In case you think the writers on strike aren't making good use of their time, think no more!
Only click the read more if you're fully prepared. I'm taking no responsibility past this point.
Unmute !
nunyabizni
The Aussies have a thing or two to learn it would seem.
I’ve never seen an Ostrich look SO offended in my life.
Let’s hear it for unorthodox animal handling skills!
The ostrich is either so offended that it just can’t stand it, or it’s so confused that this other ostrich thing has gone and shapeshifted on it.
wtfneptune
UPS has reached an agreement with the Teamsters union to equip its iconic brown delivery trucks with air conditioning for the first time for new units.
The agreement, announced by UPS on Tuesday, comes as the delivery giant and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters negotiate the terms of a new contract for more than 330,000 U.S. employees. (source)
Unions work, unionize.
Workers need unions because It's 2023 and I can still see a post like this and involuntarily scream "What do you MEAN they didn't have air conditioning?!" out loud
Dear tumblr staff,
stop. its ok. you don’t need to do these things. just focus on functionality(like the video player). we don’t need these little updates when somethings(like the video player) need your focus. thank you for your time but really, tumblr looks great. try to fix more important things(like the video player) so that we can all properly enjoy the features of tumblr(like the video player)
This post is a decade old this year.
How do cards gain meaning in an occult sense? Like, both tarot and french-suited playing cards started as game pieces, but they have gained an understood meaning. Is it just someone whips up an organized table of connected ideas or is each card interpreted from a certain framework?
Oh good question!
Many things that we now consider staples of western magic are ideas that have been added to over generations by several layers of thinkers. Tarot Divination specifically is an excellent example of this!
In 1770, A french printmaker and occultist going by Etteilla published a book about how to do cartomancy with a 32-card Piquet deck. He writes down some simple but strict associations for the cards, and makes what is probably the first mention of reversals in carotmancy. He said that he learned the system "from an Italian." Now, its unclear how much of the system is his own invention, people have been doing cartomancy for as long as there's been cards, but the text presents a larval, bare-bones version of the cartomancy methods we know and love today.
Its 1780-ish. The Rosetta stone hasn't been discovered yet. Occult-inclined Europeans are obsessed with Egypt. That's where our boy Trismegistus is from! There's a concept in Egyptian mythology called The Book of Thoth, a mythical book of spells penned by the God of Knowledge himself. This was the Holy Grail for European Occult Egpytaboos.
In 1781, Antoine Court de Gébelin claimed that Tarot cards were the "original book of Thoth," Saying that Tarot cards had been used by ancient Egyptian priests for their own magical ceremonies, and that their designs contained ancient mystical secrets. This is 100% not true, but he writes a pretty fun pseudohistory for Tarot that involves Romani people bringing the decks to Europe through the Levant where they then taught its esoteric secrets to several Popes.
Then in 1783, Ettellia responded with another book. Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées tarots ("Way to recreate yourself with the deck of cards called tarots") Where Ettellia basically claims "uhm actually I knew about tarot divination way before Court de Gebelin published that big ass book. But anyway here's an interpretation of Tarot symbology that includes multiple references to Egyptian, Zoroastrian, and Greek mythology." But the smartest thing he did was include spread methods that involved Thoth and Numerology. Napoleonic Occultists fucking loved Thoth and numerology.
In 1788, he formed a little magical society for the express purpose of discussing and workshopping ideas for Tarot divination. In 1789, he made a TRULY smart decision, and published a Tarot deck that was Specifically For Magic, and that basically cemented Tarots place in magical history.
Occultists just kept iterating! Someone would speculate "maybe the suits correspond to the elements" and people went "yeah, they correspond to the elements! That makes this tool even more fun and interesting to use!" Then people go "What if the suits and the elements also correspond to parts of the Self?" and people went "Sure they do! That makes this tool even more interesting!"
But its also not just one thread. Eventually you get the Golden Dawn saying "The Major Arcana correspond to the nodes and paths on our version of the Quabbalistic Sefirot, you know, the hermetic version with a Q." and some occultists responded "Idk about that! Love what you've done with the color symbology though!"
The development of magical ideas is an iterative process. It is people whipping up a table of correspondences, but that table needs a mythology to keep it together. Originally, the mythology that gave tarot "power" was its Egyptian pseudohistory, but these days its the fact that occultists have been iterating on and fine-tuning this system for hundreds of years.
Humans don't think in tables of information, they think in stories. The cool thing about stories is that they're flexible. If magic is anything, its learning how to engineer stories to make the tables of information more effective.
the thing is this dashboard change isnt the end of the world ill get used to it whatever im just fucking dying of embarrassment that its supposed to look like twitter
twitter gets run over by a bus and the next day tumblr comes 2 school wearing her clothes like. oh my god come on
One of the things I occasionally get paid to do by companies/execs is to tell them why everything seemed to SUDDENLY go wrong, and subs/readers dropped like a stone.
So, with everything going on at Twitter rn, time for a thread about the Trust Thermocline /1
So: what's a thermocline?
Well large bodies of water are made of layers of differing temperatures. Like a layer cake. The top bit is where all the the waves happen and has a gradually decreasing temperature. Then SUDDENLY there's a point where it gets super-cold.
That suddenly is important. There's reasons for it (Science!) but it's just a good metaphor. Indeed you may also be interested in the "Thermocline of Truth" which a project management term for how things on a RAG board all suddenly go from amber to red.
But I digress.
The Trust Thermocline is something that, over (many) years of digital, I have seen both digital and regular content publishers hit time and time again. Despite warnings (at least when I've worked there). And it has a similar effect. You have lots of users then suddenly... nope.
And this does effect print publications as much as trendy digital media companies. They'll be flying along making loads of money, with lots of users/readers, rolling out new products that get bought. Or events. Or Sub-brands.
And then SUDDENLY those people just abandon them.
Often it's not even to "new" competitor products, but stuff they thought were already not a threat. Nor is there lots of obvious dissatisfaction reported from sales and marketing (other than general grumbling). Nor is it a general drift away, it's just a sudden big slide.
So why does this happen? As I explain to these people and places, it's because they breached the Trust Thermocline.
I ask them if they'd been increasing prices. Changed service offerings. Modified the product.
The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid"
Then I ask if they did that the year before. Did they increase prices last year? Change the offering? Modify the product?
Again: "yes, but not much."
The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid."
"And the year before?"
"Yes but not much. And everyone still paid."
Well, you get the idea.
And here is where the Trust Thermocline kicks in. Because too many people see service use as always following an arc. They think that as long as usage is ticking up, they can do what they like to cost and product.
And (critically) that they can just react when the curve flattens
But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.
Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that.
But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.
At this point, I normally get asked something like:
"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"
And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.
Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.
Classic examples of this behaviour are digital subscription services, where the product gets squeezed over time, or print magazines (particularly in B2B) that constantly ramp up their prices a little bit each year until it's too late.
Virtually the only way to avoid catastrophic drop-off from breaching the Trust Thermocline is NOT TO BREACH IT.
I can count on one hand the times I've witnessed a company come back from it. And even they never reached previous heights.
So what's the lesson for businesses here?
- Watch for grumbling and LISTEN to it. - Don't assume that because people have swallowed a price or service change that'll swallow another one. - Treat user trust as a finite asset. Because it is.
And I will admit this is one of the reasons I am (with sadness, because I've got a lot of value out of this place) watching Elon's current actions wrt Twitter with curious horror.
Because I've NEVER seen someone make such a deep dive for the Trust Thermocline, so quickly.
It's why I've got about 20 big accounts I'm watching on here to see when they personally feel he crosses that Thermocline and begin shifting their main effort and presence elsewhere.
Because that'll be the moment I suspect things will start changing very quickly. /END
ADDENDUM:
Been reminded of the time I was brought in to talk about this to a gaming company who I can't name.
The marketing manager got SUPER angry and was like:
"rubbish! we did lootboxing like this five years in a row and people kept paying!"
I'm:
"Mate. That's my point."
For those asking, I'm bet-hedging myself while I wait to see what happens. So you'll find me now on:
Mastodon: mastodon.social/@garius CounterSocial: counter.social/@garius CoHost: cohost.org/garius
(Although Mastodon is the only one I'm cross-posting to right now).
Tumblr is doing death by a thousand cuts to itself, and it is so sad to see
So I think the best strat here is for the users who did get the new layout to just stop using the desktop version of the site for a while, like a week or a month or however long their 'experiment' is supposed to last, while the users who didn't get the new layout should keep using the desktop version like normal or, perhaps, use it even more than usual.
My guess is that they're doing basic A/B testing on the new layout to see if it would boost engagement: the userbase is split roughly 50/50 between the 2 versions and they are going to be comparing the engagement data between the 2 groups of users to see if it's worth it switching everyone to the new layout or not.
Basically, if you got the new layout and don't like it - don't use it. If engagement metrics of group B (new layout) are lower than those of group A (no change), the experiment will be considered a failure and they will have to reverse the change.
If your tumblr suddenly looks like twitter - it's a sign to log off and go touch some grass! (or just use the mobile app since that engagement data isn't relevant to this particular experiment)
can we talk about the ups strike can we PLEASE talk about the ups strike
i know since writers and actors are already striking thats gonna take up most of the news space on social media but like. ups has until july 31st to meet the teamster's demands and if not then theyre going on the biggest strike against a single corporation since the early 1900s. the uaw (auto manufacturers union) contract is up this fall, and i believe the alu (amazon labor union) is as well. there's a huge possibility that they might strike as well, depending on how long the ups strike lasts.
im seeing a lot of talk about hollywood going down but i want to see more talk about labor rights and working class solidarity across the board... like A Lot of shit is about to go down
we're about to see a lot more propaganda by more than just hollywood, we're about to see a lot of bullshit political moves on local, state, and federal levels. dont fall for it. workers have power.
There are already news articles saying that striking UPS workers will kill people by refusing to deliver medical supplies and other vital necessities.
That is propaganda.
Striking workers are not withholding medical supplies, UPS is holding medical supplies and other necessities hostage because they don’t want to pay their employees a living wage.
Listening to the new Criminal Records and very enamored with the apparent iron-clad Law of History that goes
- There is a giant war
- The war ends - hurrah!
- The number of soldiers is now incredibly surplus to peacetime requirements
- A bunch of armed men without much in the way of prospects are just kinda hanging around
- Violent and organized crime spikes massively for somewhere between a few years and a generation
if you’ve ever wondered “how come in historical fiction and fantasy alike the countryside is always plagued by bandits,” this is why.
the "came back wrong" trope except like... they didnt. like this mad scientists wife died, and so he studied necromancy, brought her back, and she came back and it all worked. like she came back exactly the same as she was before with literally no difference. but the scientist guy is like "oh no... what have i done.... shes Different now!!!! she came back Wrong!!!!" and shes just like. chilling. reading a book. cooking dinner. shes just so so normal but in the guys mind hes like "oh shes soooo weird" but shes just normal
Peer reviewed tags from @somanyofthekids
NO its a JOKE and YOU DONT GET IT. ITS NOT THAT DEEP
While she was dead he put his memory of her on such a high pedestal that she could never live up to it alive
alternatively‚ she came back perfectly fine but he thinks she came back wrong‚ because the tragic reality is that he never actually knew his wife
im going INSANE thats MY POST.
It's your post but the journey to posting it changed it to such a degree that even its closest intimacies are now foreign to you. Sorry dude.
Me waiting for y'all to stop this shipping and age nonsense so we can start talking about Hobies very real trauma and how it effects him as a black man living under a police state
SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK.
I was talking to a friend about the differences in the way Hobie and Noir are affected by their direct confrontation methods against fascism.
Noir is pretty melodramatic, he says he enjoys punching nazis but he also demonstrates guilt around the "moral ambiguity of his violent actions", on top of seeming generally depressed when you look too closely at him, what with the whole Burning Matches Down To His Fingertips Just To Feel Something.
Contrasted with Hobie who seems very playful about his politics, implying that his activism is performance art, literally took Spiderpunk to the runway, etc. If we take a step back and think about the larger implications of his universe, yes, he should be deeply traumatized and you'd think it would manifest in easily identifyable ways, but it doesn't.
I personally think Hobie's truama is manifesting in my favorite type of black resistance, which is literally just "existing and being happy in a world that wants you dead is a form of defiance." You're not gonna catch Hobie looking bogged down by the weight of fascism because he's dedicating his energy into living his best life out of SPITE. His anger goes into taking care of himself and his own because the number 1 thing fascists want from ppl like him is to roll over and die
With October just around the corner, NASA has released its latest Galaxy of Horrors posters. Presented in the style of vintage horror movie advertisements. As fun and creative as all three posters are, they're based on real phenomena. 🎃
Can you hear this exoplanet screaming?
As HD 80606 b approaches its star from an extreme, elliptical orbit, it suffers star-grazing torture that causes howling, supersonic winds and shockwave storms across the planet. Its torturous journey boils its atmosphere to a hellish 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit every 111 days, roasting both its light and dark sides. HD 80606b will never escape this scorching nightmare.
This bone-chilling force will leave you shivering alone in terror!
An unseen power is prowling throughout the cosmos, driving the universe to expand at a quickening rate. This relentless pressure, called dark energy, is nothing like dark matter, that mysterious material only revealed by its gravitational pull. Dark energy offers a bigger fright: pushing galaxies farther apart over trillions of years, leaving the universe to an inescapable, freezing death in the pitch black expanse of outer space.
Cygnus X-1 Presents:
It’s Dinner Time and You’re The Meal!
Lurking in our galaxy, approximately 6,000 light-years from Earth, is a monster named CygnusX-1. This black hole, which has about 14.8 times the mass of our Sun, will stretch and squeeze anything it captures in its immense gravity. Cygnus X-1 is waiting, snacking on its neighboring star. Don’t get too close, or you’ll become its next meal!
This chillingly haunted galaxy mysteriously stopped making stars only a few billion years after the Big Bang! It became a cosmic cemetery, illuminated by the red glow of decaying stars. Dare to enter, and you might encounter the frightening corpses of exoplanets or the final death throes of once-mighty stars.
Something strange and mysterious creeps throughout the cosmos. Scientists call it dark matter. It is scattered in an intricate web that forms the skeleton of our universe. Dark matter is invisible, only revealing its presence by pushing and pulling on objects we can see. NASA’s Roman Space Telescope will investigate its secrets. What will be revealed?
In the depths of the universe, the cores of two collapsed stars violently merge to release a burst of the deadliest and most powerful form of light, known as gamma rays. These beams of doom are unleashed upon their unfortunate surroundings, shining a million trillion times brighter than the Sun for up to 30 terrifying seconds. No spaceship will shield you from the blinding destruction of the gamma ray ghouls!
These doomed worlds were among the first and creepiest to be discovered as they orbit an undead star known as a pulsar. Pulsar planets like Poltergeist and its neighboring worlds, Phobetor and Draugr, are consumed with constant radiation from the star’s core. Nothing but the undead can subsist in this most inhospitable corner of the galaxy.
This far-off blue planet may look like a friendly haven – but don’t be deceived! Weather here is deadly. The planet’s cobalt blue color comes from a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing clouds laced with glass. Howling winds send the storming glass sideways at 5,400 mph (2km/s), whipping all in a sickening spiral. It’s death by a million cuts on this slasher planet!
“What is it that the child has to teach?
The child naively believes that everything should be fair and everyone should be honest, that only good should prevail, that everybody should have what they want and there should be no pain or sadness. The child believes the world should be perfect and is outraged to discover it is not.
And the child is right.”
— Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Westerners are fond of the saying ‘Life isn’t fair.’ Then, they end in snide triumphant: ‘So get used to it!’ What a cruel, sadistic notion to revel in! What a terrible, patriarchal response to a child’s budding sense of ethics. Announce to an Iroquois, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ and her response will be: ‘Then make it fair!’” –Barbara Alice Mann
Omg y'all Y'ALL
3 years ago, I wonder if they have gone through all that rice yet…..
Another of the great epic threads…
i think it’s p awesome that the first compasses invented in china were not magnetic, but in fact mechanical - the cart with the little wooden man pointing south was built in a way that no matter which way the cart turned, the little man would always point south
this is a model of what it looked like
how does this work? it’s so cool and confusing
the gears are aligned in a way to always turn the little man in the opposite direction as the cart at the same rate of rotation. so if the man points at you, and you turn the cart clockwise 90 degrees, the man will be turned counterclockwise 90 degrees, and still be facing you. if you turn the cart counterclockwise 90 degrees, the man will be turned clockwise 90 degrees, and still be facing you
as for how they got the cart to point south to begin with, that goes into fengshui and cardinal direction geomancy. but long story short, the workshops that built these carts would have their front doors facing south to begin with (using the sun and the stars to figure out which way is south), so all they would have to do is build the cart facing that direction, and the little man will always point south
thank you!