#like the original ones were excellent

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: March 27

"Long Time Gone" by The Chicks

#song of the day #I'm still thinking about the Country Songs About Country Songs #this is actually a cover too though I never hear the original around anywhere #(it's by Darrell Scott who is also the originator for 'You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive' #turns out he's got a bunch of songs that got picked up and made somewhat more popular in the hands of other folks. an interesting legacy) #the best lines of this song to sing are also the bits About Country Music--well the whole song's about chasing the love of it #but this bit is bemoaning the kids these days you know. country music isn't what it used to be. why back in my day etc etc #it's so so so much fun to sing too because you get to exaggerate your 'I think's until they rhyme with 'Hank'. excellent work #'we listen to the radio to hear what's cookin / but the music ain't got no soul #now they sound tired but they don't sound Haggard / they got money but they don't have Cash #they got Junior but they don't have Hank / I think I think I think / the rest is a long time gone' #it's fascinating to me to think about these songs in (saying 'historical' here is giving me psychic damage but) historical context #because the Darrell Scott original for Long Time Gone came out in 2000 and The Chicks released their version in 2002 #so they were talking about the trend towards American jingoism in country music of the time #versus like Waylon Jennings in 1975 'Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way' #(I typed that and /then/ went back and looked up the release date and I'm so proud I got it right) #already bemoaning the state of country music in the 70s versus good old classic country like Hank Williams Senior sang #(Hank Jr covered Waylon's song in 1981. like yes it's a tribute to his father but also Hank Jr was a big push towards outlaw country #and has a few pretty famous songs himself about not singing like his daddy did. it just seems a strange choice to me) #and then Eric Church put out 'Lotta Boot Left to Fill' in 2009 calling out the shallowness of the country music scene of the time #(talking some only-thinly-veiled shit about a few of his peers in the process) #and then he released 'Stick That In Your Country Song' in 2021 and that /definitely/ put some backs up #that one's a less directed but more direct call-out if that makes any sense #no lines that are direct references to other artists' songs but stronger sentiments overall #not just general 'y'all are getting shallow prioritizing good times and high sales over genuine heart and integrity of craft' #but some straight up 'you have forgotten the face of your father' shit towards country artists and fans alike. the whole industry #a very good righteous-anger song

[artunderwraps]

ok so i was sorting through my binder from eighth grade and i found something very important

(yakkos world style narratoon) and now, the reasons why homework sucks, presented to you by me!

(written by my group and yours truly, sing this to the tune of old macdonald)

Homework all day is the worst,

Free me from this curse!

It always messes with my sleep,

Every night it hurts!

A question here

a question there

Here a question

there a question

Everywhere a question!

I wish homework dissappeared,

Every year its worse!

I'm sleep deprived and not okay,

free me from this curse!

I cannot take it anymore,

every night it hurts!

A minute's passed

ten minute's passed,

How long will this homework last?

I wish homework dissappeared,

EVERY YEAR ITS WORSE!

(yiu need to scream that last part its very important emphasis matteres)

#homework #school #i made this with like eightish othr peooe although only like five of us actually helped #we had to write an original song about something (i think it had to be school relates?) in like an hour #we tried to make an actual song with an orginial beat and everything but found that that wiuld take too long #so we opted for good ol reliable #extremely simple amd comedic parody but im quite proud of our work #we collaborated excellently #thats a core value of my school actually #i should show this to them and show the real power of collaboration and hatred #somemothr kids made like poems about their chosen thing #but i think ours was the superior one #sadly we didnt win glory #some toher story not even a song about a chicken written in spanish won #alas #yknow poe was also not recognized for hsi work in his time #a lto of tags i know lol #we were initally gonna use a different school innaproporate word in the sing #i think it was hell #but iur teacher said no #so #alas part two #again veyr proud of this especially stanzas four and fice #anyway sorry for the egregious amount of tags lol #have a great morning slash afternoon slash evening slash night :DDDD

[deathsmallcaps]

So, I was just looking for a Snow White gif set, and I came across quite a few posts expressing displeasure about Rachel Zegler’s flippant attitude to the original Disney film. And while I agree she was being a bit glib, you have to remember, it’s all about playing it up for the camera. Maybe her manager told her to push a love-to-hate-it angle. Who knows. Disney is still trying to work that little bit of feminism that is truly marketable but is ‘safe’ in their standards.

But what irritates me is that those posts immediately delve into the history and animation of the work in the film. As an artist, I totally respect the work and success Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was in 1937. It’s a beautiful piece, to be sure.

And Snow White was kind of modern for the movie’s supposed setting and time period! She has a bob! It’s easily demonstrated and acknowledged by the audience how hard she works, in both the castle and the cottage! She’s a upper class woman who manages to stay chaste despite living with, horror among horrors, seven unmarried men!

But, come on. She was relatively safe, barely pushing the envelope, in 1937. Women were in factories, wearing pants, and were still actively fighting for their rights at the time. All while weathering the Great Depression!

Films like Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman have already done more-feminine-modern takes on the tale. But Zegler isn’t wrong. If the original film’s story, no changes, came out today, it would be disappointing to a lot of feminists. So if you’ve watched the other live action Disney princess films, I’d say don’t knock the Snow White one just yet. It might actually offer something new but nice to more modern feminist audiences.

Just please don’t forget that something can be wonderful in one way and meh in another. The original film was an artistic masterpiece, but wasn’t the be-all end-all of feminism in the 30s. Check out this film, for example.

And hey, this is the webbed site of anxiety. You’ve all probably said things you regret, whether you ‘deserve’ to regret it or not. Don’t forget actors can make mistakes too. They’re human.

#Snow White #trust me I love the already-out there modern live action remake Mirror mirror #but I think you guys are being harsh #Ann Vickers #snow white 2024 #what I liked best about the new little mermaid film was that we still got to see Ariel’s thoughts and passions (without it just being pixie #girl quirky) on land before her wedding to Eric #the expansion of her motivations #and a bunch of other little things that made it different from the original #I wouldn’t have seen it multiple times if it was just a carbon copy #my only complaint was that under the sea should’ve been a chorus song #some animals already sang! #but in any case I loved it #the parts I loved about the other live action Disney princess movies were the things they changed too! (mostly) #I enjoyed Belle actively using her book knowledge to invent #I like Cinderella having that one last conversation with tremaine and still managing to walk away fine and strong #maleficent’s new relationship with aurora was excellent #we got to see jasmine’s internal life richer and better than ever #and for all it’s faults I do appreciate that they tried making Mulan a warrior who didn’t have to hide her womanhood #I do think the Little Mermaid did it best though #so all in all #I think the new Snow White has potential

[poundfooolish]

I have been on a binge reading so much bullshit about the trojan war and odyssey and myths and historicity and doing EVERYTHING IN MY POWER to absorb the stories without actually reading them.

I have to finish Ghosts of the Tsunami first but WHEN I DO-

#zip it #I had to put it down because I really was Not in the headspace to read about grief and loss on that level when I picked it up originally #It's an excellent book but it's so fucking heavy and I was not expecting so much of it to circle around the death of children #Like there was only one school in the whole country that was overwhelmed by the tsunami apparently #two-thirds of the kids in this little town drowned and it talks a lot about the recovery efforts that went on for YEARS #as well as who these kids were as remembered by their parents it's not just lists of names and ages #and that's the hardest part #Like I picked it up expecting it to be an examination of a rise in ghost sightings in the wake of disaster as a form of mass grief #thinking I could draw some parallels between the phenomenon in Japan post-tsunami and a similar uptick in post-civil war america #and it's not NOT about that it's just got a lot of other moving pieces contextualizing it in real people and the culture #excellent book do not read it if you feel like shit!

[sureuncertainty]

haunted mansion movie was really good btw

#hey my post editor finally updated! gay rights! #win rambles #more movies based on disney attractions please and thank #but yeah i like the 2003 version ngl but this one was better imo #it was more cohesive and the main themes and plot were really good #plus the nods to the ride and original lore were EXCELLENT #my biggest complaint/warning is a few ableist tropes notably the 'evil cane user is evil and has a scary cane and a limp' #overall tho? great movie and i WILL be watching it every year now around halloween #speaking as a haunted mansion/disney theme park nerd and cast member i loved it

[unproduciblesmackdown]

fury road. when furiosa has one evening of downtime for the first time in two days and also two decades and goes blankie mode

#she's everything. obviously #the rich genre of ppl driving around killing people then respectfully Not having a convo literally face to face #presumably not just downtime but also abt having had a [furiosa's big day] or two lately #your arc as a protagonist Just had its low point. you can't just walk over normally like so anyways.... #walk over normally but Cozy Mode while getting through mutually coughing up blood over the effort of a brief exchange. never gets old #anyways i'm obsessed with literally everything she does at any point & think of any of it all the time b/c. i've simply seen this film #obsessed with things other people do also and even go ''yeah this action movie is like an action movie to me'' for once but You Know #everything i could cite is like this is so funny. and so excellent. and so [aaarghhh i - ] #tangential but when i learned they were originally trying to produce this film in the 00s......god delayed that #for one thing i couldn't have seen it like at least once a week for as many weeks as it was in theaters if that happened lol #partly just so happening to go see it the first time like going ''ah. i see'' over & over after various shots like well. i'm different now #blankie mode not necessarily among them lmao but hey. 7 yrs later N viewings later you can appreciate specifics afresh #there was something or other i only Got watching it the other year for the zillionth time that wasn't even like meant to be like #an easter egg or tiny detail or anything. i just missed something / needed to receive the info totally afresh lol like oh okay [parses] #the other day it was like damn haven't read through this narrative comic in ages & that means i forget plenty of details / how they connect #had only done a handful of Straight Through catchup rereads Ever but only this time was i like ohh. i've connected some dots so much more #clearly in a case or two like [didn't quite Get this one plot point but kinda had breezed past it] [a Mystery point is obvious now] #anyways #i've gone ''did the blanket somehow survive / make the transfer'' (not so far as i can tell) like oops doing more media analysis like nice. #there's threads here....have your last seen exchange while more literally coughing up blood. more literally face to face & Yet Only Kinda.. #okay anyways. she's everything. and [cinema]

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

i’m glad that jurassic world dominion was a real ellie sattler love fest because i realized earlier today that ian got a movie and alan got a movie but ellie didn’t get a movie!!!!!

#like obviously i still wish i had the ellie sattler movie #but i do think jw3 did an excellent job letting her shine nonstop #and i wonder if part of it was because they were aware she's the only one in the original trio who didn't get her own sequel movie! #dollsome's deep thoughts

[calamitys-child]

Listening to a podcast discussing conspiracy theories and deconstructing the ideas behind them and it's reminded me of the coolest practical lessons in critical thinking I ever got, both in high school, both from the same teacher. One was a month long project on who killed jfk in which we could basically present any theory as long as we cited all our reasons and it got us really excited about research and interpretation, but it was the follow up that I liked best.

Our next project she brought us into class and showed us a documentary claiming the moon landing was faked. Gave us worksheets to do that sided with that stance. And at the end of class a bunch of us were like miss wait this doesn't seem right?? and she said okay, we'll discuss that next week. The next lesson, she showed us a mythbusters episode countering all the claims of the original documentary and gave us worksheets for that, and another bunch of people went wait miss you can't teach us two opposing things, which one is right? What do we put on the exam??

So she split the class in two and told us each to present a case based on each side, and to explain why our source was or wasn't the more reliable of the two. Got us to debate each other directly and use additional sources to back us up and explain why those sources were reliable and should be believed. And because they were randomly assigned there was no guarantee you'd agree with the stance you were presenting, but you had to present it like you did. At the end of the project she asked us all which stance we found more convincing and why, and the majority of us basically said "we think that the moon landing is real because most of the arguments against it seem like someone reacted to a confusing thing without testing it, but when you test it and ask the person running the test to explain the science it makes sense once you have more information. Also, one documentary was made with the help of scientists with qualifications and experience and the other was made by people who don't have that but like to write mystery books, which looks like a less reliable way to get an answer. But we still dont understand why you showed us both if one is wrong."

And she was like excellent. You've done exactly what you should do. At high school level, we as teachers are expected to filter for the reliable sources for you, so you know to repeat that to pass an exam, but if you want to be historians on your own, I won't be your teacher any more once you graduate. Lots of people have opinions and theories and research about times in history, and it's your job to learn how to look at them and decide who you want to trust. This won't be on the exam, but I need you all to know it. You all did a great job following the school's instructions to repeat information you were given, but for some of you, that information wasn't on a reliable foundation. I know you all know how to pass an exam. You're smart and you've been trained to follow these instructions. What you deserve to be taught is how to use all this once you don't have to do exams any more.

And then as a reward for us doing a good job at figuring out the value of checking your sources' sources she let us watch Bush get hit in the face with a shoe before we had to go to maths. Shoutout to you Ms Hannah you were a good'un I hope you're doing well ten years on from that class

[dragonwysper]

Oh yeah I'm in a music psychology class and our first assignment (afaik) was to make a short presentation on six songs that describe our lives. I wanted to share those, so here y'all go

This sounds like the woods to me, and those were a fundamental part of my childhood and a big influence in how I see the world. Also I really wanted to sneak a bit of dronescape (or dronescape adjacent) music into there lmao

My fucked up journey with my gender identity. It was. An Interesting phase. I'm not super proud of it, but it was a very chaotic time for me in a lot of ways. I was suffering with severe dysphoria, and since I didn't know why, I blamed everybody else. Throw in a few really toxic friends and influences I had, and. Yeah. Good song though lmao

Internet trauma go brrrrrrr. This is very much one of two (2) medias that I feel reflect what the internet is most clearly (the other one being Bolavlk by sournoodl). Fun song and describes a huuuuge portion of my trauma.

Threw this one in for a lot of reasons. Mainly, this song is an excellent tribute to horror as a genre (especially horror films), and horror has been the most influential genre for me. Highkey began with an interest in Creepypastas as a middle schooler, which turned into fucked up creature design, which turned into horror movies and other media. Harley Poe has some excellent horror songs.

This one is just very mecore, especially like. Post-trauma, and currently after I've had a lot of emotions tied to my trauma unrepress themselves. It speaks to my impulsiveness, this almost manic mask I put on in public, my intrusive thoughts, and the pervasive feeling of fundamental isolation from humanity (or at least general society). I feel like I've become something unrecognizable from the person I used to be, and I often feel very inhuman for it.

And this one is here because it's been a comfort song for me since I was around 15. It's lovely, and it also catapulted me into more experimental and undefined genres of music. It still makes me happy to hear, and I know most of the lyrics by heart.

I just got my classes figured out btw, after missing. An entire Week of class. So I'm catching up lmao. Thankfully there isn't too much. This presentation and an assignment for graphic storytelling analyzing Marvel and DC comics are the only two assignments I have. Everything else is just reading some class PowerPoints, documents, and segments of books. I just hope it's not too chaotic when I show up to class lmao. Hopefully I'll leave a good impression from preemptively doing all of the current assignments lmao

#i'm discussing black panther for my marvel vs dc assignment btw #the professor had us read an article discussing the fundamental differences of marvel superheroes and dc superheroes #and the assignment involves picking a superhero and talking about which comic brand they fall under according to those “rules” #i picked black panther because he really seems a lot more like a dc superhero according to all that #which i found interesting #currently reading rise of the black panther to get a better idea of the plot (since we have to summarize their origin story) #is good #i do really like marvel's panel design in their comics #classic and very dynamic #plus t'challa and wakanda as a whole are really interesting #sorry that was a Ramble #my other classes are this one discussing monsters in all their forms and another about middle eastern religions #should be fun 😤 #nice and easy since i'm transferring to another school after this semester LMAO #gonna go to a local community college that specializes in animation and video game design #they have some REALLY good programs #like half the people who were in my highschool animation program go to that college #and everybody i've talked to has all good things to say about it #plus it's like 2k per semester instead of 6k-8k 😭 #this school is fucking terrible omg. they were advertised as having an excellent animation program. get here and they're cutting it #plus a LOT of other shit. one day i'll make a post about it #but ANYWAYS #spotify #music #miracle musical #harley poe #mother mother #bo burnham #dewey martino #marina

[writingworlds]

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐄

Pairing(s): Charles Leclerc x Porsche!reader

Summary: The Porsche Princess, that nickname has followed Y/N around since birth. And who better for a princess than a prince?

Warning(s): shitty Google translate

yn_porsche

liked by milaaa, porsche, mickschumacher, and others

yn_porsche Essen und Freunde 🤍

view all comments

milaaa Mach keine Witze, du liebst das Essen mehr als ich 😘

papaporsche meine Prinzessin

yn_porsche Ich liebe dich Papa ❤️❤️

mickschumacher and where was my invitation?

yn_porsche sorry Micky but it was a girls only event

username hello??? not mick attempting to shoot his shot 😭😭

username girl I hate to break it to you but mick and y/n are only friends. They’ve known each other for years now

username day 673 of asking for Porsche to rejoin f1 permanently

milaaa 🤭🤭🤭

username milaaa WHAT DO YOU KNOW

milaaa oh nothing at all 🤭

yn_porsche 🫣🫣🫣

username y/n drop the pie recipe because it looks delicious

username y/n drop the makeup routine because you are gorgeous

username well that too

f1

liked by porscheagracing, yn_porsche, papaporsche, and others

f1 Welcome to the paddock porscheagracing!

view all comments

porscheagracing Excited to be here!

username JSHSHD OMG

username RACING ROYALTY IS BACK BABY

username ….wait…does this mean we will be able to see THE Y/N Porsche in the paddock

yn_porsche no promises but I do hope to make it to at least one Grand Prix!! Most likely the German one 😉

username DOES THIS MEAN THAT HOCKENHEIMRING IS RETURNING TOO

username THE RUMOURS WERE TRUE

username 11 teams f1 is so back

username I CANT WAIT

porscheagracing

liked by f1, mickschumacher, yn_porsche, and others

porscheagracing Get to know us!

Who We Are: Originally founded in 1931 by Ferdinand Porsche, Porsche was meant to represent excellence, luxury, and class.

Our story starts with the creation of our first sports car, the 356, to our unveiling of the legendary 911. But those are simply designs of luxury sports cars, they do not encapsulate our rich heritage of motorsport.

We have dominated various endurance championships, most notably being the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It is time, however, to take that dominance to open wheel and Grand Prix racing.

What We Do: We will be competing in Formula One starting from the 2025 season. Our goal is to bring a sense of rejuvenation back to the world of Formula One (and of course take a few world championships while we are at it).

Our team: Holding the words power, precision, and performance in mind we created a team of uniquely qualified individuals to make sure we excel in all aspects.

- CEO: Henrik Porsche

- Team Principal: Sebastian Vettel

- Technical Director: Julia Wagner

- Chief Aerodynamicist: Karl Becker

- Chief Mechanic: Michael Braun

- Strategy Coordinator: Lisa Fischer

Information on our drivers will be released shortly.

Wagen Sie es, sich von Träumen mitreißen zu lassen.

view all comments

username is that Sebastian Vettel I see???

username try as he might he can’t escape motorsport 😭😭😭

mickschumacher 🖤❤️💛

yn_porsche F1 BABY

username please please please let Mick Schumacher be one of the drivers

username if his hearts mean anything you might be in luck

username maybe I’m just dumb but did anyone else just realise that the Porsche team colours are the same as the German flag 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️

username it’s not just you I promise 😭😭

username any predictions on how good they’ll be? Cause I’m thinking they’ll start as a midfield car this year and then very quickly work their way up to the top

username i agree, they had Vettel on board as TP so he’ll give them plenty of experience in that regard but otherwise it will probably take them a bit of time to get used to f1 itself. once they do however….the rest of the grid best be prepared

username honestly i just can’t wait till they gain major sponsorship deals

username from twitter i heard they may have deals from Apple, Hermès, and of course Volkswagen

porscheagracing

liked by arthur_leclerc, mickschumacher, yn_porsche, and others

porscheagracing Please give a warm welcome to your drivers for the 2025 season arthur_leclerc and mickschumacher

view all comments

mickschumacher Lass uns gehen Porsche 🖤❤️💛

arthur_leclerc Thank you so much for this opportunity

charles_leclerc Congratulations little bro, f1!!!

username THE LECLERC BROTHERS IN F1 IM GONNA CRY

username NO BECAUSE IM SO PROUD LIKE THESE ARE MY CHILDREN

yn_porsche Zeit, Rennen zu fahren 🫡🫡

arthur_leclerc I am going to pretend I understand what you are saying

yn_porsche someone is going to need to teach you German

milaaa I volunteer as tribute 🫡🫡

yn_porsche ah yes because you are known for your brilliant teaching strategies

milaaa shush

papaporsche Welcome to the team you two! Here’s to an incredible first season in Formula 1

mickschumacher Wir lassen Sie nicht im Stich, Chef

arthur_leclerc Gonna make Porsche proud

sebastianvettel Pleasure to be working with you both 😊

username plsssss he’s such a dad

username and we love him for it

username oh for sure

Charles Leclerc

alors... Y/N Porsche

Arthur Leclerc

frérot c'est quoi ce bordel

#f1 x reader #f1 social media au #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc fanfic #formula one imagine #writingworlds

[doctorbeth]

Get Well Teddy's own trip to the doctor

Teddy belongs to a 3 year old who was very concerned by his run-in with the puppy. Even before her mom wrote to me, the little girl believed Teddy was at the doctor and being well taken care of. She thought Teddy would be quite comfy, because he clearly had been to a doctor before based on his belly band-aid. Here is his diagnosis photo:

And here is what he was supposed to look like:

Clearly, Teddy needed his little head pouch reattached, eye socket repairs with new fur, and two new eyes (they had his original eyes but they were too damaged to reinstall). As time is of the essence particularly when a three year old is involved, we did not schedule Teddy for a spa, just surgery.

So... he came to the hospital and I had near perfect fabric match for his eye sockets. Coloring his new eyes took a little time (they need to dry thoroughly before being installed and as it was rainy here, it took a little longer), but within the week he was ready to fly home. Here he is, just before he flew home to MN:

His person's mom wrote:

Oh my goodness, thank you!!!!! We will have one for pleased little girl.

and when he made it home, the family wrote:

    I wanted to thank you for restoring our F’s teddy bear, I could barely get her to bed last night because she couldn’t stop hugging him & talking to him. You did excellent work & it brought a lot of joy! Cheers

#stuffed animal repair #teddy bear repair #teddy bear eyes #get well bear #get well teddy bear #bear repair #teddy bear #stuffed animal #stuffed animals #teddy bears #stuffed bear #stuffed bears #bears

[cryptotheism]

How many languages do you speak?

You are always talking about alchemist that lived all around the world in very differente time periods. And you have mentioned several times that there's a ton of numerology hidden in their texts, counting syllables and letters of certain words and paragraphs. So one would assume you need to read them in the original language it was written, right?

That's a really good question! As with most really good questions, the answer is "kinda, it depends!"

So! Most alchemical texts are written in some form of coded language, but the nature of that code depends on the era and culture the text is being written in. Depending on how its written, modern scholars have a lot of different tools for cracking open alchemical esoterica.

Most ancient Greek/Byzantine texts are written in postclassical Greek. But, they're often written in dense philosophical prose. The reader needs to be familiar with the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and the early Neoplatonists, to make sense of them. Luckily for us, people have been studying postclassical Greek for nearly 2000 years. There are many excellent translations into English.

Late Egyptian alchemists wrote almost entirely in pictograph code. Not as in hieroglyphics, mind you. Egyptian alchemical recipes often made use of custom character sets and symbols that represented alchemical concepts. (One famous example, the Formula of the Crab, uses a complex diagram that looks like a centipede to represent a particular gold compound.) These are damn near impossible to read without expert help.

At the same time, Jewish and Syriac writers of the era could get by on the fact that not everyone could read Hebrew and Syriac lol. The language barrier itself acted as a sort of copyright system for protecting their ideas. Luckily for us, many of these texts were preserved and translated by medieval Arab scholars!

Speaking of Arabic, once you hit the Islamic Golden Age, the amount of alchemical literature increases by a factor of ten. Thing is, the Islamic Polymaths weren't all that interested in obscuring their work. The Islamic Golden Age was all about copying and translating older works, and compiling them into big textbook/dictionaries. They're not intentionally encoded, they're comparatively easy to read once you get a good translation. Thing is, you gotta know your Neoplatonism. Medieval Islamicate scholars love Neoplatonism.

Then we get the reintroduction of alchemy to Europe around the 10th century. What you get is about 400 years of monks painstakingly translating medieval Arabic into Latin. A lot of these texts are very well preserved, and have good translations into English.

Then, around the late 14th century, European entrepreneurial alchemy kicks into high gear, and THIS is where we get all those fancy numerology encoded alchemical texts. Renaissance alchemists loved themselves some puzzles. This would be fine if they were all just writing in Latin, but the printing press meant they could write in any damn language they please. You get a lot of French, German, Dutch, Italian, and antiquated English alchemical texts, and they can be a bitch to read without help.

BUT the introduction of the printing press also gave us something useful: cheap picture books! Late renaissance alchemists loved writing in word games and coded metaphor, but they also loved including esoteric diagrams. And the thing about esoteric diagrams is --if you know your stuff-- you don't need to speak 15th century french to read a picture. Which isn't a replacement for reading the original translation, not even close, but the explicit purpose of these images was to prove to other alchemists that the author knows what they're talking about. So if you can read them, you can get a damn good sense as to what the text is about.

This was fun to write so I'm gonna plug my patreon if you wanna see me write more about alchemy.

#alchemy #patreon

[llycaons]

was the mdzs donghua 'good'? hard to say. was it worth watching? I think so

#its a VERY mixed bag #the backgrounds and character choices and chemistry and music absolutely rule #yllz wwx has flowing red eyes and theres glowing green smoke and crows and shit. the aesthetic is great #glowing red eyes* #unfortunately the characters all look like dogshit and the season season is one of the most #second* #hilariously incomprehensible crap ive ever seen. seasons 1 and 3 are excellent in comparison #also the animation/action seems very cgi and stiff in many scenes #and tho it omits the worst shit from the novel d/t censorship it still has homophobic jokes and jyl has zero character #and obvs it doesn't have a y of the actual nice romantic scenes either. and weirdly not a ton of original romantic scenes but the chemistry #is somehow still rlly good by the end #also the rabbits freak me out they are drawn terribly #but overall I mean its got its good points and I really like the ending #I really like what they did w jc. idk if I would rewatch it tho #the in-series ads for ice cream were fairly distracting #mdzs txp

[kingnd]

With the end of TOH not only capping off Disney's "loose Trilogy" with Gravity Falls, & Amphibia, it pretty much marks the end of this Golden Age of Original Children's Cartoons with Heavy syndicated storylines that started back with Adventure Time. While I don't discredit show that aren't syndicated stories or even the "brand cartoons" Like Star Wars, Transformers, or TMNT there was something magical about seeing people come up with original tales from stuff they were big fans & grew up on to create a whole era that made it cool for adults to have these theories, Excellent fanart, & to be something more then what we were used to in our youths.

I can only hope I'm wrong & one day we'll see another TOH or Steven Universe or Kipo, or Centaurworld, or Adventure Time, or Regular Show, or etc. But with recent events it leaves me less enthused. But I'll still cherish that the 2010's to the early 2020's was this marvelous & revolutionary age for TV animation.

#kingnd rambles #the owl house #adventure time #Regular Show #steven universe #star vs the forces of evil #ok ko! let's be heroes #over the garden wall #amphibia #kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #centaurworld #gravity falls #she-ra & the princesses of power #craig of the creek #ducktales #the ghost and molly mcgee #moon girl and devil dinosaur #scooby doo mystery incorporated #transformers cyberverse #transformers earthspark #a bunch of others

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An adversarial iMessage client for Android

Adversarial interoperability is one of the most reliable ways to protect tech users from predatory corporations: that's when a technologist reverse-engineers an existing product to reconfigure or mod it (interoperability) in ways its users like, but which its manufacturer objects to (adversarial):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Adversarial interop" is a mouthful, so at EFF, we coined the term "competitive compatibility," or comcom, which is a lot easier to say and to spell.

Scratch any tech success and you'll find a comcom story. After all, when a company turns its screws on its users, it's good business to offer an aftermarket mod that loosens them again. HP's $10,000/gallon inkjet ink is like a bat-signal for third-party ink companies. When Mercedes announces that it's going to sell you access to your car's accelerator pedal as a subscription service, that's like an engraved invitation to clever independent mechanics who'll charge you a single fee to permanently unlock that "feature":

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/05/carmakers-push-forward-with-plans-to-make-basic-features-subscription-services-despite-widespread-backlash/

Comcom saved giant tech companies like Apple. Microsoft tried to kill the Mac by rolling out a truly cursèd version of MS Office for MacOS. Mac users (5% of the market) who tried to send Word, Excel or Powerpoint files to Windows users (95% of the market) were stymied: their files wouldn't open, or they'd go corrupt. Tech managers like me started throwing the graphic designer's Mac and replacing it with a Windows box with a big graphics card and Windows versions of Adobe's tools.

Comcom saved Apple's bacon. Apple reverse-engineered MS's flagship software suite and made a comcom version, iWork, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote could flawlessly read and write MS's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

It's tempting to think of iWork as benefiting Apple users, and certainly the people who installed and used it benefited from it. But Windows users also benefited from iWork. The existence of iWork meant that Windows users could seamlessly collaborate on and share files with their Mac colleagues. IWork didn't just add a new feature to the Mac ("read and write files that originated with Windows users") – it also added a feature to Windows: "collaborate with Mac users."

Every pirate wants to be an admiral. Though comcom rescued Apple from a monopolist's sneaky attempt to drive it out of business, Apple – now a three trillion dollar company – has repeatedly attacked comcom when it was applied to Apple's products. When Apple did comcom, that was progress. When someone does comcom to Apple, that's piracy.

Apple has many tools at its disposal that Microsoft lacked in the early 2000s. Radical new interpretations of existing copyright, contract, patent and trademark law allows Apple – and other tech giants – to threaten rivals who engage in comcom with both criminal and civil penalties. That's right, you can go to prison for comcom these days. No wonder Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Take iMessage, Apple's end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) instant messaging tool. Apple customers can use iMessage to send each other private messages that can't be read or altered by third parties – not cops, not crooks, not even Apple. That's important, because when private messaging systems get hacked, bad things happen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak

But Apple has steadfastly refused to offer an iMessage app for non-Apple systems. If you're an Apple customer holding a sensitive discussion with an Android user, Apple refuses to offer you a tool to maintain your privacy. Those messages are sent "in the clear," over the 38-year-old SMS protocol, which is trivial to spy on and disrupt.

Apple sacrifices its users' security and integrity in the hopes that they will put pressure on their friends to move into Apple's walled garden. As CEO Tim Cook told a reporter: if you want to have secure communications with your mother, buy her an iPhone:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-cook-says-buy-mom-210347694.html

Last September, a 16-year old high school student calling himself JJTech published a technical teardown of iMessage, showing how any device could send and receive encrypted messages with iMessage users, even without an Apple ID:

https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/

JJTech even published code to do this, in an open source library called Pypush:

https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush

In the weeks since, Beeper has been working to productize JJTech's code, and this week, they announced Beeper Mini, an Android-based iMessage client that is end-to-end encrypted:

https://beeper.notion.site/How-Beeper-Mini-Works-966cb11019f8444f90baa314d2f43a54

Beeper is known for a multiprotocol chat client built on Matrix, allowing you to manage several kinds of chat from a single app. These multiprotocol chats have been around forever. Indeed, iMessage started out as one – when it was called "iChat," it supported Google Talk and Jabber, another multiprotocol tool. Other tools like Pidgin have kept the flame alive for decades, and have millions of devoted users:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/tower-babel-how-public-interest-internet-trying-save-messaging-and-banish-big

But iMessage support has remained elusive. Last month, Nothing launched Sunchoice, a disastrous attempt to bring iMessage to Android, which used Macs in a data-center to intercept and forward messages to Android users, breaking E2EE and introducing massive surveillance risks:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23970740/sunbird-imessage-app-shut-down-privacy-nothing-chats-phone-2

Beeper Mini does not have these defects. The system encrypts and decrypts messages on the Android device itself, and directly communicates with Apple's servers. It gathers some telemetry for debugging, and this can be turned off in preferences. It sends a single SMS to Apple's servers during setup, which changes your device's bubble from green to blue, so that Apple users now correctly see your device as a secure endpoint for iMessage communications.

Beeper Mini is now available in Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beeper.ima&hl=en_US

Now, this is a high-stakes business. Apple has a long history of threatening companies like Beeper over conduct like this. And Google has a long history deferring to those threats – as it did with OG App, a superior third-party Instagram app that it summarily yanked after Meta complained:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

But while iMessage for Android is good for Android users, it's also very good for Apple customers, who can now get the privacy and security guarantees of iMessage for all their contacts, not just the ones who bought the same kind of phone as they did. The stakes for communications breaches have never been higher, and antitrust scrutiny on Big Tech companies has never been so intense.

Apple recently announced that it would add RCS support to iOS devices (RCS is a secure successor to SMS):

https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/

Early word from developers suggests that this support will have all kinds of boobytraps. That's par for the course with Apple, who love to announce splashy reversals of their worst policies – like their opposition to right to repair – while finding sneaky ways to go on abusing its customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

The ball is in Apple's court, and, to a lesser extent, in Google's. As part of the mobile duopoly, Google has joined with Apple in facilitating the removal of comcom tools from its app store. But Google has also spent millions on an ad campaign shaming Apple for exposing its users to privacy risks when talking to Android users:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883609/google-rcs-message-apple-iphone-ipager-ad

While we all wait for the other shoe to drop, Android users can get set up on Beeper Mini, and technologists can kick the tires on its code libraries and privacy guarantees.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

#pluralistic #multiprotocol #interoperability #adversarial interop #beeper #reverse engineering #blue bubbles #green bubbles #e2ee #end to end encrypted #messaging #jjtech #pypushbeeper mini #matrix #competitive compatibility #comcom

[metanarrates]

there are a LOT of things you can speculate about regarding what twsa was actually like as a novel but what's most interesting to me is that you can make the argument that twsa was an "unpolished" version of what orv is. it's a version of a similar novel that likely dealt with a lot of similar themes but was seemingly bogged down by poor structure, pacing, expository handling, and focus. (all of which are things that orv is shockingly excellent at.)

and of course, han sooyoung's novel, sssss-grade infinite regressor, is the "polished" version of the idea. it's well-written, probably well-plotted, and was successful enough to make han sooyoung rich and famous. we don't know what sssss-grade infinite regressor is like as a novel either, but we sort of get the impression that it's not very emotionally rich even if it is good on a technical level. han sooyoung herself doesn't seem intensely attached to it despite being proud of her work, and kim dokja of course doesn't hold it in high regard. (though of course he's a gigantic unreliable narrator and also a hater.)

what's interesting is that despite orv very strongly emphasizing the ways these works are flawed from the outset, orv itself functions as an argument in these works' favor. both twsa and infinite regressor are stand-ins for the "mass-produced" genre of webnovels. they are popular fiction, relying on a very familiar pool of tropes and clichés in order to deliver on a relatively predictable story to appeal to a wide audience. it's not a coincidence that they are so similar - both literally and in a meta sense, they are drawing on the same exact story-building and genre material. twsa is just the unsuccessful version, and infinite regressor is the successful one.

orv is what I would consider the most "impressive" version of the genre. it's well-structured, thrillingly plotted, interestingly written, has fascinating ideas and characters, and is even "literary" - that is, it has deeply considered themes and is often drawing from the realm of literary, postmodern fiction in order to express its ideas. a less sincere story would disavow itself from its pop-fiction origins and claim to be the best version of its genre. nothing else could be like it, so the worst versions of its genre wouldn't be worth considering.

but orv, while technically functioning as an argument that the genre can be "good" simply because it's a great novel that is deeply rooted in its genre, goes much further. it argues in-text that any sort of story, even those that are bad on a technical level or those that were somewhat cynically produced for a mass audience, are worth finding value in, simply because stories have meaning to their readers. the most uncritical reproduction of a genre's conventions can still mean something to someone who likes it. twsa, if it existed in our reality, would still probably be considered a very bad novel, but it wouldn't need to be polished up and turned into infinite regressor or orv in order to have value. orv itself is telling you that you should find value in twsa as it is, and by extension, every badly-done work of fiction that twsa could be a stand-in for!

#narrates #orv #all of this is Fascinating for in-universe texts to have as relationships to the actual text btw #scratching at the walls like I KNOW ITS THE POINT THAT WE CANT READ THEM... BUT I WANNA READ TWSA AND INFINITE REGRESSOR...