Fagatron the Boylover

Whoever wrote that Vanguard message did so with shaking hands, between sobs & swigs of bourbon straight from the bottle.

They're right, though. Now is exactly the wrong time to make dramatic investment moves. Everybody's shit is doing the same thing; unless you need your retirement money in the next twelve months or whatever, you're better off leaving it alone and waiting for the eventual correction. Like, this is not a comforting lie, this is good advice!

you don't even get three episodes into tom and jerry before that faggot jerry uses mistletoe to get tom to stop chasing him and kiss him instead. and that faggot tom coquettishly complies.

I assigned a writing prompt a few weeks ago that asked my students to reflect on a time when someone believed in them or when they believed in someone else. One of my students began to panic.

“I have to ask Google the prompt to get some ideas if I can’t just use AI,” she pleaded and then began typing into the search box on her screen, “A time when someone believed in you.”

“It’s about you,” I told her. “You’ve got your life experiences inside of your own mind.” It hadn’t occurred to her — even with my gentle reminder — to look within her own imagination to generate ideas. One of the reasons why I assigned the prompt is because learning to think for herself now, in high school, will help her build confidence and think through more complicated problems as she gets older — even when she’s no longer in a classroom situation.

She’s only in ninth grade, yet she’s already become accustomed to outsourcing her own mind to digital technologies, and it frightens me.

When I teach students how to write, I’m also teaching them how to think. Through fits and starts (a process that can be both frustrating and rewarding), high school English teachers like me help students get to know themselves better when they use language to figure out what they think and how they feel.

. . .

If you believe, as I do, that writing is thinking — and thinking is everything — things aren’t looking too good for our students or for the educators trying to teach them. In addition to teaching high school, I’m also a college instructor, and I see this behavior in my older students as well.

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This! This is what scares me the most about AI! Physical exertion is difficult if someone isn't used to it, and it gets easier the more often it's done. When it's done often enough, it becomes a habit. Mental exertion is exactly the same. Thinking is a learned skill just like a sport is, and an entire generation is growing up without that most critical skill.

An unthinking populace is a more easily controlled populace.

pirates of the caribbean really introduced an eldritch octopus man who kills indiscriminately and torments the dead as their poster villain and then you watch the movies and it's like, "oh no, actually the worst villain in this series is a small white british man who functions as the herald of capitalism" and that was very very brave of them

#here is a man so heartless he has literally cut his own heart out of his chest #but he's still not as evil as the fucking east india trading company

A Russian prankster glued a massive portrait of President Vladimir Putin to the inside of a residential elevator. He then placed a camera in the elevator to record people’s reactions.

everyone in this elevator:

NO WAY

I’ve been doxxed 😨

I once worked on a phone campaign to disallow the trees around your crater from being cut down...

I am deeply deeply in love with you 💙 Thanks so much for your conservation effort!

It’s the small things we all do together that can make a big difference! 💙💙💙💙 And you’ve done it!!!

People just gotta know what Crater Lake and Wizard Island looks like

What in the Skyrim

been there several times. And yeah, Skyrim feels super duper Oregon in a lot of ways.

We gonna talk about Crater Lake, and Wizard Island and not mention the Old Man of the Lake?

The Old Man of the Lake is a log that floats around the lake. It is somewhat strange in that it floats vertically. It's roughly 30 feet tall, with only about 5 or so feet sticking out above the surface of the water. It was first 'offically' recorded in the early 20th century, though there are oral reports of it as far back as 1896 (and likely earlier still given the cultural importance of Crater Lake to the Klamath tribe of that area.

The Old Man should have rotted away long ago or at the very least become waterlogged and sank into the water fully, but nope. Over a hundred years, and there is this log still in the water just floating.

So y'know how I said the fact that it floats vertically was 'somewhat strange'? Let's get into some actual strange territory regarding the Old Man. It moves. Against the wind. It has been recorded moving in paths that do not make sense, never getting stuck on the shore of Wizard Island, nor the area of shore around the lake. Now that's strange.

So now let's get freaky: The free-floating Old Man posed a hazard to boats since it moves, and only a small portion of it was above water. (though personal boats are no longer allowed on the lake) Anyway, in 1988 a team was using a small submersible to explore the lake. The scientist figured it'd be a good idea to moor the Old Man near the coast of Wizard Island out of their way, for safety. So they tied some rope to it, to move the Old Man. As soon as they did so, the clear blue skies of a warm August day turned dark. The wind kicked up, bad, and it started to rain, then hail, then snow in the span of a few minutes...again in August. Now snow in that area is common, but not in the summer months. It gets super warm in that area in summer (like 70 to 90 degrees on average) So the scientists decided to nope the fuck out of the water, because of this freak storm. They unmoored the Old Man, preparing to get the fuck out of dodge of this summer snowstorm. As soon as the rope loosened and was in the water, as quickly as the storm had come on them, the darkened skies cleared and it was once more a fine sunny summer day.

As a kid, I spent my summers with my family who lives like... 40 some odd miles from Crater Lake National Park so I had this knowledge just kinda buried in my head somewhere.

I excitedly added a thing about the old man before I checked the notes so now I'm gonna reblog this great story instead but here is the old man!!!

"The Old Man floats vertically through the lake on a calm day"

"THE OLD MAN FLOATS. VERTICALLY. THROUGH THE LAKE ON A CALM DAY"

!!!!!!!!!!

Finally

Cryptobotany

And so this post floats back to me. Pure poetry.

Somehow no one has mentioned yet that Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the U.S, and the 10th deepest lake in the world. She Is Deep And Full Of Secrets guys, perfect wizard territory

hey! take it easy soon, if you can. 

He lives on my desk now at my Serious Adult Job and reminds me not to stress too much.

holy shit

Not to be dramatic but this is a massive fucking deal and I legitimately hope every single politician dies.

As a disabled kid who was in the same phys ed class as everyone else with predictably horrifying results, HARD SAME

“Nobody should have to compete against people with biological advantages in the biological advantage assessment game!”

in middle school our grade in PE was how well we did in comparison to the rest of the class.

got the fastest mile? congrats, you have the 100%. the rest of us? we were fucked. fuck effort, fuck improvement, fuck participation and attitude, it was all about competition.

as a little kid, I enjoyed community sports a lot, and then around middle school i got heavier and worse at running and suddenly sports were just... off limits. the focus was entirely on being a good, competitive team and "kids having a fun time, getting exercise, and making friends" meant nothing. refusing to allow trans kids to play is the exact same principle

Buddy that thing doesn't even look like it knows where it parked its flying saucer

i do write for attention, actually, because that's a normal reason to create art

did you hear about that actor performing a play in front of a crowd? clearly only doing it for attention

im trying to say something and im not gonna say it in an empty room

alucard being the #1 supporter of both mizrok and richette :') the best guy to ever guy