THIS DOTH BUTTER NO PARSNIPS

Click in case of sadness…

what happened is you allocated those points and then you continued to level up in the areas of your choice, and now your build isn't balanced because you're not a beginner anymore. you're a specialist.

You've been knitting a jumper.

you're almost at the end.

you're playing yarn chicken on the end of the last sleeve.

you lose yarn chicken.

you go to see if you can get some more of the same yarn.

you can't find anything similar so you look at the original company from the label.

When I was 19, I made a large oil painting of the nerd I would eventually marry. I poured all my attention and care into this painting. It's the only art I have from back then that still holds up as a work I'm proud of today.

I entered it into a judged show at the local art center. It got an honorable mention. I went to see the show with my beloved model. One of the judges came up to talk to me, and highlighted that all the judges really liked the painting. It would have placed, except, you see, the feet were incorrect. They were too wide and short, and if I just studied a bit more anatomy-

I called over my future wife, and asked her to take off her shoe. Being already very used to humoring me, she did. The judge looked at her very short, very wide little foot. Exactly as I'd lovingly rendered it. I would never edit her appearance in any way.

The judge looked me in the eye, and to his credit, he really looked like he meant it when he said "Oh I'm so sorry."

Anyways the moral of the story is that all of those anatomy books that teach you proportions are either showing you averages, or a very specific idea of an idealized body. Actual bodies are much more varied than that.

In the book "Green Eggs and Ham," the main character insists that he will only eat things he likes, and refuses under all circumstances when presented with an opportunity to try something new. At the end of the novel [spoiler alert] he agrees to Sam-I-Am's request and tries them, and he realizes that he was depriving himself of a favorite food for years, just out of fear of disliking something he ate. He learns a lesson, moving forward, that if he tries new things outside his comfort zone, that he may dislike some of them, but will enjoy many of them, and if he doesn't try new things outside his comfort zone, he will not like anything but the one thing he already eats.

Do you see how we are conflating one's personal experience with the intentions of a story that nothing in the book itself suggests was created to address this experience at all?

Using critical thinking skills also means being able to make abstraction of one's subjective feelings to analyse the matter at hand. If you are unable to do this, you may live your whole life in a reactive state, constantly on the defensive even when there is no threat to your person at all.

This may make you paranoid, aggressive, and unreasonable. It may also make you self-righteous and self-pitying at the detriment of your ability to express empathy/sympathy and relate to other people, which is isolating. It may make it very difficult for you to have productive conversations with other people because being constantly stuck in a fight or flight response may make you self-centered, so you will not be able to relate to other people, understand them, or feel understood. Again, very isolating.

Critical thinking skills are important not just for media analysis, but also everyday life! They make you a more reasonable, empathetic, comprehensive person, and help you connect with other people. This is why it's important to challenge yourself with the media you consume. Not All of The Time, certainly not Everytime you consume media, but at least from time to time.

Go at your own pace and give yourself the right to examine your thoughts and your feelings objectively so that they don't rule your entire life and prevent you from richer and more fulfilling experiences. You can take a break whenever you feel overwhelmed. You can decide a specific piece of media is too challenging for you and that you simply aren't learning from it or don't care for what you're learning from it, and put it aside for a time or forever.

When I was 19, I made a large oil painting of the nerd I would eventually marry. I poured all my attention and care into this painting. It's the only art I have from back then that still holds up as a work I'm proud of today.

I entered it into a judged show at the local art center. It got an honorable mention. I went to see the show with my beloved model. One of the judges came up to talk to me, and highlighted that all the judges really liked the painting. It would have placed, except, you see, the feet were incorrect. They were too wide and short, and if I just studied a bit more anatomy-

I called over my future wife, and asked her to take off her shoe. Being already very used to humoring me, she did. The judge looked at her very short, very wide little foot. Exactly as I'd lovingly rendered it. I would never edit her appearance in any way.

The judge looked me in the eye, and to his credit, he really looked like he meant it when he said "Oh I'm so sorry."

Anyways the moral of the story is that all of those anatomy books that teach you proportions are either showing you averages, or a very specific idea of an idealized body. Actual bodies are much more varied than that.

It has long been clear that Sam (usually) wins (almost) any poll he's in - unless Bill the Pony is an option. In fact, Bill the Pony is so popular that he was previously voted the "real" hero of Lord of the Rings!

Tumblr polls calculate the winner based on whichever option has a plurality. A plurality is the most votes, and when a poll has three or more options, it often means the winner did not get a majority (50% or higher).

With tumblr polls, this isn't a big deal. However, it is a very big deal when it comes to elections. If a candidate wins with a plurality, it means a majority of voters did not vote for that person. For example, in 1992 Bill Clinton won the US presidency with 43% of the popular vote. George HW Bush got 37.5%, and Ross Perot got 18.9%, by far the highest for a third-party candidate since 1912. (We will not be getting into the Electoral College here, but note Perot got exactly zero electoral votes even with ~19% of the popular vote.)

Now, let's say that all these "vote for your favorite Fellowship member" polls were elections. If Bill's on the ballot along with all nine not-ponies, well, then there's a horse pony loose in the hospital White House White City.

But if we narrow the ballot down to just Bill and most popular non-pony, Bill is crushed and probably doesn't even carry his home state Bree.

So if you are against non-sentient animals running the country, what should you do? Vote for the guy you like the best, even though he's polling in the low single digits? Or cast your vote for the guy you like well enough but not quite as much in hopes of overpowering the "lol I'm voting for the pony; can't be any worse than Denethor, am I right folks" voters?

There are two obvious solutions to this problem that don't involve banning third parties. The first one is called a runoff. It's when you have everyone vote, then you hold a second vote with only the top 2 from the first vote. That's effectively what happened here. However, you have to go to the effort of printing up the second set of ballots and getting everyone to vote again. Ugh.

The second option is ranked-choice voting, which is sometimes called an instant runoff. In RCV you don't just vote for one person, you rank the candidates from 1 to whatever. So, let's say you really love Boromir, so you rank him #1. But if you can't have him, fine, Gimli, so you mark him #2. And if not Boromir or Gimli, then Aragorn (#3). And so on. You decide you won't even mark down Bill because you are that against animal rule, so you only rank 1-9 and submit your ballot. What happens?

First, the ballots are counted with all the #1 votes. Did anyone get enough votes to get to 50% + 1 vote? If yes, that person (or pony) wins! If not, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated from contention. Let's say Gandalf is eliminated first. Then, all the ballots that ranked Gandalf first are re-distributed according to the second choice. Does anyone have 50% + 1 now? If not, then the next-least-votes candidate is eliminated and their votes redistributed, and so on.

If you ranked Gandalf #1 and Merry #2 and they got eliminated in rounds one and two, then whoever you ranked #3 is now effectively who you voted for, until eventually you get to Sam, who wins (almost) no matter what.

(If that doesn't make sense, you can find more on ranked-choice voting here or many other places on the internet.)

But if you don't have RCV or runoffs and the poll/election is important, well, maybe think long and hard about how you're going to cast your vote.

The system needs to be overhauled massively, but shareholders should be able to sue for less and should be able to be sued (and prosecuted) for more.

You want to invest? Fine. That's what you're doing, and that's all you're doing. If you don't like the business's plans or how they handle their money, you sell your stock and go someplace else. You take the dividend payout you're given, and you're the last person in line when handing out money.

Your investment doesn't work out? That's what gambling is. Better luck next time.

We also need a law that says that if a company is convicted of a crime, it's board of directors and CEO are automatically guilty of committing that crime via conspiracy, and subject to the "for humans" laws rather than the "for companies."

That means if Wal-Mart steals millions in worker wages, the CEOs and Board are prosecuted as if they'd robbed a bank of that same amount. If Hobby-Lobby smuggles artifacts, the people at the top are prosecuted as smugglers and thieves. If a company dumps toxic waste into a river against regulations, well, if any individual human did it, we'd call them a terrorist.

It’s not embarrassing to seek help or guidance

As long as you don’t copy paste what it says, it’s not much different from googling “how to write a professional email” and reading the results in order to inform yourself better

2) you cannot fucking trust ChatGPT for help or guidance. 2a) ChatGPT is 100% working with writing whose authors did not consent to being used to teach this glorified chatbot. If you need help writing a professional email, find a fuckin article about it and get help there. 2b) ChatGPT is actively environmentally harmful to use.

3) If you use ChatGPT for literally any reason, you should be embarrassed.

@legend-of-laurel

I don’t know if this story has made it from my reptile corners of the internet to the larger public but it’s kind of a classic “fuck around and find out” situation.

Jeffrey Leibowitz is this obnoxious dude who is known in exotic pet circles for free-handling his highly venomous pet snakes. He also has the unfortunate habit of mocking anyone who voices the reasonable perspective that doing this can be dangerous not only for the humans but also the snakes involved. There’s a reason reputable facilities don’t pet and cuddle venomous snakes.

Well old Jeff has left quite a trail of terrible hot takes and unhinged rants. He feels that only people who get bit by snakes are idiots who don’t know what they’re doing. He put out this eloquent stance on the subject…

Well guess who got bit by the most venomous* snake in the world, a fucking inland Taipan he was keeping as a pet.

After he is bit, Jeff’s opinion on anti venom is swiftly reconsidered…

This guy is currently hospitalized in organ failure as his doctors try to save his life with the needed anti venom that a reptile facility was kind enough to send for Jeff. Jeff’s entire collection of venomous snakes was euthanized due to his carelessness (I don’t know what’s happened to his pet serval).

Under normal circumstances I would not make fun of someone being so severely injured by an animal, but I am quite frankly furious with this man. His hubris got innocent animals killed. Absolutely nobody needs to have an inland taipan as a pet and the insistence on free-handling these dangerous animals as some kind of ego exercise is unbelievably reckless.

I hope Jeff Leibowitz survives. I hope he learns from this experience and uses his perspective to advocate for better welfare of venomous snakes going forward. At the very least, I hope he is too embarrassed to continue posting these bizarre stream of consciousness rants against anyone who criticizes him…

These are animals with extremely specialized care needs that were receiving substandard care. Zoos and venom research facilities do not have open housing for highly venomous reptiles on the regular. There were 14 venomous snakes in his "care" and some were in plastic totes (can be appropriate for smaller non-venomous snakes like my own corns, for example, but NOT venomous) and none were in safe containment. So we have a lot of snakes in inappropriate housing and they all need to move now only everywhere is full. PLUS, any snake taken in would require extensive quarantine and health monitoring to make sure it didn't bring in a deadly pathogen like nidovirus or crypto.

It's the same pathogen reason for why the few native snakes couldn't be released.

It sucks the snakes were euthanized, but there was significant risk of escape or further bites due to the poor husbandry and nowhere with the right caging had room. You couldn't leave the baby inland taipan in a plastic bin for months and without training or anymore local antivenin it wouldn't be safe to even try to fill the water bowl.

1- he lived and doesn't seem to have suffered much permanent damage

2- He now has a baby cobra that he is free-handling in videos you can see on instagram