It's A Blog

Do me a favor! Anyone can do this.

In the US there are some national historical sites going to be shrunk down and used for gas/oil production. Look on the site: https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/oil-and-gas/leasing

Click any state, look up the region, and find out what is there. Make a comment! You can leave as many as you want and can add information (files) into your submission. Word limit is 5,000.

If you are in the US, please leave a comment opposing this:

(Left) This is a traditional Somali ship known as a beden. Traditionally, the planks are sewn together with coconut fiber instead of hammered with nails. Did you know ancient Somalia had a maritime empire?

(Right) Galway hooker, from Galway Ireland. The original cloth sails were treated with a solution made from treebark to protect them from rot, which just so happened to turn the sails their iconic rusty red color, and modern synthetic sailcloth is dyed to imitate this.

(Left) Viking boats (amongst others) were built with the planks overlapping (clinker) instead of being flush (carvel) this provides flexibility for the boat to bend instead of break in rough seas but still maintains strength.

(Right) a Māori waka taua (decorated war canoe). This particular one is Ngā Toki, and it previously held the world record for longest canoe at 123 feet long and 6 1/2 wide).

Four more that I know less about:

(Left) Haida dugout canoe.

(Right) Vietnamese Ghe Nang.

(Left) An Unangax baidarka.

So the first thing to understand about PNW dugout canoes is that they're deceptively simple in design. There's a long, bad history of people looking at dugout canoes and going "oh, how primitive", when the opposite is true. They're very difficult to make well, and even more stylistically simple forms require a good amount of knowledge and skill in construction and use.

Image 1: An unfinished canoe in Haida Gwaii

PNW canoes like those of the Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, Coast Salish, and Makah nations (amongst many others) are almost entirely made from a single trunk of red cedar, which, depending on techniques, could even be used to make two canoes. Before commercial logging destroyed old growth forests, these canoes could reach over 60 feet in length (18 meters) — to put in perspective, this is two thirds the length of Captain Cook's ship HMS Endeavour.

Each PNW culture has its own way of making canoes, and styles vary from region to region. The fascinating thing about PNW canoes is that they are essentially tailored to the environment where they're constructed. Nuu-chah-nulth canoes, designed for the west coast of Vancouver Island, have a high prow (front) and a low stern (back) which allows them to be launched directly into the strong ocean surf that is a trademark of the region. (Canoe crews would then have to either turn around or paddle backwards when beaching the canoe.)

Image 2: A West Coast Nuu-chah-nulth style canoe with its signature prow and stern

Broadly speaking, once a red cedar tree was cut, the initial shaping of the canoe would take place right there — if any defect was found in the material, the canoe would be abandoned, as dugout canoes require high quality wood. This is one of the reasons why in some parts of the PNW, you can find half-finished canoes in the forest. Once the initial shaping was complete after months of work, the canoe would be hauled down to the beach for finishing. One of the major techniques in finishing a canoe is steaming, which allows the wood to soften and expand with the addition of spacers, resulting in a light, strong watercraft that is wider than the tree it was carved from.

The technological capabilities of PNW canoes are unmatched for the region. Nations along the coast engaged in long distance trade, as well as warfare, and different styles of canoes were made for these different purposes. Makah canoes were capable of travelling over 40 kilometres offshore during whale hunts, and I have been told a story of Haida travellers many centuries ago who returned after many years away from a place where the locals ate strange white maggot-like food in bowls (possibly rice). It's also worth remembering that canoes perform better in the conditions of the PNW than European-style ships. A key difference between canoes and rigged ships is that canoes can hug the shoreline and are less vulnerable to being blown onto rocks by strong wind. While there are some significant trade-offs, this manoeuvrability makes them much better suited than the ships that Europeans arrived to the PNW in. It is also possible that they used woven bark sails in their canoes, though the existence of sails in pre-Contact North America is difficult to prove.

Unfortunately, with the colonisation of the PNW, traditional canoebuilding was threatened by colonial powers and banned under Canada's Indian Act. The only form of canoebuilding allowed in Canada was the racing canoe, and as a result, all technological development was channelled into the racing canoe, which remains a vibrant part of modern First Nations cultures in BC.

Image 3: The Loo Taas (Wave Eater), built in 1986 by master Haida artist Bill Reid — the first Haida canoe built in Skidegate, Haida Gwaii, in over 100 years

Some good resources:

https://qmackie.com/2010/01/25/canoe-steaming/

https://www.sfu.ca/archaeology/museum/exhibits/virtual-exhibits/canoes--lifeways--waterways.html

https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/projects/02tribal/canoe_tech/canoe_tech.html

saxali, @archaeos yaka wawa:

saltsəqw anqati-ikta-dakta chaku-kəmtəks-tilixam nayka, pi nayka tiki wawa kʰapa kənim kʰapa shawash-tilixam ɬaska uk wawa chinuk-wawa!

iləp ikta uk ɬush msayka kəmtəks kʰapa kənim kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam: munk-kənim kakupus kakwa wik-q'el, bət wik dret! qʰənchi-lili bastən-tilixam ɬaska nanich kʰapa kənim, pi ɬaska mashachi-wawa, "o, dret kakwa-shawash!" (pi ɬas kəmtəks "o, dret kakwa-tenas!") wik dret! shawash-tilixam ɬaska mamuk dret ɬush kənim, pi dret kəmtəks-mamuk ɬaska. ɬaska hayu chaku-kəmtəks pus munk-kənim pi munk-isik uk -- kʰənəx kənim uk kakupus kakwa wik-q'el.

[pʰikcha ixt: sitkum kʰəpit kənim ukuk kʰapa haida gwaii]

chinuk-wawa-tilixam kakwa haida-tilixam, nuu-chah-nulth-tilixam, kwa-kawka'wakw-tilixam, saltsəqw-salish-tilixam, pi mahkah-tilixam (pi hayu wəxt) ɬaska munk kənim kʰapa ixt kənim-stik. ixt-ixt, ixt kənim-stik ukuk chaku mawkst kənim kʰapa xluyma qʰata-kakwa. anqati, pi chxi hayu-ulman-stik ukuk chaku-kakshət kʰapa tiki-dala tilixam ɬaska uk munk-iskam-iskam stik, ixt-ixt kənim ukuk manaqi taxam-taɬlam huf (18 meters) yuɬqat -- dret kakwa mawkst munk-sitkum-kʰupa-ɬun kʰapa ship kʰapa kʰaptən Cook, uk nim HMS Endeavour.

kʰanawi tʰawn ɬaska kəmtəks xluyma qʰata-kakwa kʰapa munk-kənim. xluyma iliʔi ukuk tʼuʔan xluyma qʰata nim kʰapa kənim. chaku-tulu-təmtəm nayka kʰapa kənim kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam qʰiwa kʰanawi tʰawn ɬaska munk kənim kakwa kʼipʰwət-man munk iktʰas: kʰanawi kənim ukuk kʰəpit-ɬush pus uk tsəqw. nuu-chah-nulth-tilixam ɬaska miɬayt kʰapa tʼɬip-san kʰapa hayash tənəs-iliʔi. ɬaska pulali-iliʔi ukuk tʼuʔan skukum saxali-tsəqw kʰapa saltsəqw uk makuk-tʼsəm kʰapa nuu-chah-nulth-iliʔi. ɬaska munk kənim kʰapa saxali iləp pi kikwəli ʔaptsit (kʰimtʼa). munk-kakwa ɬush pus munk-ɬatwa kʰupa-iləp pulali-iliʔi kʰapa skukum saxali-tsəqw. (pi alta pus-qʰənchi kənim-tilixam ɬaska chaku-k'ilapay, ɬas chaku kʼilapay-iwa əbə ɬas munk-isik kʰimtʼa-iləp.)

[pʰikcha mawkst: kənim ukuk kʰapa nuu-chah-nulth-tilixam kʰapa tʼɬip-san saltsəqw-iliʔi-uput. saxali iləp pi kikwəli ʔaptsit ukuk, uk t'səm-nim kʰapa nuu-chah-nulth-tilixam.]

wik-saya kwansəm, munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska ɬq'up kikwəli kənim-stik pi alta ɬaska munk-kənim qʰa uk miɬayt. ɬaska tiki dret ɬush stik pus kənim. pus-qʰənchi ɬaska chaku-kəmtəks ɬas stik wik-ɬush, ɬas mash kʰapá ukuk. kakwa ixt-ixt msayka tʼɬap sitkum kʰəpit kənim kʰapa hayu-stik kʰapa chinuk-wawa-iliʔi. hayu mun ɬaska munk-kənim qʰa uk miɬayt. pi alta ɬaska lulu kʰapa pulali-iliʔi pus munk-kʰəpit ukuk. ɬaska munk ixpuy-liplip kənim. munk-kakwa hayash qʰata-kakwa pus munk-kʰəpit kənim. munk-kakwa munk-tʼɬimin stik kʰapa kənim, pi alta ɬaska munk kənim manaqi-hayash kʰapa inatay stik. so kənim chaku wik-tʰil pi skukum. ukuk chaku dret ɬaq'aɬ pi kənim-stik uk tʼɬap ukuk.

kənim kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam ukuk skukum pus hayu qʰata nim mamunk -- dret skukum pi kʰanawi iwa pot kʰapa chinuk-wawa-iliʔi. tilixam kʰapa saltsəqw-iliʔi-uput ɬaska ɬatwa-saya pus huyhuy. wəxt ɬaska pʰayt kʰapa hayash-saləks. kakwa ɬaska munk xluyma qʰata nim kənim. makah-tilixam ɬaska ɬatwa lakit-taɬlam kilometers kʰapa katsaq saltsəqw pus ɬatwa-nanich ikuli. nayka kəmtəks yaʔim: anqati hayu takʼumunaq kʰul, haida-tilixam ɬaska ɬatwa-saya pus hayu kʰul. ɬaska chaku-kʼilapay pi alta wawa ɬas nanich iliʔi qʰa tilixam ɬaska məkʰmək xluyma tkʼup məkʰmək uk nanich kakwa tənas-inəpʰu kʰapa pʰuli iɬwəli (alaxti lays ukuk). ɬush msayka kəmtəks uk kənim kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam ukuk ɬush pus ɬaska tsəqw -- dret ɬush pi bastən ship. ixt-ixt bastən ship ukuk chaku-kakshət kʰapa ston qʰiwa win ukuk hayu-pʼuxən. bət wik-kakwa kənim ukuk -- əbə wik ayaq-ayaq! pi alta kakwa kənim ukuk ɬush pus ɬatwa wik-saya iliʔi. wik kənim ukuk ɬush pus kʰanawi qʰata; munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska huyhuy kəmtəks-ɬatwa-kʰanawi-iwa pus xluyma hayash qʰata. bət kənim ukuk dret ɬush pus tsəqw kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam -- pi dret ɬush pi ship uk bastən tilixam ɬaska chaku yakwa. wəxt tʼɬunas anqati, pi chxi bastən tilixam ɬaska chaku yakwa, shawash-tilixam ɬaska munk ship-sil kʰapa lakʰlwa-kʼaw skin-stik -- bət qʼəl anqati-ikta-dakta ɬaska munk-nanich dret ukuk.

sik-təmtəm-kakwa, wik-shawash-tilixam ɬaska munk-hilu shawash skukum pus munk-tayi-wawa, pi alta wik-shawash-tayi-tilixum munk munk-kənim wik-saya hilu. pʰasayuks-tayi-tilixam munk tayi-wawa uk shawash-tilixum ɬaska aɬqi kʰəpit munk-kənim, kʰapa "shawash tayi-wawa" kʰapa pʰasayuks-iliʔi (Indian Act of Canada). alta ɬush ɬaska munk kʰəpit-ixt qʰata nim kənim: uk ayaq pi tulu hihi. kakwa pus-qʰənchi munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska tiki-munk chxi qʰata-kakwa pus manaqi ɬush kənim, kwansəm pus kʰəltəs ayaq-tulu-hihi kənim. alta ayaq-tulu-hihi kənim ukuk dret tʼukti pi hayash kʰapa shawash munk pi miɬayt kʰapa British Columbia.

[pʰikcha ɬun: kənim nim "loo taas" ("nayka məkʰmək saxali-tsəqw") ukuk. kəmtəks-mamuk munk-kənim-tilixam Bill Reid yaka munk ukuk kʰapa 1986. ukuk iləp haida kənim chaku kʰapa skidegate kʰapa haida gwaii pus manaqi takʼumunaq kʰul.]

tənəs-hayu ɬush pipa:

https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/projects/02tribal/canoe_tech/canoe_tech.html

but it's also horrifying, absolutely horrifying, for the living characters who are looking on because a.) they're watching their dead family and friends and neighbors, most of whom are covered in blood and visibly injured, get danced around like puppets and b.) it's the first time the characters are really getting a taste of the hivemind bullshit the audience has already been clued in on and c.) sure, they're just dancing for now, but they're realizing just how many hungry vampires are waiting outside to kill them at the first opportunity and take Sammie. so that's a nightmare for them.

so you could read that as a deliberate intimidation tactic on remmick's part, trying to overwhelm the survivors into giving up, but then you're like, okay, maybe in his mind this is a display of how good it is to be a vampire. isn't it good? doesn't it look fun? look how much fun we're having! you could come have fun too if you want! just let me in :3 I don't think that's impossible, that he'd be totally oblivious to how he comes across. the newly-turned vampires seem pretty bad at faking their interpersonal skills; all memory of how to act human beyond the most superficial level seems to really go out the window pretty immediately. remmick seems a little cannier than that, since we see him try to play on people's emotions more than once--appealing to the kkkouple's fear of the Choctaw to gain their shelter when he realizes they're klan, trying to lower Mary's guard by sympathizing with her over her dead mother, pressuring Grace by threatening her daughter. obviously some of those efforts are more successful than others, but he at least seems to have an ability to read the room that other vampires lack.

but it's also not a stretch at all to think he might sincerely be that clueless, because that whole song and dance number is remmick's whole thesis statement, which is that when he says he believes in "equality" he means that he'll kill anyone and turn them into one of his tools regardless of who they are. like sure, whatever, I'm willing to believe that he does sincerely find the klan objectionable, but he's also just packed full of shit. his version of equality is one where everyone's equal under him, acting out his own culture and history for his pleasure. thinks he's not racist because he doesn't care that Sammie's Black but still wants to take away everything that makes Sammie an individual and just keep the musical talent to perform a crude facsimile of being Irish.

This... kind of has two answers: Before ChatGPT and After ChatGPT.

Before ChatGPT, there were always one or two per class. I only ever taught/TA'ed for big lecture-hall gen ed courses, and a solid 50% of the students thought it was a pointless or at least unimportant checkbox they had to fill out and wanted to do as little work as possible to get it. But few intentionally plagiarized. Sure, there were some people who turned in essays they downloaded off the internet or got from their fraternity brothers, and they were easy to catch with plagiarism checkers. There was one girl who, memorably, noticed that for weeks no one was checking their weekly writing responses other than to see if they did them, so she just started turning in pure copy-pasted chunks of the assigned readings. These are people who were taking the class because they felt they were required to, who did not want to be here and don't want to do the work because if it's outside their major they feel it's a waste of their time. I think this is a very sad way to view gen ed classes, but it is a very common one.

The more interesting cases were, there were always a handful of students who genuinely didn't know what plagiarism was. Or rather, they knew that downloading an essay off the internet, slapping your name on it, and turning it in as your own was wrong, and they'd never do that... but they genuinely didn't know that copy-pasting lines from the textbook or Wikipedia uncited, or changing a few words to synonyms, counted as plagiarism. They didn't understand why you were supposed to "say things in your own words" if the original source said it better, and they didn't know that just changing a few words around wasn't sufficient. They were taught that plagiarism was wrong, but never why. These are the students who benefit most from the hbomberguy video: because he explains not only what plagiarism is, but why it's wrong, and what you should do instead, in a thorough and accessible way.

Post-ChatGPT, tons of students are using LLMs to write their essays. Tons. It's bleak. There was an assignment where students would write an essay first draft, I would give them feedback, and they would incorporate the feedback into their second draft. Fully half of students very, very obviously plugged my feedback into ChatGPT and had it rewrite their essay for them. It was genuinely crushing. I put in a lot of effort to give every student personalized feedback on how to improve their essay and they slapped it into the slop machine and called it done.

I don't know if they just don't want to do it and don't care, or if they truly think that ChatGPT is better at writing than them and they want to turn in the best essay they can. Probably some of both. And the most frustrating part is I know it, but unless they do something really dumb like cite fake sources (something I have in fact gotten before), I can't prove it to any standard of reasonable proof. So I just have to act like I believe they wrote it. It's bad out there.

Although one unifying theme is:

I would've thought in comparison to high school people would be more interested in building their skills to get their money's worth

There is a significant percentage who are not. They see the degree as a product to be gotten, the grades as a means to get it, and any method of getting those grades is worth doing. Learning and skill development is not what they are here for, Getting The Degree is. That's what they feel they are paying for. Unfortunately, that's what the system incentivizes. It's a whole system of perverse incentives where learning is a fun bonus if you want to engage in it, on the way to Getting The Degree.

read in 2025: the incandescent by emily tesh

She’s such a former gifted kid! She is so convinced that she’s learned from her mistakes while visibly Not Having Learned At All!

It’s not even “This sign can’t stop me because I can’t read.” It’s “This sign is here to stop other people. I already know I should stop, which means I am smart enough to do it anyway and not face the conses of my quences.”

And so much love to that poster, because it stuck with me, and really made me think about why I find Kel so compelling. And, in thinking about it, I've come to understand that the truth is that Kel doesn't get chosen. She chooses herself.

When Kel touches the door at the beginning of Squire, Neal tells her never to do it again, because the Chamber might kill her. And Kel proceeds to touch that fucking door every fucking year, to the point that the Chamber knows her, and remembers her, and is like, "Girl, you again??" And she's like, "Yep, it's me! Please torture me some more." She keeps coming back because she is afraid that she won't pass the Ordeal, and she keeps touching the door because when Kel can't do something, she works at it until she can. And so, she builds a relationship with the Chamber the way she does with everyone else in her story: by showing up, by being reliable, by having integrity, and by being the best version of herself she can be, every day.

I tend to believe that the purpose of the Ordeal is that the Chamber forces you to change--to realize something about yourself that needs to be faced so that you can become a better person--and that the Ordeal only ends once you've internalized that change. (This is why Joren dies).

Kel's Ordeal ends when she changes the way she thinks about the Chamber: "I thought you would be grand and terrible" she says "I thought you would make us grow up... This is just mean." She had put her faith in the Chamber to show her that she was worthy, but she was worthy from the start. This is what changes about her: she no longer seeks external validation from the Chamber; she no longer has anything to prove. She realizes was always worthy.

And the Chamber doesn't go on and on about how she's special, or the chosen one, or whatever. It just says: "You'll do."

When Blayce starts defying the laws of life and death, there is only one class of knights that the Chamber has access to, and Kel is the last candidate to enter the Chamber that year. She is the Chamber's last chance to enact any sort of will on the world outside its little room. And Kel walks in, and it knows her. She is the one who has been testing herself against it for years, and she comes back and gives it the metaphorical finger and tells it to fuck off. The entity in the Chamber is already searching for someone to do this important thing, but Kel doesn't need some elemental demi-god who exists outside of time to approve of her. She does that for herself. She chooses herself.

The Chamber didn't pick her in advance; it wasn't some mystical prophecy. It was holding a job interview, and Kel showed up and said, "It's me. I'll do it. (Also, go fuck yourself.)"

And the Chamber says: "Yeah, all right. (Thank fuck you showed up)."

What I love about Kel is that she embodies the kind of heroism that is possible for all of us. She is dedicated. She is kind. She is hard-working. She commits herself to the service of others. None of those things are superhuman. They are possible for each of us to achieve.

At the end of the day, being a hero isn't about being blessed or prophesized or having super-powers. It's about showing up every day and saying: