— Julien Smith, The Flinch (via wnq-anonymous)

Fever is a hilarious immune response. Our bodies tell the disease “hey, wanna see which one of us dies of overheating first? No? Too bad.” and honestly they’re not even the winners a decent chunk of the time but it works often enough that we never evolved it away or anything. Fantastic work.

this reply is killing me

loving this new tiktok trend of 14 year olds thinking 1998 was actually the 1800s

"Female ejaculation is nothing to be scared of" keeps knocking me tf out

someone who doesn’t know shit about good omens please explain this image

Dramatic gay goth dares god to smite him down because of minor inconvenience whilst English major sophisticated gay husband and their children look on.

Excuse me they said someone who didn’t know shit about good omens

Controversial take but if you wrote a novel about two women falling in love and you changed one of them into a man you would have the most enormous smash hit of a romance book on your hands

Maybe because I met like 15 butch lesbians who are the real life equivalent of the ideal male romance lead and I have yet to meet a man who fits the archetype.

Ladies do you want a man who reads you classical novels when you can’t sleep? Bakes cakes, knits sweaters and is able to remodel your bathroom? Good with animals, kids and has a career they’re passionate about? Handsome but not vain? Sweet, sensitive but charmingly rough around the edges? A good conversationalist? Well that’s not a man, that’s my friend Jennifer

This article is giving me convulsions

he burnt his fucking cookies now he's googling personality quizzes

Possibly the greatest NPR exchange ever recorded

I too want to be so gay and in love that my relationship is part of an “institutional problem” and the actual Metatron, Voice of God, has to come down from heaven on high to stealth break us up because the miracles we do together are too strong. Power couple

Was Aaron Burr trying to conquer Mexico or was he going for affordable dental care

Probably the latter.

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

another important point about ssd versus hdd:

hdd is not only slower, but it can be damaged and lose all your data permanently if you jostle it wrong (like by dropping your backpack too hard or knocking them off a table). ssds do not have this issue, so they are safer.

if you literally never move your computer, or you're getting an external drive you will basically never move, an hdd is safe enough. but dropping them can corrupt your files so just be aware of that when weighing pros and cons!

So the counter to this is that SSDs are static sensitive in a way that HDDs are not, and data lost on an SSD is *lost* lost, not recoverable like data on an HDD.

This means that no matter what kind of drive you have in your device you should have an external backup drive that you use to make regular backups of your hard drive. I recommend making both image and file backups.

An image backup is a snapshot of your computer from a particular moment in time and can be used to restore your device if the drive is damaged and needs to be replaced. A file backup saves all the files on your computer but doesn't save any programs or changes to the operating system. Again, you should to BOTH.

External Hard drives are pretty cheap these days; I recommend getting a drive that is at least 4 times the size of the storage drive in your device so you can do regular file backups AND save at least one full image backup on the same drive. A 5TB backup drive should cost you about $100 and has a reliable lifespan of about five years. Drives don't last forever, so please plan on replacing your backup drives on about the same timeline that you should plan on replacing your computer.

ALSO JUST GENERAL GOOD ADVICE FOR COMPUTERS:

I was thinking about the line “don’t hesitate to ask if you have any more questions about love” and how that could be brought up again in season 3.

I imagine Muriel (who witnessed the divorce) would start asking Crowley questions about love. At first, Crowley would be like “you’re crossing a line- mind your business,” but eventually entertain Muriel’s curiosity because 1) even he realizes he needs to talk to someone 2) they grow fond of Muriel and are able to bond with them out of more than just convinience and necessity 3) and most importantly, Crowley knows better than to punish an angel for asking questions.

Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!

Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.

Modern writing advice: Yes your protagonist should have flaws but ultimately we should root for them and like them from the beginning :)

Charles Dickens: Here is the worst ugliest rudest meanest nastiest bitch you’ve ever met in your life.

Modern writing advice: Make sure your POV character goes through a significant arc! Make sure they are changed by the narrative! Make sure they learn a lesson!

Narrators of every book of the 19th century: the lesson I learned is these people fucking suck, sayonara you freaks

Modern writing advice: It’s all about the character overcoming obstacles and learning! They learn their lesson so they can fix their mistakes and make good choices in the future! It’s a character arc! It’s called growth! Readers love it!

Everyone from ancient times through the 19th century: would you like to watch a Guy fuck up twenty times in a row

Somewhere or other, C. S. Lewis points out (and I'm paraphrasing here) that every era of writing has its own tropes and its own blind spots; its own failings and its own successes. This is why it's important to read in lots of different eras: so you can see what does and doesn't work, in the long run, and be able to make your own informed choices about how to write.

Her mom stocked the beach with Chintz

To keep it real I fuck her on the shore

#6000 years of lack of communication (inspired by this post by @wilyserpentofeden)