A Witty Twit Can Be Found Here

BREAKING:

President Biden is endorsing three reforms to the Supreme Court:

1. No Immunity for Crimes a Former President Committed in Office

2. Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices

3. Binding Code of Conduct for the Supreme Court

the first law of tragedies: the end is already written and inevitable. the second law of tragedies: your actions are all your own and you can choose to get off this ride whenever you want. the third law of tragedies: we both know that you are never going to do that.

Item: really big sword

the arcane fandom can argue about literally anything, but the one thing we all agree on is that ekko, the boy savior, is the most unproblematic character ever, and that we all absolutely love him. while everyone else is caught up in gay tragedy of all kinds, my boy is just over here trying to fix his damn tree.

being self-taught in any type of practice will eventually lead to you having to seek out formal learning resources to bridge what you think is a trivial knowledge gap and realizing that you've been operating similarly to that french guy who went about his daily life unknowingly missing 90% of his brain

Redraw of my first Mhin fanart!

A lil blabbing and comparison under the cut

Here is a skill that many of us are going to need for survival: how to tell if someone is offering to let you lie.

The tip-off phrase is "If [circumstance] was true, then we/I could do [helpful thing.]" This is not a guarantee that the person is offering, but it should tell you "I am being informed of a way to improve things."

Your confirmation phrase is "What documentation would that require?" This is essentially asking them "if people come asking me to prove this, will I be able to? Or will they not come at all?"

The answer you are hoping for with the confirmation phrase is "Just tell me if it's true, and I'll put it on the form." Note that this is not a direct instruction to lie, because they can't tell you that.

If they didn't mean to extend an offer to lie or this is a situation where they can't, then they'll list off something like your paystubs or your birth certificate. Your response back in that case is "Thanks, I'll tell my friends who qualify." This clears you of any concerns that you may have been considering lying.

The more complex answer is when they answer by giving you a form on the spot. Your job, in this case, is to scan the form and see if what they are asking you can be meaningfully verified by an official source.

Things that can be verified by an official source include, but are not limited to, your age, legal sex, income, veteran status, and place of residence. It's not generally a good idea to lie about these on official documents.

Be smart, and be practical. Do what you need to in order to stay alive, and keep an ear out for the people offering to help you do so.

im having trouble understanding this in the abstract, could someone give an example of a hypothetical situation this would apply to?

"This medication is covered for FREE if you are quitting smoking. Are you working on quitting?"

*me, thinking about how I quit smoking in 2018 and it is now the year of our lord 2024* "Oh yeah, still working very hard. You know how those cravings can hit."

*please note, how I omitted the truth in the example. I didn't ANNOUNCE it been 6 years SINCE I ALREADY QUIT. I said that I was working hard because cravings are still a thing (6 years later not said out loud). The fact I haven't have a SINGLE one in 4 years [I was Weak during lockdown but could not finish a cig anymore] is irrelevant. The doctor asking me was *nudge nudge wink wink* pointing out that labeling my cig use as "not quite quit yet" would cut some costs on medications.

Sometimes the 'lies' you are being an opportunity to nod along for are just ommissions of truth. Like- still being an active smoker for easier access to other treatments or random pains being worse than YOU personally find them. "If X is true, Y could be an option for you" is a way to allow you to snip off details to make X TECHNICALLY true. They are asking you to be a VAGUE fuck- not a pedantic one. For BOTH of y'all's plausible deniability.

"So these symptoms prevent you from doing [X, Y, Z] activities?"

Even if YOU think you are mildly inconvenienced at best, 'OH YEAH- the generalized fatigue/nagging pain/light headed feeling just makes it so hard to [whatever activity you just find more choresome in those circumstances]!'

I have also had it happen at random coffee shops. Or vape shops.

"How much cash do you have on you? Conveniently this is on sale RIGHT NOW for you for 5 dollars less than that IF it happens to be your birthday. It's your birthday... RIGHT??????"

Is the exact same concept. "You have a coupon right?" "And you saw the BOGO deal and remembered to mention it, RIGHT? Cuz mentioning it before I complete the transaction will make these BOGO..."

My doctor and I wanted me to get a new medical device that would be a big improvement over the one I had.

The device manufacturer was obviously invested in my getting one, since that's how they make money, so they have people whose job is to work with insurance to get it covered.

My insurance was obviously not invested in my getting one if my current device was still functioning sufficiently, because they'd have to pay that money.

During an initial call with the device manufacturer, they asked if there were any issues with my current device, because that would dramatically increase the odds of insurance deciding to cover it (so that I wouldn't have to pay $8k out of pocket or put off switching for a few years). They gave examples: is it cracked? does it lose charge faster than it used to? is the screen too dim?

She was offering me the opportunity and enough information to give a reply that would get results.

As it happened, some of those examples were true for me, though not to an extent that I would have thought to report them. Because of that, I didn't think to ask OP's confirmation phrase about what documentation would be required to prove it, but as it turns out, all I had to do was tell her so she could put it on the form—no one would be inspecting my device to confirm or anything like that.

My insurance approved it, I didn't pay anything, and that aspect of my health and routine health maintenance improved significantly.

My sincere appreciation to that lady and everyone else out there pulling Mr. Incredibles to help people out.

open the bars of his enclosure please he'll be so good it's his birthdaaaaay let the birthday boy ouuuuut c'mon

timelapse vv

2010. A Japanese woman sits down to take photos of her shiba inu dog for her blog. Suddenly, a man leaps out of a time portal. "Sorry, I can't let you do this. I cannot tell you why." She asks: "Is it forbidden knowledge from the future?" He sighs: "No, it's just too fucking stupid to explain."

i always forget how much of a hell getting up in the morning during the cold months is until im trying to get dressed taking frost damage like ough augh ugha oagh uagh

There is a semi-famous math algorithm developed by David A. Cox and Steven Zucker. It is known as the Cox-Zucker machine.

For a long time I'd been assuming that they knew what they were doing, but today, via Peter Woit, I got confirmation. Cox writes in a memorial for Zucker:

my guy

fun fact about languages: a linguist who was studying aboriginal languages of Australia finally managed to track down a native speaker of the Mbabaram language in the 60s for his research. they talked a bit and he started by asking for the Mbabaram word for basic nouns. They went back and forth before he asked for the word for “dog” The man replied “dog” They had a bit of a “who’s on first” moment before realizing that, by complete coincidence,  Mbabaram and English both have the exact same word for dog.

on a similar note, a traditional Ojibwe greeting is “Nanaboozhoo” so when the French first landed in southern Canada they thought that they were saying “Bonjour!” Which is fucking wild to think about. Imagine crossing the ocean and the first people you meet in months somehow speak French. 

Given that we famously don’t know the origin of the English word “dog”, I have decided to adopt an utterly batshit folk etymology conspiracy theory. As a treat.

For a while I just assumed that the English “potluck”, was derived from Chinook Jargon “potlatch”. Both describe comparable practices of guests contributing resources to a larger community-wide feast. But a little digging quickly reveals no etymological relation; instead of one, I got TWO! interesting linguistic insights into distinct cultures.

Here’s some more!

‘Ciao’ is from what now.

Per Wiktionary—

Okay then!

something has gone deeply wrong when "focusing pragmatically on issues you can influence and working to make life better for yourself and your community" is considered an unserious distraction while "endlessly exposing yourself to media about distressing situations you can't control" is considered political engagement