Just Your Average Trash

Jim grinned, amused at the assumption. "And exactly how many humans have you played against, Spock?"

"Three, if you include my mother. But she was never fond of chess, and I believe she only played it to indulge me." Spock moved his rook to the top layer as he spoke - the second most likely option of the five Jim had figured he might take. There was something to be said about playing against the most logical man he knew.

"And who was this mysterious third illogical human?" Jim asked teasingly, making his own move quickly.

"I do not know. We only ever played online, and never exchanged our real names."

Huh. Jim had thought most Vulcans didn't venture out to forums where humans played. But then, Spock wasn't must a Vulcans. He sighed deeply, fondly thinking back upon his own online acquaintances.

"Ah, I understand. I had a few of those in my teenage years myself. What site did you play on?"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I would not expect you to have heard of it, Captain; as children on Vulcan there are a number of educational sites which we have access to via our school profiles. My... adversary had, in fact, managed to confound the directory into believing he was a student."

Jim stared at him. And blinked. And stared at him again.

"Spock," he said slowly. "What is the likelihood of two humans hacking the Vulcan school system to gain access to 5D chess in 2247?"

"I have very little data upon which to make such a calculation," replied Spock.

"Humour me."

Spock didn't roll his eyes, but Jim was almost certain he wanted to.

"If you insist, Captain. I would put it at 1.254 billion to 1 - but that is a very approximate guess indeed."

Jim chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. "Of all the Vulcans in the world, it had to be you, didn't it?" he asked, his eyes brightening with affection.

"Captain?"

"I got bored of playing only against humans when I was a teenager, Spock. / made a fake Vulcan school account, when I realised why I couldn't find any other Vulcan teenagers online. I figured it would be a fun challenge. But only one ever played against me more than a couple of times - the others never seemed to appreciate my playing style." Jim grinned. "The illogic of it, you know?"

Spock's eyebrows - both of them - had been rising higher and higher as Jim has been speaking, until he had almost no space on his forehead left.

"I see," he said. "That is quite the coincidence."

"Isn't it just," replied Jim, moving his knight to queen's level three. "And it's just as impressive how easily you still lose to me. Check."

"Easily, Captain?" responded Spock, eyes glinting with good humour. At least, Jim thought they were.

"I'll have you in two moves," said Jim confidently.

"But I shall have you in one," said Spock, moving his queen in front of Jim's king. "Checkmate."

Jim looked at the board, replaying Spock's last few moves in his mind, and realising that none of them had been by the book. He looked back at his friend, a broad smile breaking over his face.

"clarinets aren't even that hard to put together they're 3 pieces" you have never looked at a disassembled clarinet in your life

"[other instrument] is worse" this post is about clarinets

"this is [other instrument] erasure" this post is about clarinets

"op has clearly never interacted with [other instrument]" this is true. because this post is about clarinets

"it takes me 30 seconds to assemble a clarinet" have you heard of a literary device called hyperbole

"everyone point and laugh" yeah that's fair

the biodome team watching grace get up in the middle of the night and easily navigate his hut without turning any lights on:

it took me asking three more times before she finally told me she wanted me to leave the fans where they are instead of moving them to my room or something. and I said oh! I had no intention of doing so but thank you for letting me know what the expectation is.

What I learned is that there is an inflexible rule about how people interact with systems. If your system would work perfectly if people Just Would, and yet they Don't, then your system is bad and you should feel bad. Systems must be built with an eye toward "will people actually do this"?

Recycling was a thing when I was a child. (The 70's.) In my home in New York State, you could carry recyclables to a recycling center. Nobody did. Now in 2024 Baltimore there is a trash truck that comes every week to pick up my recyclables, and I and my neighbors fill our cans with objects that can be recycled, because a system was developed that was easy for busy people to do, and there's a lot of social pressure to do it -- but the social pressure wouldn't exist if it wasn't easy to do. Only the most crunchy granola people bitched at you if you didn't recycle in 1979, when it required a lot of effort. Now it is considered kind of on par with spitting in the street or leaving a dirty diaper on the diaper changing table in the bathroom instead of throwing it out, if you don't recycle.

@alarajrogers what did you mean by this?

A small thing. If you want to support trans and nonbinary people, then on government forms, if they require gender and you can't get around it, allow "other"; better still, don't require gender. If you're building a medical system, and the patient's gender is M, do not gray out all the "female" problems he might be presenting with on the grounds that a man can't possibly have menstrual problems, be pregnant, or have issues with his uterus; likewise if the patient presents as F, don't make it impossible to enter a diagnosis of prostate cancer for her.

Don't set up validation rules that prevent someone with gender M from having a husband. Better yet, let "husband" and "wife" both be covered by the term "spouse", because that is inclusive of non-binary spouses as well.

Because I'm in IT, I think in terms of IT systems. But there are government systems and insurance systems and financial systems and all sorts of systems out there, that should be set up so that a gay person will be able to navigate it as easily as a straight person, and a straight person will see that the available options don't privilege them at the expense of everyone else... a subtle reminder that no, you're not the center of the universe and gay people exist. Why do you think the right wing fights so hard against there being Spanish on forms that are also in English? You'd think, it doesn't harm anyone using the form for there to be both Spanish and English. But they know, the presence of Spanish reminds English speakers that the world doesn't center around what works for them; other options exist. That's what they want to get rid of, the subtle reminder that someone besides them is important too.

This is a discussion about how to make systems work in some way other than If People Would Just, making them easier to promote the result you want, so I'm not sure how you even got "the onus is on gay people to be more palatable", and I get the feeling you don't understand the context of the discussion. I am not even sure how you could devise a system that incorporates "gay people should make themselves more palatable" because that sounds exactly like a thing that People Should Just... meaning, you're relying on humans to behave in the exact specific way you need them to for your system to work, and the whole point of this conversation is that doing that dooms your system to fail. Gay people will never Just Make Themselves More Palatable To Straights, as a cohort, so if your system for getting gay people to be better accepted relies on If Gay People Would Just, your system will fail.

“Lesson #1 how far can humans see”

This tumblr sexyman is your son!