#disambiguation

[joehills]

Me: I was too busy knowing myself to actually know my enemy. Better google dreamsimp real quick.

Also me: wtf, there’s like a lot of these.

[bixbythemartian]

I deleted the thing I reblogged about dates on student loan debt relief stuff, because I got a few more corrections. I feel bad about having accidentally contributed to misinformation, and there seems to be a lot of confusion, so I'm going to do my best to disambiguate.

All information comes from the studentaid.gov website, linked here.

This is all accurate, as far as I can tell, as of September 2, 2022. Changes may be made after.

The payment pause on federally held student loans has been extended through December 31, 2022 (this year)

The payment pause is automatically applied to all federally held student loans, you do not need to sign up for it.

The deadline to apply for the student debt relief program is December 31, 2023 (next year)

This may be automatic for some, but you will likely need to apply for the student debt relief program.

The debt relief program is expected to take 4-6 weeks to process and apply your relief.

If you apply before November 15, 2022 (this year) you will be likely to receive your debt relief before payments on federally held student loans resume.

You will be best served by applying before November 15, 2022 (this year) but the hard deadline to apply for student debt relief remains December 31, 2023 (next year).

If you believe you qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSFL) you need to apply by October 31, 2022 (this year).

This is because there have been temporary changes to qualifications for PSFL that will expire on October 31, 2022 (this year). The program will persist afterwards, but you may be less likely to qualify for forgiveness once the changes drop.

You can read more about PSFL and apply for the program here.

You can sign up for email updates on the Federal Student Loan Debt Relief stuff at this website.

sorry for contributing to any confusion, I hope this helps straighten things out.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

What's poppin' in late February: Part 4 of ~7

Erythronium umbilicatum - Trout Lily Antennaria plantaginifolia/parlinii - Pussytoes, Woman's Tobacco

Which species? I don't know, as both are plausible here and they're nearly identical. Leaning towards Parlin's bc of the look of those basal leaves, but some sources say they're one species anyway, so I'm close enough.

And once you get to looking at the ground, closely, to see all the lovely little flowers there, you also notice the things that are going to be lovely little flowers. The last photo is the basal leaves of Rattlesnake Hawkweed - Hieracium venosum. It'll bloom later.

Hawkweeds are a large group of asters that are easy to mistake for dandelions if you're not paying attention, as the flowers can look really similar. The leaves are different, though, and if you're not sure, check the stem: dandelions have a soft, hollow stem, while hawkweeds' stems are solid.

[hathorik]

Rundown on the vocabulary of oppression - Ideology and Diplomacy

In the face of current events™, some of my students felt lost and confused and one of them asked me to help them understand what words such as fascism, nazism, antisemitism and zionism mean. My guess is they're not the only people feeling that way. So let's take a look at all those words being thrown around and what their actual meaning is.

This is gonna be a long post so all the material is going under the cut. I will, once again, be very serious about my sources and use Wikipedia because come the fuck on it's right THERE.

Fascism: far-right authoritarian nationalist political ideology, often suppressing any democratic aspect from political life (be it through forbidding all but one party or reducing the number and political range of parties available to make sure the result of any election will only further the political ideology and its goals). It entails a strong militarism, forceful suppression of political opponents, violent repression of protests and social struggles, and often has roots in racism (or simply white supremacy) to reinforce the nationalist aspect. Historical examples of fascism justified themselves through their ultimate goal to create a perfect society for perfect people; nowadays the blunt racist übermensch-creating ideas are a little too old-fashioned and we can reconsider the workings, ideological tennets and goals of fascism in a globalized neo-liberal world (tldr: protecting the people in power and reinforcing oppression of everyone else).

Nazism: German-flavored fascism created by an obscure Austrian painter. Despite it originating from "National Socialism", there is nothing social about Nazism; that was a PR stunt to bring in the communist voters after a strong communism diabolisation campaign. The idea was that a natural hierarchy or races existed and at the top of them was the mythical Aryan race the German people were supposedly the descendants of and that the farther a population strayed from the Aryan race ideal, the lower it was in the race hierarchy with, at the very bottom, Jews. Because why not, antisemitism was trendy in the 30's. They were however not the only targets of the Nazi movement and Nazis up to today's neo-nazi groups will indiscriminately attack all kinds of people they judge undesirable in their perfect society; foreigners, people from so-called "inferior races", queers, neurodivergent people, disabled people and so on.

Racism: discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity, be it social or enforced by a state and its laws (Apartheid). It relies on two ideological basis: good old xenophobia (discrimination and prejudice against foreigners) and the nazi race hierarchy theory (which itself rests on eugenics, which were very popular in the US in the 20's). It leads to direct actions or discriminative measures against people perceived as inferior or undesirable, the inaction of legal authorities when those happen and serves as basis to ideas such as Supremacy.

White supremacy: the eugenics-based idea that North-Western Europeans and their descendants ("White" people) are superior to all other races/ethnicities/cultures/civilisations on Earth because they happened to develop technologies earlier and to have a clearly understood (to them) progression from idealized Ancient Civilisations to perfect "modern societies" (industrialized oppression-based capitalism). The whole thing being backed by religious ideas to make it even smoother. Reality is that Europe just had a very nice climate, plenty of easily available resources which boosted its development and a whole bunch of Intellectuals™ to affirm that yes they were superior and therefore meant to Reign Supreme on the Earth. Today, White supremacy can be seen in violent groups and institutions such as the Aryan Brotherhood, the United States Government and the Israeli military.

Minority: theoretically, a minority is a group of people within a population which finds itself in so small numbers they end up never getting their voices heard through democratic processes. The truth is that gerrymandering and state-enforced measures (such as Apartheid or race-targeted police brutality) make the demographic aspect irrelevant and really the people in power make the populations they don't like minorities in order to dismiss them or diabolise them even more easily. Think about "immigrants", "arabs", "pedophiles" (when referring to queer people) and so on. You must have stumbled upon it at some point.

Jewishness: to be Jewish, aka to belong to a matriarcal bloodline which can be retraced to the original 13 tribes of Israel. Jewishness is an easy target (see: antisemitism) because it affirms itself and its existence through both cultural/religious aspects and an admitted racial aspect. Following an important diaspora, Jewish people can be found in almost every country and within almost every culture; there are Jewish people of color and Arab Jews. Which is a problem to some (see: Zionism).

Antisemitism: Jew-targeted racism. Mostly found in non-Jews, there is however such a thing as "auto-antisemitism" which is antisemitism perpetrated by Jews upon Jews (See: Association of German National Jews, aka "Jews for Hitler"), be it as self-loathing of one's own Jewishness (Karl Marx and Henry Kissinger were examples of this) or as a way to distinguish between "good" and "bad" jews. Historically, antisemitism was first motivated by the old "They killed Jesus" argument and their often immigrant status, but in more recent times ideas such as Jews being parasites feeding on the societies of "good people" (the Aryan race, for Nazi Germany) or the fact that some Jews ended up in pretty important positions of power (see: Rothschild Family) gave traction to plenty of conspiracy theories, which only got backed by the rise of Zionism and the creation of the State of Israel, which is why antisemitism is often brought up whenever criticism of its policies and actions are made.

Originally, the term "Semitic" on which the word is based designated "Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians"; it has now been reduced to Jewish populations only.

Zionism: ideology born around the 1820's according to which the territory of the "Promised Land" (then: Palestine) had to be returned to the exiled Jewish population and a Jewish ethno-state be created there. Early on, acquisition of Palestinian land by wealthy Jewish families was the first ways of expression of Zionism, but after the Second World War the horrors of concentration camps were used as an argument by Zionists to ask for the creation of the state of Israel. Today, Zionism refers to the defense of the State of Israel, its policies and its legitimacy, as well as the existence of an "ideal Jewish population"; thus Zionists reject non-white Jewish populations and do no shy away from affirming their racism or comparing themselves to Nazis in a positive way. Zionism can be considered as the a flavor of Jewish Fascism.

Colonialism: derived from White Supremacy, colonialism is the ideology affirming that White people have the moral imperative to conquer the Earth, subjugate local "barbarian" or "savage" populations and bring them "civilization"; this resulted in countless genocides, forced conversion to Christianity and theft of land and natural resources from native populations, as well as settling of White people on said stolen land. Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Australia and Israel are examples of modern, still existing Colonial Nations, and all still enforce oppression of native populations in varying degrees, the worst being genocidal campaigns and apartheid laws.

Imperialism: practice of maintaining or extending power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more or less formal empire. While related to the concepts of colonialism, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government. For example, the US interventionism in the Middle East (Gulf wars of 90-91 and 2003 onward) and its backing of Israel's expansion are imperialist measures, as well as the veto power of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States over the UN.

[world-of-advice]

[landfill2007]

Bwahaha

Not in a maniacal laugh way but a shocked Hank Hill kinda way

[brexiiton]

Disambiguation

Disambiguation refers to the removal of ambiguity by making something clear. Disambiguation narrows down the meaning of words. This word makes sense if you break it down. Dis means "not," ambiguous means "unclear," and the ending -tion makes it a noun.

[danu2203]

DISAMBIGUATION

[allengreenfield]

(via DEMON AT YOUR 'COMMAND' ~ Lisa Renee on Astaroth/ Ashtaroth a.k.a. "Ashtar")

[alphabetsoup-blogposts]

"Airstrike"

is essentially an air-to-surface bombing raid on a defined target, giving us:

Bomb

aka

Blowout

What else?

Well, where there's an air strike you may also have:

Little Bombs and Bombers

aka

B-Bombs

As well as:

Airplane and Rockets

aka

Mary (cf Army)

Also:

Jet

aka

Ket

And:

Jet Fuel

aka

Killer

Plus:

Drones and Explosions

aka

Wicked X

Not to mention:

Motors, Helicopters and War

aka

A-Bomb

And, finally:

Apache [Helicopters] and Fire

aka

Whiz Bang.

Moreover, another name for "Air to Surface Missile (ASM)" is "Air to Ground Missile (AGM)", which adjusted just a little gives you:

"A-to-G M"

—an anagram of

Gamot

aka

A-Bomb.

Meanwhile,

Russian air-to surface missiles are assigned Kh-numbers and NATO reporting names beginning with the letter K (cf Jet/Ket). Some of these coincide quite explicitly with drugs slang:

Kh-58 (AS-11 'Kilter')

Kh-20 (AS-3 'Kangaroo')

Kh-31 (AS-17 'Krypton')

where Kilter is KGB and Kangaroo and Kryptonite are Bomb.

The weapons used by Russia against Ukraine recently, however, were probably a variant of the:

Kh-55 (AS-15 'Kent')

which is not slang but a place, of course. (Is it odd—and a bit of an own goal—that NATO names Russian bombs after primary strategic targets in the UK? Well, only if you are a real, non-institutionalised human being, I dare say. Perhaps NATO will shortly assign the reporting name "Seattle" to the SS-NX-32 - Bulava.)*

Another coincidence between these two linguistic ecosystems to note is that some countries use a missile-guidance system developed by Israel, commonly known as Spice (aka Atomic Blast), which is specifically designed to assist with targeting in the use of air-to surface missiles.

*sarcasm alert

[phb256]

[janmisali]

by request because this sounded fun,

[dragonpropaganda]

you should talk about your thoughts on rw fanon (looking with huge eyes)

Oh god, there's a lot of major misconceptions have concreted into fanon, mostly around ancient society and ascension.

First things first! Ascension is not death! They are entirely separate things treated entirely separately by the text of the game. I can see where the interpretation is coming from, but it doesn't really align with how the text treats either subject. Five Pebbles may want to remove the self destruction taboo, but from his reaction to the rot it's clear that he doesn't want to die. Conflation of ascension and death only comes up as an offhand possibility that pebbs makes on iterator 4chan, when he's going into the possibilities of scenarios that even the other sliverists are doubtful of! (let me make clear that I am not a sliverist by any means)

Ascension is more of talked about as a form of transcendence, yeah? A Bell, Eighteen Amber Beads talks about their sitution as being "To have grasped at the boundless infinites of the cosmic void…", not as them seeking an end to life.

The beta dialogue goes into more detail, mentioning the "infinities of time and space" and the "boundless fractal planes of spirit and reality...", though this dialogue was cut and it's hard to tell how much it reflects the concept as in the released game.

As for the cultural misconceptions... there's A Lot to talk about, but the first that comes to mind is the common conflation of the five natural urges and the christian concept of sin.

It is true that the negation of urges is mentioned by moon as an alternative method of ascension, but much of what we know about the culture of the people who the fandom calls the ancients (which makes discussion of the depths a mess but that's something for another post entirely) points towards the urges not being seen as shameful.

Even the first urge does not seem to be particularly scorned! Being a warrior is presented as a cause for bragging in the Shaded Citadel pearl, being comparable with being an artist and a fashion legend. The second urge, also does not seem to be suppressed. Multiple sources attribute some level of honour to parenthood! The aforementioned pearl also mentions Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel as being a "Mother, Father and Spouse" without any hint of shamefulness. Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections expresses pride about having progeny, mentioning it alongside their owned land and esteem among their peers.

After some peer review, an esteemed friend has told me to add a section on purposed organisms as well! This is not so much my area, so I might be a bit off on some things.

As moon says, the majority of purposed organisms were tubes in boxes, and that the primal fauna of the world are almost entirely extinct. A lot of the fandom seems to ignore the first part, and i can't say I blame them, but the evolution of the creatures is so much weirder than people think.

Concept art for the creatures has this interesting quality to it, where the organic parts of the creatures have an almost... melty quality to them.

In the concept art, the flesh appears as if it's almost defying the machinery to form an animal shape. It's as if it's conquering its own artificiality the way the foliage grows over the (stone, brick and concrete, not mostly metal as some think!) ruins.

Of course, it's hard to really tell how much of this reflects the finalised concept, most of the integration is much smoother in the game, in line with a seamless kind of biomechanical design. There was always an intention of biomechanical strangeness, as shown in this screenshot of the devlog before the term "slugcat" even existed!

That said, the melty nature of the concept art shows a level of wild change inherent the biomechanical nature of the creatures, as if they truly are the result of these "tubes in boxes" almost revolting against their own boxes.

and considering centipedes... some tubes may not have had boxes in the first place!

[todays-xkcd]

I would never stoop to vandalism, but I'm not above discreetly deleting the occasional 'this article contains excessive amounts of detail' tag.

Wikipedia Article Titles [Explained]

[sinni-ok-sessi]

I am all of thirty seconds into 1670 and it's already won my whole heart for its choice of illuminations for the title cards. artist who couldn't draw horses from the front, my beloved