BREAKING: after deliberately demolishing the economy…

Sadako Yamamura from Ring is canonically intersex (in the novel), and her variation is Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS)!

Ok, I can only do this badly, but I made something:

I see your vision

It is my birthday.

hatty birphday

heheh

It’s sad how much of what is taught in school is useless to over 99% of the population.

There are literally math concepts taught in high school and middle school that are only used in extremely specialized fields or that are even so outdated they aren’t used anymore!

I took calculus my senior year of high school, and I really liked the way our teacher framed this on the first day of class.

He asked somebody to raise their hand and ask him when we would use calculus in our everyday life. So one student rose their hand and asked, “When are we going to use this in our everyday life?”

“NEVER!!” the teacher exclaimed. “You will never use calculus in your normal, everyday life. In fact, very few of you will use it in your professional careers either.” Then he paused. “So would you like to know why should care?”

Several us nodded.

He picked out one of the varsity football players in the class. “You practice football a lot during the week, right Tim?” asked the teacher.

“Yeah,” replied Tim. “Almost every day.”

“Do you and your teammates ever lift weights during practice?”

“Yeah. Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend a lot of practice in the weight room.”

“But why?” asked the teacher. “Is there ever going to be a play your coach tells you use during a game that requires you to bench press the other team?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why lift weights?”

“Because it makes us stronger,” said Tim.

“Bingo!!” said the teacher. “It’s the same thing with calculus. You’re not here because you’re going to use calculus in your everyday life. You’re here because calculus is weightlifting for your brain.”

And I’ve never forgotten that.

THIS.

When it’s taught right, learning math teaches you logic and how to organize your brain, how to take a problem one step at a time and make sure every step can bear weight before you move to the next one.  Most adults don’t need to know integrals, but goddamn if I don’t wish everyone making arguments on the internet understood geometric proofs.

Scientific concepts broaden our understanding of how the world is put together, which does not mean that most adults ever really understand how light is refracted through a lens or why spinning copper wire creates electricity–and they don’t need to.  But science classes in general are meant to teach the scientific method: how to make observations and use them to draw conclusions, how to test those conclusions, how to be wrong and grow stronger from it.

History isn’t about dates and names of battles, it’s about people, patterns, things we’ve tried before and ought to learn from.  It’s about how everything is linked, how changing one circumstance can lead to changes in fifty others, cascading infinitely.  Literature is about critical thinking, pattern recognition, learning to listen to what somebody is saying and decide what it means to you, how you feel about it, and what you want to do with it.

Some facts matter: every adult should know how to read a graph, how global warming works, some of the basic themes and symbols that crop up in every piece of fiction.  But ultimately, content is less important later in life than context.

The good thing is, students who learn the content are likely to pick up at least some of the context, some of the patterns of thinking, even if they don’t realize it.  (The unfortunate thing is how the current educational system prioritizes content so much that a lot of students, and a lot of adults, don’t see the point in learning either, and teachers are overworked and held to standardize test grading scales such that it’s hard for them to emphasize patterns of thinking over rote memorization, etc etc etc, but that is a whole different discussion.)

GET GRUFFALO'D, BITCH

If you haven't heard of Julia Donaldson, she's primarily a picture book author, who we can thank for extremely popular Halloween classic Room on the Broom as well as the Gruffalo.

Let this be a testament to the power of picture books.

I'm living for these jokes.

Also I need "GET GRUFFALO'D, BITCH" on a T-shirt.

ur payin eighty dollars for this?

genuinely, what the fuck is the point of this?

This is a thing that was already being done. They're saying it will be clearly labeled.

one thing about americans is that they know how to make a fucking milkshake

i hate the stupid milk consistency shit you get here like if you give me a milkshake it better be rock fucking solid. i want that thang thick like concrete. it should piss me off trying to drink it through a straw. i should have to wait for it to thaw

Americans are so good at making Beverage. One of our Foundational Moments was actually a party involving Making Beverage. Google "Boston Tea Party" for more

A comic based on this poem

shipping characters who are just friends in canon is more than okay but what’s annoying is when people take screenshots of them touching and say “friends don’t do that!”. i hate to break it to you but friends do hug and hold hands and cuddle. saying ‘friends don’t do that’ is reenforcing the idea that physical touch is reserved for lovers

“There is nothing platonic about this” Nah I can write an essay over how platonic that is.

"They are in love" Sit and watch me writing a book saga about how they love each other platonicaly because this type of love. Is. Not. Less. LOVE!

Pokémon Human Character Tournament: THE FINAL SHOWDOWN

The fact that this poll managed to be close enough to show a 50/50 result when there was 111,329 votes - and people can't see the results before voting - is a testament to everything good and pure about this hellsite.

link: https://bsky.app/profile/brainvsbook.bsky.social/post/3llc72lyhu22j

google translate defaulting to chinese at first

okay but for those of us with interests in both the murderbot and the daomu biji fandoms this is kinda hilarious

(english-side-only really, i get that the kanji and hanzi are completely different)

our good (air)ship murderbot! thanks google

unknown forces compelled me to draw this

I AM NOT PAYING 500 DOLLARS + 20 DOLLARS YEARLY + 80-90 DOLLARS FOR A CARTRIDGE THAT DOESNT EVEN CONTAIN THE GAME DATA JUST TO PLAY A GAME, NINTENDO.

Chat is this real?

UNFORTUNATELY, YES.

The game key cards is not ALL game cards, and I'm glad they're being up front about it instead of having it in like invisible text on the back of the box that the card doesn't actually include the game. I'd still rather buy them digitally than pseudophysical but at least they're clearly marking the difference between physical and fake physical.

My mind reals at the idea that people couldve been playing music like this 4000 years ago

say what you will about the reserve bank of india these are some cracking coins

HEY, FELLOW HATERS OF INSANELY-BRIGHT CAR HEADLIGHTS, SOMEONE HAS STARTED A PETITION TO REGULATE THEM.

It's an official petition through the Australian Government's e-petition page, which means if it gets enough signatures, it will be tabled in government.

You do have to be an Australian citizen to sign it, BUT!!! PLEASE REBLOG THIS EVEN IF YOURE NOT, because these kind of things have a roll-on effect, and if Australia legislates LED headlights, then other countries may follow.

FYI, the petition asks only for your name and email, and once you've clicked the sign button, they'll send you an email to confirm your signature --- you need to click the confirmation link in the email to have your signature counted.

Homebrew Horror: Gremlin, Firgor

(Art by Wayworncrow!)

There are only a handful of items more useful to an adventuring party than Bags of Holding, items so valuable that few adventurers--even ones which tend to travel on their own--would live without for more than a few weeks into their careers for fear of traveling unprepared, or for fear of being forced to leave loot behind. Whenever the opportunity to obtain one arises, most would jump at the chance! And who wouldn't? You never have to worry about encumbrance again with one! The money you'd save hiring carts is astronomical! Unfortunately, nothing so convenient could exist without the whims of some fiend or Fey attempting to make a mockery of it, and these creatures are proof of it.

Without a need for air and having the ability to turn invisible on a whim, Firgor spend the entirety of their lives nesting within Bags of Holding and other extradimensional storage spaces like them, sustained partially by whatever morsels they can rake into their lairs with their long, rubbery arms, and mostly by "sacrifices" delivered right to them by unwitting explorers, adventurers, and merchants. Hidden by ramshackle suits of camouflage built from whatever knickknacks the bag's owner hoards, an unwitting victim may 'host' a Firgor for months or even years without realizing it's even there, and all the while the gremlin wreaks small but meaningful amounts of havoc on their lives.

No one is entirely sure when the first of these strange, alien-looking gremlins began to manifest across the world, and it's entirely by their own design. Firgor possess a small but potent number of psychic abilities granted to them by their unusual nature, chief among them the ability to simply force others to forget their presence. Any creature not looking directly at a Firgor tends to swiftly forget they ever saw it, and any item rendered invisible by the gremlin's spellwork is similarly forgotten until the gremlin decides to give its new 'toy' back for one reason or another. As Firgor age, they gradually leech magical power from the countless items introduced to their homes and gain magical powers of their own, culminating in the awakening of more powerful psychic abilities, such as the ability to temporarily seal away a victim's knowledge and skills. This intangible theft is the ultimate goal of all Firgor, who draw immense joy (and perhaps even psychic sustenance) from the chaos which erupts when someone cannot remember crucial information or access skills they once possessed.

How many times has it happened across the world, that otherwise competent and well-trained adventurers simply forget the true extent of their apocalyptic armory, misplace otherwise impossible-to-forget trophies, or lament the loss of a useful tool they should still have? Why do highly-skilled Fighters and raging Barbarians simply lose the ability to use the techniques they've been honing for years? How is it that Wizards and Witches smarter than entire rooms of people put together, alongside Clerics and Paladins who are guided by higher forces, cannot remember what spells they've prepared for the day? How many times has an adventuring party said, with panic tinged by exasperation, "You could DO THAT/You HAD THAT this whole time?!" in response to one of their members producing a heretofore unseen (or forgotten) item or skill?

In many of these cases the next two words out of the victim's mouth are tinged with surprise, then frustrated realization: "I... Firgor."