#also WTF - a school using Google?

[mckitterick]

Oh look, two bad decisions in one

story source: X

Gaggle (student surveillance software that our school district wastes money on) uses "artificial intelligence" to sift through everything students do that's tied to the district’s Google workspace, including Gmail, Drive, and other software

so students get the joy of being surveilled plus their lunch costs more to help offset the price of the spyware - what a great deal!

[landososcar]

so american ; CL16

pairing(s) ; charles leclerc x american!reader

summary ; in which a trip to monaco turns permenant because of one ferrari racing driver

warnings ; fast paced relationship, smau, google translated french (pls correct anything that’s wrong) & FLUFFF

note ; lol sorry i lowkey disappeared. anyways. here’s charles and leo (aka everyone’s fav duo)

instagram !

liked by friend1, charlesleclerc, and others

youruser leo & i might never leave 🥰🇲🇨

view all comments

friend1 monaco is so so beautiful

yourbff you can’t leave me here alone in the us

youruser but…

charles_leclerc im stealing her

yourbff you’ve know her for 3 weeks

charles_leclerc whats your point ??

friend2 the states miss you come home

friend3 leo has a new lap to sit in????

yourbff i feel cheated on

charles_leclerc i’ll make sure you don’t leave ☺️❤️

youruser having the best time of my life with you🫶

yourbff saying you’re not gonna let her leave is kinda creepy not gonna lie…

charles_leclerc you’re just jealous coz she doesn’t wanna go back to the us and wants to stay with me

friend4 you look so happy😁

instagram !

liked by fan1, fan2, and others

cl16updating recent pictures of charles with a puppy, fans who asked him about the dog say his name is leo and he is not charles dog but he is staying with him for a while!! we are also unsure who the girl in his car in the last picture is, if anyone has any idea please share her instagram @ with us!!!!!!!!

view all comments

fan1 omg he’s not his dog??? i’m devastated now i wanted leo paddock appearances

fan2 idk maybe if you guys find her instagram @ don’t share it,, if charles wanted us to know about her he’d share with us

fan3 if she doesn’t want us to know about her maybe she shouldn’t hang out with the prince of monaco

fan4 she should be able to hang with whoever she wants. some of y’all are so weird

fan5 imma steal that dog

fan6 that means we probs won’t get leo in the paddock😭

fan7 maybe leo is the girls’ dog and she’s a friend of charles visiting him or something idk

imessages !

translation 1: ‘i’ll miss you so much’

translation 2: ‘we can be crazy together, my love’

twitter !

instsgram !

youruser added to the story!

charles_leclerc added to his close friends story!

charles_leclerc replied to your story

↳ you always do baby

↳ god you’re so cheesy

↳ i hate you

↳ can we go back home i miss leo

↳ charlie babe leo will be fine by himself for 3 hours

↳ i know i know

↳ i just love him so much

you replied to charles_leclerc’s story

↳ CHARLIE DELETE

↳ THE DOGS ARE OUT😭😭😭

↳ LEO GOT OUT??????????????? WHERE IS HE ??? IS HE SAFE??? DID SOMEONE FIND HIM??:??;??/??

↳ omg baby no leo’s fine i’m sorry for worrying you

↳ why would you joke about that

↳ i think i nearly had a heart attack

↳ you’re more obsessed with leo than me

instagram !

liked by user1, user2, and others

f1wagupdates charles and his girlfriend (leo’s mum — we don’t know her name) this saturday. the owner of the first pic said that they were out for dinner with pascale, arthur, lorenzo, and their girlfriends.

view all comments

user1 she so beautiful oh my god

user2 where’s leo

user3 girl she doesn’t have to take him everywhere

user4 i think her name is y/n… my cousin in america said that she looks like someone she used to go to school with

user5 i looked through charles’ following and he follows a private account with that name @youruser

user6 ooo that could be her fs

user7 did she really leave leo alone.. she’s a bad owner wtf

user8 leo is a dog he’ll be ok by himself for a few hours omg you just want a reason to hate her go touch grass

twitter !

twitter !

instagram !

liked by carlossainz55, lorenzotl, and others

charles_leclerc happy gorgeous amazing month ☺️❤️

view all comments

user1 CHARLES who is THAT

user2 Y/N CONTENT ON THE MAIN ‼️‼️‼️

carlossainz55 whipped

user3 omg is she playing his piano

user4 yes with her feet

youruser love love love you

charles_leclerc chérie💓💓

user4 anyone else think they’re moving REALLY quickly…. like i heard they’re living together already

user5 who CAREEESSSSS

user6 it’s none of our business

yourbff you’re all she talks about oh my GOD

charles_leclerc are you jealous

instagram !

liked by leclerc_pascale, yourbff, and others

youruser “too much, too soon” i’m living with him lol

view all comments

yourbff remember when we had conversations that weren’t about him

youruser wdym

yourbff i hate him

yourbff you’re OBSESSED with him

yourbff you guys are DISGUSTING

youruser you sound jealous

yourbff i AM. that little french driving man STOLE my best friend

charles_leclerc FRENCH????????

friend1 miss you 🫶🫶

joris__trouche ❤️

friend2 come visit soon we miss youuuu

friend3 you’re so so so gorgeous

charles_leclerc MON AMOURRR

charles_leclerc YOURE SO BEAUTIFUL I WANNA KISS YOUR FACE

yourbff can you get me a ticket to the miami gp so i can see my wife pls

charles_leclerc no you’re gonna try steal her back

yourbff @youruser ur boyfriend is being mean to me

youruser charlie i lost my miami paddock pass can you get me another one pls but like could you put it under the name y/bff/n y/bff/ln please, for no reason☺️

charles_leclerc okay baby💓💓

youruser stop it i love you so so much you’re so adorable😭

leclerc_pascale Leo ❤️

youruser he misses you 🥰

imessages !

my other works !

[sleepymccoy]

Imma tell you all about Vulcan for a bit. I'm not gonna google anything, this is all memory

So back in the early 1800s or maybe mid 1800s, whatever, pre 1900s, they're looking at Neptune. Neptune has a funky little wobble in its orbit. One smart guy (whose name I don't remember) is like damn that wobble makes sense if there's another planet out there.

So they map out what this other planet's orbit would logically be and lo and behold there's Uranus (they had time to think of a name, I still can't believe they went w Uranus). Shortly after this - maybe this is when it's the mid 1800s. I don't know when Uranus is actually found - they spot Mercury!

Holy shit another planet!

And look at it wobble! Well, fuck me with a poker, says another man I don't remember, we've seen that before with Neptune and Uranus. There's another planet!

Lordy, just how many planets are out here?

So they map out Mercury's orbit and where this extra planet would need to be to have the impact it clearly does. They name it Vulcan. It goes into text books and solar system maps.

So yeah, in between Mercury and the sun is another planet called Vulcan for a few years. Literally, it's accepted fact.

Unfortunately Vulcan is on the other side of the sun for a while and they can't confirm. Then when they look there's no planet there but like,, Maybe they're off by a degree? They do some more maths and are like no yeah there should def be a planet there wtf?

Eventually they accept there's no planet and, with embarassment, remove Vulcan from school books. Then they sit down and think about it

Maybe Einstein is involved here, maybe they just use his principles? When was Einstein? I'm terrible w dates.

Anyway, turns out this is gravity causing time dilation.

The sun is a big fat gravity causer. There's just so much funky gravity coming out of her. And it's pretty patchy, esp with the solar flares and so on. So sometimes with gravity playing a complex game the straightest path from Mercury's pov is different to the straightest path from our pov. This makes sense on a visual level for me, and I don't know how to explain it further

If we were on Mercury it would look like we're going in a perfect orbit. But from Earth's pov it's a bit wobbly! Neptune is far away and didn't have the same impact from the sun, so that was all just Uranus. I think we do see a little bit of wobble in Venus too, and from Mars we'd look funky. But I think that's a very miniscule amount, with that space measuring equipment rather than just eyes and compasses

Anyway that's Vulcan, the real planet that doesn't exist. There's a great book on it, The Search for Vulcan. Probably also written by a guy whose name I've forgotten lol, but it's written well.

Okay I am gonna google, but just to try and find a picture to back me up

That's from the Smithsonian ^

I like the not-quite-real planet Vulcan

[throwawaybog]

Oooo do you have any WIPs for Wild Kratts?

hi!! yes ABSOLUTELY i do!!! wild kratts is just that one show that i will remember exists and then hyperfixate on for like, 7 months out of a year. and this happens repeatedly btw. and then my google docs count only increases exponentially and i never get anything done. but oh my GOD would i love to actually achieve finishing something for once.

but back to the wips! ill put them under the cut lol

so one that i think about A LOT, is this silly lil crane wife zach concept that has me laughing every time i remember it exists, thank you @novazentryx for bouncing it back and forth with me it still makes me giggle

OC introductory oneshot

eli is also responsible for this nebulously connected to the WK-verse oneshot ive been struggling with, and he doesnt even know it. basically, he suggested making an oc to play around with, and ive slowly been coming up with one. (she is still Unnamed lol) but she is a bit of a gag character, and not really involved with the Tortuga crew. I just really love an outsider pov, it amuses me, and i think someone tangentially involved makes for a lot of humorous moments. (think the "my cabbages!" guy from A:TLA) but basically she is a former NASCAR racer who got injured, badly, her very first season, and suffered permanent hearing loss in one ear, and partial in the other. she is now a getaway driver, and she is cringe. she's cocky and a schemer, but she's also an absolute fool. it took her a while to get behind the wheel again, and she still struggles. and somehow she chose working as a getaway driver for various WK villains as an optimal career path. everytime she leaves her car unattended, she comes back to it totaled. like Kevin from Ben 10 lmaoo

the Pre A:TLA au

it's canon-compliant and ends tragically ofc bc there was no other way it was going to end.

Like- there are a 100 years of war going on all this time before aang showed up, so I wanna set that BEFORE the avatar was discovered you know? I want to give them their own plot some time in these 100 years. We're like 50 years into the war so aang won't be a thing. Well. he was a thing. But no one knows where he is lol. But that was like it as far as I thought mostly cause mostly it was just the vibes that were coming to mind yk? Smth smth being a kid and growing up believing war is normal and growing up a little more and relaxing it’s not- wanting to FIX things but. God, you’re a kid and your friends are kids and you’re making a difference but you’re up against a whole nation

You can’t save everybody

And like. Idk it’s just the tragedy of having your whole life shaped by this terrible thing. And it really could be your whole life bc you’re not safe! You’re at war! And you’ve decided to go out and fight for the right side, the losing side, and you’ll probably die young anyways

And if not. God it’s gonna be another 50 years till aang is found in the ice berg. But they don’t know that, all they know is the avatar is gone. And hope and optimism slowly takes a backseat bc he’s not here, you gotta save yourselves

aviva and zach will parallel some sort of elementary + middle school friends type of thing where in HS they go to separate schools. both zach and aviva are in fire nation but aviva is from a colony and zach is an actual fire nation kid. both are non benders, or possibly zach is a weak firebender, who uses his flames for like, the forge or smth idk. Maybe he cant bend at all. Its still something I'm figuring out. the two meet as they always do, first rivals then weird friends.

when they're both around 16/17-ish aviva meets some other earth nation ppl and they fill her in on what's going on outside. she decides to leave. Zach obviously calls her a fucking idiot cuz wtf aviva you're gonna die out there. and aviva is like nah man trust me they said they have leads on the Avatar so if we bring him back then it might actually end the war. zach is obviously hella sus about this but he can't convince avuva out of it so he resigns and tells aviva to be careful. The next time they meet it likely wont be as friends

there's more to the au ofc, but i was thinking of maybe doing a series of connected oneshots set in this verse for them and to explore the other characters as well.

the labyrinth au

every fandom i am in will at some point have an labyrinth au lol.

but. zach’s dad as the goblin king, zach as a half mortal half fae? like i know the goblin king himself was a fae that rules over the goblins so, i’m thinking he’s part of the unseelie court? of more malicious fae. so, that, for zach’s dad, and his mother is either a nature spirit, or a fae in another court. and zach is making multiple attempts at getting OUT of his dads labyrinth.

(think Zagreus from Hades game)

and meanwhile. meanwhile CHRIS is in the labyrinth trying to get to MARTIN who is, idk, for some reason in the center of the labyrinth? so i know the brothers would never wish each other away and that’s for kids anyways. but. i���m thinking. smth is up, a festival of sorts for the spn creatures villain seminars or smth.

and so its either martin who there? for some reason? and chris is trying to get to him, OR its a Wild Kratt Kid, im undecided

Chris is trying to rescue whoever it is, with aviva as a guide bc aviva HAS braved the labrynth before when she was a child

(she was trying to save zach. who she met at science camp. idk i’m still figuring out how the modern aspect is incorporated here? i’m thinking it’s mostly compliant? like the supernatural exist and are known to some but a lot of them are like, hidden in plain sight? not everyone knows)

aviva thought zach was wished away to the labrynth and under threat of being turned to a goblin she wasn’t aware that, yk, the labrynth is his HOME (prison, whatever you wanna call it)

so it’s like—zach trying to get out and his attempts bring him to aviva and chris who are trying to get IN. as a kid and throughout his teen years, zach WAS able to go to the mortal world, hence the science camp, neighbors-ish with the kratts, etc

i’m thinking that, the varmitechs do have a business in the mortal realm too, which is why he lives there, but they also have business in the fae realm? so like, ima have to work that out later

still, i plan on writing this as a one shot, (though its gotten rather long ill be honest) with it going back and forth between zach's many failed runs, (the past) and his current run (which is where he bumps into chris and aviva)

----x-----

there is also another supernatural creature type au, where zach's father is a vampire and zach thinks he is one too (albeit one allergic to blood) but actually, zach is a nature spirit like his mother, and he doesnt even know it. ohhh the delicious irony of it all. unfortunately i cant find the doc with my notes lol so i didn't get to include that but maybe one day i'll find it!

but thank you so much for the ask! it was fun, and i love talking about WK, so i really enjoyed this!

[yonahsienna]

This Was Supposed to Be Fun

Or: WTF happened to the online Commons, and where do we go now?

Let me start by saying that I don't want to be a "content creator" or “online influencer”. I don't want to "optimize engagement" or “build an agile social strategy”. I don’t even particularly want to Start a Blog or Podcast. I just want to f#¢&!ng hang out with my friends and community online, and I feel like we should have The Technology to just do that by now.

Of course (infuriatingly) we did have that technology! I first connected to the World Wide Web in 2001 when I was ten years old. Back then, the whole family shared one computer, which I mostly used to play Age of Empires, Bugdom, and Oregon Trail. Connecting to the Internet meant that nobody could use the phone, so we would log on quickly (accompanied by a symphony of discordant whistles and beeps), check emails and/or MSN messages, and then pass the computer to the next person.

As our access to the Internet grew through my teens, so did the diversity of content we consumed, shared, and bonded over. eBaum’s World and Newgrounds hosted a plethora of simple, free webgames we'd play once we got bored with the handful my parents were willing to buy, as well as the first viral videos like Numa Numa and Star Wars Kid. We also connected in new ways with a growing “social web” — profiles on sites like Myspace and Livejournal and eventually the early Facebook were a way that anyone could have their own site on the web, a little virtual locker that you could decorate and fill up to your liking, and have your friends stuff with virtual notes.

In my late teens and early twenties, the Internet was mostly for research and keeping up with student government and clubs via long weekly emails stuffed with hyperlinks and attachments. It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I got my first smartphone. At university, the only way to connect to the Internet “on the go” was to tweet my on-the-go thoughts by sending an SMS text message to Twitter at 21212. I also hardly used the social web anyways, other than for a quick dopamine distraction or break from long study sessions in the library. I had even deleted my Facebook account that I'd had since high school, since the campus coffee shop and bar served as more than enough of a hub for socializing, philosophical and political debates, and important announcements posted on cork boards or delivered by intercom.

I know I probably sound like a stereotypical Millennial, whining about the “good ole days”, but I wanted to spend this time on memory lane for a reason. I think that no matter when you grew up, this feeling is probably close to universal: from the early 2000s to early 2020s, the Internet and social web seemed to just work. There were a lot of things wrong with the world, but the Internet was where we went to complain about other problems, not a source of them. But of course, even back then we were living on borrowed money and time. The virtual Commons we had grown comfortable in never actually belonged to us, the users. From the moment they incorporated, the big sites belonged to venture capital, who sold them out to the oligarchs, who sold them out to the fascists. We were never the customer, always the product.

Flash forward to 2025. The “big four” North American social media outlets (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok) have all been captured by the Trump administration. Smaller sites, like Reddit, Telegram, and Substack have long been a hotbed for bigotry and hate speech. Searches on Apple, Google, Microsoft, and even Pinterest are serving up LLM “AI” slop before authentic and unique human creations. Ads, suggestions, sponsored posts, and cookie pop-ups take up far more space than the content I came for. And if I ever want my family, friends, and community to actually see my updates, I either need to send them to each person directly, or market my posts not to them, but to an algorithm optimized not for users or even businesses, but shareholder profit. On top of all of this, there is a pervasive sense of how uncomfortably public, permanent, and surveilled it all is. (In parallel to all this: efforts to gather in person are cut at the knees by a lack of coherent and safe public health policies, the dismantling of Third Spaces and affordable public transportation, and the militarization of the police.)

It is horrifying that exactly when the biggest thing we need for survival is to build and strengthen community, that the only accessible tools to do so, are hostile to our very existence.

Obviously this isn’t a coincidence. Every time we, the people, can talk to each other directly, we start getting dangerous ideas about the fact that the ultra-wealthy and hyper-elite are so few, and the rest of us are so many. Pamphlets facilitated the French and American revolutions, the telegraph and radio hastened the collapse of the Russian and German Empires, and Twitter fanned the flames of the Arab Spring. And here in America, The Powers That Be, Red and Blue alike, overwhelmingly want the American government in strict control over where and how we can communicate with each other.

And here I am, just hoping for a single F#¢&!NG site on the whole World Wide Web where I can just hang out with family, friends, and community that isn't owned and operated by literal fascists, kept behind a paywall, or too technical for our Elders to use. A comfy virtual coffee shop with announcement boards, conversations, the occasional performance, and a locker nearby for collecting memories and passing notes.

I don’t really know what the Takeaway/Call to Action is here. Yes, I’m already on Tumblr, Mastadon, and Bluesky, and would love it if we all continued to grow these kind of alternatives while divesting from profit-driven social "platforms". I’m still on Discord, Snapchat, and Signal and even have accounts on Loops, Pixelfed, and Xiaohongshu, in case the center of gravity ever moves over to those places. All of them still feel very "under construction" though, so I don't even know which (if any) I feel comfortable asking friends and family to "switch over" to. In the meantime, I'm just feeling lost, sad, lonely, and adrift; and wanted to share these musings with y’all. Just in case anyone has any advice you want to share, or are feeling the same way and want to commiserate.

xposted to Facebook, Tumblr, Medium, and WriteAs. God, I hate the Internet right now >:(

[bittergirlsworld]

finished heartbreak high 30 seconds ago and here will my first reactions to all of it without much thinking and reflecting:

LOVED bisexual malakai and his little messy discovery journey! Since Dusty x Harper threeway, I had kept my eye on the possibility and didn't disappointed!

amerie's abortion storyline was so well written and well handled... it made me tear up for her some times, specially in the bathtub scene where she's crying in pain. the support Harper provided was so heartfelt too... in the end it's really about the two of them

Darren and Ca$h, ugh, my babies! they went through it this season and I was so happy when they finally talked and figured shit out. Darren really loves Dougie so much. I'm not a "high school sweethearts" kinda believer but them? I see that lasting. Of course it will be difficult. I love that the show is very respectful with Cash's asexuality

I disliked deeply the storyline of the Cum Lords and the whole "misogynistic x misandrists" plotline. no, a cray cray mom dreaming that her son can grow to be a rapist is not a justification to all of the shit spider did. using missy, a young girl of color who's also bi to "fix him" was just tasteless. both actors have breathtaking chemistry tho... their scenes were so natural, you could feel it. Still, wtf was this storyline????

that principal is the most unfit person to the job I have ever seen

is the Australian kiddos really doing that much drugs? google search

overall, still a fav show! if netflix cancels it I'll riot

[k1ll1ngcl0wns]

AI rant ???

Obviously the age we are alive and able to live in now is amazing, we have so much access to information and connection to others, but anything concerning or connected to the humanities (social, language, etc.) is something that as a society is slowly being removed from the hands of people and being replaced by AI.

As someone who does art (in school and out) it’s annoying to always have to prove that the art you made is yours and not AI. Or the fact that my art teacher last semester used AI to give the class feedback on some of our projects, like what the freak, as a traditional artist is this not something you should be against????

My social studies teacher was more concerned about us using it than the art teacher, and my ELA teacher (who also teaches social studies) brings up how some AI sites are censoring a lot more than others, in connection to certain events in countries like China (Tiananem Square) were when you ask about the event nothing about it comes up, whatsoever.

And the amount of AI being used to post news articles, or using the generative AI on google to get references and information, just put in some work and find the information yourself it will be worth it in the end because you’ll have a deeper understanding of the topic.

What’s worse (it’s not it’s just annoying) is it being used for art and books like wtf bro, those are something used as a creative outlet if you can’t do it yourself have someone do it with you, learn to do it, or don’t do it at all.

This is what started the rant ?? I guess

[toobluebirdie]

The Apparition Creature Runes

This post is to organize the thought process the Eden’s Rest discord server went through trying to figure out what the runes in the Apparition drawing really mean.

I hope my explanation is clear enough to follow!

We went from casually wondering what the runes meant to realizing they spelled nothing, to trying to flip them upside down and realizing they still spelled nothing, to finding a tik tok that led down a new rabbit hole entirely.

The person in this tik tok talks about an article they found about medieval language. SMCEN was written as smœn (which is also written as smoen). 

Here’s the link to the article they were talking about in the tik tok: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43628078 You can only access the article if you have a subscription to jstor, whether through your school or otherwise, but the sample page here has the passage the tik tok is talking about. Trying to figure out the literary jargon hurt my head. It talks about “mamorian” and “mamra” (which come from the same root word) meaning “to be deep in thought about something” or “sleep.” Trying to clear up what the article was saying about “smoen” after that and connect it all together was hard but here’s what i got:

It seems to say that smœn is linked to the word smean, which is a variation of the Old English word smeagan.

From the Wikipedia entry for smeagan ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smeagan#Old_English ):

Verb

smēaġan

consider, think about 

meditate

examine, scrutinize, question 

These definitions line up with the definition assigned to mamorian. I hope you can follow how my brain made this leap, but this made me feel confident enough to say the jstor article is saying both mamra and smoen mean sleep or at least something similar to it. 

So we have our translation of SMCEN:

SLEEP

The rest is far less confusing. I think.

Now that I knew I should use Smoen as a search term and that it was a medieval word, google helped me a lot more.

I found this book about the Magical Treatise of Solomon:

You can search the book for the word “smoen” and that’s how I found a lot more I could use to find answers.

I found some alternate versions of smoen that helped with searching: Skonin and Skoen

I found that Smoen was a demon linked to the angel Patiel (or Pathiel)

This book also has a whole page of runes, some of which are similar to the Sundowning runes. It’s page 323 of the book if you want to see.

This book has a lot to it, but for the purposes of this rune translation attempt, I moved on.

The book mentioned lots of Greek words and names so I applied that to my search for the meanings of the other runes.

In Greek and Latin the letter j did not exist. “I” was used in place of “J.” So I switched the j in the remaining runes to an i. (AJR -> AIR)

I searched for info on ESIO maybe being a medieval latin word and I found this source: 

(which is from the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources)

It said this: 

estio --> esio

esto (adv.)

esto (adv.)

so i searched for Esto and found this: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/esto 

And that said…

Etymology 1

Form of the verb edō (“I eat”).

Pronunciation

(Classical) IPA: /ˈeːs.toː/, [ˈeːs̠t̪oː]

(modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈes.to/, [ˈɛst̪o]

Verb

ēstō

second/third-person singular future active imperative of edō

So I think ESIO could mean EAT.

At this point my brain was leaking out of my ears so I gave up thinking. I decided AIR just meant AIR.

Air = Breathe???

And that’s the story of how the discord chat decided it said...

EAT BREATHE SLEEP

The end?

Eden's Rest friends involved in the making of this monster: @ccsven and @r-e-dax-t-e-d

Here’s @ccsven's drawing where we started trying to figure out wtf that said. And oh man, did we. Did we? I still don’t know.

[liebelesbe]

just remembered high jump in school sports...

where to get like a D we'd have to jump. idk exactly how high but it went up to my chin. so like 135cm or if we're being generous we're subtracting 10cm which brings us to 125cm. And I just googled like some heights you have to jump for grades and that height amounts to an A in most places??? wtf was our school on 😑

Esp bc like they graded us according to age? So I had to jump over the height of my neck for a D while my friend who was 30cm taller than me but also younger didn't have to jump as high. Messed up.

[maniculum]

Google Docs vs. Geoffrey Chaucer

A while back, just for fun, I pitted Google Docs's fancy new (read: hilariously inept) machine-learning spellchecker against a chapter of my dissertation that contained a lot of quotations from Le Morte Darthur:

At the time I suggested I might go back and do the same with the chapters that included substantial quotation from the Canterbury Tales and (shudder) Piers Plowman... and today I find myself with little better to do, so let's give it a go. Below the cut.

Extremely helpful there, thanks. For the curious, gilofre is a plant; in Modern English it's gillyflower. Clowe is just "clove". "Clowe-galofre" is nowhere on Google or in the OED, but it seems "Galofre" is an attested surname, so Google thinks maybe that's what I meant.

Fascinating choices here. That is of course meant to be nutmeg, and Google Docs has seemingly decided that putting in a space to turn one misspelled word into two words, one of which is spelled correctly, is a positive development. That or this is a continuation of the previously-observed trend that Google turns things into brands and corporation as much as possible -- apparently there is a company called "Emuge-Franken", which is the only result for "emuge" on Google Search.

It hasn't gotten anything right so far, by the way -- all those red underlines I haven't screenshotted anything for, it either suggests a word that is wrong but unremarkably so, or fails to suggest anything.

(Never mind, it got a couple right in between the last one and this one.)

This is interesting in that it shows Google Docs interprets things differently based on capitalization. This instance of bityde is capitalized because it's at the beginning of the line; the other one in the phrase bityde what bityde, which isn't capitalized, Google is able to correctly interpret as "betide". However, it seems to think the first is a proper noun and makes different suggestions. (Blyde is the Afrikaans name of the Motlatse River in South Africa, it would seem.)

I am reluctantly forced to hand it to Google Docs with this one. Like, no, that's not what Chaucer meant of course, but I can respect the shot being taken. Also interesting that it gets the blue underline because you can't really spell a transliteration wrong, but that's not how the system we normally use renders it. Not sure why spere "spear" (Google suggests "sphere") and vestiments "vestments" (Google gets this one right) are also marked as blue (style/grammar) rather than red (spelling), though.

... and now I'm taking what I just handed to Google Docs back away. WTF is this? Why...? you know what, we're moving on.

Bafflingly, Google thinks there is nothing at all unusual about that first line. Yep, that's normal Modern English there.

And here's our first example in this post of Google Docs trying to suggest a spelling that is also in Middle English, because I very much suspect the data it uses has been contaminated. Actually, come to think, if their machine learning system bases its judgments on what other users write rather than the old system with a set dictionary, I bet all the people writing papers about pre-standardized-spelling English literature are really screwing up the data. Which is hilarious -- if true, that would mean that I'm actually part of the problem for writing this whole dissertation full of Middle English quotes in Google Docs.

You might think this is another example of the same, but in fact the change from -ioun to -ion makes that suspect, and the Middle English Dictionary doesn't recognize it without the <u>. And if you Google Refleccion, all the results are in Spanish. However, I can't seem to find it in a Spanish-English dictionary, and those same dictionaries tell me the Spanish for reflection is reflexion -- maybe this is a variant spelling? I only have basic high-school Spanish to draw on here, so if any of my followers are fluent and can explain refleccion to me, I would be interested to learn.

Hm... no, that's not right either. Although a quick Google search tells me that there is a YA book called Physik, so that's probably what's screwing up this one. Probably not ideal for that sort of thing to happen.

And this one, it seems, is French. (Again, according to the Middle English Dictionary, all the attested Middle English spellings have the <u> -- but the French cognate is in fact spelled just like Google suggests, as far as I can tell. I don't speak French at all, though, so grain of salt.) I wonder how that happened -- do non-English words just kind of drift into the machine-learning system's vocabulary? Possibly through the same mechanism I speculated about with the Middle English above -- i.e., people write documents that are mostly in English, but contain some quotations or something in other languages, and if that happens enough, Google starts to think it's an English word?

Wait, is that maybe what's screwing a lot of this up? Either Google's system is going "This document is in English, so all the words in it are English words" and thus stuff just keeps bleeding between languages and screwing up the dictionary, OR Google's system is just kind of language-agnostic and sees no issue with suggesting French words in a document that's mostly in English? Is this why there are so many words that aren't correct Modern English spelling, but which Google Docs doesn't mark wrong? Like, they happen to line up with words in other languages, so Google just thinks you're borrowing really haphazardly throughout?

Also, side note, it tried to correct "hir" to "hirt", which is not an English word, but apparently stands for High Impact Resistance Training. Moving on.

Shenden is a Middle English verb that basically means "to damage or destroy". You don't really see it much in Modern English, though the OED has a couple examples of 20th-century usage. Anyway, I thought this was another case of Google bringing in different Middle English words, but a quick search tells me "Sente" is a skincare brand. That's probably more relevant.

Google Docs again just ignoring whole lines.

Odd choice there, sight being closer than site in terms of spelling. Maybe the algorithm assumes that if you end with an <e> you probably mean the second one.

Interesting, Google Docs. Why do you think that should be "night"? (Oddly, it actually gets all the red-underlined words in this line correct, meaning it pretty much has the context of the word.) Somewhat weird suggestion there.

I'm about a quarter of the way through the document and I think this is long enough for now; I'll probably come back and reblog with additions later. Before I go, however, here are my lists of "things spellcheck should be able to fix but can't" from what I've gone through so far.

First, spellings that differ from Modern English by only one letter, but which completely stump Google Docs (i.e., it marks them wrong but only gives the "why am I not seeing a suggestion?" message):

Goute ("gout")

Herbes ("herbs")

Melodye ("melody")

Smale ("small")

Swete ("sweet")

Syde ("side")

Ther ("there")

Wel ("well")

And second, words that are not correct in Modern English but that Google Docs does not mark wrong:

Anoon ("anon")

Attempree ("a temperate")

Beautee ("beauty")

Bowle ("bowl")

Dar nat ("dare not")

Daunce ("dance")

Dede ("dead")

Doon ("do")

Dronke ("drank")

Dronken ("drunken")

Fyr ("fire")

Gyse ("guise")

Hadde ("had")

Hir ("her")

Hir ("their")

Hond ("hand")

Lak ("lack")

Lakked ("lacked")

Lordes ("lords")

Maad ("made")

Pyne ("pain")

Rasour ("razor")

Sayde ("said")

Shere ("shear")

Som ("some)

Sondry ("sundry")

Spyces ("spices")

Styward ("steward")

Syk ("sick")

Thencens ("the incense")

Usshers ("ushers")

Wente ("went")

Wyf ("wife")

Y-goon ("gone")

[digifandom]

Chat fic #2

Lil' Tai: can i copy some1 notes Lil' Tai: i fell aslep in class

Camera entity: would say yeah but...

Insect (lovely): Did both of you really fall asleep?

Camera entity: maybeeee

Cody: Sorry, grade below you

Insect (lovely): Different school then you entirely.

Hats off: No.

Camera entity: oh come on

Lil' Tai: dude i'll cook for you pls

Hats off: Do I need to remind you two of your crimes?

Googles senior: what did you 2 do to piss of TK

Camera entity: ?

Lil' Tai: uhhhh?

Hats off: You two remember why you're tired? It's cause you played fucking Mario Cart all last night. Hats off: At my apartment. Hats off: While I was finishing an essay due the next morning that I had been putting off for digimon affairs.

Camera entity: oh

Lil' Tai: opps?

Hats off: Then you proceeded to continue playing while I was trying to go to sleep, granted it was partially my fault for the time as it was 4 am. However I had got up 3 sepreate times to ask you two to quite down. Hats off: I got a noise compliant.

Camera entity: Sorry, Teeks.

Lil' Tai: Sorry Keru.

Hats off: Normally, I wouldn't care. I've gone plenty of days without sleep. But I had a make up test today cause I was sick last week.

Googles senior: Kari this is why you need to stay home and not just sleep over at TK's or Yolei's all the time

Lil' Tai: did you do good on the test at least?

Hats off: Yeah, like I said, I've gone plenty of days without sleep. Would have much perfered it but I made do.

Camera entity: wnaana go for ice cream? my treat

Hats off: Sure.

Lil' Tai: i'll take you out for coffee this weekend Lil' Tai: we can go to that one you like all the way downtown Lil' Tai: or whenever just ask

Hats off: Davis, I love you.

Camera entity: the fuck?!

Hats off: I love you too Hika, but coffee is coffee.

Purple minnion: What class is it for I might have my notes from last year

Camera entity: Chem

Purple minnion: Ha, gfl

Lil' Tai: sad days

Wannabe Lone Wolf: Davis DO NOT buy Teeks coffee he needs to sleep

Hats off: Hypocrite.

Wannabe Lone Wolf: I'm an adult.

Hats off: You don't live with me.

Wannabe Lone Wolf: I'M YOUR BROTHER

Hats off: Mom said I had to listen to you when I go to live with you and Dad. Last I checked, I'm currently not living with you and Dad. Therefore logically I don't have to listen to you.

Wannabe Lone Wolf: I'll tell mom to check your room at night

Hats off: Jokes on you Mom's not home for another week.

Wannabe Lone Wolf: SHE'S ON A TRIP AGAIN?! Wannabe Lone Wolf: And didn't tell me or Dad

Hats off: News flash, she travels for work alot. Also I'm old enough to stay at the apartment by myself. Plus why do you think Davis and Kari spent the night yesterday?

Wannabe Lone Wolf: I... Get some sleep, don't e like me

Hats off: I literally have a sleep schedule relax, that's already better than you.

Camera entity: so can someone pls explain how to use a mole in an equation

Hats off: *Picture* Hats off: *Picture* Hats off: *Picture* Hats off: *Picture* Hats off: *Picture*

Lil' Tai: oh my fuck! Keru I love you youre a life saver

Hats off: Use proper grammar for one text and you'll have paid me. Hats off: Joking of couse, I was gonna send you both them anyway.

Camera entity: Thank you, Takeru, this is why you're my bestfriend.

Lil' Tai: I, Motomiya Daisuke, humbly thank you, Takaishi Takeru, for bestowing upon me these fine pictures of your delicate note taking.

Purple Minnion: Davis wtf!?

Insect (lovely): So this is what you were asking fancy synonyms for.

Googles senior: idk wether to be proud or disturbed

Wannabe Lone Wolf: Disturbed... definitely disturbed

Cody: Wow... you actually didn't mess that up.

Hats off: ... Hats off: Davis?

Lil' Tai: ?

Hats off: 💍

Wannabe Lone Wolf: WTF?!

Lil' Tai: uhhh?

Hats off changed one nickname

Husband <3: what the fuckck did you change my name to? Husband <3: why did we let you make the discord and then proceed to not take away your admin permissions

Hats off: :) Hats off: I'm going to pass out now. Call me in an hour so I wake up, I have to finish two assignments for math. Hats off: Also Davis lets go on our date tommorow, okay?

Husband <3: the fuck did i get pulled into?

Wannabe Lone Wolf: NO NONONNONOO

Husband <3: ... Husband <3: i'll pick you up after school by the gates ;)

Hats off: ❤

Husband <3: 😘

Hats off: 😙

Husband <3: 😍💖

Wannabe Lone Wolf: DAVIS!

[blasphemousclaw]

It is time for the crossover question. So first (and kinda most important) how do you think Ornstein from Dark Souls would react to Radahn’s armor. They both have lion themed armors after all. And second how well the royal families of Dark Souls and Elden Ring would get along ?

ok I’m sooooo sorry but the most I’ve played of dark souls was when I started the game last summer determined to go in completely blind and I ended up fighting and dying to skeletons for like an hour and my reward for finally making it through was a sword I couldn’t even use then I finally broke down and googled a guide and it was like you shouldn’t be touching those skeletons until you’re like level 40 or something and I was like ok so there’s something wrong with me. then I did the first area but I had to stop playing because I went to grad school

anyway basically my knowledge of dark souls lore begins and ends with the opening cutscene so I’m appealing to my followers on this one… please leave some comments or reblogs!

I can tell you how radahn would react to ornstein’s armor though I feel like he’d simultaneously be like wtf that looks sick as hell are you also part of the godfrey fanclub but he’d also be kind of threatened because he needs to be the most specialest godfrey fan in the world and also this guy is even stealing his signature flaming red mane like huh???

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Media Literacy Checks

I figure books are a bit too high brow, but I thought I would write a review of roughly 5-6th grade media literacy 'cause I've found a lot of people have forgotten and that's sad (I'm not sure what these are in other countries). I tried roughly in order.

Check everything you find for a source before you believe it. Check opponents and yourself.

If a source is given, check that source. (Usually I check the most used sources and then choose a random other on a key supporting assertion).

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Source

Check your sources' reliability

Check left, center, right leaning bias

Check for Media Bias

Remember that Google's algorithm is f*ed.

If given a medical journal/article, read more than the Abstract, particularly read the methodology, bias, funding, and conclusions.

Check for your own biases in information.

If counter attacking, with a fact check, check your own sources.

Quick checks:

Is the population of the study 250+?

What is the confidence level/error rate of the study?

Who is in the population of the study/experiment?

Does the methodology make sense or is it filled with bias?

Check everything you find for a source before you believe it. Check opponents and yourself.

I see people plain believe it because it was posted to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, without earmarking it that it might not be true because it fits with your worldview, also not updating what you do or don't know.

You buy more because a guy said when you're hungry you buy more. Proves to be untrue and was updated since.

A simple fact check sometimes is really quick. Is this true?

If a source is given, check that source.

Trump posted a source, I checked that source. It turned out they looked at the graph without reading the text above the graph. What they stated what the graph meant was contradicted by the text. Two second check.

Trump made a wild statement about insurance. I fact checked the number given. He stated it was about ALL of the US, the original source, of which I could only find one, was about a particular state of which the number spanned a long period of time.

(BTW, this this the power of the quotation mark in Google and the minus before a word).

Someone stated that burnt carbs leads to cancer. I checked the source. The source said they made the material purposefully radioactive and applied it to skin. I pointed this out, so they linked me to other sources, like cancer.org. cancer.org had taken down the page apparently after reading the original study. The other sources lead to dead ends (i.e. 404s). I pointed out that this was true and they still did not answer me. (BTW, it was the org that did the OMG, we made something radioactive, and it was the material that made the person have cancer, not the radioactivity. We made an apple radioactive. Therefore the apple gives people cancer. WTF. You don't think it's the radioactivity that you ADDED to the apple or selection bias?)

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Source

But I heard it from my VP, who heard it from a Facebook page owner, who heard it from her neighbor, who might have heard it from another neighbor, who might have heard it from 3 more chains of people, but I'm not sure who they are.

So this is the grapevine problem and if you've been paying attention, oral storytelling often has exaggerations inherent in it to make it easier to remember. (Often with hand gestures too)

Primary sources, Secondary and Tertiary aren't always reliable. But when it's down 10 without primary sourcing, then yes.

Primary sources, if you were paying attention in school, can be unreliable because of the adrenaline messing with memory issues. But having a primary account can often help clear what they actually said (Say, finding out that Freytag is a pre-Nazi ideologue who centered emotion as the story driver instead of listening to the very wrong internet on what he thought the story driver was and giving you the real story, which I bothered to do.) So, for example, having the bill of sale of George Washington's slaves helps clear up date confusion.

Secondary Sources

At the same time, Primary sources won't clear up different PoVs on a large event. So answering, "What really happened during the civil war" you need a secondary source to do an overview. Secondary sources have the weakness of selection bias and confirmation bias. They can select the accounts that confirm their suspicions without investigating the primary source. This is why having multiple Secondary sources helps.

Tertiary is anything outside of the first or second hand account. Second hand can be still too close to do an overview. But this has the weakness that if the primary sources are missing, (See Samguk Yusa's weaknesses.) that the tertiary source cannot be checked.

I didn't check back with my source

This lady lost her cat, must be Haitian neighbors. News reporters check back with source. "Oh I found the cat months ago in my basement and apologized to my Haitian neighbors... why are you asking me again?"

If you don't check back with your source, you can also make up whatever you like about the source, not give credit and then say crap like OMG, Shakespeare created the five-act story structure, even if that's historically untrue as I well covered over and over and over again and the myth of the Black Friars candles still persists in Lit classes today to tell everyone this is how plays were done, not that it was invented much later in history and retconned into place mostly by AH genocidal Gustav Freytag.

Thus you get Kenneth Rowe plagiarizing 2 people. Lajos Egri hating on women repeatedly, mostly Dorothy Brande (not named, but sideways mentioned) and poor Gertrude Stein again (though by name) and failing to mention Freytag, etc.

Check your sources' reliability

Right posted this claim from this guy in a town hall meeting saying that "Cats went missing in the Park" and then conveniently cut out the part where he advocated for red lining, making him wholly racist. The beginning of the statement talked about how the residents were afraid of Black people moving into the town and how there should be a segregation between where Black people were going to live and the white residents. How reliable is the "But cats are missing" statement then? Not very. That's why that part of the speech was cut off.

Check left, center, right leaning bias

This is a pretty quick google source, but there are resources that do this for you.

Check for Media Bias

Covered by our sponsor, XO Bagel, which is why we rated them the top number one bagel on this list of bagels.

Sponsored by the EA game changers network. I got a free version of the game for reciprocity bias.

Remember that Google's algorithm (all Algorithms) is f*ed.

Google automatically has set your search results to go towards your political spectrum. You can turn this off. But remember that it's customized to you. So if you do 300 searches, say on how cats are a figment of everyone's imagination. And click through to those articles, then when you say search for Are dogs real compared to cats, the anti-cat articles are going to show up. Just because it shows up first on Google, does not mean it has rigor. They let go of that model in the 2010's.

This goes for Facebook, Twitter, blue sky, etc. The Algorithm will show more of the thing the more that you click and interact on. certain subject. It's the terf raging in the comments, OMG, why, why do I keep seeing trans "surgeries" that must be an uptick of the occurrence of the phonomena. Nope. It's you clicking and posting under those things that made it happen more frequently without checking the source's reliability before believing it.

If given a medical journal/article, read more than the Abstract, particularly read the methodology, bias, funding, and conclusions.

Do I have to cover the monkey pox thing again? Again, articles from science orgs are particularly paid for put shocking things in their abstract that do not pan out in the actual paper if you read it in order to get wider funding because the government pays them shit amount of money, so they try to state things that aren't true.

Burnt carbs cause cancer—what the article says, we made burnt carbs radioactive, put it on skin and then were "Shocked" when it mildly caused cancer, which then through rigorous testing without the radioactivity--other orgs were "shocked" that it didn't cause cancer, and then we were called out about it, and then linked to the orgs who had disconnected their websites because the rigorous testing had failed and oh fuck, now our funding is looking terrible.

Bacteria in mice causes AUTISM.—Never mind that autism isn't really defined for mice, but whatever. Let's roll with that title, though the experiment was only done once in only one country and we might have fudged the results of the final study to get funding and there was never a repeat of the experiment to say it was true, and the news media ran wild to try to say that mice==humans. And then people try to say from there that vaccines cause autism after the initial bad study where that doctor's license was revoked. Mice are not humans.

Women are not likely to have period pain and are faking it, declares article conducted with only men. lol

This is why you look at the methodology of the study. Does it pass the benchmarks? Or are they publishing early to only get funding because the governments of the world don't want to fund it and they are fudging it anyway? Looking at you Dunning Kruger effect.

Check for your own biases in information

Common ones include things like loving the fancy name of a study to memorize to look smart.

Chekovsky-Ledding Syndrome, sounds cool and plays into my confirmation bias, even though I didn't read the original study, so I'm going to abuse it even though I don't know an ounce of psychology because man, don't I look smart when I say if you go to a grocery store hungry you buy more even if this hasn't be rigorously tested?

BTW, this is a made up syndrome, and the actual study was debunked: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2019/01/16/do-people-actually-buy-more-groceries-when-they-shop-hungry/

Methodology is a video game? Oh c'mon. And the population is only 68 people. No.

I see all of you out there abusing Imposter syndrome, trying to look smart when what you really mean is inferiority complex, but you don't want to use inferiority complex because Oh man, that doesn't sound as cool.

I'm telling you, if you feel like 250 words written is imposter syndrome, your ego must be to the distance of Kuiper belt. Go back and read the original assertions and article instead of blindly parroting others. It says, something fantastic happens to you that you feel you do not deserve. And I'm sorry, if you think 250 word written is the equivalent of being from a minority group that has been historically marginalized and being told all of their life that they, from a poor broken down neighborhood with an unprecedented amount of gun violence, and trauma were never, ever going to make it was going to end up in an IVY League school as Cum Laude of their class, such that they have an out of body experience, that they feel they cheated and did not deserve it then seriously, seriously, unless you really did overcome like inspiration porn level odds, like losing both arms and legs, and losing all speech and then having to type only with your eyes to write those 250 words, then your ego is sure something. Your hubris at claiming imposter syndrome sure is high there. You can be angry at being called out, but it doesn't change the fact that you fell for a bias because you didn't want to call it what it was, inferiority complex. But dude, it doesn't sound as cool. Seriously, my fellow writers stop falling for but it sounds cool type of bias and actually know what it means before you use it.

Is this thesaurus syndrome? Did I just make that up? Yes. Does it sound like a good name of a syndrome and bias? Absolutely. Should I give it a more sciencey and false basis so you believe it.

In a study of 5 participants who were given fancier versions of words, done by the University of Halifax, in St Paul, New South Wales, 10 people were given fancy long words they did not understand, but 5 were found to be too smart for the study because they actually looked up the words they were assigned with search engines and dictionaries and thus thrown out.

The remaining five stayed in the study and failed to use a dictionary to actually look up the words and proceeded to use the words wrong in everyday speech for one month. We never gave them an actual thesaurus, but only gave them the category of meaning the word was in such as mood, object, subject and then watched them fail and recorded all of their speech flagging only the sentences they used with this speech.

We found that two of the people in the study were writers and they were the worst offenders.

We would like to know why one of the participants used "amalgamate" to mean to gather together in a large set of groupings, when Websters defines it as, "transitive verb : to unite in or as if in an amalgam; especially : to merge into a single body;" but didn't bother to ask them why this is and so we're making wild conjectures.

We are calling this thesaurus syndrome and are calling for more funding, but we're hoping you didn't read this far into the article and only read the abstract and were attracted to the stunning reality and great title given to this syndrome... because ya'll are suckers who don't read anything when you're over-saturated with information.

Other things are such as false attribution, because things like Author didn't say this about Rue being Black even though she said it over three times.

And the more famous, Tolkien would have hated Black elves, because clearly he loved the Nazis. (He didn't BTW). When what you're really stating is you didn't read shit from Tolkien past The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and don't want to bother with Silmarillion even though that's the source material for Rings of Power, and you're really disappointed that not all of the cast is white. And you can't figure out that 30 degrees north has all sorts of skin colors of humans on Earth where the Elves spawned because you never looked at a map. That's how deep-seated your racism is going that you need to attribute your racism to the author without evidence that your assertions are true without research. (Looking at the list of writing advice books, dudes, and dudettes and everyone in between, are we writers that made of weak sauce that we have to make out that our own opinions are all Shakespeare and Aristotle?)

If counter attacking, with a fact check, check your own sources

I admit I've fucked this one up royally a few times. *slinks off in corner*.

But yes, check your own sources, and if you can't wait some time before hitting send and give yourself time to check.

Especially if your surname is Trump. OMG, fact checking him is a minefield of I saw where you got that, but that's not what is said because you didn't even bother reading the full sentence.

And then repetition error. Where people copy-paste the orange one without checking his basis in fact. Because ya know, sounds good and shit.

Quick checks for paratext aren't a bad idea

Historicism, queer theory, feminist theory, critical race theory, critical feminist theory, critical queer theory, authorcism, cultural relativism, etc.

Death of the author, does not mean death of any context at all or over attribution to any of the former because you have an opinion supported by nothing but your opinion.

Problems with the source

Circular sourcing with a wrong argument

Particularly East and South Asian sources have issues with this, though the flavors of how and why are different.

So, I'll give one. Popular FICTION book states unnamed historical figure is Sriratna. New discovery about this character is found, so Korean source states popular book with this name is doing X and X. Indian sources, think because Korean sources state that her name is Sriratna, that's really her name. Korean sources think then that Indian sources confirmed for real that her name is Sriratna, but when you backtrack the sources and go back, it cites the Samguk Yusa. The Samguk Yusa says no such thing. The only name given is Heo Hwang Ok. Sri, BTW, is an honorific in this case (Mr. Mrs. ssi, etc), not supposed to be a part of the name. Furthermore, there are issues with the name Ratna, as it is a Hindi, but not Sanskrit name. But the circle jerk of confirmation bias in a vacuum of information makes it more likely that people will repeat a falsehood.

I had one where someone made a wrong statement based off of the Samguk Yusa. I picked up the book which referred to the Samguk Yusa, and it turned out that the Samguk Yusa said no such thing. The author noted it was interesting that... etc.

Another one that I've pointed out before is the whole sourcing on Ace. Where one particular author on ace, who is not ace himself, absolutely fucking insists (with his anti-trans ideology) to be inserted into every single paper about Aces and discounts primary sources as a valid way to source. And had a little fucking fit about it. !@#$ BTW, I hate him doing this and outright mocked him several times. And given there are only three major scholars on the subject and only one is actually ace and 2 out of the three are women, you probably can find who this one is. If everyone is (forced) to cite one source without any refutation, then yeah, that's circular sourcing. If he sources everyone that agrees with him, and shuns everyone who doesn't (even though that person is fucking ace. WTF dude you have no idea the rage I have, you ego that fragile when you aren't ace?), then they source him, that's not a great way to go.

Check for basic fallacies

Confirmation bias, Selection bias, and false equivalency are the most frequent ones I see. But I also often see Ethnocentricism trailing behind, but I think that's selection bias on my part being an anthropologist type. (Double here. I'm more likely to see it, and I'm more likely to post about it.)

Biased population

The famous one being, of course, studies about females using males as the primary test subjects. Look, these people who can't ever get pregnant nor give physical birth had no adverse side effects hormonally on this birth control pill and... look never got pregnant. Therefore the birth control works!

You have no idea how many studies are like this. Look, Black people don't have racial stress because we sampled only white people...

Always check the basis for the population. Age, etc.

Rats and Mice are not humans

Just that. Dogs can't eat chocolate. Humans can. Rats and mice are a far way off from humans. They are useful models, but it doesn't mean it 100% translates to humans.

An example of this, but a study of rats fed only mustard oil in really high concentrations caused them to have cancer. They then said it applied to humans. This would be equivalent of giving you nothing but mustard powder with scientifically concentrated to take out the mustard compounds and then being shocked, absolutely shocked that you got sick after the thirtieth day of feeding you nothing but this.

Biased opinion with Confirmation bias

"Vaccines cause autism" says anti-vaccine doctor funded by the Koch brothers...

I had a dicier one where there was a study done on mice where they found a gestational bacteria from the gut might cause autism-like symptoms in mice. But there were people who could not read scientific studies saying things like, "Oh, then vaccines cause autism." What~~? Because you can't understand the study, doesn't mean that it says what you want it to say. I had to point out that the title was sensational. That the paper specifically was asking for more funding, that it was a first experiment, and Mice are not humans?

Lacking one of the following: Logos, pathos, ethos

You need all three. Pathos makes no sense without logos. And if you don't have the correct ethos, then how are you really expecting that say, the experiment is true. If you skimmed on the experiment to make sure the results are true, how reliable are you?

Pathos is emotional appeal, which helps appeal to the emotions of the audience. Sometimes you do need empathy. But empathy and emotions can't be the sole argument.

Check the Experimental model for errors or overstatements

The amount of overstatements I've found in scientific studies is amazing.

We fed these rats nothing but this really specific compound found in soy at 400 times their body weight and intake for over three years and were shocked to discover they developed cancer. Several of the subjects died, and in the fifth year they were all dead. We do not think it's because the lifespan of rats is only five years long that they died, but because this compound found in soy is poisonous to humans.

Yeah, red flags. Where is the control? Are the amounts really terrible? Is the margin of upgrade negligible? a .05 increase with an error margin of + or - 5.0.

Was it even peer reviewed? Was it replicated?

Quick Statistics rules:

Margin of error is 2.5% on either side.

This is called outliers. Anything within the margin of error can be cooked numbers, statistical anomalies, etc. It's not confirmed. OMG, polls went up 1%. Within margin of error, so might be wrong, plus what's the population and bias of the researcher?

You want a confidence level of 95%. What is the confidence level of the stats before you?

Population error in most papers is a lot more common than you think.

Anything less than 250 does not count as a statistical certainty.

Anything that samples ONLY a certain group without examining why they are examining only that group, without it being part of the stated statistical model should be deeply questioned. For example, if they are asking, Why do women have period cramps? And the sample is examining ONLY cishet white men, you should be asking lots of questions about that.

Going back to the Monkeypox research article where people concluded that Gay men were more prone to Monkeypox without reading the paper. First off, it was in East London, which has a population bias towards the gay community. Second, East London is a poorer area. Thirdly, the paper stated the AIDS epidemic meant that gay people are more likely than straight people to report rashes, etc. Fourthly, and I don't know why I have to say this, any additional gay men they added to the paper and stated were "more likely to have it" were not reported evenly through their statistical analysis as the location of the clinics was not disclosed to vet out other population anomalies.

The old "But we researched on psychology students." "We collected on 45 Psychology students and found out that..." OMG, none of them are old and have a partial college education, but we're going to test them for Alzheimer's and found out that it doesn't exist.

We test 50 IVY League college PHD students in 2020 without financial aid and found that none of them suffer from poverty related illnesses. That's selection bias. A lot of the time science papers will come out with sensational titles to get people to read and then fail the selection biases or population biases. See, they need funding because they pooled 15 people to (excuse this because this is real) "find the cure for Autism." (Gag me.)

Most of the time human-based studies fail basic scientific/statistical rigor. 'cause sciences are underfunded, and they are doing more time marketing than they are doing actual rigorous experiments.

68 people is not enough. Then all being grad students is a terrible sample. Make sure the basis on what you are reading isn't coming from their ass. Make sure they checked for their own biases and gave their sources. If you flag them for not doing these things, and they react by being all indignant and failing to realize basic things like wheat is produced in the "Middle East" (as said in the video), so the first likely pasta is likely to come from there, rather than it coming back and that there is a huge amount of humans trying to retcon their own history because they didn't hire an anthropologist to check over their work, then yeah, I'd pretty much throw that work out and do your own research when you have time. Wild assertions to connect points is something a lot of docs do. Even some beloved documentarians I like very much do it to make the transitions look smoother.

The point is that a little doubt and be willing to pivot isn't a bad idea. Focus on getting the facts correct rather than your pride in being correct.

Oh and for those that love to overattribute to the greats without reading the people's paratext, please don't. If we had this schooling and people adhered to it all the way back to Aristotle, I wouldn't be banging the keyboard so much about wrong assumptions and miscalculations about story structure and finding out that people seem to have absolutely no idea about literature history at all.

Just saying, that you should at least understand 19th century lit, minimalism, modernism, post modernism, and structuralism before you make wild assertions about Elmore Leonard. And don't worry, I'm calling myself out here too, since I barely understood what advice I was cherry picking in the beginning either. But now that I understand the wider context, and where we are now, and how much our education system has failed us, I can make better assessments of if the advice is still useful. And YES, it does matter if the person is a raging misogynist on if their advice is good or not because they are discounting more than half of the population of writers and likely also LGBTQIA with it which means learning how to express yourself authentically with those voices and that point of view would be lacking in their discourse.

And then you sound really smart. But remember to check back with the sources... which is why I spend an inordinate amount of time citing page numbers and giving you screen caps of them. I mark assumptions too, and cite the larger book in a findable context. Because I am often wrong. And this might be a wrong assumption on my part, but I suspect every human on the planet has been wrong at one point or another during our paltry life cycles and terrible memories.

[cherienymphe]

Maybe it's bc Allison was my fave character but it genuinely felt like I was the only one who treated that storyline with the seriousness it deserved at the time 😭 bc Matt wasn't even some regular stalker, that man had a deadly supernatural being on his side that he was fully prepared to use to kill Allison bc she didn't want to be with him like hello?!?!?

//

This exactly! Stalking is such a generic plot device that’s used in all forms of media, no matter the target audience. But when they pulled this shit out in Teen Wolf of all shows, I was like… wtf?! This is the type of stuff I read in fan fiction! I was not expecting some average TV-14 series to feature material of this sort!

I think I was also around fourteen or fifteen when I watched the show some five or six years ago (never got past S4, though), so I hadn’t really seen anything like this in media before. Sure, I’d read some fan fiction that contained darkish elements, like Yandere, but that’s fan fiction. I was thrown so off guard, and it seemed like I was the only one 😭

I think TW premiered either my freshman or sophomore year in high school (pretty sure freshman) so it was similar to something I'd seen before in a teen drama (Damon "killing" Jeremy bc Elena rejected him in TVD) but I think bc TW is generally more humorous and less serious and angsty than TVD, the show itself sailed right past it and didn't really linger on how fucked up it was or emphasize it for more than 5 minutes (seriously Jeff wtf)

(In between typing this I googled when teen wolf premiered and it was indeed 2011 so I was like 13/14) but seeing that at 14 was insane and it felt like nobody in the fandom really cared. Tbh so much fucked up stuff and disturbing plot lines existed in TW that were just treated like...nothing 🧍🏾‍♀️

[youmightaswell]

Die!

Of Lice and Men

I’ve been wanting to write about two seemingly disparate things. But then I thought about how how they relate and came up with the most genius title that would encompass both topics into one essay.

Hear me out: I want to write about how I’ve been paranoid I have lice. I also have wanted to write about a guy I was chatting with on FB dating named Lasha who turned out, well. to be a louse. See what I did there? OF LICE AND MEN! Genius!

And what’s even MORE genius about this title is the story in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is about migrant workers and Lasha, is in fact, a migrant worker from Georgia (the country.)

I’ll start out with the lesser disgusting of the two topics: head lice.

Of Lice:

For the last month, at night I feel like my scalp is itching. I chalked it up to dry weather, overwashing or menopause. But then a celeb I follow on Instagram, Jenny Mollen (she is married to actor Jason Biggs) found out she had lice while on a plane! For weeks she had said her scalp itches and she kept showing it to her husband, assistants, etc. Nothing! They all chalked it up to her starting menopause. But then when flying home from LA her assistant saw a tiny bug jump from strand to strand! OMG! She got back to NYC and had already scheduled the pricey LicEnders to come to her house, spend painstaking hours treating her hair, her kids’ hair and her husband’s hair long with their staff’s. She also had to have her whole apartment treated.

But it makes sense she got lice - she had two young school-aged children. There is NO reason for me to think I have lice but now I am super paranoid. I can’t really see my whole scalp and live alone. Who could I ask to view my scalp?

So I googled how to kill (imaginary) lice and coated my head in oil and slept like that. I knew this would kill any lice but not their eggs and so if I really did have lice I”d need a nitpicker. Anyway, I washed the oil out and maybe it was a placebo but I felt better.

I had forgotten all about my imaginary lice but then randomly a friend jokingly said he believes a friend of mine he hates – she’s clean but disheveled – had lice. I was like WTF? I”ve been silently obsessing about lice for weeks and he mentioned it. I told him the whole story and he told me I was nuts. I did not have lice. (When he visits I will make him look at my scalp.)

Anyway, I took it as a SIGN maybe I do have lice. I really don’t want to fork over hundreds of dollars just for a LicEnders evaluation. So I bought three lice treatments from the pharmacy and this weekend gave myself one and then used the nit comb to go over ever part of my scalp hair. Nothing came out. There is NOTHING! The verdict is I am insane and paranoid. I have phantom, imaginary lice.

I am trying to put the thought out of my head but have two more treatments I could try… I am also waiting for any friend I can trust to visit to look at my scalp.

Of Men

Well, how do lice and men relate to each other? This man I am about to write about is a louse.

I am not on dating sites per se but have always kept FB Dating because long ago FB set up a profile for me automatically. I keep it open and rarely check in on the daily likes and notes men leave. But this Thanksgiving break I was board so went into it and started swiping. Almost everyone was a no but there was one guy who was super cute. His name is Lasha.

He had sent me a note saying how pretty I was and how I am perfect. He wanted to take me on a date. He said he had no children and had come to the US just to make money. He was living close by.

I toyed with the idea of meeting him the Wed before Thanks because it was a rare night my dog was in boarding and I could go out. So for a few days we chatted back and forth and what kept me going chatting with him even after I found out he had just come here six months ago from Georgia (the country) was that he mentioned one of his many jobs was to tend to bees to sell honey at farmer’s markets.

I just moved to a new apartment, one with two roof decks. The one on my private side had extremely aggressive bees. I suspect there is a huge hive in my gutter. The mgmt co will not have the exterminator do searching and removal. Luckily come fall all the bees died – there were dead bees all over my window sills. But I know they will be coming back to their hive come spring.

Anyway, I talked with Lasha about this as he is fully versed on bees and said he could come look for the hive and it can be safely rehomed in winter when the bees are not there.

I did not want to let a stranger know my address so when he kept pushing for a meeting for coffee it seems fine but I told him I’d need his full name.

Once I got it I quickly found his FB profile. His profile picture had two women - one he was kissing and the other a teen who looked like him.

I scanned down on his posts and even though they were in another language, I translated them and daily he’d say how much he loves and misses his wife and daughter!

So I asked who the women in his picture were and he was shocked I could figure out he was married with a kid!

So I asked why he was on a dating site if he was “happily” married and why he lied about having a kid. He said he is only looking for friends and I misunderstood him.

I keep the receipts always so screenshotted his opening a week before saying how beautiful I was, how he wanted to date me…

He then said, ok, if I am being honest I would be interested in having a serious relationship with you while I am in the US - I will likely be here a year. LOL! I told him I had no interest in being part of his extra-marital activities and that in the future he should be honest about all that up front so NO ONE GETS HURT. I said that very ominously and within seconds he deleted his profile.

I hate when men underestimate me and especially something as simple as the power of Google.

I had taken screenshots just in case, but I like to think I did a mitzvah to all women on the site. he will hopefully think twice about trying to cheat - at least online. And just like that I washed that louse right out of my hair.

[uglyduckling339]

KY'S LIFE IS STRANGE DOUBLE EXPOSURE NONSENSE LIVEBLOG: Chapter 2

(spoilers ahead obvi) (this does NOT make sense without having played the episode or at least watched it) (it may also not make sense with the context. so.)

tutorial episode 1

Okay so lowkey i finished this chapter like a week and a half ago but forgot to make a luh review so😭😭 oopsies

I know it's probably just to easily cut between scenes but Max keeps lowkey dissociating after sum freaky shit happens. First chapter after her and Safi almost died, and then now after she universe-hops (?) #trauma_response

god i fucking HATE this buzzing. i miss rewind, that wasn't loud and annoying

"did the forecast call for massive nose bleeds?" GIGGLING umm blah blah blah the storm was because of max's powers and her powers are shown through nosebleeds joke goes here

wtf are these sketchy ass teachers planning bro. just call off and go visit ur kid?? why is this a big deal💀

"oofa doofa" LMFAOO MAX IS BACK W HER WEIRD ASS SLANG

uhm i think my game glitched or sum bc Safi and Safi's mom just left the turtles but I can hear them gossiping about drug usage? huh

whole-heartedly, this game is FAR too expensive for all these glitches

Maxine "Mary Poppins" Caulfield is back with her stupid ass bag logic

love her she just shoved a whole step ladder in there like it was nun

Vinh... honey shes like. very dead :(

UGHH life tip guys help the guy with the bathroom key BEFORE you talk to Amanda.

jesus my drafts are so hard to comprehend.. wtf does half this shit mean bro😭

Diamond's beef with Vinh is so interesting. It's lowkey like a more intense Rachel v. Victoria from LiS: BTS

OH MY GOD

CAT

i can't take the cat yet :( its in the bushes at the school hissing at me

Vinh needs Max so bad lowkey

I should've interrupted Lucas last chapter bc I don't see the issue with him? he seems like he's incredibly pretentious but not even like HALF as bad as most of Arcadia Bay and he's kinda nice when he's not yapping

i'm so serious what the hell was i saying in these drafts bro.

Max watering Gwen's plant like it's Lisa :( RIP

I was SO prepared for Gwen to walk in ngl

Max :( no :( i like lucas :( I wanna hear abt the book expo :(

i'm so cooked bro i love literally every character in this game so much. none of them killed her theres no way

omfg glitch again ! Lucas's briefcase is open WHILE MAX IS ACTIVELY TALKING ABT IT BEING LOCKED SHUT. GIRL REACH IN I CAN SEE THE FILES.

"dare i channel my... inner chloe" OH MY GOD

I LIKE VINH SO MUCH. I HIGHKEY MIGHT ROMANCE THEM TOGETHER.

No clue what "TRAIN TRACKS????? REFERENCE WHILE FLIRTING WITH A MAN?? MAXINE??" means but i like the vibes so i'm adding it here

WHAT DOES THIS DRAFT MEAN LMFAO

i should just post some of these so yall can see the weird ahh shit i got in my drafts lmfao

bye i forgot which universe i was in and drank w/ Vinh instead of pursuing the objective

OH SHIT. don't forget which universe ur in😭 the dialogue almost messed me up fr

also there is SO MUCH repeating dialogue.

max has the milennial curse of forgetting that she can use google istg

Reggie !!! my fav !!!

Authority Figure Max is so fine oml i need her

also !! chloe and victoria's trauma posting is actually so important to me and idc how much yall hate it

one of these drafts just says the sentence "like the fanfic!!"... what was i yappin abt bro

REPEATING DIALOGUE SHUT UPPPP

GWEN I WAS EXPLORING. i was coming to you AFTER !!

I can make this SO EMO if yall let me (max smoking a joint)

wait okay so i'm slow but is Gwen trans?

GOD I HATE THIS FUCKING CHOICE. IT FEELS LIKE THAT FUCKING "Go To The Cops or Find Evidence" CHOICE FROM LIS 1

The true essense of LiS is saying "fuck it, it's just a video game" and screwing every character over bc of it

highkey I still hate Loretta but she's kinda nice in this part.

WAIT PAUSE LORETTA HOW THE F U C K DID YOU GET UP HERE GIRL

GIRL I UNIVERSE-HOPPED. WTF DID U DO

and if i say loretta murdered her what would yall do. (/joke, /theory)

oh okay mr. detective ! thats racism !

so i spent 5 drafts yapping about needing to avoid the tree so it doesn't make a sound just to realize that in Dead World! the tree isn't decorated 😭

giggling and another 4 drafts complaining bc my game crashed (luckily it saved first)

OKAY SO I FUCKING HATE THIS ACTUALLY

Listen I was bad at the David Madsen swim scene in LiS ep 3, and that had rewind. I'm cooked

PAUSE was rhat a glitch or did she just get caught and rewind time?????

max's overusing her powers again.. girl did we not learn from the NIGHTMARE in LiS

that feeling when you alter the universes and combine them together (absolutely nothing bad will happen from this for sure)

i have a whole paragraph yapping about my love for Vinh in my drafts lmfao

ALSO theorecially could you romance Vinh in one world and Amanda in another....

CAT

CAT

CAT

AH BRING THE BABY IN THE HOUSE MAX

GRAB IT

OH MY GOD CUSTOMIZATION AHHH

BLACK KITTY !!! JUST LIKE MY IRL CAT !!!

IRIS 🖤🖤🖤

AHH THIS WAS SO WORTH THE $85.00

CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT

anyways i wonder why Living World! Max hasn't been home in days

AHHHHH KITTY :) FEED THE BABY MAXINE.

also how is that guitar here. isn't it like incredibly destroyed from the storm

"Grief flings open all the doors we thought we'd shut forever" okayyyy lucas i see u

OH ?? MULTI-UNIVERSE MURDER??

great job max. glad we stayed calm😭😭

i've been repeating this line for over a week now ngl

"it-it's photoshop !😰😰 a deepfake🧐 idunno!!! 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️"

i miss the ads at the end of the episodes soo badly its not even funny

And that was it! alot more glitching in episode 2, but overall it was still hella fun (and the CAT. OH MY GOD !!)

I won't be able to play the new chapters until Wednesday at LEAST bc i'm hella busy but I wanted to get this out for my adoring fans (2 mutuals who like the posts i make)