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Skyrim shopkeeper, processing a transaction: I wonder what the Dragonborn's up to

Courier: yes

NCR Ranger: why

there’s this place called a library. and they have these things called books. and then there’s this thing called Google Search. where you can find books in PDF form.

friend: let’s check wikipedia in 2 seconds on our phones

Wikipedia as a reference resource is fantastic because, just like print encyclopedias, it serves as a jumping-off point for research… and so do librarians! A librarian isn’t going to just write your paper for you, we’re going to point you to the books, articles, and websites that contain the information. Wikipedia is great for that, too, because any article that gets more than a bit of traffic will wind up with sources and external links. But print encyclopedias don’t go that far in citing their sources, and because they’re static media, the references may not only be outdated, they might be entirely inaccessible due to age, obscurity, or cost of access.

And there’s an interesting thing about all those books we have on the shelves… anyone can write one, and usually they only have a handful of other people checking their work. Academic journals are somewhat notorious for the ease with which a completely falsified paper can see publication (especially in cases of electronic journals), but printed books can also be easily falsified, whether as a result of publishers with an agenda or just fact-checkers slacking off.  

 As has been pointed out above, wikipedia is really great at getting obscenely specific in terms of the topics of articles. It’s an amazing collection of data, and more importantly, it’s an amazing collection of sources of data.

Not only that, but Wikipedia cites its sources. It tells you right at the bottom of the page where all its info came from, so if you want to use a fact from Wikipedia but don’t want a teacher annoyed with you, just cite the source in the footnote. Teachers and professors are (a) not likely to check up on this and (b) it’s a real source so even if they do it’s legit?

The list of other languages in the sidebar? Look at it and check whether the article has a version in Simple English.

So here’s something to think about:

Even though he was royalty, Uncle Iroh was a master of preparing his own tea– even after he left with Zuko, he could always be seen preparing it on his own, eventually opening a successful tea shop when the one he worked at turned out to be awful.

For a firebender, heating a pot of water wouldn’t be difficult– a few seconds of rage and you’d have it at a rolling boil– but a rolling boil would ruin the tea.

The secret to a good cup of tea is often in the temperature of water that you use.

Jasmine, green and white tea tends to need between 160-180* F (71-82*C)– go any higher than that, and you’ll scald the leaves and wind up with bitter tea. Let it steep for too long, and it’ll scald anyway. So you can’t just boil the hell out of it and walk away; to be really good, a cup of tea needs a lower temperature and a softer flame. It needs patience and attention. And that’s where Uncle Iroh excelled.

*Gags* “This tea is nothing more than hot leaf juice!”

“Uncle…that’s what all tea is.”

“How could a member of my own family say something so horrible?”

DO YOU MEAN THAT ZUKO NEVER PREPARED A GOOD CUP OF TEA BEFORE BECAUSE HE WAS TOO IMPATIENT TO PROPERLY HEAT IT AND THAT IROH PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER RIGHT THEN AND THERE?

“We’ll have to make some major changes around here!” — His next line which he says firmly, grabbing the teapot and looking at Zuko as he turns.

Like literally after this the main plotpoint between these two is Iroh teaching Zuko how to be more patient/kind/open-minded while also teaching him how to properly work in the tea shop and I just…do you mean to tell me those two were actually not just random meshing plotpoints but were a direct correlation?

oh SHOOT well i cant swing 100 but how bout