thewynne

[thewynne]

very difficult for me to pick a favorite early christian heresy but docetism's "jesus had no corporeal form and actually everyone was just looking at a jesus hologram the whole time" is definitely a top contender. i love you VR jesus

[thewynne]

1927 Kodak Petite Cameras. From Art Deco 1920, FB.

[thewynne]

[thewynne]

Dashiell Hammett, who basically invented the noir genre (think: The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man) hung out enough in the queer scene in San Francisco in the 20s-30s that he picked up some contemporary queer lingo that he folded into his stories. In The Maltese Falcon, there’s a scene where the wildly gay-coded villain shows up at a meeting with a skinny little blonde with a bad attitude and a gun in tow, and detective Sam Spade tells him to “leave the gunsel outside” — gunsel being contemporary gay slang for a young, effeminate man who probably bottoms (from the Yiddish gansl, meaning gosling). Basically, he’s saying “I’m here to talk to you, not your twink.”

However, a lot of writers mimicking Hammett did not know gay lingo or Yiddish, saw the word “gun,” and assumed “gunsel” meant “scary bodyguard with a gun.” They took off with a word they didn’t understand and spread it so fast that it’s now basically impossible to read a noir story written between 1930-1960 without someone accidentally being called a twink at least once. Look out for it next time you’re reading Raymond Chandler or his ilk, I guarantee you’ll find it.

[thewynne]

The parallels between Mensah insisting that everyone keep their hands on the steering wheel even when autopilot's on in All Systems Red and Murderbot keeping its attention on the bot pilot in Artificial Condition!

[thewynne]

Years and years ago, I read a book on cryptography that I picked up because it looked interesting--and it was!

But there was a side anecdote in there that stayed with me for more general purposes.

The author was describing a cryptography class that they had taken back in college where the professor was demonstrating the process of "reversibility", which is a principle that most codes depend on. Specifically, it should be easy to encode, and very hard to decode without the key--it is hard to reverse the process.

So he had an example code that he used for his class to demonstrate this, a variation on the Book Code, where the encoded text would be a series of phone numbers.

The key to the code was that phone books are sorted alphabetically, so you could encode the text easily--picking phone numbers from the appropriate alphabetical sections to use ahead of time would be easy. But since phone books were sorted alphabetically, not numerically, it would be nearly impossible to reverse the code without exhaustively searching the phone book for each string of numbers and seeing what name it was tied to.

Nowadays, defeating this would be child's play, given computerized databases, but back in the 80s and 90s, this would have been a good code... at least, until one of the students raised their hand and asked, "Why not just call the phone numbers and ask who lives there?"

The professor apparently was dumbfounded.

He had never considered that question. As a result, his cipher, which seemed to be nearly unbreakable to him, had such an obvious flaw, because he was the sort of person who could never coldcall someone to ask that sort of thing!

In the crypto book, the author went on to use this story as an example of why security systems should not be tested by the designer (because of course the security system is ready for everything they thought of, by definition), but for me, as a writer, it stuck with me for a different reason.

It's worth talking out your story plot with other people just to see if there's a "Why not just call the phone numbers?" obvious plot hole that you've missed, because of your singular perspective as a person. Especially if you're writing the sort of plot where you have people trying to outsmart each other.

[thewynne]

need a trip to m&s, but sadly on the wrong side of the atlantic

[thewynne]

I love ART.

[thewynne]

[thewynne]

this guy posted this video called “unethical money making hacks” and was like “i’m selling bullshit art!” and he was buying prints from kmart and covering them in joint compound and making interesting shapes in the joint compound and then selling it as “textured wall art” like sorry bro that’s just regular art you made art i know it feels like bullshit but you’re actually just making art rn

[thewynne]

Sofia Perina-Miller

[thewynne]

after the revolution we’re gonna rename a bunch of stuff so get ready. here’s some things to look forward to.

St. Petersburg, Pennsylvania will be renamed Leningrad.

We’re going to give Washington State and Washington, D.C. names that are more distinct from one another. Specific solution still under discussion.

St. Petersburg, Florida will be renamed Leningrad.

Since there are 93 locations named Springfield in the USA, they will all receive a numerical suffix for clarity. (e.g. “Springfield 093” or “Springfield 069”)

St. Petersburg, Colorado will be renamed Leningrad.

Stay tuned for more!

[thewynne]

the fucked up thing about water addiction is that once you have one glass you're hooked for life

[thewynne]

Dutch silver serving set, late 18th - early 19th century

[thewynne]

you'll be hanging out with the sweetest person ever and they'll randomly tell you a childhood experience that would have vaporised you and you're like oh we should find your parents and murder them irl

[thewynne]

do not. sell 9 books of prophecies in greek hexameter verse concerning the future of rome to my husband