) This was honestly a lot of work, and now I really want to play it! I hope you'll find this cool, I'm personally really happy with the result! Would you play it?

I added Silna because I feel like the two boards kinda represent Terror & Erebus, and she's stuck here with these horrible dudes. Definitely more of a thematic easter egg rather than practical gameplay choice ahah.

To make this I bought a My Little Petshop Guess Who game (I liked the colors) second hand, took forever to cut out all the characters and color grade the pictures on photoshop (this serie is SO DARK, i'm thankful for the official pictures by Aidan Monaghan I also used), made the cards backing mostly using some designs I had already made, and then printed and cut the whole thing by hand!

I may share the template for this later on, if anyone is interested!

[spacecowboywhit]

[spacecowboywhit]

let’s all get into pyrrhonism. for the bit

[spacecowboywhit]

here is Gil Scott-Heron performing his poem "Whitey on the Moon"

[spacecowboywhit]

Painting of an abandoned garfield phone on a beach in France

[spacecowboywhit]

“Ever since I took this dragon I’ve gained a lot and lost as much. But this dragon and the way my life has turned out are connected. I believe it’s all fate.”

[spacecowboywhit]

I thought it was their eyes. Are you saying Nickelodeon's Doug lied to me, with his alter-ego Quailman???

[spacecowboywhit]

Motivational Mengde for anyone who needs him in these dark times <3

[spacecowboywhit]

laying an egg hard and loud

[spacecowboywhit]

[spacecowboywhit]

my goal is to create artwork that finally and definitively answers the question "are you mad at me"

[spacecowboywhit]

decentralize and clean up your life!!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

[spacecowboywhit]

Incorrect! By a decade!

30-Song Guess Your Age Quiz

Fwiw, they thought I was MANY years younger than I am. Just made me feel good all over. 😊