Baby Horse Shoe

netflix is CRAZY if they think i’m about to pay for my own account when i can just p*rate all their shit 😭

ASDFJDKSHSKS

Meanwhile, Brazil has a pretty robust consumer's defense public system called PROCON, which has already notified Netflix twice of potentially unlawful charges of login in multiple addresses, on grounds that (1) nowhere in the constitution says you can't have multiple addresses on your name, (2) nowhere in the constitution says you have to have a home (fixed address) in the first place and (3) the streaming service states that you can "watch wherever you want" (referring to the app on your cellphone), which leads the consumer to believe you can log on your profile wherever you want, thus being false advertising. PROCON is coming for Netflix's ass and I'm ALL for it

Random Stuff #12:  What is Simplified Chinese?

For people like me who grew up speaking and using Chinese in day to day life, the vast majority of us have at least a basic understanding of what Simplified Chinese is, but it wasn’t until some days ago when an English speaker asked me “what is Simplified Chinese?” that I realized not many people here understand what Simplified Chinese is.  So, I’ve gathered some misconceptions I’ve encountered both in real life and online, and I will try to answer them in a concise but factual manner.

But first, let us talk basics.  There are three things we must cover first before going into this topic.  The first is the fact that both Simplified Chinese (简体中文) and Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) used today are modern standardized systems of written Chinese, as in both were compiled within the past 100 years or so (modern Simplified from 1935-1936, then again from 1956 and on; modern Traditional starting from 1973), and the two currently widely used versions of both systems were officially standardized in the past 50 years (modern Simplified current version standardized in 2013; modern Traditional current version standardized in 1982).  However, since simplified characters already exist in history (called 简化字/簡化字 or 俗体字/俗體字/”informal characters”), and “Traditional Chinese” can be taken to mean “written Chinese used in history”, in this post I will use “modern Simplified/Traditional Chinese” or “modern Simplified/Traditional” when referring to the currently used modern standardized systems.  

Second is the evolution of written Chinese.  Usually when this is taught, instructors use examples of how certain characters evolved over time, for example one might encounter a linear diagram like this in Chinese class:

(Original picture from Mandarinpedia)

However, this diagram only gives a very general idea of how characters evolved from more picture-like logograms to the more abstract symbols we call characters today, and does not reflect the complexity of this evolution at all.  To get into these details we will need to talk about Chinese calligraphy.  In terms of the evolution of written Chinese, Chinese calligraphy–all those scripts like oracle bone script (甲骨文), bronze/Jinwen script (金文), Seal/Zhuan script (篆书/篆書), Clerical/Li script (隶书/隸書), Regular/Kai script (楷书/楷書), etc–they aren’t just calligraphy fonts, but actually change the way characters are written, and are representative of the commonly used forms of written Chinese at different points in Chinese history, as in the appearance of a certain script on a historical artifact can actually be used to estimate how old the artifact is.  Below is a (very) rough timeline of when each script appeared and when they are most popular:

(Note:  there are other calligraphy scripts like Semi-Cursive script/行书/行書 and Cursive script/草书/草書 that were never mainstream yet were also significant, especially in the case of modern Simplified Chinese, but I will mention them later so this won’t become too confusing)

So if we plug the information from the very rough timeline above into the linear diagram, it becomes this:

But wait!  There’s even more!  Because there is a thing called variant Chinese characters/异体字/異體字, which basically means that there have been multiple ways in which a character can be written (“one character, many forms”/一字多形), and these can come about as a result of homophones, personal preference of historically significant people, historical trends, mistakes in the past that stuck around, or the result of stylized scripts like Cursive script/草书/草書, which simplifies and connects strokes in a liberal manner.  The reason Cursive script is important here is because of the logographic nature of written Chinese, meaning the simplifying or connecting of strokes actually changes how the character is written.  Because of this, 马 and 馬 were forms that have already existed before modern Simplified and modern Traditional were compiled.  A diagram that takes variations and evolution into account should look something like this:

And since the above diagram did not take Cursive script into account, here’s another picture of a myriad of scripts/fonts (not in chronological order) that includes 馬 in Cursive script (mostly on bottom left):

Now you may have an idea of where modern Simplified and Traditional Chinese came from:  they are both compiled from existing variants.  Since both modern Simplified and modern Traditional are supposed to be standardizations of written Chinese, they each set a single variant for each character as the “standard”.  Modern Traditional Chinese kept the more historically mainstream 馬, and modern Simplified Chinese substituted it with the simpler variant 马.  Taking all of this into account but still keeping it concise for our topic here, our linear diagram from the beginning should be modified to look like this:

And that’s just an example of a single character.  This evolution diagram can differ depending on the character too, due to there being other rules for simplifying characters.  This is why standardizing written Chinese is an immense amount of work, but once standardized, the written language will be streamlined and much easier to use in communication.

Finally, we are ready to clear some misconceptions.

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About Common Misconceptions Regarding Modern Simplified Chinese:

“Simplified Chinese replaced all Traditional Chinese characters”. Untrue.  Modern Simplified Chinese only standardized 2274 of the most used Chinese characters and 14 radicals with simpler variants.  That’s really all there is to it.   For reference there are a total of about 60,000 Chinese characters, and about 3,500 of these are deemed to be often-used characters; so only ~3.7% of all Chinese characters and ~65% of often-used Chinese characters are simplified in modern Simplified Chinese.  Play around with any online tool that can switch between modern Simplified and modern Traditional, and you will find that many characters stayed the same.

“Simplified Chinese is the opposite of Traditional Chinese”.  Untrue.  Modern Simplified Chinese is just a simplified and standardized system of written Chinese.  Modern Simplified Chinese and modern Traditional Chinese are not “opposites” of each other at all, just different standardized systems serving different purposes.  Modern Simplified was compiled with ease of use in mind, since Traditional characters can be time-consuming to write, for example imagine writing 聲 (sound) when you can just write 声 instead.  Also back when Simplified was being introduced to the public, a huge part of the population was illiterate, especially farmers, poor people, and women, so Simplified Chinese was a great way to quickly educate them on reading and writing, and to improve efficiency in all aspects of life. Knowing how to read and write is key to education, and education is a must if people’s lives were to be improved at all.

“Simplified Chinese is Mandarin”.  Untrue.  Mandarin is a spoken dialect that came from Beijing dialect, and both modern Simplified and modern Traditional Chinese are modern standardized systems of written Chinese.  One concerns the written language and the other concerns a spoken dialect.

“Simplified Chinese was invented by the Communist Party”. Untrue.  As mentioned before, most characters used in modern Simplified Chinese are already present in ancient texts, artifacts, and inscriptions as variants.  Apparently the only character simplified by PRC was 簾 (blinds/curtain), which became 帘 in modern Simplified Chinese. History wise, Republic of China was the first to start compiling Simplified Chinese in 1935 and introducing it to the public, but this was called off after 4 months.  PRC modified and built on the original plan, and introduced it to the public again starting from 1956.

“Simplified Chinese is to Traditional Chinese as Newspeak is to English in 1984”. Completely untrue.  Modern Simplified Chinese is just a simplified way to write commonly used Chinese characters and does not alter the meaning of the characters.  There are some Traditional characters that are combined as one simplified character in modern Simplified, but the meanings are not lost or altered.  For example, 發 fā (development) and 髪 fà (hair) are combined as 发 in modern Simplified, resulting in 发 having 2 different pronunciations (both fā and fà), and each of these pronunciations carrying their original meaning.  The meaning of neither 發 nor 髪 was lost, 发 will just have a longer dictionary entry.

“Simplified Chinese is a huge change from Traditional Chinese”. Only partly true in that it is a change, but it is a change justified by the evolution of written Chinese throughout history.  The origin of most modern Simplified Chinese characters come straight from history itself, since many characters had alternative ways in which they were written (sometimes for convenience), for example these characters below.  Each row contains different forms of a single character (smaller characters indicate what time period these variants are from; ex:  汉碑 means the variant is from a Han dynasty inscription).

In reality, written Chinese has always been standardizing itself.  Less-used variants become forgotten over time, sometimes only rediscovered through archaeology.  Besides, effective written communication does partly rely on standardization of the written language (imagine everyone writing in the various variants…how horrible would that be?).  Modern Simplified just took this one step farther and made some characters easier to write.

“Traditional Chinese is no longer used in Mainland China”.  Untrue.  Modern Simplified is the commonly used form in Mainland China, but Traditional is still used in a variety of places, such as on store signs/brand logos, particularly for stores/brand that are old.  For example the old Beijing brand 天福号 below (est. 1738).  On their logo, 天福号 is written as 天福號 from right to left, which is the traditional way of writing horizontally.

Traditional Chinese is also used in the logos for many universities in China:

Another way in which Traditional Chinese is commonly used in mainland China are personal seal stamps.  Often times when people carve seal stamps for personal use (for example showing ownership on artwork they created or collected), they would put their name/courtesy name/nickname on the seal stamps in Zhuan/篆 calligraphy font, and Zhuan font use Traditional Chinese.  Of course, the ways in which Traditional Chinese is still used in mainland China isn’t restricted to these two examples here.  There are other places where Traditional Chinese is still used, such as traditional paintings/国画, calligraphy/书法, and many many more.

“People who grew up reading Simplified Chinese cannot read Traditional Chinese”.  Depends on who you are asking.  I grew up learning only modern Simplified, and I can read Traditional/modern Traditional Chinese just fine without having to actually learn it from anyone.  Most people who grew up with Simplified Chinese should be able to read at least some Traditional without help.  There are some people who say they can’t read Traditional without taking the time to learn it, but I doubt they’ve really tried, to be very honest.

—————————————————

And that’s it for the misconceptions!  

My personal philosophy regarding modern Simplified Chinese and modern Traditional Chinese can be summed up as 识繁写简, or basically “know how to read Traditional and know how to write Simplified”.  In a way, knowing how to read Traditional is a bit like knowing how to read cursive:  a lot of history could be lost if we completely stopped using/learning about Traditional Chinese, but to meet the fast pace that modern life demands, I think modern Simplified Chinese is the more convenient choice for writing for day-to-day purposes.  Since quite a few posts on this blog concern history, you will find that I usually use both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese for historical things, since modern Traditional Chinese is closest to what people used in the past, and modern Simplified Chinese is more often used now.  If it appears that I didn’t put modern Simplified and modern Traditional side by side, that usually means either the characters stayed the same and there’s no need for me to type the same thing out again, or the topic does not call for both to be shown.

Finally, the fun part.  Here’s a Seal/Zhuan script calligraphy work by Mi Fu/米芾 (1051-1107):

Does something look familiar there?

The problem with being a Creative Person is I want to create all the things. I want to draw a little drawing. I want to write a fic. I want to write a book. I want to paint with watercolors. I want to paint with oil paints. I want to animate. I want to make something out of clay. I want to sew a dress. I want to play a song on the ukulele. I want to play a song on the cello. I want to play a song on the harp. I want to write a song. I want to write a musical. I want to make a webcomic. I want to make a video game.

I want to do EVERYTHING but I don’t have the TIME or MONEY or MOTIVATION

As a trans woman I can confirm that they indeed found an ancient forest inside a 630ft deep sinkhole in China

cis people can reblog this but keep it on subject, please

Happy pride month everyone always remember that the sinkhole has an ecosystem large enough to house not only insects but likely several species of small birds or mammals

California poppy mosaic

Soft realization

ADHD

2016

Zhou Wendou

[video description: a short clip showing a large metal sphere in the center of a shallow pool of dark liquid. the same dark liquid is pouring over the sphere, coating it, while windshield wipers installed onto the sphere attempt to wipe it away, only for more liquid to immediately fall and cover the clean spots. end video description.]

Hi, I'm here to talk about something people don't usually realize is a problem, and I'm counting on Tumblr's ability to actually give a shit about things sometimes to actually pay attention.

So there's this thing called Celiac disease. A lot of people have it, me included, and it's an autoimmune disorder. The way it works is simple:

I eat gluten

My body screams and eats my intestines in response.

Not a good time, as you can imagine. As a result, people with Celiac have to avoid gluten at all costs. It's not like an intolerance where you feel sick but will recover. If you have celiac and are exposed to even the slightest amount of gluten, it will cause lasting and sometimes permanent damage to your body. It's a genuinely serious disorder.

Now here's the big issue. No one gives a shit about how careful we have to be. The tiniest amount of gluten can be enough to trigger a reaction.

I cannot kiss someone who has eaten gluten recently, or else I risk cross contamination.

This isn't some gluten free fad. This isn't some diet I can cheat on, or just an intolerance that isn't serious. I can develop cancer from eating bread. Literal. Fucking. Cancer. And just the tiniest amount of gluten is enough to trigger an immune response.

People with Celiac can rarely trust any food they haven't prepared themselves. Even food labeled as "gluten free" isn't always safe. Social gatherings where people bring food are a minefield. Restaurants are a huge risk each time.

I'm a college student, I have to eat in a dining hall. I'm terrified that I won't be able to eat anything other than salad, and even that's a risk because someone may have used the crouton tongs on the broccoli.

So please, if you work in food service and someone asks if things are gluten free, please be careful and please be honest. We're putting an insane amount of trust in you just by asking for food. Use a different cutting board, make sure to wash the knife. Little things like that can save us so much stress and pain.

It's like someone being diabetic and asking for the sugar free soda instead of the regular. We're not doing this as part of a fad diet, we're being so careful about what you serve because we don't get a choice.

Thank you.

Celiac is truly a fucking curse.

I worked with a girl who smugly told me that when she was a waitress, she asked people if they were macro or micro sensitive to their allergen. If they didn't know what she was talking about, she purposely gave them whatever it was they said they couldn't have. Because to her, it meant they were obviously lying.

I tore her a whole new one. You. Don't. Mess. With. People's. Food.

I can't handle dairy. Not any part of it. Not things cooked in butter, no dash of cream, no splash of milk. No powdered milk in my granola clusters. No lactaid. No, we-accidentally-put-cheese-on-your-sandwich-but-didn't-remake-it-because-everyone-likes-cheese. I get violently ill. In twenty to thirty minutes. People assume I'm lying because they don't understand allergies. And it's HARD to understand if you don't have them.

Don't. Mess. With. Other. People's. Food.

Even so. Those people in restaurants you're convinced are lying? I don't care. If they're being "trendy" about it. I don't care. Even if they just hate onions and tell you they're allergic, because that's the only way they've found to get people who think they know better than everyone else from putting onions in their damn food. Let me speak directly to you. I understand. I see you. I cannot blame you for the callousness and disregard of others. You're trying to take care of you.

Accidents happen and sometimes you don't know (just say that!), but we don't owe you our entire medical history just to get you to not put cheese on something, or make sure the gluten free protocols are followed, or ffs, to not deliberately give someone an allergen they asked to avoid.

Meanwhile, Daemon's face is still giving me hell so taking a break from the noodle hammock art(s) and adding some colour to bug safari pic.

Slowly getting there....

Though I am realistic about the misery in the world, I refuse to lose sight of hope.

A baby laughed for the first time today, their parents have no idea why, but they still thought it was the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. A teenager just kissed their crush and they are happier than ever. A puppy was cuddled and they felt safe. A person was hugged and they felt relief because they are being supported. Someone took a funny picture of their cat and shared it online because they believe their cat is precious. Someone finally achieve a long-sought goal, even if no one else recognizes how hard it was for them, they still feel on top of the world. Someone is singing in the street while listening to music in their headphones without noticing. People watched the sunset and thought it was magical even though they see the same sunset everyday. Someone tried to help. Someone tried to be kind. Someone tried to save a life. We try. We keep trying. We save the world (and ourselves) bit by but, every single day. And that’s where hope lives: in trying.

Reblog and put in the tags what you think is the most beautiful body part. Not necessarily in a sexy way, just like what body part is sculpted perfectly.

In case no one told you growing up

To all the kids whose parents couldn’t help you with this kind of stuff

i have this disease called i will open your message and get distracted and forget to reply and then the notification will be gone so i will not have replied for ages and you will think i am ignoring you but. i am not. it’s incurable

"But only 2% of the population is intersex. It's not that common. Why should we reframe or perception of gender for intersex people?"

Completely ignoring the fact that empathy exists. You do realize that 2% of the population in the medical field is considered very common, yes?

2% of children and 0.5% of adults have a peanut allergy and that's so common that they have entire rules around in in public spaces.

0.24-1% of the population has Rheumatoid arthritis. That's an eighth to a half of the number of intersex people!

1-2% of people are estimated to have autism, and that's considered a common condition.

0.1%-2.6% of people will get melanoma in their life time, and that's considered common.

1.2% of people have epilepsy and that's considered common.

Completely ignoring statistics like 6% of women have PCOS (which is a condition that can fall under the intersex umbrella). 2% of the population in the medical field is considered a common condition, and ergo by medical terms intersex is in itself common.

I don't think you realize how big 2% is. That's 2 in 100 people. If you walk into 3 fully filled classrooms (when I was in school a full classroom was 40 students). Chances are you just saw 2 intersex kids and didn't even know it.

So yeah. I think intersex is common enough to include in our discussions around gender and how transphobic rules affects intersex people.

-fae

Good tags for conceptualizing how much 2% is

STAR WARS APPRECIATION WEEK 2023 MAY 25: FAVOURITE MOVIE ▸ EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005) + trivia

[in/sp]

forbidden ultraviolent R-rated director’s cut ROTS when?

absolutely love it when people are like why do you like this fictional character so much look at all their bad qualities. my brothersister in christ their bad qualities are why i like them

"what do you see in them" only the very worst. i hope this helps

I can never reblog that one post that's like "what fictional food did you desperately want to eat as a child " bc I had this dinosaur book as a kid and in the book there was this illustration of a T. Rex eviscerating a Triceratops and feasting on its remains and it looked like it was having such a good time with the triceratops carcass that I would have traded anything to be that T. Rex. And I can't just add that to a random stranger's post

I see how it is you can all post about cannibalism and blood drinking and it's cool it's normal it's ENCOURAGED even but I say I wanted to indulge in the absolute carnage of felling a 26,000 lb horned beast with my hands and then feasting upon the spoils of my victory as a child and suddenly IM the weird one

Everyone says they want a weirdgirl who is hot and strange and off-putting and then she says she's harboring a secret desire to be a Mesozoic superpredator from the late cretaceous and you all switch up REALLL fast

ok i absolutely need to know what accents u all have pls reblog and tell me or comment or whatever I must know

everyone (americans) saying uwu I don't really have an accent I am Biting you