sometimes I get so angry thinking about ‘The Imitation Game’ that I have to go in a little ‘upset big tantrum room’ in my head for a calm down

like, Benisnatch Cumberque played the same character he’s always plays as an asshole genius and we were all supposed to be okay with it, but it’s basically character slander

at different parts of the movie Turing is described as ‘arrogant, “inhuman,” “narcissistic,” and even “a monster,” in the film he goes against those around him and is shown to periodically ignore and belittle his colleagues

And. I. Am. So. Angry.

Alan Turing was described by his friends and people that knew him as “intensely shy and kindly”, he was said to “inspire loyalty and affection among those who appreciated his unusual gifts” and was “unfailingly generous with his time and expertise, especially toward younger recruits”

He was kind, he was kind, HE WAS KIND, he was kind

he was kind and geeky and awkward and gay, I don’t care if the whole of society doesn’t find that compelling, I don’t care if we don’t value kindness as an attribute in men, he deserved to be loved and respected as he was, not as we wish he was

I am so sorry Alan Turing, I am so sorry your story was not told with care and thoughtfulness, I am so sorry you didn’t get to be shown to be deeply in love with the men you loved, I am sorry your great and terrible tragedy was never unfolded as a kind and brilliant man abused by a horrible homophobic system

You are a hero that turned the tides of history like no other and I am so sorry

hey op if you’re looking for a kinder movie about alan turing, you should check out breaking the code (1996). breaking the code was originally a stage play, and this is a filmed adaptation. it’s more faithful to his personality, stars derek jacobi (who was also a gay man and plays the part with so much sympathy), and it doesn’t bungle historical details for the sake of adding more drama. here’s a link to a youtube playlist where you can watch it in full

He felt bad for the children who were stuck at bletchley park without their toys so he used spare paper from his office to make them a monopoly board by hand

He was also reported as having a goofy sense of humor where he used to make a show of saying goodbye to everyone at the party and then walk into the closet instead of out the front door

Plus, he was quoted as saying quips like “Beyond the way they speak, there is only one (no two!) features of American life which I find really tiresome. The impossibility of getting a bath in the ordinary sense and their ideas on room temperature.” — Alan Turing (1936)

He was a huge athlete and biked everywhere and sometimes ran the five miles to work every morning, and did things like calculate when his bike chain would break so he could keep riding the thing despite it being ancient

He was still “odd” according to his coworkers as he sometimes wore a gasmask to work to avoid spring allergies and used to chain his coffee mug up to avoid theft at the office, but the same colleagues described him as very friendly, open, and thoughtful as well if not shy.

and finally, of course, there was Porgy

He used to practice his Cambridge lectures in front of this stuffed bear he got in college named Porgy and was delighted when his mom sewed it a little outfit. He kept the bear with him throughout life.

i keep seeing this version without any mention of turing being autistic, and how this portrayal of him as a cold cruel genius is a classic autiphobic trope we’re subjected to constantly.

he was kind, he was gay, he was brilliant, he was autistic.

Fun fact: after the American Physical Society held their 1986 annual meeting at the MGM Grand, the entire city of Las Vegas politely asked APS to never, ever come back.

Was it because the physicists were super-smart MIT-blackjack-team forerunners who took the casino for everything it was worth? Actually, the complete opposite: they didn’t gamble. At all. After all, they knew their statistics. Most of them were broke grad students who had no intention of throwing away their stipends on fundamental misunderstandings of Poisson processes. As a result the casino gaming floor was dead. Sometimes the winning move really is not to play.

@sixth-light

Me the only time I’ve ever been to Vegas - had one beer and didn’t gamble a cent. Funny thing is, they happily welcome back hacker cons, and you’d think hackers would be at LEAST as aware of probability. Apparently not!

When I was a kid living in LA, we went to Vegas pretty regularly, since it was only about 4 hours away. My parents would find coupons in the LA Times in the off season and we’d go for a few days. Our whole family could stay in one of the fancy Strip hotels for like $20 a night, and there were $5 all-you-could-eat buffets with actually good food. Plus the arcades were amazing. And so was the hiking! Which is what we were really there for. Red Rock Canyon, with all its tiny caves that you can easily climb up to, is amazingly fun when you’re a little kid. Our vacations were very much subsidized by gamblers.

Relatedly, one time when I was a kid, a large chunk of my extended family went on a cruise to see an eclipse. Everyone on the cruise was scientists or science hobbyists. The crew didn’t know what to do with us! Everyone wanted the 6 pm dinner, no one wanted the 10 pm dinner that you had to dress up for. The casino was empty for the entire week. A group of passengers demanded that all the lights on the deck be turned off at night, even the pretty decorative ones, for at least an hour and preferably more, every single night. One night at dinner, my grandmother saw dolphins out the window, and as word spread the entire dining room emptied, even though it was still the middle of dinner. And that’s not even getting into how my grandfather started talking to the cleaning staff (who were not supposed to talk back) and found out they wouldn’t be let off work to see the eclipse, and within hours had formed an entire committee to go with him to demand to speak to the captain about this mistreatment of the staff.

There are… a lot of places where large groups of scientists probably aren’t welcome a second time.

I think a large roving group of scientists causing mild chaos should be everywhere actually

cosmic horror (god loves you too much and keeps resurrecting you)

@gigi-the-bear Atlas is a menace

hey can u please take a moment to stop scrolling and watch this

even if u cant do anything personally this info needs to be known so please boost this

link to the tiktok

link to their bio

link to the website they mention

link to their instagram

and here’s some article links to what’s talked about in the video x x x x x

[Text ID :

A TikTok video made by @shinanova shows a woman in a black sleeveless shirt, dangling white (feather? fur?) earrings, and a gray fur cuff on her wrist pointing to captions between still photos illustrating the issue. Soft electronic music plays on the background.

Captions read : "Did you know how insanely expensive food costs in indigenous communities?"

Cartons of strawberries are shown on grocery shelves for 14.39. Kraft smooth peanut butter jars for 11.19. Bottles of Heinz ketchup for 16.79. Bags of green grapes for 28.19. Photos of protestors follow : Two tall men in ball caps and a third, shorter person in a fur lined hood. The man in the middle holds two signs on pieces of cardboard that read "Stop the crazy prices!" and "I have to feed my family!" The third person also holds a sign on a large yellow piece of posterboard, but the text is cut off by the framing. Two more people holding signs on orange and yellow posterboards, respectively. Posters read "High cost food in Nunavut" and "Food is expensive in Nunavut". Returning to the woman making the video, she points to more captions : "What can you do? Spread awareness about the issue. Support Indigenous People's and donate. Share the causes you find most important at Www.UnwreckTheFuture.Com to fight food insecurity" followed by an emoji of a solidarity/fight the power fist (hand closed into a fist, viewed from the thumb curled in front of the knuckles)

/end text]

hi op here please try to reblog the version with the id now please

Fantasy worldbuilding tip #137: most of the time, the word you're looking for is "wild", not "feral". Though the term may be used in other ways when referring to individual animals, when referring to a whole species, "feral" specifically means a group of creatures which are born wild, but are descended from domesticated stock. Thus, if you call a fantasy species that you invented "feral", you're necessarily implying that there exists a domesticated version of whatever it is.

This may in fact be what you intend, but best be explicit if you do!

I have absolutely used the term "Feral Undead" before.

Whether a zombie bound to a necromancer's will can correctly be described as "domesticated" is absolutely a question that people get in fights over in settings where such things exist.

I was teaching kids today and they got fixated on the usual ‘are they dead now?’ question when I was talking about historical figures. So I was just like ‘Yes, they’re dead now, everyone who was alive in the 1800s is dead now.’ and then one kid was like ‘Except for you’.

I’m sorry to hear about your scalp.

Okay I must clear this up more concretely since this has gone far beyond my circle of folks who have the context of Why This Is Actually Funny, because there are thousands of people here who are like ‘kids are so rude, kids are so evil, I hate kids’ when…

1) Kids are little humans and they’re learning and they should be treated as little humans who are learning. Don’t be a dick to kids. Adults who are assholes to kids is such a bad look, and kids remember that shit.

2) This particular child was being SO earnest and ‘except for you’ was said not as an insult but like ‘oh…you’re the last one left 😢’.

I dress like this everyone:

[ID: image of a person wearing a puffy 18th century shirt, waistcoat, and cravat.]

Thank u, goodnight.

Oh this is why every gardening person I know keeps trying to give me the food they grow

That, and we love you. Homegrown produce is a love language.

Unless it's zucchini. Then it's a cry for help.

Tomato (June) - I think highly of you; treasured friend

Tomato (September) - you are a warm body that is nearby

Fresh new asparagus - romantic love

Artichoke - fondness

New rhubarb with leaves removed - flirtatious potential

Rhubarb with leaves left on - the bloom is gone

Swiss chard - I have made mistakes

Perpetual spinach - declaration of animosity between our houses

White-fleshed potato - you are a neighbor

Blue or red fleshed potato - as above, but with overtones of camaraderie/affection

Kale - you are a person who was nearby when I had kale

Raspberries - you are a person I admire

Strawberries - you are a treasure

Onion - I am confused

Young French beans or young peas - I thought of you especially

Runner beans - mild criticism; familial ties; gift from parent to child

Pumpkins - overt romantic, sexual or childhood-bestie interest; highest declaration of loyalty

Prettily coloured popping corn, I.e. glass gem - let this seal the breach between our houses

Zucchini/courgette - cry for help, resignation

Novelty pumpkins - marriage proposal

It speaks to the most basic instinct of ensuring those you care about are provided for.

@elodieunderglass - try mashing the potatoes and then freezing. Or in any format that you can find in a grocery store freezer section. It’s worked well for us. 😊

Thank you, the OP here is @gallusrostromegalus and my contribution was limited to the “system of correspondences.” I have personally solved my potato problems by distributing them, sometimes even consensually, in my local community

They’re definitely not lost.

favorites

i don't think people take me too serious when i say i'm legally blind. Like, guys I am legally never allowed to drive, I need assistance with a lot of stuff because I can't see. People both irl and online tend to be like "oh but you're not THAT BAD OFF" it's not a thing of whether my eyes are "that bad off" it doesn't matter, they're still blind. i still use magnifying and screen readers. i'm learning braille because my eyes are getting progressively worse and I'd like to be able to still read.

I may not be totally blind, but that's the thing, a lot of blind people AREN'T Totally blind. Blindness is a spectrum. and i don't think a lot of people realize that. And I'm just as valid in my blindness as someone on the spectrum with better eyesight than me, or someone with worse.

(This is OK to reblog. I hope that sighted people who might read this really get it into their heads that blindness is a spectrum...)

the Collector just taking a nap with his friends

I'm very confused.

So back in the mid 2000s, a 4chan user created a filter that changed the word egg to duck. Following a few instances of "eggroll" being changed to "duckroll" a new meme called duckrolling was born; 4chan users would replace links with a link to a picture of a duck on wheels. As kaiasky said, rolling became a synonym for posting fake links. Then in 2007, another 4chan user replaced a link to a highly anticipated trailer with a link to Rick Astley's song and a glorious internet phenomenon was born.

🎶 What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and watch out for me?

👀 Watch out! Snowy plovers are arriving on our shores from their annual migrations, ready to nest on open beaches and dunes. Low-fuss, no-muss experts, those nests are really just delicate depressions in the sand—sometimes even in a divot left behind by a human footprint!

🧐 These skittish shorebirds are currently listed as a threatened species due to habitat loss because of human disturbances. Snowy plover nesting season occurs during the summer months when people visit beaches the most. Adult snowy plovers scurry away when their nests are approached, and it may be hours before they can return. While they’re away, their eggs can be crushed, overheat in the sun, or become a meal for a watchful predator. 

💙 You can help our snowy friends get by next time you’re enjoying some fun in the sun by keeping your four-legged friends on a leash, staying out of areas that are blocked off as bird nesting sites, and keeping beaches clean by picking up trash that might attract plover predators. Share the shore and keep an eye out on your next beach walk for a glimpse of these charming chums! 

(Via @darkspawntaxcollectors )

average rent for a one bedroom apartment by county in the US

CLADISTICS ruined my life

yall joke but this is actually a serious conundrun with cladistic-based classification

The choice is this: 

Birds are reptiles 

Or crocodilians (and probably turtles) ARENT 

That’s it, that’s the choice 

What if Bird and reptiles are two different things that came from the same thing

Nope 

Because you can’t group (lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians) without also including (birds) 

So if you don’t want to include birds in reptiles then you have to leave out some things we’ve called reptiles 

birds are dinosaurs though, full stop. we’ve already defined what a dinosaur is and it includes birds. but reptiles isn’t really defined so much as thrown against a wall angrily. 

But don’t turtles and alligators have more in common with modern reptiles than modern birds have in common with modern reptiles? I’m not trying to contradict, I’m trying to understand. Mammals and reptiles have a common ancestor as well, but we do not make them the same group.

It’s not about having things in common. It’s about common ancestry, which is how we classify animals in light of extinct species, which defy trait-based classification. 

And, the common ancestor of [lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians] by definition is also the common ancestor of birds. It is NOT the common ancestor of mammals. 

So, either we decide that Tuatara Lizards and Snakes are the only reptiles, or we include birds as reptiles. Or we just decide reptiles are no longer a thing. 

don’t throw reptiles against the wall? please? some of them are small and delicate. you could hurt them.

Basically, unless we’re maybe talking massive horizontal gene transfer, everything is still part of the group that came before it. 

You are technically a fish.

IIRC the fish thing is so frustrating that scientists have decided fish is just not real cladistic grouping at all

hey could we go back please to the bit where the closest relative of Birds is Crocodiles? bc I am alarmed

Well, technically they’re equally-closely related to crocodiles, alligators, gharials and tomistomas. As archosaurs, they’re all descended from small reptiles that looked something like this 

The two main groups of archosaurs are the Pseudosuchia, or crocodile-line archosaurs, and the Ornithodira, or bird-line archosaurs. Both groups were massively diverse in prehistory, with the Pseudosuchia dominating most land-based niches in the Triassic, and the Ornithodira, especially the dinosaurs, doing the same during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. However, most of them have been wiped out due to the Triassic and Cretaceous mass extinctions, leaving them each with only one surviving clade: Aves, the true birds, and Crocodylia, the semiaquatic, ambush predators like crocs and gators. 

This entire post sums up everything we’re not allowed to mention in our Vertebrata classes because the last time someone started that argument they had to break up a fistfight.

I’m just hung up on the humans evolving from fish comment.

Like, we evolved from tiny tree-climbing squirrels. To the best of our knowledge.

…which evolved from tiny tree-climbing reptiles

…which evolved from amphibians

…which evolved from fish.

*runs in ten minutes late with a plucked chicken* BEHOLD A LIZARD

you could have left the feathers on this time tbh

It was already plucked. They just STOLE IT from philosophy 101.

Every turn on this post has been a left, but somehow it hasn’t hit itself, and instead just spiralled outwards like some Ancient Greco-Roman floor design, enveloping taxonomy Tumblr in chaos.

May I recommend the book “why fish don’t exist” by Lulu Miller

May I recommend

the book “why fish don’t exist”

by Lulu Miller

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

...actually now that i think about it. did you have religion class in school? also was it mandatory??

extra points reblog and tell me where youre from in the tags because for us religion* is a non-mandatory class where in high school you don't get grades but extra points that might help you in other classes**

*and with that i mean Christianity Class because wow i love being in the same region where the pope is /s ** which is the only reason i kept attending

Spooked! 🛸👻🌀🌌

★✩★ ✦ ★✩★ ✦ ★ ✩ ★ ✦ ★