today-tastes-like-honey

[today-tastes-like-honey]

It's kinda cool that you can check the "web" of reblogs on a post, but also practically useless because you're always sent to the original post instead of the iteration you clicked on.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

I have a ton of bad to mid posts in my drafts that I make despite knowing that they're really pointing out something very obvious, or something that almost no one will agree is even a problem, which I wrote because I got annoyed about some nonsense. I just keep them around so I don't have to type them out again the next time I'm annoyed about the topic.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Mulan: Cuts her hair Army recruitment: Ew no we're not letting you join. You're either a criminal or a barbarian.

— requested by manbunjon

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Game Changer bringin Alex Horne onto the show is kind of daring bc their slogan has been "the only gameshow where the game changes every show", and well, isn't that kind of what Taskmaster has been doing?

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Okay I understand that Doctor Who is like an essential part of British identity and all that, but just a thought: Maybe do a full reboot. Like start from scratch. Pick the parts of the lore that work together, have River Song in there from day one as The Wife We Sometimes Meet, clean up your act about what the Doctor actually *is* in terms of Time Lords and Timeless Child, how the angels work (pro-tip: Don't show their movement to the viewer), all that.

Coherent story. 13 seasons of 20-30 episodes, released bi-annually by season or perhaps monthly by episode. Doctor regenerates 12 times total (or up to 12 times total), but not necessarily always in a season finale. Or do it without seasons, have the regenerations happen every 20-30 episodes without televising it, but that's probably difficult for ratings. Write the broad strokes of the story in terms of Time War, Master, Daleks, Cybermen, etc etc etc with "which of these are gonna be a thing?" and "how, if at all, and when, if at all, will they be completely ended/defeated?". Go on and plan different character arcs for the doctor and companions ahead of time, at least broadly.

Like y'all we know it will land! The concept of Doctor Who has been tried and tested and it's rock solid! The main thing, afaict, that puts the audience off, is the flip-flopping between what is canon, the retcons, the "whoops guess this doesn't matter anymore" attitude. You have one of the coolest concepts ever brought into fiction and your execution just keeps going down the drain because the story that was originally meant to be told has been told. So they keep trying to make new stories using the same main character. Sometimes they even try to tell the same story but just very slightly different and oh my god I just realized that Rogue the DnD playing gay time traveler never met Gatwa's Doctor again he's gonna be revealed to be bi or something so they can make it work with Piper, if at all. Christ alive. Anyway that was just gonna be like a rehash of River Song as a concept.

My point is, they're already just doing the same stuff again. River Song and Rogue, Oh Look It's The Daleks Again, the Toymaker, Sobek, now the Rani and so on. What I'm saying is, it's okay to have run out of ideas and do it all again, but how about you do it all again in a new canon instead of cheapening the story that's been told so far?

[today-tastes-like-honey]

I believe in the British people. I believe they can focus their tendency to keep chaotic clusterfucks around that make no sense and cannot possibly be justified entirely on the monarchy and make good television. And as I say in my tags, may they keep the original running if they so please! For what is a man if not a creature of habit? But what is an Englishman if not an Englishwoman turned 43° clockwise? And are not Man and Woman equal before the Crown, at least since 2013 or so? And what, tell me, would the reboot be except the original a little different? Would not they both be equal, too, before the Crown, at least starting in 2030 or so? We would, of course, not be so brazen as to take away a beloved British tradition - but add one, instead! Imagine the possibilities! The potential! No peasant yanks nor pissant mice need be involved!

Okay I understand that Doctor Who is like an essential part of British identity and all that, but just a thought: Maybe do a full reboot. Like start from scratch. Pick the parts of the lore that work together, have River Song in there from day one as The Wife We Sometimes Meet, clean up your act about what the Doctor actually *is* in terms of Time Lords and Timeless Child, how the angels work (pro-tip: Don't show their movement to the viewer), all that.

Coherent story. 13 seasons of 20-30 episodes, released bi-annually by season or perhaps monthly by episode. Doctor regenerates 12 times total (or up to 12 times total), but not necessarily always in a season finale. Or do it without seasons, have the regenerations happen every 20-30 episodes without televising it, but that's probably difficult for ratings. Write the broad strokes of the story in terms of Time War, Master, Daleks, Cybermen, etc etc etc with "which of these are gonna be a thing?" and "how, if at all, and when, if at all, will they be completely ended/defeated?". Go on and plan different character arcs for the doctor and companions ahead of time, at least broadly.

Like y'all we know it will land! The concept of Doctor Who has been tried and tested and it's rock solid! The main thing, afaict, that puts the audience off, is the flip-flopping between what is canon, the retcons, the "whoops guess this doesn't matter anymore" attitude. You have one of the coolest concepts ever brought into fiction and your execution just keeps going down the drain because the story that was originally meant to be told has been told. So they keep trying to make new stories using the same main character. Sometimes they even try to tell the same story but just very slightly different and oh my god I just realized that Rogue the DnD playing gay time traveler never met Gatwa's Doctor again he's gonna be revealed to be bi or something so they can make it work with Piper, if at all. Christ alive. Anyway that was just gonna be like a rehash of River Song as a concept.

My point is, they're already just doing the same stuff again. River Song and Rogue, Oh Look It's The Daleks Again, the Toymaker, Sobek, now the Rani and so on. What I'm saying is, it's okay to have run out of ideas and do it all again, but how about you do it all again in a new canon instead of cheapening the story that's been told so far?

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Okay I understand that Doctor Who is like an essential part of British identity and all that, but just a thought: Maybe do a full reboot. Like start from scratch. Pick the parts of the lore that work together, have River Song in there from day one as The Wife We Sometimes Meet, clean up your act about what the Doctor actually *is* in terms of Time Lords and Timeless Child, how the angels work (pro-tip: Don't show their movement to the viewer), all that.

Coherent story. 13 seasons of 20-30 episodes, released bi-annually by season or perhaps monthly by episode. Doctor regenerates 12 times total (or up to 12 times total), but not necessarily always in a season finale. Or do it without seasons, have the regenerations happen every 20-30 episodes without televising it, but that's probably difficult for ratings. Write the broad strokes of the story in terms of Time War, Master, Daleks, Cybermen, etc etc etc with "which of these are gonna be a thing?" and "how, if at all, and when, if at all, will they be completely ended/defeated?". Go on and plan different character arcs for the doctor and companions ahead of time, at least broadly.

Like y'all we know it will land! The concept of Doctor Who has been tried and tested and it's rock solid! The main thing, afaict, that puts the audience off, is the flip-flopping between what is canon, the retcons, the "whoops guess this doesn't matter anymore" attitude. You have one of the coolest concepts ever brought into fiction and your execution just keeps going down the drain because the story that was originally meant to be told has been told. So they keep trying to make new stories using the same main character. Sometimes they even try to tell the same story but just very slightly different and oh my god I just realized that Rogue the DnD playing gay time traveler never met Gatwa's Doctor again he's gonna be revealed to be bi or something so they can make it work with Piper, if at all. Christ alive. Anyway that was just gonna be like a rehash of River Song as a concept.

My point is, they're already just doing the same stuff again. River Song and Rogue, Oh Look It's The Daleks Again, the Toymaker, Sobek, now the Rani and so on. What I'm saying is, it's okay to have run out of ideas and do it all again, but how about you do it all again in a new canon instead of cheapening the story that's been told so far?

[today-tastes-like-honey]

(cw: sexual assault) the pedophile -as it is understood outside of academic circles- is a mythical creature. the idea that a complete stranger who kidnaps and sexually assaults kids is their biggest threat is absolutely insane; not one case of CSA (child sexual assault) in a hundred looks like that. CSA is committed almost uniformly by adults in a preestablished position of authority (such as family, family friends, clergy, or teachers) and in a way that a victim who doesn't know what sexual assault looks like will be left unsure what happened to them. without knowing concretely how sex and sexuality works, would you be able to tell the difference between molestation and the various other forms of unwanted physical touch and abuse kids are regularly subjected to? would it even seem that different? but parenthood and the submission of youth to adults as institutions are threatened by the reality of CSA. adults need to justify their ownership of children through an imagined outside threat constantly held at bay through their diligence. the truth - that putting yourself in such a position of authority over children directly enables abuse (including sexual abuse) - is thrown aside.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

At least for Germany I think it's actually technically legally mandated? All universities are public and meant to give students equal access to education. They're also all free, so it's not like there's as much financial benefit from forming "elite" universities for the people running them, but I suppose if you have a certain amount of money left over per student that you get paid by the government for after accounting for teachers and misc staff, you get to be able to buy expensive shit sooner and more frequently if you have a lot of students. So afaict Munich and Berlin may be better in this regard as they are universities in Germany's largest cities, with a ton of students, able to buy The Good Stuff for their labs, and thus able to attract a larger pool of teaching candidates to choose from. Also Berlin and Bavaria are among the wealthier states and probably able to fund their universities better than, say, MV or NRW.

i like how every country outside the US says its universities are all basically the same and it's just like plainly not true. i guess british people know what their snobby fuck universities are, good for them. but i've seen germans in denial about it. you can't trick me, i know what LMU Munich and a couple of the berlin ones are. swedes too but i think they have a more viable claim to it, none of their universities are like elite elite. canadians are in denial about it too, but they're probably about to make some huge gains from the US going to shit and the advantage of proximity. i imagine swiss people are willing to be pretentious about eth zurich and probably belgians about leuven.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Y'all I'm not a mathematician and honestly I've never even seen the maths for the Monty Hall problem so I have no clue whether or not they are within my range of numeracy, but like. You switch. That's the point. You picked a door. Because one goat is revealed, switching will mean you switch from your initial goat to the car, or from your initial car to the goat. You had a 2/3 chance to randomly pick a goat, so there's a 2/3 chance that switching will get you the car. This is not complicated. You can play this with playing cards and just go through all the scenarios and it will be immediately obvious. Like you can literally count the possible outcomes, you don't even need to know maths for this. There's only six possible scenarios here:

Pick Goat 1, reveal Goat 2, switch to Car

Pick Goat 1, reveal Goat 2, don't switch, keep Goat

Pick Goat 2, reveal Goat 1, switch to Car

Pick Goat 2, reveal Goat 1, don't switch, keep Goat

Pick Car, reveal either Goat, switch to Goat

Pick Car, reveal either Goat, don't switch, keep Car

You can count these! Two out of three times, switching gets you the car. Two out of three times, not switching gets you a goat. These are all the possible options.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Oh good, I'm not the only one who thought that was a vile thing to say.

Suddenly I am thinking about that article written by Brennan Lee Mulligan about being witness to extremely hyper-wealthy people believing they were going to live forever.

Not if the rest of us have anything to say about it, said the guy with words on his bullets to the heart of a health insurance CEO.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

The Japanese system is both more democratic and more representative than the Canadian, British, and American systems. The only real weakspot is that the constituencies can vary wildly in population. Other than that, obviously a system in which ~3/8s of the seats of the lower house are distributed proportionally is more representative (and less prone to supermajorities) than a pure FPTP system. As far as I can tell, the LDP - which doesn't even have a majortiy. They had to form a coalition to even be able to hold a minority government - is holding on mostly because of voters actually leaning conservative, splintered opposition, and apathy among those dissatisfied with the government, but they've been losing seats in every election since Abe got them the government back.

I've said this before but the political systems of China and Japan are remarkably similar in all but name. There are some substantial differences, but they're not really the ones people think they are. China is a de jure one party state while Japan is a de facto one party state; both countries have inquisitorial justice systems with 99% conviction rates (if you get arrested, you're getting convicted, whether you did it or not), both countries have to a significant degree dirigiste economies...

As far as I understand it, the main differences come down to:

Japan has freedom of speech and of the press, which is a pretty good thing.

Japan has a lot fewer capital controls and a less regulated financial sector (in particular, a fuller system of financial instruments); China has a highly regulated financial sector, most financial institutions are nationalized, and the available financial instruments are quite limited. Whether this is good or bad is a sticky question.

Japan has done less and less state-directed investment over time, although they still do a lot; China does as much state-directed investment as ever.

China has a ton of SOEs, 25% of China's economy is SOEs, Japan has a few but they're nowhere near as important.

Japan has the keiretsu, which nobody can explain. Horizontally-integrated pseudo-monopolistic conglomerates that form like, a de facto middle layer between the ordinary private sector and the state.

Japan has local democracy.

Japan has gotten significantly less dirigiste and more neoliberal since the 90s; the state-directed investment and state control of industry were highest in the postwar years of Japan's economic boom. How you want to analyze the causality here is up to you.

I would probably live in either country. Local democracy is nice but as an foreign resident you don't get to vote anyway. If it weren't for the freedom of speech thing it would be a total toss-up, but I do like freedom of speech so Japan gets the edge.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Not anymore; while the original meter was defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator, this was changed after it was accepted that that distance varied over time. Today, the meter is defined as 1/299,792,458 of the distance light travels through a vacuum in one second.

I'm open to arguments about how Fahrenheit isn't really more arbitrary than Celsius and how base 12 for feet can be convenient for fractions and so on, but how do you fucking justify having different miles for land and sea

[today-tastes-like-honey]

This is not true. Tornadoes were recorded in Europe as early as late antiquity (see this list). Prior to the incorporation of the word tornado, they were called whirlwinds in English, with a similar term (Wirbelwind) in German. Some of them caused hundreds of casualties, and some were rated to be as high as F5 in retrospect. Tornados are less common in Europe than America, and like many extreme weather phenomena their rising frequency is a risk brought on by climate change, but they have been known on the continent for thousands of years.

European telling me that Europe doesn't have tornado damage because their building construction is so much better. I think it might actually be because Europe has shit tornadoes.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

They are also a minority that is

radically underrepresented in American politics (while 28% of the population is "unaffiliated" with any religious group, only 0.6% of congress are)

is treated with frankly incredible hostility. (I don't have a link, here's the citation: Edgell, Penny et al. “Atheists and Other Cultural Outsiders: Moral Boundaries and the Non-Religious in the Unites States.” Social Forces, vol. 95 no. 2, 2016, pp. 607-638.)

The above study compares, among other things, agreement with the statements "This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society" and "I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group" from the years 2003 and 2014.

In 2003, atheists were THE most disliked group out of the roster. 39.6% of the respondents said atheists were incompatible with their vision of America; that's 1.5 times as many as the 26.3% who said so about Muslims in the same year, who ranked second. As of 2014, atheists were only the second-most disliked group, not because they were seen more favorably (the dislike of them had actually slightly grown, to 41.9%), but because the negative perception of Muslims had drastically increased to 45.5%. For context, the third-biggest dislike in both years was for homosexuals, who got 22.6 and 29.4% respectively. While the chart for this statement shows a growth in racial resentment, no other group came close to the resentment towards atheists in 2003, and no one in 2014 except for Muslims; this includes recent immigrants, African Americans, Hispanics, and Jews.

As for the second statement, there is a similar shift between 2003 and 2014, with atheists and Muslims being most ad second-most disliked in 2003, switching by 2014, and no one else coming close. The main difference is that people are (moderately) less likely to disapprove of their child marrying an atheist than they were in 2003.

Like the data here suggests that atheists are in fact among the most discriminated groups in America, potentially moreso than various other minority groups who have recognized, established, and respected advocacy, such as Jewish people, African Americans, and gay people.

There's something about atheism that I've repeatedly tried and failed to put into words on several posts on this blog but I think I finally got it.

Atheists are the only religious minority who, even (or sometimes even *especially*) in ostensibly progressive spaces are not allowed to ever act like they're sure of their beliefs.

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Always weird to be reminded that in other countries it's women who are arrested for public nudity. The law on that here only applies to men.

it's genuinely crazy that free the nipple died

[today-tastes-like-honey]

Maybe I don't get it bc I don't date, but personally he lost me at "pay for dinner"? We're not in the dark ages, women can and do get employment; it's a date, not a sexwork situation. It's fucked up to one-sidedly evaluate a potential partner based on whether they're willing to treat you to stuff. Gift-giving, yeah okay sure that's courtship, that should go both ways. But this is clearly gendered. Man the gift-giver, woman the gift-recipient. Regardless of gender, someone who thinks about relationships like that is not worth your time, but it's especially fucked if they think about it with themselves being the sole or primary benefactor.