Hey, PSA:

On your phone, go to Settings> Security and Privacy> Privacy> Other Privacy Settings> Ads> Delete Advertising ID

Then go back to Other Privacy Settings> Google location history> Turn off Location History &/or Turn-on Auto-Delete (you can set a time period of how long to keep it)

Then, staying on Other Privacy Settings, go to '+ See all activity controls'> Web & App activity> Turn off (you can also turn-on Auto-Delete for here too)

Then Scroll down to Personalized ads> My Ad Center> Turn Off Personalized Ads.

Google has no business knowing/storing everything you do online, and knowing/storing where you go everyday. Turn it off.

These instructions are for an Android phone, IOS might be different. If you have IOS or another operating system feel free to add on with your own map to where they've buried these settings in your phone to help others.

The fact that there’s an actually functional website for the library of Babel is one of those things that fucks me up more and more the more I think about the implications.

So, if anyone hasn’t encountered the concept of the library of Babel, the idea comes from a story of the same name by Jorge Luis Borges, which is set inside a seemingly infinite library which contains every possible combination of letters, periods, commas and spaces that fits within 410 pages.

So like… It isn’t THAT out there that someone was able to make a digital version of it. Making an algorithm that randomly generates every possible combination of those 29 characters within that space and making a website that lets you explore those combinations are things that are pretty squarely within the scope of things you’d expect someone to be able to make a computer do.

But it begins to get pretty out there when you start thinking about all the things that are technically contained there (and that someone randomly browsing it could THEORETICALLY stumble upon) just by virtue of being one of those possible combinations of letters, spaces, commas, and periods.

Somewhere in that website there IS a book that specifically mentions me by full name before giving an accurate, excruciatingly detailed, 410-page long physical description of me. There’ also many more books that SEEM to be that but are actually factually inaccurate. There’s also versions of all of those containing every possible combination of every possible typo, spelling mistake, and grammatical error.

Somewhere in that website there IS a book that’s a perfectly accurate prediction of how and when I will die narrated in third person over the course of 410 pages. There’s also a book that contains the exact same events narrated in first person. Not only for me, but for every person in the world. There are many more that claim to be that but are actually inaccurate.

Somewhere in that website there IS a book that’s completely blank except for the world’s funniest dick joke written right at the end of the very last page.

But chances are no one browsing that website is EVER going to see any of that because for every book we would consider useful, interesting, or even intelligible there are millions upon millions upon millions more that are just completely full of gibberish from cover to cover.

Every single thing I will ever write (barring punctuation marks that arent periods or commas and the letter ñ) is already contained somewhere on that website.

I have a volume from the Library of Babel! it’s one of my most treasured books.

on the second to last page, about halfway down it reads “OH TIME THY PYRAMIDS” a singular grain of order in the sea of chaos.

The library of babel contains every book to ever exist and moreover it contains all information that can be encoded in a finite string of characters from its alphabet.

I cannot overstate how much I love the Library of Babel. it’s wonderful, it is my heart and soul.

at last we created the perplexing nexus, from the novel “wouldnt it be weird if there was a perplexing nexus?”

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

No Excuse to Lose, by Dennis Conner and John Rousmaniere.

Oh that’s a loaded question. I’m technically reading…..

Two By Two by Nicholas Sparks ( Untouched for over a year and half or so)

Dune by Frank Herbton ( Untouched for about a year)

The Plot by Jean Korelitz ( Untouched for about four months)

Daphne and Velma Buried Secrets by Morgan Bardeen ( Last opened last Monday)

Against the Tide by J. Elle ( Last opened last Sunday or two weeks ago, I can’t remember which)

The Spear Cuts Through The Water by Simon Jimenez ( Starting for book club this Wednesday)

I did just finish Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo just yesterday though

“ultimately, stump explains, it’s this togetherness that has been the band’s defining strength.”

I prefer the version where he’s holding flowers in place of the weapon, but this version is darkly funnier.

150 Angst/Horror Prompts

I don't think any video game I've ever played that tries to deliberately play up the "liminal spaces" angle has ever achieved even a quarter the liminality captured by sheer accident in the act of backtracking in a certain brand of late 1990s to early 2000s console RPGs.

You know the ones – from that era where the idea of linear, event-driven stories had just caught on, but the practice of putting the world map itself on rails wasn't yet de rigeur, so you could in theory revisit anyplace you'd ever been, including the areas that literally only existed for the purpose of one specific setpiece.

When you returned to such an area, all of the monsters and NPCs would be gone, and there'd be no music or audio ambience because no non-event-related soundtrack for that area had ever been written, which made the game's regular sound effects seem conspicuously louder. Just wandering around in this empty, silent backdrop; maybe you'd run into an NPC the devs forgot to dummy out who still acts like the event is ongoing, repeating now-contextless lines of dialogue and gesturing frantically at thin air. Maybe you'd stumble upon a treasure chest you missed the first time around, and the "item get" jingle would crack like a gunshot. Maybe there'd even be a room where the devs neglected to unset the event flag, and you'd suddenly be assailed by pulse-pounding techno heralding the approach of absolutely nothing.

Like, forget the Backrooms – give me a game that plays with that.

I am a GUEST and I do not DESERVE to use the good normal cups, I may only use the worst cup you have

Counterpoint, I am a guest and I DESIRE to use the WORST possible cup I can find that you have hidden away

Babygirl I will find cups you didnt even know EXISTED in that miserable little cupboard of yours

go watch Barbie

I haven't seen dancing pumpkin guy ONCE this year, are you guys okay?

FINE! I'll do it myself

Why did 12 people reblog this today??? IT IS ONLY AUGUST!!!

Ad blocking in Melbourne

so I didn't know if female jesters had been a thing in the past and looked it up and was introduced to mathurine the fool, who gave one of the best burns in history in a silly little way.

also she apparently stopped an assassination?? amazing.

[ID: She was known for her extravagant costume as an Amazonian warrior, complete with shield, armor, and a wooden sword. She was famous for her sharp wit, and there were many anecdotes about it. One of them was an occasion, in which a lady in waiting complained that she did not like having a fool at her right side, upon which Mathurine jumped to the lady’s other side and announced: “I don’t mind it at all.” /end ID]

Circus performers (1940s, 1950s)

There's an essay I've never written about the relationship between superheroes in American Comics and costumed performers in American Circuses of the same period, and how the comics characters were the circus performers, and I will probably never get around to writing it. But then I see photos like this and wish I'd written it 30 years ago.

"genre-savvy" no i want a genre-unsavvy protagonist. scratch that, i want a genre-deluded protagonist.

i want a protagonist who is convinced until the last possible moment that they're in a lighthearted romcom--despite the proliferation of slasher murders. give me a soccer dad who is just so determined to enjoy family vacation, despite the fact the kids summoned an eldritch deity from the lake. a preteen who is experiencing a coming-of-age saga and annoyed their parents aren't emotionally present (the parents are distracted by a literal zombie apocalypse). endless possibilities

genre-dysphoria

A very clear romance novel to the reader but the narrator/ main character is touch-averse/asexual

"why do we even have that lever" is made funnier by the fact there are only 2 levers to begin with (disguised as a pair of tusks on a statue)

i find the implications hilarious:

why do we even have that lever? because you built it yzma. these are the machinations of your own design yzma! YOU ARE TANGLED IN A WEB OF YOUR OWN WEAVING YZMA! YZMA THAT IS YOUR CROCODILE!!!

shout-out to everyone in the notes claiming that kronk pulled the wrong lever on purpose. you are so right, this is the face of a himbo who knows what's up

#the best thing about kronk is that he is very very competent just at nothing in his actual job description #yzma keeps him around so she can be competent-passing in comparison but she is ALSO a dumbass! #dream team

the thing that gets me about about barbie is that barbie land wasn’t even purposefully a matriarchy, barbie land came about because of the way little girls were playing with their barbies, it wasn’t created by mattel it was created by the people using the toys, so the fact that the barbies ignored the ken’s and had girls night every night wasn’t because they had some bias against him, it was just an accurate depiction of how kids play with barbies. I had some ken dolls as a child and they were essential to the plot in the sense that of course my barbie has a boyfriend because that represented the world i saw around me, but also he didn’t have any purpose in my dream world because i was only interested in what the girls were doing because they represented me and how i wanted to be, I wanted girls night every night I wanted the girls to be president and austronauts and not because of some inherent feminist idea but because I was a girl and I wasn’t thinking about boys, ken was an accessory. this movie wasn’t made to change the world but it showed a different perspective than what we usually see which I thought was fun. Men don’t have to be the centre of all our stories and its not even because we hate them, sometimes we’re just not thinking about them

my friend asked me if it was worth watching «Nancy Drew», and i said i started watching a show in which a red-haired detective has sex with a long-haired handsome guy, and now they've broken up a thousand times, they're cursed, and Nancy talks about past lives with a guy i definitely wouldn't want to see last season. and, oh yeah, she didn't have sex with a long-haired guy.

the guys from tumblr, whose gifs i believed: what the fuck?

But is it worth it? Yes, absolutely.

you mean to ask whether i can zone out at will?

Yes, and when you do so are you thinking of nothing at all?

I can do it and still be functioning it on command. I did it while writing this post

I sent a letter today - something I haven’t done for years

It’s full of plastic bread clips

It’s for Science

At the risk of loosing some mystery, I think I should add some context:

There’s this website-I mean, scientific organization called the Holotypic Occlupanid Reasurch Group.

They are a group of abiologists who study and classify Bread clips.

I found a species that has not yet been described:

Yay for citizen science 👍

wtf?

Apparently HORG is widely appreciated by pediatricians since knowing exactly what kind of Occlupanid a child may have swallowed makes removing it safely much easier

IIRC this is actually part of the reason HORG was started. A man swallowed a breadclip and the clip closed around part of his tissue linings (in his intestines I think?). The specific shape and flexibility of the clip were significant determining factors in the removal process, as some bread clips have spikes and prongs that would have made extraction more complicated. They started the taxonomy so they could work out extraction techniques for each type.

are you fucking kidding me occlu like oculus or close and panid like bread. its a fancy word for breadcloser

happy very specific archive thursday, everyone