you + your hobbies

two eps in, and this show is like someone took an extremely toxic psychological thriller kbl manhwa plot, dumped a huge budget on it, cast it with gritty, flawed-looking people, peppered it with guy ritchie-style violence, and stewed it in a broth of eighties nostalgia

Ezekiel Jones - World Class Thief

Bonus:

BUN & FRIENDS MECHA !!!!

☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

🌱new merch collab between @aquiboni and @veetelier debuting at Sprinkle Trinkle Town this weekend!

🌱collab merch includes a T-shirt and large sticker of the design~

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! (Science Saru, 2020)

Into the Smoke Chapter 2 Episode 27 is up!

Read the episode here, start from the beginning at intothesmokecomic.com, or share to help ITS find more readers!

The Onion dispels the common myths surrounding autism.

MYTH: Autism is caused by vaccines.

FACT: There is no scientific evidence that the microchips inside vaccines are linked to autism.

MYTH: All autistic people are good at math.

FACT: All autistic people are good at Wave Race 64.

MYTH: Bad parenting causes autism.

FACT: Bad parenting causes people to believe that bad parenting causes autism.

MYTH: Only boys can be autistic.

FACT: Girls were given access to the spectrum in 1983.

MYTH: There weren’t autistic people in the past.

FACT: Who do you think categorized all the bugs?

MYTH: All autistic people have a special skill.

FACT: Autistic people are often just as useless as the rest of us.

MYTH: Autistic people will use martial arts to kill my family.

FACT: The Accountant and The Accountant 2 are works of fiction.

MYTH: Some people with autism may never work.

FACT: That’s awesome, good for them.

MYTH: You should have been much, much nicer to your classmates with autism growing up.

Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” sonata, first published over two hundreds years ago, is notoriously considered one of the most difficult-to-play piano pieces of all time.

In particular, when Beethoven sent it to his publisher in 1818, he allegedly said, “Now you have a sonata that will keep the pianists busy when it is played 50 years hence!”, and much has been made of the fact that it wasn’t publicly performed in its entirety until eighteen years later, by Franz Liszt himself.

Except that’s a bit of a deceptive statistic. See, when Beethoven published Hammerklavier, public solo piano recitals/concerts weren’t really a thing yet. Symphonies, sure; concertos, definitely. But sonatas were “parlor” music—a thing played by amateurs, often skilled amateurs, but amateurs nonetheless, in little sitting-rooms for a bit of entertainment after dinner, or at private salons with a guest list in the low dozens. (And mostly they were meant to be sight-read! The culture of obsessively polishing a piece to make it “performance-ready” wasn’t as much of a thing, back then.) People bought these things the way they bought novels, and, just as someone might buy a copy of Joyce’s Ulysses today and enjoy puzzling over the thing, even if they never read the whole thing or feel like they fully “get” it, well… some folks would enjoy sonatas the same way.

So yeah, Hammerklavier didn’t have its first public performance until Liszt played it in the Salle Érard. But also, Liszt basically invented the format of “star virtuoso pianist hogging the stage for two hours” in order to get a public audience at all.

But in the meantime—I think about how wonderful it must’ve been, tooling around on the piano during that 18-year-span where there was no evidence that thing even was playable, or that, if playable, that the thing even made sense. Beethoven was nearly totally deaf by this point, after all, a fact that was publicly known—had he totally lost it? people had to wonder. And the only way to find out would be… well, trying it out yourself!

It has the sound of a gimmick. And I’ll bet it was, at least a little bit—but just because something’s more interesting to play than listen to doesn’t mean it’s failing in its goal. (Though fwiw it is very interesting to listen to.)

It also has the sound of, like, Dark Souls, to be honest. Proto-video game culture. A new game drops and people are asking each other: can anyone beat this boss? can you beat this boss? do you still consider your time on the game well-spent even if you never 100% it?

Biographies generally agree that Beethoven’s metronome markings (which only appear in his later work, and only *some* of his later work) are preposterous—often borderline-unplayable, and certainly not very musical. I couldn’t find a recording of anyone trying to play Hammerklavier at the marked 138bpm tempo, so I got a computer to do it—and burst out laughing at the result because, yeah, 138bpm is fucking NUTS. But whether intentional or accidental, I love the audacity of its being there, like a taunt: I dare you to do more. I dare you to do better. I dare you to try.

Much has been made of how difficulty’s a way of keeping people out—but it’s also a way of inviting people in, I think. It says: do this hard thing and you will be rewarded. You will be rewarded in the trying. Because the trying is the thing that makes the music live; there is no music without you.

Here’s an old bit from an interview with the game designer Porpentine:

“The purpose of a puzzle [in a game] is to provide resistance. For me, that resistance doesn’t need to be coercive or challenging, just interesting and aesthetic. My mechanics are to be touched. Games are perhaps the most intimate art because the player must remain touching at all times. They must touch or the game does not exist.”

There are two kinds of crustaceans that are called "shrimp" that use concussive force via cavitation bubbles as a weapon.

These are Pistol Shrimp, a group of actual shrimp, and Mantis Shrimp, which are not actually shrimp but they are the ones you probably think of when you hear "murder shrimp" and "shrimp colors" (specifically the Peacock Mantis, bc there's a lot of species for both.)

I'm not annoying enough to grumble about the mantis being called a murder shrimp, because "murder stomatopod" is objectively a less fun combination of words.

HOWEVER!! People keep drawing mantis murder shrimp with pistol shrimp claws. They are not the same claws!! They are not used the same way!!! I will explain!!!!

Pistol shrimp: A number of shrimp species which have one big megachad claw and one dinky normal one.

The dactyl, or movable part of the large claw, is snapped shut with so much force that it shoots a cavitation bubble out with a very loud snap that can stun prey or scare off predators. It's very fucking cool.

As cool as that is, there is a reason that the mantis shrimp is what most people think of when they read "murder shrimp."

This is the Peacock Mantis Shrimp. Which is not a shrimp, but a stomatopod.

(In a lot of pictures it appears like they're staring intently at the camera. They probably are, because they are alarmingly intelligent.)

Note that it doesn't seem to have the big classic claws, and that's becaus it doesnt. Please stop drawing a shrimp claw on them. Their "claw" appendages are kept tucked up, praying mantis style.

These are a raptorial appendage that do have a sharp bit, but that sharp point has adapted to add support to the club end. They use the club to punch the shit out of things. They do punch so hard that they create a cavitation bubble, but the punch is the main deal.

If you look up a mantis shrimp puncher you may find this image, but they rarely if ever fold out fully past the punching part.

The second common mistake on mantis drawings is from mixing up two types of mantis shrimp. There are punchers, which includes the peacock mantis, and stabbers. You can guess what they do.

Fun fact! The peacock mantis is the largest puncher species, maxing out at 6-7 inches. Some of the stabber species, such as a zebra mantis can get 11 inches. This is because the peacock mantis is as big as it can get before it would shatter itself with the force of its punch!

This has been the marine biologist PSA.