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Quietly Thinking Aloud

@blue-author / blue-author.tumblr.com

The personal tumblrogue of Alexandra Erin, author of Tales of MU and other stories. Currently on semi-hiatus; most original content will be crossposts from my main blog.
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reading letters from 1818 is wild

“it’s that time of the year when I get colds for no apparent reason again” have some Clairitin hon

But also we’re not becoming allergic to everything nowadays like certain white moms fear. Allergies have always existed. They were just talked about differently

Like “oh clams always ~turn my stomach~”. Or “what a pity he was taken from us at age 5”

“Well we didn’t have all this fancy chronic illness stuff in the Olden Days, what did people do then??”

They died, Ashleigh. 

This is a picture tracking bullet holes on Allied planes that encountered Nazi anti-aircraft fire in WW2.

At first, the military wanted to reinforce those areas, because obviously that’s where the ground crews observed the most damage on returning planes. Until Hungarian-born Jewish mathematician Abraham Wald pointed out that this was the damage on the planes that made it home, and the Allies should armor the areas where there are no dots at all, because those are the places where the planes won’t survive when hit. This phenomenon is called survivorship bias, a logic error where you focus on things that survived when you should really be looking at things that didn’t.

We have higher rates of mental illness now? Maybe that’s because we’ve stopped killing people for being “possessed” or “witches.” Higher rate of allergies? Anaphylaxis kills, and does so really fast if you don’t know what’s happening. Higher claims of rape? Maybe victims are less afraid of coming forward. These problems were all happening before, but now we’ve reinforced the medical and social structures needed to help these people survive. And we still have a long way to go.

This is one of my favorite anecdotes to show how clever rewording of statistics can make them say the opposite of what they mean:

Every time a state makes riding a motorcycle without a helmet illegal, the number of ER patients seriously injured in motorcycle accidents skyrockets. Every single time.

When you phrase it just right, it makes it sound like it’s more dangerous to ride a motorcycle with a helmet than without one. Of course, the reality is that before those laws, those patients were going to the morgue, not the ER.

That also reminds me of a story from world war 1 where the soldiers started to take their helmets off because more soldiers would come back injured while wearing a helmet. That’s because if they didn’t have a helmet they died.

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voyagerprobe

why are there so many posts about asexuals being immune to sirens. people. sirens don’t lure you in with sex (necessarily). they sing about whatever it is that you want most. they could sing about mothman or cinnamon toast crunch and guess what then your asexual pirate is fucking dead

this is the only kind of ace discourse i ever want to see on my dash. the only kind. ever again. good job

Do you think the sirens would be grateful that they finally get some variety? 

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systlin

“Oh my god we can finally just sing about pasta thank the fucking gods.” 

I’m not asexual but I’m fairly certain sirens would do a far better job luring me into the depths with a song about pasta rather than sex…

I mean

“WHAT THE FUCK STAY AWAY FROM THE ROCKS.”

“FUCKER THEY SAID THEY HAVE FETTUCCINE CARBONARA AND HOT GARLIC BREAD OVER THERE HANG ON BITCH.” 

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musicalhell

This is true; Odysseus heard them promising him knowledge of the future.  So the next time you see artwork like this:

Remember those sultry naked chicks are saying “We’ll tell you the winning lotto numbers.”

Them: “We have unlimited wifi at incredible speeds~” Me: *diving headfirst into the water*

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rpluvsyj

This post is a blessing

Congratulations! Odysseus! You’ve been selected as a winner for the free $1000 Amazon Gift Card, Apple iPhone X 256G or Samsung Galaxy S8! Claim your prize now!

Oh my god sirens were literally scam websites

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honeypunks

you could say…phishing scam…

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lueminous

I honestly don’t know how to tell you these shocking facts but fucked up things in stories were not invented by AO3

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soyeahso

I literally saw that someone replied to a post that talked about content in public libraries saying that that content should be regulated as well and Im just like when your statement can’t be distinguished from something a Southern Baptist pastor would say you really need to take a hard look at what kind of belief system you’ve let yourself fall into.

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reblogged

last time i did this my wish really came true. so im going to wish again

nothing to lose. :))

Let’s hope

Why not? :)

*crossing fingers*

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tkaaay

pretty much^^^^

i got nothing to lose. (:

Last time i did this my wish came true.

Jesus Christ if my wish comes true I will piss

im fucking crying of joy at the /thought/ of my wish coming true…

it came true last time…so why not

<3

hoping and praying…

Why not.

lets see.

my wish came true……………..this is creepy

Why not lol

Let’s see if it works 🥀➰

I doubt it will work but anyhow

I will always reblog this as long as I have hope

📚 🍵

Here’s hoping…

🐽

Praying for this to work💫

・゚✧

🙏🏾🙏🏾

🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

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skyliting

🧚🏽‍♀️⭐

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I will never not share this when I come across it.

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Is anything more beautiful than a black cat who has found a place in the sun? https://www.instagram.com/p/B8610rMAIEL/?igshid=lbo8qvfc3bop

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rootkit

Gif stands for Graphics Interchange Format. when graphics is pronounced “JAFFICKS” Then I will pronounce Gif with a “J”

^ This

It’s followed by an R of course it would be a hard g. But Giraffe is a soft g. Genius is a soft g. Gin is pronounced with a soft g too. GIF is I following a g, it would be pronounced with a soft g.

It aint Jif peanut butter though.

It would still be pronounced like that. The general rule is if the g is followed by an e or i, it’s soft g. U or a consonant is generally a hard g.

I will DIE WITH MY HONOR

Gear =/= Jear

Get =/= Jet

Gift =/= Jift

Give =/= Jive

In English, words with a ‘G’ followed by an ‘e’ or an ‘i’ can be pronounced with either a hard ‘G’ or a soft ‘G’.

Words with Germanic roots such as ‘gear’, ‘get’, ‘gift’, ‘give’ (see above) are pronounced with a hard ‘g’ while words with Latin or Greek roots such as ‘gem’, ‘general’, ‘giraffe’, ‘giant’, are pronounced with a soft ‘g’.

So no, it’s not exactly a “general rule” that ‘g’ followed by an ‘e’ or an ‘i’ makes a soft ‘g’ sound. 

Additionally, “GIF” is an ACRONYM starting with a word that begins with a hard ‘g’ sound, so “GIF” is therefore pronounced with a hard ‘g’.

We fight with honor

via @greenwoodthegreat. I could not have said it better, my friend.

This is a perfect compromise, it makes everyone unhappy.

You know, I can’t argue with that.

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”So I feel like this is the perfect time for a film like this. I feel like the film has become more important and more relevant today, which is a sad thing.” – Oscar Winner Taika Waititi in the Press Room

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So I just learned something that pisses me off. Y’know quinoa? The ~magical~ health food that has become so popular in the US that a centuries-long tradition of local, sustainable, multi-crop farming is being uprooted to mass-produce it for the global market? Potentially affecting food stability and definitely effecting environmental stability across the region?

Ok, cool.

Y’know Lamb’s Quarter? A common weed throughout the continental US, tolerant of a wide variety of soil conditions including the nutrient-poor and compacted soils common in cities, to the point where it thrives in empty lots? These plants are close relatives, and produce extremely similar seeds. Lamb’s quarter could easily be grown across the US, in people’s backyard and community gardens, as a low-cost and local alternative to quinoa with no sketchy geopolitical impacts. You literally don’t have to nurture it at all, it’s a goddamn weed, it’ll be fine. Put it where your lawn was, it’ll probably grow better than the grass did. AND you can eat the leaves - they taste almost exactly like spinach. 

This just… drives home, again, that a huge part of the appeal of “superfoods” is the sense of the exotic. For whatever nutritional benefits quinoa does have, the marketing strategy is still driven by an undercurrent of orientalism. You too could eat this food, grown laboriously by farmers in the remote Andes mountains! You too could grow strong on the staple crop that has sustained them for centuries! And, y’know, destroy that stable food system in the process. Or you could eat this near-identical plant you found in your backyard. 

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fluffmugger

you can also eat the stems! they’re quite tender when small, but do not eat when larger or it’s like eating bark. Which you essentially are.

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