#why are we using graphing calculators?

[unofficially-racetrack]

lol I hate algebra :)

[lousycapy]

How statistics can easily be manipulated to fit a certain agenda in Formula 1

Hello! I’ve seen a lot of f1 fans or media sources bring up statistics incorrectly to prove their points recently, which is really getting on my nerves. So here is a comprehensive guide, with examples, of how statistics work and why they are not the be-all and end-all some people might think them to be. This is a pretty long post, so the explanations are all below the cut. With that, I hope you find this useful!

Multiple factors come into play when analyzing a statistic, so I’ve separated them in different categories: what data set is used to make the stat, how the stat can be interpreted and how being factually correct doesn’t equate a valid argument :

THE DATA SET

To make a statistic, you first need values which correspond to a data set. What said data set is made of is very relevant to the exactitude of the stat and how much regard should be given to it.

For example, to determine the average lap times of a driver over a stint you would need to divide the sum of all lap times by the number of laps executed. Which means that theoretically you could use a single lap as an average, e.g. 1:57:325/1 which gives an average lap time of 1:57:325s.

However, as you might imagine this stat is not representative of a driver’s stint, since the lap chosen to be analyzed could very well be an outlier. That’s why sample sizes matter, the more values make up your data set, the more representative of reality the result obtained is.

It is also important to know what the data set consists of. Let’s reuse our average lap times of a driver over a stint example, are outlaps/inlaps included? Is it based on clean air, dirty air? Are there laps excluded due to driver mistakes (e.g. going off track)? A stat being presented without any explanation of how it was calculated is absolutely worthless.

Finally, comprehension of the data set is very valuable as well.

Let’s imagine this fictional scenario where Ferrari makes Charles and Carlos compare average lap times. They both use the same car, on the same track, on the same tires, at the same time, for a stint of a total of 10 laps. Both drivers average a lap time of 80.125s over their whole stint, so is the conclusion that they have both done the exact same thing accurate? No!

Despite having the same average lap times in this scenario, the data set suggests a different conclusion, and different trends. Considering stints in a race are going to be longer than 10 laps, it can be assumed that Charles would average better lap times thanks to his consistency compared to Carlos, who would get worse lap times as time passes as can be observed thanks to the trend line in his graph.

2. INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA

Now that we can recognize the importance of the data set and its constituents, it is time to understand how the data provided can be used to make a statistic.

More than one answer can be correct based on the same sample of data. Despite using the same set, depending on how the data is used it can lead to different statistics that drive different arguments both being factually correct.

For example, I’d like to refer to the wonderful basspro24chevy World’s Destructor Chamionship from Brazil 24 on Reddit in an effort of determining who is the most destructive driver. Here is a chart I’ve made which also includes number of races each driver took part in (Ollie not included I was too lazy to recalculate how it affects the drivers he’s replaced’s damage bill) and the average cost of damage per race of each driver.

Based on these statistics, both arguments could be made to justify either Checo being the most destructive driver, since he’s the one who’s cost his team the most damage over the whole season, or Franco, since he’s the one who on average costs the most for his team per weekend.

Depending on someone’s biases, they could make some drivers look better than others despite using the same data set as another person, and depending on how their argument is justified even if they end up with a different conclusion it doesn’t mean they aren’t right as well.

3. FACTUALLY CORRECT ≠ VALID ARGUMENT

Even if you are factually correct with your statistic’s interpretation, and it is based on an acceptable data set, it doesn’t mean it has a direct link of causality with your argument and provides validation to the point you are trying to make.

For example, someone could argue that Checo is a safer pair of hands in races than Pierre, because over the course of the 2024 season he has DNFed 2 out of 21 races, meanwhile Pierre has DNFed 3 out of 21 races. However, the point being argued here is which driver is a safer pair of hands, and other variables than the drivers come into play when discussing those two’s DNFs.

Indeed, Checo drives a RedBull with a Honda engine, whilst Pierre drives an Alpine with a Renault engine. Out of Checo’s 2 DNFs, 2 were caused by driver mistakes. Out of Pierre’s 3 DNFs, 3 were caused by engine issues. The World’s Destructor Championship can also be used as a counterpoint to Checo being a safer pair of hands than Pierre by comparing damage bills.

Thus, instead of the conclusion being that Checo is a safer pair of hands than Pierre, the DNFs statistic is more appropriate to conclude that the Honda engine is more reliable than the Renault engine.

Which means that to make a valid argument, you need to be able to explain why the statistic presented is relevant and what it suggests. Alleviating circonstances also need to be taken into account to solidify the point being made.

For example, let’s imagine a scenario where Fernando is 1.235s off Lance during a qualifying run. To use this stat in an argument, you need to be able to justify why he was so far off. Was it genuine pace? Did he make a mistake which ruined the lap? Were they on the same tires? Was it track evolution? Are they on the same setup? Did Fernando come across traffic? Did Lance get a significant tow?

Contextualization matters twice as much as the actual statistic being presented, because the statistic without context can easily be manipulated in a way to drive a certain agenda.

4. CONCLUSION

All in all, what I’m trying to say is that even maths can be used to drive agendas. Statistics can not be taken at face value, because there are multiple factors that can influence their relevance. I hope you found this little guide helpful, and that it will help you analyze better the information you see online on how drivers are performing (or argue better with crazed fans, you do you 🫡)

Thanks for reading and have a good day!

[bobacupcake]

Can you do one about the Sea of Thieves water?

OK

so . there was a biiig long talk about this at siggraph one year!! you can watch that here if you'd like . in the time between me getting this ask and me fully recreating the water, acerola also released a great video about it . the biiig underlying thing they do and the reason why it looks so good is they are making a Really Detailed Ocean Mesh in realtime using something called an FFT (fast fourier transform) to simulate hundreds of thousands of waves, based on a paper by TESSENDORF

WHAT IS AN FFT - we'll get to that. first we have to talk about the DFT - the discreet fourier transform. let's say you have a SOUND. it is a c chord - a C, an E, and a G, being played at the same time. all sounds are waves!!! so when you play multiple sounds at the same time, those waves combine!!! like here: the top is all 3 notes playing together, so they form the waveform at the bottom!!

now if someone handed you the bottom wave, could you figure out each individual note that was being played? how about if someone handed you a wave of One Hundred Notes. you would think it would be very hard. and well, it would be, if not for the Discreet Fourier Transform.

essentially, there is a way to take a bunch of points on a waveform comprised of a bunch of different waves, add them all together, do some messed up stuff with imaginary numbers, that will spit back out at you what individual waves are present. i made a little test program at the start of all this: the left are the waves i am putting into my Big Waveform, the top right is what that ends up looking like, and all the little rainbow points on it are being sampled to spit out the graph at the bottom right: it shows which frequency bands the DFT is finding (here it is animated)

this has enormous use cases in anything that deals with audio and image processing, and also,

THE OCEAN

tessendorf is basically like, hey, People Who Are Good At The Ocean say that a buuuunch of sine waves do a pretty good job of approximating what it looks like. and by a bunch they mean like, hundreds of thousands to millions. oh no.... if only there was a way we could easily deal with millions of sine waves..........

well GREAT news. not only can you do the DFT in one direction, but you can also do it in REVERSE. if you were to be given the frequency graph of a noise for example, you could use an INVERSE DFT to calculate what the combined wave graph looks like at any given time. so if you were to have say, the frequency graph of an oceaaaan, for example, you could calculate what the Ocean wave looks like at any given time. and lucky for us, it works in two dimensions. and thats the foundation of the simulation !!!!!

BUT WAIT

as incredible as the DFT is, it doesn't scale very well. the more times you have to do it, the slower it gets, exponentially, and we are working with potentially millions of sine waves here

THE FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM here we are . the fast fourier transform is a way of doing the discreet fourier transform, except, well, fast. i am Not going to explain the intricacies of it because its very complex, but if you want to learn more there are a ton of good 30 minute long videos on youtube about it . but essentially, due to the nature of sine waves repeating, you can borrow values as you go, and make the calculation Much faster (from exponential growth to logarithmic growth which is much much slower, and scales very well at higher numbers). it's, complicated, but the important part is it's so much faster and the diagram kind of looks like the shadow the hedgehog story plot

so if we use the inverse FFT on a graph of a rough estimate of what frequency of waves in the ocean (called a spectrum, basically tells us things like how many small waves, how many big waves, how different waves follow the wind direction. sea of thieves uses one called the phillips spectrum but there are better ones out there!!) now we have our waves !!!!!!! we can also use another inverse FFT to get the normals of the waves, and horizontal displacement of the waves (sharpening peaks and broadening valleys) through some derivatives . yayy calculus

OK MATH IS OVER. WE HAVE OUR WAVES!!! they are solid pink and look like pepto bismol. WHAT NOW

i cheated a bit here they look better than not being shaded because i am using the normals to reflect a CUBEMAP to make it look shiny. i think sea of thieves does this too but they didnt mention it in their talk. they did mention a FEW THINGS THEY DID THOUGH

FIRST OFF - SUBSURFACE SCATTERING. this is where the sun pokes through since water is translucent. SSS IS REALLY EXPENSIVE !!!!!! so they just faked it. do you remember the wave sharpening displacement i mentioned earlier? they just take the value where the waves are being sharpened and this will pretty naturally show off the areas that should have subsurface scattering (the sides of waves). they make it shine through any time you are looking towards the sun. they also add a bit of specular ! sss here is that nice blue color, and specular is the shiny bits coming off the sun. the rest of the lighting is the cubemap i mentioned earlier, i dont know if thats what they use but it looks nice !!!!!

then the other big thing that they do is the FOAM !! sorry i lied. there's more math. last one. you remember the wave sharpening displacement i Just mentioned. well they used that to find something called the JACOBIAN and well im not even going to begin to try and explain what it means but functionally what it does, is when the jacobian is NEGATIVE it means waves are clipping into eachother. and that means we should draw some foam!!! we can also blur and fade out the foam texture over time and continuously write to it to give it some movement, and bias this value a bit to make more or less foam. they do both of these!!!

YAYYYYY !! OK !! THAT'S SEA OF THIEVES WATER!!!!! THANKS FOR WAITING ALL THIS TIME. you can see my journey here if you would like to i have tagged it all oceanquest2023

thank you everyone for joining me :) i had fun

[ckret2]

Why do you ship billford? i want to hear all ur handcanons and reasons hehehe

ALL of them? My friend I do not think you comprehend the magnitude of the task you have requested. I can tell you some of them.

Here's a post I already wrote listing why I like them, and here's a post about what Ford thinks about Bill, and I just made a post about what Bill thinks about Ford because I've had it typed up on discord for ages and decided it needs its own post.

So, some headcanons:

⭐️ While most people who ship it headcanon that they had a romantic relationship of some kind pre-betrayal, my default headcanon is that they DIDN'T have a relationship—mainly because I enjoy making Bill, specifically, miserable, and I like headcanoning that Ford violently lost interest in Bill at the EXACT moment Bill developed a sincere interest in Ford.

Meaning that Bill "LOOKS LIKE MR. BRAINIAC FINALLY GOT SMART" Cipher destroyed his own chances five seconds before going "no no wait I actually want to keep this one," and that's SO funny. I made a graph!

⭐️ From Lost Legends we know that Ford used to date a siren. In the original Greek mythology, sirens didn't woo sailors by singing prettily; sirens offered knowledge about distant and future events. Sailors wrecked their ship upon the sirens' shores and starved to death at their feet just to listen to them sing about the secrets of the universe.

What I'm saying is: Ford has a type.

⭐️ This is a mutual monsterfucker 4 monsterfucker relationship. They look at each other and go "wow you're such a weird-looking alien" and they're attracted to each other BECAUSE of that, not in spite of that. I don't want any of this "oh how could I be drawn to something so strange..." shame out of Ford, as far as I'm concerned his first crush was Mothra, a floating triangle is nothing.

⭐️ Consequently, this means that if you take an AU where Bill gets stuffed in a human body, rather than making things easier, it ironically means that any PHYSICAL attraction Ford had for Bill instantly evaporates. A humanized Bill could be the sexiest damn thing in the room and everyone else in the vicinity is going 🥵💦 but Ford's going 😐. If they hook up with Bill in a human body it's in spite of Bill's current appearance and it's because Ford knows that, underneath the body, Bill's still Bill. You could hand Ford a perfect Tumblr Sexyman supermodel and he'll be fantasizing about a three-tiered pyramid with more teeth than a shark.

⭐️ Bill WILL play Dungeons Dungeons & More Dungeons with Ford, voluntarily, for fun. However he always wants to DM and he's brutal.

⭐️ I think that the majority of the Henchmaniacs used to be like Ford: young, naive, USEFUL aliens that Bill was trying to manipulate into getting access to their universes, probably by trying to get THEM to build portals. None succeeded, but they got far enough along that either they chose to join Bill, they were forced to flee their dimension and join Bill—or, due to Bill, their home no longer existed, so they might as well join him. I think that every one of them was once his ✨favorite✨ person. I think he sealed the deal in winning their friendship & loyalty with a calculated, scripted display of vulnerability—the exact same one he tried to use on Ford: I liberated my constricting, flat world; I want to liberate yours...

He may have dated some of them, too, especially right after they joined. Because he wouldn't have recruited them unless he thought they were JUST ♥ LIKE ♥ HIM. They're special, they're important...

... and after a few years, Bill realizes they're not that much like him after all and loses interest, and they sink down into the rank-and-file with the rest of the Henchmaniacs. The Henchmaniacs are FULL of people who were once Bill's Favorite—his best friends, his confidants, his lovers��and most of them are desperate to catch his eye and be that important to him again. They gave everything they had to Bill only for Bill to get bored.

So when he shows off the human who enabled Weirdmageddon and invites him to join the gang, they know EXACTLY what they're looking at: Bill's newest favorite. They know how this goes, he'll be gaga over this earthling for the next 5 to 500 years and then Ford will be just another regular Henchmaniac. The fact that Ford doesn't seem eager to join is no problem. Ford isn't the only soon-to-be Henchmaniac whose world Bill ended; some of them had to be talked around into joining, too.

⭐️ I think that, if you took Bill with his canon personality, didn't give him any character development, and then made him GENUINELY fall in love with Ford, and had him SINCERELY try his hardest to be a good, loving, healthy partner... he would still be toxic as hell for Ford.

Part of what draws Bill to Ford is that he sees SO much of himself in Ford—some accurate, some just projection. (You who crave power and fame and fortune like I do; you who also hunger to be all-knowing; you who would also sacrifice your world and your family and everyone you know and love to get what you want; you with an ego the size of the moon, oh, you deserve an ego the size of a star.) And so he assumes that what Ford really wants is what BILL would want in Ford's shoes.

And if Bill was Ford, what he'd want is to REALLY be the man who changed the world. Bill thinks he's fulfilling all Ford's wildest dreams if he gives that to him. Naming Ford the orchestrator of Weirdmageddon is the most generous gift Bill could ever offer.

Even if Bill is Really Really Trying and accepts that okay Ford doesn't want his world invaded: his idea of showing Ford love will be pulling the strings to get Ford fame & fortune. Teach him secrets of the universe that he can publish in a dozen groundbreaking scientific papers, arrange meetings with politicians and celebrities, get him a Nobel, get him an Oscar-winning bio pic, get him a billion dollars, get him EVERYTHING Ford's ever imagined as a marker of success and then double it.

When Bill's manipulating Ford, he offers praise and approval in little drops periodically leaking from the faucet, to keep Ford thirsty for more. When Bill's LOVING Ford, he just breaks the fire hydrant and lets it flood the street.

But the thing is, that's not good for Ford. That'll never make him truly happy. Ford's only ever learned how to measure his success by external markers, but the more external markers he collects the more he'll feel like he hasn't Made It yet. It's even possible that knowing Bill's helped him get this far will make him feel like he hasn't really EARNED it. He could have the whole world handed to him and he'll feel just as dissatisfied as he was on the day he first summoned Bill.

And Bill, even if he's trying his HARDEST to do this right, wouldn't be able to understand why this isn't working. A trillion years old and the only way he knows how to show love (or to receive love) is by showering someone in praise and gifts and favors. If that doesn't work, he doesn't know what's left.

[lilacmo-on]

Born to be a Star | Mingyu | SVT Destiny Matrix | Pt. 1

hello this lilacmoon ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

i’m back with another reading for my svt destiny matrix series! on this post, we’ll be exploring another character that piqued quite my interest.

as you can read from the title, i’ll be putting the spotlight on mingyu & why i believe that he was born to be a star ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

this post might be a long one, as i’m going to explore quite the number of aspects and zones for this reading. so i hope you’re equipped with the patience (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ i promise to keep it light & easy to digest, though!

thanks in advance for reading ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

part 1.1 chart aspects & zones

before we start exploring mingyu’s chart, i’d like to first share a point of reference to the purpose of each aspect & zone im gonna be tapping into. of course, every area of our charts must come together as one to tell us our fortune holistically. but again, this series is just for fun. as i’ve mentioned in this post, i can’t disclose everything i can read into the members’ charts. plus, it takes a whole day to read someone’s chart actually (i’ve tried it, trust me), so i’m providing abridged readings only.

anyways ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

i'm going to be breaking this reading into two parts. the main area we’ll be looking into for this reading is the money line. this is the area you usually look at to know how you can manifest financial or material abundance in your life. this is one of the areas where you can find your ideal career or business opportunity, how you should be spending or investing your money, and an additional area for what intentions you could adapt while you do the latter activities.

to some people, this area is enough for them to make sense of their financial situation. but if you want to look at it in relation to purpose, calling, and talents, you can also look at these sections to provide supporting details:

portrait zone

talent zone

financial/material karma

material karma of both parents

i'll be talking about these supporting details in part 2 as they're a whole bunch of long sections altogether. they'll still circle back to the money line, so you can see how all these aspects relate to one another. it's quite interesting, too, so please watch out for it soon!

moving on! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

here’s a labeled version of mingyu’s destiny matrix chart you can use as reference:

sorry it’s kind of a mess (ᵕ—ᗜ—) it’s me & my ipad against the world

i’ve already labelled each subsection for each zone so you could have an idea of what they mean within the destiny matrix chart. i use this chart calculator online, by the way. you can graph this much like any other divination chart, of course. but to make it easy, you can just let the computer do the computing for you (it involves math).

now with this in mind, let’s now explore the energies housed in these parts of mingyu’s chart!

part 1.2 mingyu’s money line

as i’ve mentioned, the very focus of this post will be of mingyu’s money line. this is where all the other supporting details will revolve around and go back to in conclusion. so let’s dive right in!

✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ )

as we can see from this chart, the mingyu’s full money line houses the energies 17-7-8. these are the energies of the star, the chariot, and justice.

i’d like to note that in reading the destiny matrix, we use the marseilles tarot instead of the rider-waite deck. the difference between these decks is that the positions of justice & strength are interchanged. in rider-waite, justice is represented by the number 11, while it’s the number 8 in marseilles. why this system the way it is can be left for another time. for now, let’s focus on reading!

a. financial log-in: the star (17)

right off the bat, this was the aspect that really caught my attention about mingyu’s professional destiny. the star, in the context of careers and money, essentially represents talents, creativity, and making connections. although some other numbers can represent these in general, the star gives the nuance of being seen. basically, popularity.

this tells us that mingyu was born gifted. but while others who are being asked to dedicate their natural talents to society, or use their talents to revere themselves, or manifest their dreams, mingyu’s task is to expose them to the world. in order to manifest financial/material abundance, he musn’t be afraid of the spotlight. of people praising him. of making connections within the industry he’s in and pursue being a credible figure.

because stars are meant to shine, aren’t they?

i really love this because the star in the financial log-in means he was called to it. identifying the language that the universe is speaking to you with is very important to manifesting your fate in the positive. and to be called to do something in order to breakthrough your barriers, to me, weighs much more than being simply programmed to be something.

b. financial flow: the chariot (7)

as we always say in spirituality, manifestation must always be paired with action. we cannot always rely on the universe to hand over the best version of ourselves and our lives on a silver platter if we don’t do anything to achieve it. because while everyone has a right to a good life, we also have a responsibility to ourselves & to our fates that we must commit to.

in the money line, the area of financial flow is your instruction on how to generate your income or how to keep it flowing. directly under the money sign, some people look at this area to find their ideal careers or business venture. for mingyu, we could see that his flow is influenced by the chariot (7).

this suggests that, in order to manifest a steady and abundant flow of income into his life, he must invest his efforts in an endeavor in which he’s in constant motion. in addition, he must develop drive & discipline, or be in an area that naturally evokes this in him.

being an idol suits him in this regard. the entertainment industry requires a lot of movement, discipline, and passion from those who want to be a star among a whole galaxy. and knowing the level of training and preparation he does with seventeen as well as the long list of experiences he probably has on his resume, we could infer that the stage, variety shows, model shoots, runways, etc. are natural habitats to him.

but what i loved most about this area is that it's proof of how natural it is for mingyu to be hardworking. he has a strong sense of what he wants out of his career and truly loves it. similar to the fool (22), he's also being called to commit. only difference is that the chariot almost always does.

pair all this with his log-in under the star, he truly is the perfect idol.

c. balance / intention: justice (8)

in this last section of the money line (or the "tail" as i like to call it), we can see the intentions we can apply and keep in mind in order to positively manifest financial abundance in our lives. typically, this is simply the area where you can find balance between money and love. but so far in the readings i've done for other people, it comes out as the value you must possess to reach your career/financial goals when you read it in the sole context of the money line.

this area asks us what we're gonna do with all this abundance. it's not enough for you to just have it. you also have to reassure the universe that you're using the blessings you receive for its intended purpose. because who wants bad karma, right?

looking back at mingyu's chart, we see that this area is under the energy of justice (8).

simply put, this suggests that all the work mingyu does must always be ethical. justice is, in its name, all about fairness and making decisions that are honest. if he really wants to succeed & keep material abundance at the palm of his hands, he must not cheat, lie, or steal from anyone. most importantly, he must be willing to share. the universe will grant him this life of fame and fortune, but he must live it earnestly.

this doesn't have to be material possessions, though. especially not in the context of his line of work. this could mean that even though he naturally draws the spotlight on him, he must remember to share it with other people. he must keep only the recognition that he truly worked hard for. pursue only the opportunities that fit him the best, and those that don't must be given to those who deserve it.

and god, am i proud that mingyu does this a lot. mingyu's love for his career extends way beyond himself as he lets it pour onto his members, his coworkers, and the industry itself. the strongest proof i have of this is when he himself said that his goal is to keep seventeen together. wasn't he the one that initiated their contract renewal as thirteen? wasn't he the one that urged them to talk about it despite how difficult of a conversation it was?

despite the amount of his solo activities, he keeps coming home to seventeen. he keeps sharing his success to them. always crediting his brothers/friends for the drive & discipline he learned to possess. and most importantly, always inspiring the people around him.

part 1.3 final thoughts

there's no doubt that mingyu is blessed by the universe. not only is he very much connected with his purpose, he's also doing all the work that's needed and applying the virtues required. this just makes me even more proud to be a carat. i've been so used to seeing artists of different media get their souls sucked off by capitalism or their spirits die off because of burn out. so it truly feels just as fulfilling on my end as a fan to know that i'm supporting someone who genuinely loves what he does in such a pure manner and enjoys his time doing so.

of course, this isn't all of it. but this alone, to me, proves why mingyu was born for stardom. and i'm so excited to prove it further in the next post.

if you have the same aspects as mingyu on your money line, i deem you very lucky! you have someone like him to inspire you to positively manifest the financial abundance that the universe has programmed for you. so if you're looking for a sign to turn your life around for the better, this might be it. take it. run with it.

for the good of all & the harm of none ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

---

if you made it this far, thank you! ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´- i hope this reading brought you entertainment and enlightenment. perhaps, even a new perspective of mingyu and/or your life ♡

again, if you have additional thoughts / corrections you'd like to share, please don't be afraid to do so!! i'd love to know what you think/feel about this hihihi ( ∩´͈ ᐜ `͈∩)

see u in part 2~! (⸝⸝> ᴗ•⸝⸝)

[dawnfelagund]

Back in 2019, I wrote a blog post called The Inequality Prototype. As part of it, I counted a bunch of stuff related to the Valar and looked at how those metrics differed based on gender. At the time, I thought it would be interesting to extend this work over the entire Silmarillion, namely looking at who speaks in the text and who doesn't. For Tolkien Meta Week, I began this work and am collecting my analyses related to it here. It is very much still a work in progress and will likely take me years to complete, but I'm going to post interesting data as I discover it.

This project, like all of my data projects, is available to use under a CC license for others who want to play with the data: View the data | Copy the data | Methodology, progress, etc.

---

Dialogue does not occur evenly across The Silmarillion. While a little over 5% of the words in The Silmarillion as a whole are used in dialogue, this is very unevenly distributed across the chapters, with some chapters about half dialogue and six chapters containing no dialogue at all.

There is a lot more work to be done to tease out trends and patterns that might have some meaning, but just glancing at the graph above, some of those patterns do begin to emerge. First, dialogue increases as The Silmarillion progresses. In the second half of the book (calculated by chapter, not page or word count), only two chapters have no dialogue and only four chapters (inclusive of those two without dialogue) fall below the median of 5.3% dialogue. Put another way:

In the first half of chapters, 71% of chapters are below the median.

In the second half of chapters, 29% of chapters are below the median.

Why is this? My tentative theory is that we see the book moving from the realm of the mythic—from events that are passed down through the oral tradition and ancient written traditions—and into the historical, where the narrator has a greater array of sources, including eyewitness testimony, and begins to write with greater immediacy rather than the arm's-length style of myth and ancient history.

What I am curious about: As I dig deeper into these data, will I see this theory bear out in which episodes or characters/groups are granted actual dialogue? In other words, will characters and peoples lost to the mists of time speak less, as I would expect? Or will the type of dialogue (e.g., a formal speech that may have been preserved vs. an extempore conversation that would not) vary based on narrative distance? I have documented in the past that the narrator of The Silmarillion uses the "it is said/told/sung" construction more with characters who are less accessible, so there is evidence that Tolkien manipulated writing style based on what his narrators' access to various sources. Does he use dialogue similarly to communicate that "mythic distance"?

There are also chapters that are more expository in purpose (Valaquenta, "Of Beleriand and Its Realms") that do not contain dialogue. Without digging deeper into the chapters themselves, most of those without dialogue that aren't similarly expository are chapters where the material would be less accessible to Pengolodh as a narrator. Whether this bears added scrutiny remains to be seen!

Finally, in discussing these data on the SWG's Discord, polutropos noticed something interesting, which is that the chapter with the most dialogue—"Of Aulë and Yavanna," where almost 57% of the words of the chapter are given over to dialogue—was not in fact written by Tolkien. As document by Douglas Charles Kane in his book Arda Reconstructed, "This chapter is completely manufactured by Christopher, though using his father's own writings" (page 54). Where Kane usually includes a chart pointing to the source for each bit of The Silmarillion, his chapter on "Of Aulë and Yavanna" contains no such chart because, while he is able to document where ideas came from, Christopher actually wrote the chapter.

Interestingly, "Of the Noldor in Beleriand" is the chapter with the second most dialogue and, according to Kane, "The changes made in this chapter are among the smallest anywhere in the published text" (page 154). So Tolkien does sometimes write dialogue-heavy chapters—though without data to back me up (yet! it's coming!), most of that dialogue appears to come in the form of lengthier speeches, not necessarily the debate/conversation format of Of Aulë and Yavanna."

The biggest impact of the dialogue-heavy "Of Aulë and Yavanna," I suspect, will emerge as I dig more into the data on gender and who speak in The Silmarillion. Yavanna is one of the women who speaks the most in The Silmarillion, but almost all of her dialogue occurs in this chapter. If this chapter is constructed by Christopher, how does that impact the amount of speech women are permitted by Tolkien? Polutropos' observation spurred me to plan to document the source of the various dialogue sections: Are they original to Tolkien's writings or added? Kane, interestingly, is critical of Christopher Tolkien in Arda Reconstructed for what he perceives as Christopher removing women characters from the text. In this instance, we see a significant example of the opposite: a woman's role is not only expanded, but she is given an opportunity to speak.

[mousathe14]

So I'm making a video essay about Ugliness and Pokemon using data from RatePkmn.

What's RatePkmn? Well, the project was started by UmbreonLibris as a way to analyze and compare Pokémon designs through consensus than the views of a single person. They aggregate the ratings you provide to calculate the average opinions of Pokémon fans on each Pokémon. The data is public and open.

How does it work? You're basically served a pokemon at random based on how many ratings it has relative to others and what you've already rated. You simply use the 5-point slider to convey how you feel the pokemon vibes in each aesthetic category.

Also how much you like or dislike it.

And I like playing with this data to learn stuff and my video will be about my insights. Why am I bringing this up?

Because we are at, like, nearly 150 ratings per design, and it would be really neat to actually achieve that number. A nice good round number to work from. And because the more opinions, the more clear the consensus becomes.

The site even has graphs and lists you can mess with yourself and see how your favorites stack, what categories do pokemon excel in, are there relationships between coolness and type? That type of thing.

Anyhow, I'm going to get back to making some graphs.

'Dios!

[haloberry]

I’m just imagining like a Future Au, where everyone escapes the island and the Federation gets demolished. Where the eggs get their own jobs titles and Sunny becomes a Movie Star like she always wanted.

Like, she’s sitting in their acting chair when someone is having trouble graphing out the set as a machine malfunctioned and everyone is freaking out bc their already delayed on filming. Sunny, obviously annoyed by this, goes over to see what the fuss is about and sees that the workers calculated wrong.

Their like “An experienced worker would’ve noticed that right away, why didn’t you?” And quickly writes down the correct formula and equation for the positioning and walks away like “A star like me shouldn’t waste their time on something their not payed for. Do your job!” And goes behind set to fix their makeup.

New workers are flabbergasted and older workers yell the new ones for not seeing the problem sooner. A few are gossiping in the corner like, “How did she know that? They’ve never even touched dirt without gloves, how could she have made that calculation so quickly?”

The other turns to them like “You don’t know? Their the daughter of Tubbo and Fred_! The CEO’s of the fastest growing marketplace in the world, Turbo?? Rumor has it, Mr._ has made every single machine the factory uses and is the only one running all of them! The one that broke multiple records in Engineering and revolutionized the Create scape as we know it?? The ways that are being taught in schools?? You would be crazy to think he’s daughter didn’t know something about machines!”

And the new workers are stunned, and get called out by the older workers a bit for judging a book by it’s cover.

Sunny, later on, even drops a line like “Oh yeah, Pa wanted me to run the company after he retires. Hated building though, so it’s going to my cousin Rámon instead.”

[valuedeversourcecustomer]

on film and computational thinking: or how the internet impacts you, even if you think you know better

as someone who watches more movies than most people I know who aren't filmmakers/film critics with an interest in watching complete filmographies i find myself constantly struggling with and teetering this line with some directors who intimidate me and asking an extremely unproductive question. "do i watch what most people would widely consider to be their best works first or early on, or do I build up to it?" this is also something i compulsively struggle with especially with authors to the point of it interfering with me reading as much as I'd like.

something i arrived at tonight after reading margaret killjoy's the barrow will send what it may cover to cover in a single sitting is that life is too short to be that absurd and think that little of my own capacity to appreciate art when i very obviously do.

i maintain a letterboxd and review everything i log so long as i finish it (there is not a single work that is owed your time if you are not getting anything from it) and my reviews skew like this

for the record, that is absurdly positive and i think a truly baffling number of movies are perfect bc quite honestly i'm just not that much of a believer in numerical scores, and i tend to give a film 5 stars based on whether or not i was thoroughly entertained/it provoked meaningful thought and took no issues with it and thought it was exactly the movie it was intended to be. the only things that shake that are when someone in the cast/crew is blatantly not on the same page.

by comparison, here's the stats of a mutual i have on there who i often disagree with but respect their opinions all the same and sometimes our opinions line up more or less exactly

if you showed me this without context I would just think this person did not like movies very much and was watching them out of spite but it's also very reasonable to say that on a technical level most movies are fundamentally flawed. I'm just coming from a place where I acknowledge not everything is, nor should everything be, a Kubrick, Godard, Tarkovsky, or any other widely acclaimed auteur.

now, why did I feel the need to share these graphs in supporting my own point about how I'm not respecting my own capacity to love narratives on their own merit? put simply, I believe that aggregations of art criticism, being reduced down to a numerical value is doing atrocious things to the brain, even if you otherwise may think you're immune to it.

CLEARLY I don't care that much and am bringing my own personal connection to the table when I'm engaging with film criticism on my own. I often watch widely acclaimed films and think "really? THIS?" just as I watch a forgotten action movie from the early 90s starring Pierce Brosnan in which terrorists create an odorless tasteless liquid that turns the human body into an explosive device and give it a 5 star review.

so if I am so rooted in my own tastes, why do i still hesitate to watch things for fear I'll like them too much to get as much enjoyment out of other works? the answer, unfortunately, is the same reason that people dismiss complex movies that end up with a 70% on rotten tomatoes, assuming it's "mid" and carrying on, and it's a pervasive problem plaguing the entire internet and the way we think away from it.

for all of the convenience and access to entertainment the internet has afforded us, it has also limited the bounds of what we seek out in a way that is undeniable. nearly nobody is going to refute that you need to actively try to break out of algorithms these days. in the very same way that these algorithms and computers and even how rotten tomatoes calculates a percentage on the "tomatometer" only generally understand yes and no values with zero nuance between it, the more time we spend in that space, the more susceptible we are to imitating it.

James Bridle refers to this phenomenon as "computational thinking" in his increasingly prescient book "New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future" and if there is one book of theory out there that I believe everyone on the internet should read it's that one, especially with how things have developed post-covid since its initial publishing in 2018.

The gist of his idea of computational thinking involves our own increased tendency to respect consensus and be vulnerable to defaulting to confirmation bias. it's so incredibly easy to dunk on people who are wrong on the internet and laugh when they are unable to articulate a response, but once you see it as an imitation of a computer, unable to comprehend outside of what it knows the same way an automated voice redirecting your call to customer service doesn't understand nuance, it's bonechilling. it looks a lot less like a closeminded fool on the internet and more like they're someone who has been sequestered to their own bubble and can't get out and literally has been fed regurgitated propaganda to the point of sickness for the benefit of the oppressor

at what point do the devices we are forced to engage with beget serious illness and will we collectively know where to draw that line, or should it already have been drawn? was this always going to be the destination so long as the rapid development and incorporation of information technology into daily life coincided with capitalism? was this in lock step with the surveillance state the point all along? i wish those answers weren't so straightforward, because it makes me feel like a pessimist.

some of this makes me think of generative AI as well and the battle for creative integrity. it makes me question whether we've had creative integrity at all for a while. for what it's worth, when we've collectively pared our tastes down to the lowest common denominator by allowing algorithms to take over without even noticing, made space for only established IP to thrive, and allowed confirmation bias and numerical scores to drive the zeitgeist, and the studios pandered to cinemasins ass dorks who've never heard of willful suspension of disbelief and we ate every snarky "well that just happened" up for over a decade, were we not all complicit in paving the way for some AI bullshit to write scripts and generate content? I don't think it's far fetched to argue that these are all rolled into a progression of the same technostate and I'd also argue that it would be hypocritical to reject AI without also rejecting what turning the world into a tech space has done to our collective humanity. at best, looking at generative AI, for all it's trained with, is like looking in a crude mirror and i think it's safe to say we don't like what it's reflecting, not just the means of how it reflects it.

i still feel a lot of hope for the world in spite of everything, perhaps specifically TO spite everything, and if there's anything I want whoever reads this unedited meandering stream-of-consciousness lightweight theory piece with. please interrupt your own thought process every day, especially when you wish to reject something outright (except fascism) and ask. is it actually rejection or is it discomfort with the unfamiliar? am i being the AI i criticize?

for the good of the world, please talk to your neighbors and be kind, especially to the people you don't expect to agree with who don't hold power over you. at a certain point positive tangible experiences can and will change minds in meaningful ways. above all else please be safe, it's only going to get more confusing from here because none of this infrastructure we've built will be going anywhere unless in a cataclysmic event so buckle up.

[senku-ishigami-official]

now i think this is easy but this is the one thing i don't get about the limited amount of physics i can remember

what is a slope. why do we calculate it. why is it a slope? why on earth???? like it's something to do with speed and time and distance i think but like Why. just say it instead of calculating a whole damn swoopy line

Correct me if I didn't interpret your question right, because I'm not sure about the swoopy line part. Slope can just be thought of as the rate of change on a graph. It can have to do with speed, but that really depends on what you're graphing, and it's not a distance but it's a ratio of distances. Like, for example, you're doing an experiment where your y-axis variable is "Number of times Ginro has fucked up" and your x-axis variable is "days." If you have a line with a slope of 1, that means on day one, Ginro fucked up once, on day two, he fucked up twice, et cetera. Your rate of change is 1 because he's fucking up one more time every day. If your slope is ½, he's fucking up one more time every two days.

For a curved graph, you would calculate the slope of a single point, because the rate of change is changing over the span of the graph. You'd have to find the tangent line of the point and find the slope of that, and it would measure the rate of change at that exact moment.

We calculate it simply because it's important information. Knowing the rate of change can help us predict more accurately how a graph will continue if we keep graphing. Example: say we're graphing the concentration of carbon monoxide in Japan's atmosphere over time. We'd want to know the rate of change, because being able to predict how far up that concentration will be at a certain point in time can help us take the right measures when we need to. If we can predict it, we can manipulate it, and we can keep people safe.

[lancedoncrimsonwings]

Writing update?

Halfway through moving all of the writing I've done on Obsidian to Ellipsus.

It took forever, but by my calculation from the wordcount of every file of this fic on Ellipsus so far is 145,652 words...

And I have another 147,961 words left on Obsidian I haven't copied over. (Predominantly for parts 4 onwards, though 19,468 words are just from Augusnippets 2024, and 12,000 ish are miscellaneous lore info plus some notes for Chapter 1 and 2 that I've already posted anyway... so lets say 140,000 ish are actually relevant.)

Which means I have written 293,613 words for Horizons to Battlegrounds so far.

I've posted 14,372 words, so that's 279,241 words of unposted content. That's fucking nuts... so yeh. Rest assured the 4 of you who are interested in this story, THERE IS MORE TO COME.

Ngl, I miss not having an accurate wordcount for each file like I did with the plug-in I had on Obsidian, because I just had to do all that maths file by file, but its so much easier to be able to write on my phone or tablet whenever I want.

In terms of writing progress, I've been struggling a lot with memory loss, fugue states and fatigue recently, I can't comprehend what I'm reading and I think I might be having migranes without the pain. (Or at least, without the levels of pain I associate with migranes- as the headaches I've been having have just been. Headaches. And not that bad. But the neurological symptoms have been getting worse and apparently "silent migranes" with little to no pain are a thing? I dunno)

So unfortunately, Chapter 3 has been abandoned for now, but I've been reading bits of my work as I've been moving it across and damn some of this shit is gold!

I'm excited for some stuff that's coming up in Part 2. Buuuut we have to get through all 10-20 chapters of Part 1 first. We will get there, eventually...

I'm gonna take a bit of time out, finish moving the other 140,000+ words across, and then try and tackle that nightmare that is Chapter 3.

(For those of you who are curious why I am moving from Obsidian, I lost an entire ready-to-post chapter to a known bug on Obsidian, and was getting frustrated with the fact I could only write on one device directly. Ellipsus is simpler, easy to use, and whilst yes ir lacks the plug-ins and graph that I did find useful on Obsidian, it does everything I need including allowing me to write across any device. They have a strong anti AI stance which is always nice to see, it's just generally great and I highly reccomend it! You can check out Ellipsus's blog here; @ellipsus-writes )

[unremarkable-poetry]

In my experience, people often hold on tighter for a moment, before they let you go.

It makes every upward swell of emotion feel ominous, a threat that feels like belonging. I am always wary of the sudden drop that's coming after. And it so often does.

Why can we never just let things go easy? Why is there always a part of us that has to give it one last try? One last hurrah? Fading gradually would be easier. A fitting end. A slow decay to nothing. A smooth curve on the graph of life that makes sense. That can be calculated.

But we are desperate, lonely creatures, and every hand pulled away has to give one last squeeze of reassurance. Of betrayal. A heartbeat.

The proof that we could have been something. That the love was there. And it could have lived forever. The possiblity of all we could have been.

A vow of companionship made right before we break it,

And we let each other go forever

[piratesexmachine420]

Interesting Calculator Fact no. 4: this is one of only two calculators with a touchscreen and stylus that are legal for use on College Board-sanctioned tests (SAT, AP, etc.).

(The fx-GC500, released in 2017 -- twenty years after the EL-9600c -- is the other legal model.)

Why is it legal? Because the touchscreen is entirely unnecessary! Zero features are locked behind its use. 90% of the time it's not even all that useful. Wanna know what the stylus does on the main screen? It cycles through previous inputs. That's it! Exactly the same as just pressing the "Entry" key.

Now the real question is why styli are banned in the first place. I have no idea, but I suspect it's a similar rationale as the rule that blanket bans any device with a qwerty keyboard for "being a computer".

None of these images are mine except the TI-92 Plus

They make sense in context -- it's a pretty efficient way to draw a bright line standard that includes every computer and PDA/pocket PC a U.S. high school student would have access to, while leaving most graphing calculators legal -- but it's still kind of a baffling criteria, and I remain a little bitter about not getting to leverage my 92 Plus. :P

Maybe the QWERTY rule was was also little more relevant when pocket computers were still for sale.

Also not my image. I wish I had an fx-850P.

(The SAT and AP exams began allowing calculators in 1994, following a few earlier experiments.)

Regardless, we find ourselves asking why non-calculator computers should be banned in the first place.

Is it because you can take notes on a computer? That can't be it, as I've got plenty of calculators with text editors, either built-in or available as applications. My TI-83 Plus even has a study cards app!

Is it because computers can connect to the internet? Maybe, but then why would 80s pocket computers be a potential threat? Computational capability, then? But then why would CAS powerhouses like the TI-89 Titanium, TI-Nspire CX II CAS or fx-CG500 PRIZM CAS be allowed?

Maybe it's just lobbying from TI, but then again you'd think they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of developing and manufacturing the TI-92 II, TI-92 Plus and Voyage 200 if they were behind banning QWERTY keyboards on standardized tests. It still wouldn't surprise me though.

I have no idea. Fascinates me though.

[to-my-emil]

when, exactly, is matthias czernin's birthday?

given idv's habit of making us wait a year for the first little bit of lore for each character in the form of a letter on their birthday, i'm always antsy to know exactly when we'll be getting this information. lucky for us, we don't have to wait for a weibo post or just sitting around for a year for matthias's birthday; they actually gave us all the information we need already!

(obligatory disclaimer of if i'm wrong then i'm wrong and this is all just for fun so please don't come yelling if they reveal his birthday and i'm wrong <3 ty ily)

NOW LETS GET INTO IT

there's two places that we're going to look in order to figure out matthias's birthday, these being his weibo post and 3 frames of his lore video!

according to matthias's weibo post, (disclaimer that i just threw it into google translate), he first burned louis on his birthday, and then received a box with another louis over and over with each cycle getting shorter.

first off let's start out by figuring out how much shorter that cycle is getting. i punched some numbers into a graphing calculator, and we wind up with this here: a linear slope of 13 that hits the x-axis at 8.

so this means that each time louis arrives and matthias burns him again, it's 13 less days from the previous time until louis will show up once more. the fact that 13 is regarded in some cultures as an unlucky number makes it just a littler creepier, too! so if it's 13 less days, then let's add all that up to see if the math works out:

91+78+65+52+39+26+13 = 364

364 days, exactly the amount of days it takes for the last arrival of louis on matthias's birthday (if we assume we started counting the day after the first burning) as we see in the weibo post:

now, you might be asking, why does this help us figure out what matthias's birthday is?

great question! we'll get to that in a minute! for now, though, let's look at something a little more confusing. we get to see three dates in matthias's lore video (though the first one doesn't give us a month):

notice anything strange? it's hard to see when watching quickly, but the second date says may, not march, and if these dates are listed chronologically then may should've come after april. for a while, i thought this was a mistake and that may should've been march, but once i went to double check:

hey, would you look at that! 364-351 is 13 days, so it fits right into our cycle if we assume this is almost a year later. so then, there's 13 days left in the cycle. so, 13 days after april 28 would be:

may 11th! given that the screenshot above shows may 12th, and the 364 day cycle gives us the tiniest bit of wiggle room (whether it started counting on his birthday or the day after his birthday accounts for the difference), we can assume that his birthday is most likely to be either may 11 or 12!

after all this i'll still be waiting impatiently for his letters, but at least now i know what day it'll probably be... unless netease pulls a fast one and picks a character day instead of a birthday. shakes fist

[gatekeeper-watchman]

What the Bible Says about the Stock Market

The Bible does not say anything specifically about the Stock Market. However, it is full of principles that directly affect any kind of investing. The book of Proverbs is full of wisdom regarding many of life’s common problems. Let us look at a portion of those scriptures to see how it would relate to the stock market.

The Work of the Righteous Man

The following verses from the book of Proverbs compare the actions of the righteous and the wicked regarding work. The Bible tells us that whatever a man sows will he also reap.

“The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame. Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way: but wickedness overthroweth the sinner.” Proverbs 13:4-6

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Galatians 6:7-8

The Stock Market Gamble

Verse 4 tells us that a sluggard (one who is lazy and idle) always desires to have something, but because of his unwillingness to work, he will never have anything. We live in a time when desiring wealth without diligent work is popular. Many books are being published on “How to Become a Millionaire” and millions of people are making the authors and publishers of these books’ wealthy. The lotteries and gambling casinos are filled with people who want to make a fast buck. Again, it is the coffers of the lotteries and casinos that are amassing wealth.

“Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labor shall increase.” Proverbs 13:11

Many people are investing in the stock market with the same kind of attitude — that is, one of trying to find the stock investment that will make them rich. Many thought the “Dot.com” stocks were the opportunity of a lifetime. Instead, many lost their life savings as they invested with the wrong motives.  Investing in stock is not sinful, as scripture speaks of wisely investing our money; however, many are not investing wisely. They are playing the stock market just like they play the gambling tables. This is why so many have lost their money. They invested in companies on a hunch, a tip, or just calculating the ups and downs of graphs without another research, or going along with the crowd as to what looked like a winner. Many invested in companies that ignored basic business principles.

The basic principle of the stock market is not wrong if it’s followed properly. What is that principle? When a man or a group of men have a good and righteous business or company that benefits humanity; yet they lack funding to make that business productive, it creates a need for another’s help. If another man or a group of men (investors) have surplus funds and could use the monies as additional or future support, it also creates a need for another’s help. When one group physically does the work and the other supports that work with his funds, it becomes mutually beneficial for both parties. However, today, many people invest without any research in the company they are investing in. They do not know if the company policies are based on good Biblical principles. They know nothing about how their employees are treated. They know nothing of the history of the company. They do not know the character of the ones running the business; whether they are honest, reliable trustworthy, etc. They know nothing of their alliances (do they support or promote unholy causes such as pornography, abortion, etc.). Sad to say, but most of the stock market is run by lust and greed, instead of wise investment and helping one another.

Many investors have lost their money because their approach to investing was no more than pulling a slot machine handle and taking a chance to win. This is also why people get taken in other “Get-Rich-Quick” schemes. They are naïve and somehow feel that they can get rich without really working, simply by investing in what sounds like a good deal. We should know better, but unfortunately, many of us are gullible. Many companies that have stock are run by people who do not care about the other participants. They know that a great majority of their stockholders will lose money, but since their motivation is greed, they are just looking for a way to get rich themselves. Nothing will stop them unless they get caught. People in our society are impatient to be rich and have a contempt for those slow, but sure gains, which are the proper reward of industry, patience, and thrift.

“Those who do not work should not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). The desire to make money without working for it is an unrighteous desire. God uses work to build and shape our character. He delights in providing for those who put His Kingdom and His righteousness first. Some people talk about using the wealth that they are going to gain from schemes or gambling to promote God’s Kingdom. God’s Kingdom is not promoted by unrighteousness. It is promoted through the loving sacrifice of those who are obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not wrong to take money that you have earned and put it in the stock market if you have done your homework regarding the company or companies you are investing in. However, many people today have run up their credit card debt to use the money to invest in a certain so-called “hot” stock, only to lose it all and be left with a debt to pay. This is not wisdom.

Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God

Verses 5 and 6 in Proverbs 13 tell us that a righteous man hates lying and deceit and will flee from it, while the wicked person will pursue sin and it will become his downfall. Since our society has indulged in excessive credit, loose money, super speculation, and low savings, it puts us in a position to suffer the consequences of this type of financial behavior. We should flee from any unrighteous business dealings, unwise stock investments, gambling, or activities that are promoted by greed. God’s work is promoted most fruitfully by people who learn to love and tithe and give wisely, from an obedient, cheerful heart. If you keep God’s Word, you will grow in the knowledge of Him and prosper in your soul. If you seek His Kingdom first and His righteousness, He promises that you will always have enough of everything you need to be blessed in this life. We should not look to stock market investments for our future security. Even a good investment has risks in this world, as we all live in uncertain times. As Christians, our security is in the keeping power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are promised provision no matter what is going on in the world around us, even in times of famine if we are faithful to obey the Lord in all of our ways, including our giving.

The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine, they shall be satisfied. Psalm 37:18-19

Prayer For Guidance

Dear Heavenly Father, I am seeking your guidance regarding my finances and financial investments.  Lord, you have blessed me and I want to be a good steward of all that you have given me.  I want my investments to be wise and store up for the future through my investments. Only You know the future, and the future of the stock market, so I am asking you for wisdom to know if I need to make any changes in my investment portfolio.  Lord, I give you my future, and ultimately my trust is in You taking care of me and my family and if you have other plans for my investments, please let me know.  I do not want to be foolish, but wise, like the ant in Proverbs who stored up for the winter; but neither do I want my total trust to be in my investments or my bank account.  I am asking you to speak to me clearly so that I am guided by Your Wisdom.  Lord, guide me as to if I need to sell or change anything in my investments. I want all of my decisions to be pleasing to you.  I commit to you my finances and my life. I know if I give everything to you, the devil cannot rob it. Let me hear your voice as to what I need to invest in, and what I need to give to, and let me have your peace about the future because my ultimate trust is in You.  Let me not fear the future, but be one that you use in these days of tribulation. Help me to not only be wise in my affairs but let me be sensitive to the needs of others when they need help, as well.  Help me to be faithful in my giving of tithes along with helping others.  I am declaring my trust in You in all my financial affairs and I am relying on Your promises in the Bible to always take care of my needs.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen. Steven P. Miller, Jacksonville, Florida., USA @ParkermillerQ, gatekeeperwatchman.org, TM, ‎Founder and Administrator of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups., #GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO, #SPARKERMILLER, Instagram: steven_parker_miller_1956 2/21/2025 12:50:50 PM EST

[roalinda]

I am so behind in my microfics. So, let us just pretend that I got the date right. 🙈 @prongsfoot-microfic

March 16 + June 1 (Achievement + Thesis)

"This formula won't work in this charm," Sirius hummed absently, a trace of frustration tainting the usual pleasant timbre as he put his muggle fountain pen behind his ear and pulled out his wand from his hair bun, waving it to remove the magical algorithms on the graph.

"Why not? The runes fit the incantation." James narrowed his eyes behind the glasses and pursed his lips. Dim dusk light poured on him through the window and danced in his hazel eyes, molten pools of honey curious and just as frustrated as his partner. He scratched his cheek with the end of his eagle quill, oblivious to the slight smudge of ink he was leaving on his skin subconsciously. 

"Because this solar year is going to be a leap one." Sirius shrugged nonchalantly, pointing at the moving astronomy chart. Stars and planets were shining and revolving in a mini sky, a makeshift map of cosmos for two young men with two genius restless minds. 

"Ah yes, the extra day…the sunlight is going to mess up the order of charm." James' voice was thoughtful. 

"Maybe we can evolve the calculations with some Arithmancy…let's see…here…" Sirius leaned down upon the scroll, black strands falling on his forehead like curtains of silk. Pianist hands worked their magic and the ink flowed on the paper through the fountain pen as Sirius bit his lower lip in concentration, complicated symbols turning into comprehensible numbers bit by bit as the gears of his brilliant mind started to turn. 

James offered a lopsided grin before pulling an old book close. "A curse breaker, that's what you are, Mister Black," he opened the dusty material. "My pride and joy," he teased.

Laughter bubbled in Sirius' chest as he looked up at James, at his askew glasses and messy hair, at the mature wit behind the immature mischief in his hazel eyes. "Surely you jest, my deer Mister Potter. Compared to your intelligence, mine is nothing," he replied playfully and James sent a wink his way in good humour. 

Coming up with new charms was not easy. It demanded brilliance and hard work, as well as a huge deal of patience, not to mention the need to find somewhere safe to test them. Despite all, they enjoyed the process because of the thrill of secrecy and success, of adrenaline and achievement. 

It was about midnight when they finished, satisfied with the results. James yawned behind his hand and rubbed his eyes. "That was hard, but worth it." 

Sirius smirked, all arrogance and shiny teeth. "A new way to deal with the Death Eaters," he said and causally put back his wand in his hair.

James smirked back."At least in theory," he hummed.

"I can't wait to test it tomorrow, we're having a mission after all," said Sirius as he laughed merrily and patted his lap invitingly, coquettish and wicked. 

James moved foward and let himself to be pulled down. He settled himself on Sirius' lap like a lazy cat, circling his arms around his neck. "Shall I sentence you to a punishment fit for your heinous crimes? You are up to no good after all," he purred. 

Sirius tilted his head in amusement before reaching out to drew a messy heart on James' cheek with the smudged ink. "Hit me with your best shot, darling. I'm in your merciful hands." 

"Indeed," James grinned cheekily before summoning two cans of butterbeer from the fridge and blowing a kiss to Sirius. "To us and our new thesis."

"Cheers, babe. Cheers," said Sirius, putting a soft kiss on the corner of James' laughing mouth, shuddering as the other's nimble fingers messed with the buttons of his shirt.