Thursday, 25 April 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
Astronomers using an instrument called the Palomar Cosmic Web Imager have taken pictures of the Intergalactic Medium, the network of unbelievably thin rivers of hydrogen gas that flow through space between the galaxies. They call the gas “dim matter” because it’s warmer than dark matter but too cold to glow. There must be a metaphor in there somewhere.
Date: April 30, 2014
Categories: At the Top of the Blog, Random craziness
The Intergalactic Medium? Sweet. I love space! Happy May, everyone!
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Could someone please tell me what the squids on the bottom of posts mean? I used to know and I tried searching for the thread I found the answer on, but couldn’t find it.
A few of my posts were getting squids and if I could be reminded of what they mean, that would be wonderful!
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Squids denote sympathy, like giving the OP a squishy cephalopod friend to comfort them. They gained popularity on threads like Rants and Plaints, since it seemed a little inappropriate to enthusiastically pie a sad post.
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They’re sympathy squids. They mean support and sympathy.
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Ah, thanks to both of you. And thanks to everyone who gave me squishy cephalopod friends!
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Went to see some of my friends in a reading of a musical today! They played vapid popular girls and a basketball jock in a 1980s teen comedy. The actors were a little hard to hear over the live band sometimes, but the show was pretty good, in part because of hearing a song called “Kill the Nerds” sung by at least 4 people I know to be giant nerds themselves. They even mentioned “unapproachable Doctor Who diehards” and our whole row cheered.
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I can’t believe it’s May already. Where did the last four months go?
I haven’t been posting regularly but a lot of stuff’s been going on in the past few months. I’ve lurked a bit but I have missed posting!
Been back at school for a couple of weeks now after the Easter holidays (which I spent at home in Hong Kong). We’ve just finished taking mocks and real A-levels start beginning of June. It’s starting to sink in that I’ve only got two more months of school left. I can’t believe that I’m graduating soon. There have been times when I’ve wished I could get to college sooner, but now it feels like the time to leave has approached too quickly! It will be a bit sad that this chapter of life is over, but one thing must end for another adventure to begin.
Anyway, I don’t need to be getting all nostalgic yet, I’ve a few months to go. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s felt or is feeling like this!
How is everyone? I’ve missed you!
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Hello, Selenium! We’ve missed you, too, but we know you’re still there.
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Hi, Selenium, good to see you again!
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Hmmm, so the National Air and Space Museum is going to renovate the Milestones of Flight Gallery starting next year. The Breitling Orbiter gondola is going to the Udvar-Hazy Center (I hope I can get back to see it on the Mall before that. Granted, it will be easier to reach Udvar-Hazy when the Metro expansion is done, but even with that it’ll still be a Metro ride to Dulles Airport and then a bus transfer instead of just getting off at L’Enfant Plaza and walking across the street…), the Apollo 11 Command module is moving to the east part of the museum during the renovation and then eventually to the Apollo to the Moon gallery on the second floor (one that gets renovated, too), the Wright Flyer will stay on the second floor, and the Viking lander is staying. The only new things confirmed to be coming in are the Lunar Excursion Module currently on display near the food court and the Starship Enterprise filming model in the gift shop. (Why? It was perfect down there, you could walk all around it, it was by all the sci-fi merchandise, everyone smiled when they saw it, having it in the gift shop fit with it being fun and fantasy… They should reopen that upstairs area in Flight and the Arts that’s offices now and put it there if anything, it would fit and it would encourage more people to visit that gallery…)
I can’t imagine the Bell X-1 moving or the Spirit of St. Louis (that’s so central to the Pioneers of Flight gallery overlook), and SpaceShipOne will probably stay, too. They might move the X-15, but I hope they don’t. Not sure about the Goddard rockets, they might go upstairs to the display on early 20th century rocketry or they might stay. I hope the Stardust capsule stays, or if it moves, that it just goes upstairs to “Exploring the Planets”, they need more post-Halley comet stuff in there anyway.
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I know a lot of you live in the Bay Area, so you may want to know that Laverne Cox is going to be speaking at Stanford May 8th from 7:30-9. And it’s open to the public. For free.
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Bibliophile you are an angel of delight, thank you so so much. I am so going to this.
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OH NO MAY 8TH IS A SCHOOL NIGHT AND I HAVE AP EXAMS THE NEXT DAY
WHY
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Never mind, I am definitely going, who even cares about Language & Composition.
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This is definitely the right attitude to have.
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Hi everyone! Based on seeing me around the blog for a few years, what would you say my interests are? I’m trying to figure out more stuff for college.
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Astronomy and space exploration, humor, general science, literature…
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R*S,
Are you writing admission essays or trying to figure out things to study? Or something else?
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Trying to figure out a major. For the first semester I’m taking math, English, astronomy (because it fills a science requirement unit and even if I don’t major in it I always want to know more about space), and an advisement class that helps with deciding on future classes. I have to pick a major by the end of the semester.
Right now I’m leaning toward journalism? I liked writing when I was younger and my parents wanted me to be a creative writer. My teachers like my essays and I’m pretty good at writing them on a deadline. I would get to do research for each individual story and do bits of science, technology, history, culture, current events, and interviews. It seems like a good fit that doesn’t require too many skills I don’t have, although in another week I probably won’t like it.
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Rainbow*Storm:
My advice: If you really do have to choose a major in your first semester of college, don’t rely on introspection alone. Judging from your posts on MuseBlog, I’d say that right now none of your academic interests is strong enough to stand out from the pack. (You talk a lot about plays and musicals, but as you haven’t suggested studying theater in college, I assume that’s off the table.) Ideally, you could spend a few semesters taking different courses and seeing which ones really catch fire for you — but it sounds as if there isn’t time for that.
Given that you’re under pressure to make a decision with inadequate information, I think “what am I interested in?” is the wrong question to ask. Other questions might be more helpful. For example: “What am I curious about?” You could answer that experimentally by flipping through the course catalog and noticing which descriptions make you say “Wow, cool.” Other productive questions might be “What sort of knowledge would make me more interesting?” and “What sort of knowledge would make me more useful?” If you think along those lines, you’ll probably come up with some good possibilities on your own. If not, other MBers and I are sure to have ideas for you.
As a journalist myself, I have to say I’m not crazy about the idea of an undergraduate journalism major. One or two elective courses would probably teach you everything you need to know. Beyond that, I’m not sure that more formal training would make you either more interesting or more useful.
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Yes, the people I talked to at BU when I came here said that if you want to be a science journalist, you should major in a science and take those few journalism classes.
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(By the way, this topic would be perfect for the nascent World Domination 102 thread.)
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If you like math/science, I wouldn’t rule Mathematics (pure or applied) out as major- as far as I know, it’s a comparatively rare major in the states as well and you’ll end up fairly flexible career-wise. You learn a way of analyzing problems and tackling them that (theoretically) should make people want to employ you. And it’s really cool and pretty. That being said, see how your Math class treats you, talk to your professor and some students already majoring in Math before making the decision. It’s rewarding (if you like Math), but requires a lot of time, effort & determination.
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I saw Cage the Elephant in concert last night! It was my first concert and it was pretty fun. I went with some friends. Mosh pits are fun.
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General announcement: It’s rose petal salad season.
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Also: I am tired of hyphens. I am going to use them less often and see what happens!
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Have you by any chance ever read “Eats, Shoots and Leaves?” It is a hilarious and informative book on punctuation usage. The author, Lynn Truss, has a section in there on hyphen usage (and over-usage).
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I read that book a while ago and liked it a lot. Thanks for reminding me of its existence. So I’ve just skimmed the section on hyphens and see that they’re being used less than they used to be. So I’m part of a trend. Lynn Truss doesn’t seem to think it’s a good trend but a trend nonetheless.
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The Brits started it, I think.
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We start most things. Then we think better of it and make tea, leaving others to work out whether it was a good idea.
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According to linguists I’ve read, Truss’s text commits frequent violations of the very rules she advocates, many of which are themselves questionable from the outset, anyway. (Not uncommon among the prescriptive set, I should add.) So she may be entertaining, but I don’t know that I’d trust her as a resource.
In any case, back in the day the editor who gave my class a tour of the Government Printing Office told us hyphens were on their way out—and that was 30-some years ago.
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I like hyphens. I’m unabashedly old-fashioned in that regard and selected others.
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I love how the “(something)-hyphen-type” construction creates such an immediate sense of mid-century popular media (comics in particular, but popular science books and magazines as well), like “IBCM-type rocket”, “nuclear-type radiation”, etc.
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KaiYves – Heehee, you mean ICBM? Or maybe IBCF? : )
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I did mean ICBM, but I guess I’m so used to typing “IBCF” that I transposed the letters. Heh.
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I see their appeal most of the time. It’s their use in compound modifiers that’s been getting to me. Sometimes I think they’re just not necessary because the meaning is obvious without them. And often my head feels like it’s going to explode trying to figure out where to put them and how many. Take “rose petal salad season,” for instance. Is “rose petal” the modifier of “salad” and hence in need of hyphenation? Yes, I suppose it is. But “rose-petal salad” is also a modifier of “season.” So then it’s “rose-petal-salad season.” And that just seems like too much. And the meaning of “rose petal salad season” is perfectly obvious, isn’t it?
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“Rose petal salad season” is poetry. Poetry gets special dispensation.
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I like hyphens, too. My touchstone is always what best serves clarity and meaning. Arbitrary rules that were passed down because of some 18th-century snob or the economics of printing don’t make my blood boil. If a usage doesn’t create barriers to communication, I’m usually willing to shrug it off and save my energy for other battles. (I confess, though, I do have my pets, some of which I can’t defend on any grounds except my preference.)
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I seem to remember she’s one of the sort that thinks emoticons are destroying language as we know it? WHATEVER, LYNN TRUSS.
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I got a copy from a department booksale a few weeks ago, but I haven’t had time to read much of it because of finals.
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I have read it. She’s a pretty good writer and makes some great points (and one fantastic pun). However, I’m still a defendant of my right to omit punctuation for stylistic Internet reasons on occasion.
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Had a callback today for an audition I went to in March. I still have no idea why I went there in the first place- it was a spur of the moment thing. It’s for a background zombie (no, literally a zombie) in some new independent film. I’m still not sure what the logic behind “Have no self-confidence- go find somewhere else to be rejected” was, but I might actually be chosen (they’re picking 20 out of 30 at callback and I know I did well).
On one hand, I’m not even sure if I want to do this- filming is in Italy, in the mountains, in the snow sometime in early January and zombies don’t get to wear coats. I’d also miss a lot of study time (5-11+ days) and possibly some class, and I have to hand in my first bachelor thesis towards at the end of January so stress! And I’ve have to commit to come to movement classes as well as rehearsals, which pans most Saturday & Sunday afternoon plans for the foreseeable future.
But it would pay well, it’s in Italy, and I would like to do something different. Not to mention that I’d be pretty chuffed to be chosen- pretty much everyone else was either a dancer or an actor (I haven’t had any dance training, but apparently I can pull off the movement thing they want us to do). And learning to fake self esteem would probably help me with presentations and stuff.
Meh. Have to study. Don’t want to study. I’ll go get a cookie.
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That sounds like such an amazing opportunity! If I were you I would definitely do it if chosen!
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That sounds really cool! Don’t be afraid to go for it even if you’re busy; filming a zombie movie in Italy definitely sounds like memories worth having.
They’re filming a zombie TV series in my home city this summer. Maybe I should try it too?
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This sounds incredible! I hope you get the chance to do it.
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If you get picked, do it. Life occasionally presents amazing opportunities, and turning them down is usually a matter of regret later. You’ll be telling tales of the time you were an Italian zombie when you’re old and decrepit.
Just one thing – arrange to catch up on the study time you’ll miss, and pretend that the deadline for your thesis is mid-December. Then you’ll have it done before you go, and you won’t need to panic about it.
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May the 4th be with you! Happy Star Wars Day!
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Just wanted to reassure all y’all that while I may appear to have dropped off the face of the planet, I’m still lurking as time permits.
Surgery rotation I’m on is super time consuming and busy. Very little sleep. Very little food. Pretty much no time (at least during the week) not doing school related stuff. Weekend slightly better. But on call today, so…..who knows. Can’t even go and enjoy the lovely weather cuz I need to make sure I can get tos chool in 15 minutes, which if I go for a walk, I can’t.
Forgot to post this.
Just took a 2 1/2 hour nap, could easily go back for more.
Ex boyfriend just texted. Dex (his dog, that I had a R&P post about 2 weeks ago) died last night. And I feel oddly……un upset, given how hard I cried 2 weeks ago when I learned he was sick. Not crying or anything. :/
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I call it the Turtle. It’s a unique dance move that captures the intensity of pre-exam panic, and involves a graceful continuous waving of the arms and legs while lying under a table.
In other news: has anyone seen the film Foreign Letters? I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it on here before, but it’s definitely worth watching, and Netflix has it now. It got a really small release when it came out, but it’s beautifully shot and, to me, really touching.
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Just started off Renaissance Drama class with a discussion about Harry Potter. College is excellent!
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Hey, Museblog. I’ve not been absent, just lurking. In case any of you were curious about why I wasn’t posting much, which I doubt.
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Lurking is allowed. Especially for cats.
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I’m working with some classmates in one’s apartment, and she’s making brownies– we all (even me, and I don’t eat sweet things) agree that if you could make an air freshener of the smell now filling the room, it would sell very well.
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I wonder… Is there so little about DSV Turtle and Sea Cliff online because their missions were actually classified or just because they were/are expensive to operate and the Navy didn’t/doesn’t use them all that much?
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Holy cow! I just figured out that KaiYves is a female, and that Cskia is CTN! And also a female!
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You didn’t know I was a girl?
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I knew my dad didn’t have much faith in my knowledge, but I had no idea he would be surprised when he learned that I knew what a urinal was….
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Does he know that in Britain it rhymes with “final”?
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Done with my AP Calc exam! Three to go.
My friends and I want to give our calc teacher a present at the end of the year, because she’s been completely amazing and put a ridiculous amount of work into this class. I can’t think of anything good to get her, though. Does anyone have a suggestion? We’re already making her a cake, but we want to get something that’ll last and be, you know, touching in some way.
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Congrats, good luck with the rest!
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My most moving teacher gifts have been cupcakes with frosting biology pictures all over them, and an ABC book about her for another teacher (she collects ABC books), and all wearing hats to class on the last day (for my linear algebra professor who wore a different hat every day all semester). Basically, something that specifically relates to the person. Perhaps you could decorate the cake in a cool way, like with calculus pictures or a pi-cake joke or something? If you wanted something more lasting, heartfelt cards are always great. Even a giant poster-paper card that she could put on her classroom wall or something.
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It maybe a bit kitsch, but does your area have a place where you can paint/design your own coffee mugs? You could make her a personalized one from the class. (Overwork -> coffee -> reminder students think she’s flammy?)
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I never realize how many books I have until I have to try to fit them all in a suitcase. 
(I know I can fit the books I have with me in my dorm easily, but trying to get them to take up as little space as possible is turning into something of a physics experiment.)
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Holy cake, gooney birds are a real animal and not just a weird insult made up for Junie B. Jones!
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“The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
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I knew that because when I was little–about the same time as I was reading Junie B.–I was reading these cute books called Gooney Bird Green about this girl who–well, she said that was her name; she had a tendency to exaggerate. I know she had a funny story about how her parents named her.
I was kind of shocked several years later when I looked at them again and realized they were written by Lois Lowry, whom I knew at that point as the author of The Giver. It’s amazing how versatile some authors are.
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I was looking through my Information Security textbook today, because my final history of math presentation is on Alan Turing, and I figured there would be something on him somewhere in it.
pg. 38
“A British team that included the computing pioneer, Alan Turing, developed improved attacks on the Enigma.” (note the misuse of commas. Theirs, not mine.)
endnotes, pg. 542:
“[104] Enigma machine, at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine.”
I’m not sure how to deal with this?????
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http: // xkcd . com/978/ “Citogenesis”
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Surely a better source could have been found– that information is in spy books written for nine-year-olds for Pete Conrad’s sake!
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Busy. Busy busy busy.
What I’ve done this past week:
-finished college
-moved back to my hometown
-organized two vacations
-completed a seminary application
-completed a monastery application
-become a moderator of a large (~250k people and growing) online music community
-met my sister’s online “friend” of several months who flew in from Boise to visit for a few days
-got sick
-got better
-didn’t sleep
I’m tired. But I still have phone calls to make and lawns to mow and boxes to unpack….
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Heh, I shouldn’t be reading those creepypastas all day.
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My sympathies. When I was your age, reading UnMuseum articles had me twitchy all day, I shudder to think how I would have reacted to deliberate horror stories.
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Our year’s boarding house recently acquired two bunnies as pets. Yes, we were all surprised too!
Thankfully, they are a very normal shade of brown.
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The night before last, I literally fell asleep doing homework. I woke up at 6:30 AM with my laptop on my stomach and my glasses still on (thankfully, I’d been working with the light off). I got back to work for about 30 minutes and then gave up and went back to sleep.
Last night, I went to bed at 9:30 and woke up at 12:30 in the afternoon.
…I think I need a better sleep schedule.
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Conchita Wurst just won the Eurovision Songcontest… wait, what? I’d cheer but I’m somewhat confused. I mean, I’m glad she won despite the conservative backlash, but I guess I’m waiting for the other shoe to-
…oh dang, that means we’re going to have to host this thing next year, aren’t we?
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RIIIIIIIIISE LIKE A PHOENIX
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I don’t know what you mean by “waiting for the other shoe to [whatever you were going to say]. I haven’t heard that expression, and I don’t know how you were going to finish it. Could you please explain?
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Waiting for the other shoe to drop. It means something’s happened, and now you’re waiting for the completion of the action (and usually dreading it / not looking forward to it). Sometimes it’s used to mean “things are going too well, something bad has to happen soon”
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It comes from the idea of sleeping in an apartment with thin walls and having the guy upstairs taking his boots off very noisily and letting them fall. Once the first one’s off, you’re just in anticipation because hopefully when the next one falls, the racket will be over.
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A traveling encyclopedia salesman gets in to town late and checks into a cheap hotel for the night. He’s asked to keep the noise down- the woman in the room below him is a light sleeper. It’s been a long day, so he hurries upstairs to the second floor and is relieved to finally put down all his luggage. After he’s washed his face and loosened his tie, he sits down on the bed to take his shoes off. The first one is a bit tight, but after a brief struggle it pops off, hits the wall, and bounces to a halt on the floor. Suddenly remembering the guest downstairs he feels terrible, and slowly loosens the laces on his left foot. Methodically, the second shoe is wiggled off and placed silently next to the night table. The man is just about to crawl under the covers when he hears a voice shout up at him from below “Well, do you want to keep me up all night? I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop!“
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I meant what Lizzie described: “things are going to well/this seems too good to be true, something bad is bound to happen.” I was very glad that Conchita won because I think it sends a great message about tolerance. It’s just that I’m rather suspicious about Eurovision in general (it has the reputation of being something of a freak show) and was afraid that the whole thing would backfire horribly somehow.
I’m also not to thrilled that Austria will be hosting the Eurovision song contest next year- I’d prefer my tax dollars to be spent on something else *coughcoughnotoriouslyunderfundeduniversityicurrentlyattendcough* and I don’t think there’ll be enough extra tourism for this event not to be a financial loss.
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It has been conspired against me, has taunted me, and also has been somewhat fact for a long time now, that I show more of an attraction to people who wear glasses as opposed to people who don’t.
…Nobody finds this weird?
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I don’t. Do you wear glasses? If so, it’s probably your brain doing something where it’s like, “Hey, let’s look for similarities.”
I’d say that’s normal.
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No, I don’t wear glasses myself….
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Then it’s simply just a trait you find attractive. And that’s normal too.
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eh, no? I’m not an expert but I think lots of people look good in glasses, and I think lots of people think so.
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I don’t think it’s weird! I mean, I definitely have a “type” in that there are certain attributes I reliably find attractive (including glasses)–but that doesn’t mean at all that those traits make or break attraction. It’s just a thing, I guess.
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I’m not really sure how it happened, but I voluntarily bought a dress today. Not even for a particular occasion. I just really liked it. 
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What does it look like?
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I have blisters on my feet from wearing high heels (for the first time ever) last night. I got them from the freestore and wore them with black skinny jeans, a black tank top, rainbow suspenders, a grey cap, and (until it got too hot) a dark grey vest. To “prom” at the co-op house on campus. I’m proud of myself though, I managed to walk surprisingly well and dance only slightly worse than I would have done otherwise.
Today is now the day of cleaning. I’m not at all ready to pack up my stuff to move out in a week.
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Ugh, I hate blisters from fancy shoes. I wore flats in my DC internships, but even those gave me some ankle blisters. I’m glad you enjoyed the party, though!
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I thought I posted this earlier but I don’t see it, so sorry if I’m doubling: a friend of mine died yesterday. He was 26 and a cellist, and no one really knows what happened. We weren’t close or anything, but it’s still really surreal – people my age shouldn’t just die.
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I saw this news online earlier and thought it was so tragic. I’m sorry.
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I’m sorry. I hope he rests in peace. I know it’s kind of shocking when someone dies so young.
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Somehow the original ended up in the spam folder; no idea why.
Sorry to hear about your friend.
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I’m so sorry, Lizzie.
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I’m really sorry to hear that, Lizzie. My condolences.
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I’m sorry as well. I don’t have much experience with death yet, but I know it can’t be easy to deal with.
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I’m sorry for you: that sounds really horrible.
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Adding my condolences. You’re right, we’re too young for this.
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I’m sorry, Lizzie, that’s horrible.
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So last week we wrapped up a production of The Tempest directed by my best friend and costumed by yours truly. I also acted in it, which in retrospect was a terrible idea because the combination meant I wasn’t doing a whole lotta sleeping. It was also one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done.
BUT.
I’ve never made clothing from scratch before and had to make three entire outfits that way (along with heavily modifying others and doing a bunch of embroidery, plus standard hemming/patching/repairs things). I learned so much from doing this, and it’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life. I was honored to help my friend out and the production turned out brilliantly.
I’m heading to art school next year and this helped me feel a little more ready. 
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Nice!
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Reminder that the link to log in on the main page is still broken. I’ve been logging in via having the link to the logged in view of comments which I’ve emailed to myself. Going there will automatically send one to the log in page.
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You can also click the “log in” button and then delete everything from the ? onward in the URL. Or click the link under the search bar in the sidebar.
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I should just zap that link. It’s a nuisance.
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I just logged in for the first time in a couple weeks, and for some reason I seem to be able to moderate/edit comments, edit other users’ posts, et al. Was this sudden promotion unintended?
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As a graduation present, we’re giving some of you additional MuseBlogging powers. Use them wisely!
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I vaguely suspected that. I’ll do my best to resist the nearly breathtaking urge to append “PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!” to people’s comments.
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Yeah, that’d be showing off.
PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!
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A great mystery of our time: which one of you did this? Hmmm. HMMM.
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Definitely not me.
PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!
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Hey…
PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!
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PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!
PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!
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What just happened? I just wanted to express my feelings that PIGGY IS THE GREATEST! Why did it repeat twice?
PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!
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PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!
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The number of squids given to the above posts makes me want to pedantically remind people that squids are not to express disapproval. They’re for sympathy. Shadow-scowling is unMuserly. End mini-rant.
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From the very beginning of the squid button’s time on MB, posts by me (or about me, sometimes) have been specifically squidded regardless of content. It’s quite likely that there are people that disapprove of everything I post, but likewise there’s a chance someone just likes squidding the pig. It also seems like they’re used to express friendly eye-rolling from time to time.
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“Squidding the pig.” Somebody ought to write a song about that.
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It sounds like a British euphemism, or at least a Monty Pythonism.
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I know, and whether squidding you is meant to be silly poking or a conscious effort to alienate you, I consider it an undermining of the general aim to be supportive of each other. I’ve never observed being targeted myself unless I decide to complain about squidding the pig, so anon seems to be telling me either to lighten up or to shut up. Maybe I am taking it too seriously, but I genuinely find it creepy and unkind. When this comes up in discussion, you and anyone else talking about it gets squidded more heavily than usual, which means people who don’t usually participate suddenly decide to reinforce the pig-squidding. That’s super icky to me, too.
I think the above convo was given friendly eye-rolling squids, but I’d reached my “Gah! Anonymous niceties only, please” limit.
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Yeah, I fully understand what you mean. I’ve really never liked the squids. If you feel that a pie is inappropriate and that a comment calls for sympathy instead, then make a sympathetic reply. I feel that sympathy and compassion call for more than a button-click in a way that informal conviviality (i.e., pieing) does not.
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I appreciate the ability to convey sympathy without posting. Sometimes you just want to send along the emotion, not the words.
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Yeah, I used to just write “hugs” when I didn’t feel I had more to say; I do like the simplicity of the squid for hug-sending.
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The sentiment of the squid has always varied with the situation. It’s not exclusively “sympathy.” Sometimes a squid is just a squid.
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OK, sure, I oughtn’t to have restricted it to sympathy, but as long as it’s sometimes being used like a thumbs-down button, I’m going to occasionally get grumpy and ask everyone to have a long think about whether they might be causing hurt. I’m not mad, I’m just…tired and blerghing.
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No hurt seems to have been caused, though? Unless you’re saying you were hurt, but you don’t seem to be saying that.
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No true Museman.
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Meaning that I employed the “Nae True Scotsman” fallacy? Mea culpa.
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I don’t think you did.
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Didn’t I? I called shadow-scowling unMuserly, but it was being done by Musers, which makes it Muserly…? Or do I have a misconception of Nae True Scotsman? (‘Course, I may have misunderstood Fortune Cell…)
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To call behavior “unMuserly” is to assert that it violates an ideal or norm. You can acknowledge that violations occur without conceding that they are typical, admirable, or desirable. So, no, I wouldn’t say that you have committed a logical fallacy.
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Mm, thank you. I will not apologize for my assessment, then.
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*giggles unstoppably*
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Based on extensive research of the obviously always-reliable Internet, plus my unquestionable credentials as a doctor, I’ve self-diagnosed delayed sleep phase disorder. I go through periods of being able to manage it better in terms of accommodating it within an unchangeable school timetable, but this week has been particularly bad. Hopefully it’ll pass when adolescence does..
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Yep. 2 am again. In many ways I wish I were a morning person.
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Mom is watching NCIS and Ducky just quoted Jacques Cousteau!
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Ducky meaning Ros or someone else?
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(Ducky’s a character on the show NCIS.)
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Whoops, yes, that Ducky, the super-awesome British medical examiner.
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Oh, okay. I’ve never seen that show, and I hadn’t heard enough about it to know character names.
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I thought I’d talked about it on MB before, but maybe not.
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KaiYves: I’m not sure whether you have talked about NCIS before, but Luna has mentioned both it and Ducky several times (e.g., https://musefanpage.com/blog/?page_id=22#comment-332773).
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I know I talked about his actor, David McCallum, having played a lot of great characters, but I don’t know if I specifically mentioned the good Dr. Mallard as one of them.
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When I was a kid, I watched him every week as Ilya Kuryakin in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” It’s amazing to hear that he’s still going strong.
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I definitely wasn’t here at all in 2009, although it’s possible I saw something about Ducky at some point and just forgot.
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aaaah this place will be nine in August. That is all.
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Release date for Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them movie miniseries was announced….November 18, 2016. Gotta admit, after I took a second to figure out why November 18 sounded hauntingly familiar, the date they’ve got it set for fills me with more than a little bit of dread.
November 18 was the release date of Goblet of Fire back in 2005. We went to see it on the 19th, got there super early at my insistence, and that was when my dog made her last ((failed)) attempt at escaping our back porch and died overnight at the vet’s. And I just can’t help but thinking that somehow something terrible will happen when I go to watch FBAWTFT, given the date it’s scheduled to release, as silly and superstitious as that may be. 
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November 18th is also my birthday, so…
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So for some reason that I don’t know why, I posted a post, and it got snatched up by the spam filter….And I really don’t know why, because I just reread it and there’s no words that got mistyped into inappropriate words, so…yeah. Unless. Oh. Ohhhhhh. Okay. I figured it out. Apparently Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them cannot be abbreivated by its common abbreviation without getting eaten by the spam filter. Haha. Wow.
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Okay, I’ve reconsidered the graduate-moderator policy. With so many people suddenly becoming college grads, I figured I’d give you all moderation powers and see how it worked. Piggy just happened to be the first one I “elevated,” and he noticed right away and asked about it.
Now, however, contemplating the actual prospect of perhaps half a dozen MBers with moderation powers, I’ve decided that it was premature to unleash such potentially far-reaching changes without discussing them first. So, *waves wand* all is as it was, for now, at least.
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Drat. Other than approving a few comments I didn’t even get a chance to abuse my powers. Alas.
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Yeah, Musers having that kind of power seems like it could be dangeroALL GLORY TO THE HYPNO PIGGY
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We’ll abuse the power around here, thank you.
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PIGGY IS THE GREATEST!
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There aren’t that many college grads, right? Who else is there? Piggy’s graduating early, right?
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I can think of six off the top of my head (counting only those who still post frequently), but there are probably more than that.
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Yay, Koichi and his friends came back OK!
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My friend posted else-internet about discovering that her roommates owned no salt. She says they said they didn’t cook, but she didn’t expect them to go so far as to not owning salt. They have fancy cheeses lying around, though.
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I cook for myself pretty much every day (eat out maybe once a week) and I can go for a long time without using salt – a lot of the things i make have soy sauce, which has salt, or garlic, which kind of renders it unnecessary. I doubt that’s really what’s going on here though.
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Some time ago I had to go out and buy salt for an art project, and realized it was the first time I’d bought salt in at least a decade.
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That’s crazy. I cook every day, so salt (plus MSG!) is pretty useful to have around (if you’re not using soy sauce all the time like Lizzie), but my boyfriend takes it to another level. On our hot sauce shelf he also has a bunch of different kinds of ~fancy~ salt – pink Himalayan, grey, Hawaiian black, fleur de sel…
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Earlier tonight I decided to take some MBTI tests online because that’s something I haven’t done in quite a while. I don’t put too much credence in them (they’re basically systematized horoscopes) but they’re thought-provoking. I’ve always tested firmly INTP.
Tonight three tests agreed: INFP. Now that’s something! Has my personality/perspective/whatever-influences-my-online-quiz-answering changed? Or was I answering more honestly because of a couple beers? It seems to somewhat parallel my spiritual development as well, and I can see from my posting on various websites that I have been tending more in that direction of late. Two of the tests I took gave a percentage score for each axis, and the I and P, which in the past have been close to 100%, were much closer to the middle. Actually, all four axes were pretty moderate; I’d like to think that I’m getting closer to becoming the Avatar of Myers-Briggs personality types. Maybe that’s true: it seems to me that a part of healthy psychological maturation would be to bolster deficits and tone down excesses, mentally and emotionally speaking.
What then, prithee, of the INTPitude? I hardly feel that I’ve “lost” anything of my “past” personality, save perhaps the intensity of certain faults by means of the development of healthier habits. I always enjoyed the description of INTPs as the “most precise in thought and language” of the sixteen types, and I certainly don’t feel any less precise. Perhaps I tend to be a little freer, a little more playful with language than I used to be (prescriptivism, alack!) but that tends from not a less but a more thorough and precise understanding (“something something learn the rules before you can break them”). My prose right now is horribly stilted, but I blame external factors for that.
Anyway, I’m falling asleep at the keyboard here. I just find growing up to be a singularly fascinating experience. With caveats, of course, I would recommend it to anyone looking to see the world in a new light.
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O.O
I always tested INFJ until I started college; that’s when I sort of slid over into INFP and then forgot about MBTI. At the time, I credited it with being depressed- the “J” was always the doer aspect of me, and life events were really crushing me into “I don’t want to leave the couch, ever” at the time. I think I’ll retest tomorrow and see if anything changes.
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SFTDP: INFP again. Also had a rather craptastic day- I wonder if sad!bookgirl_me is INFP, and happy!bookgirl_me is INFJ.
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I alternate between INTP, INFP, and INTJ quite often, on my state of mind. It’s interesting, but I find that most of these kind iof things are often too generalized to really mean much.
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I’m Slytherin.
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Meyers-Briggs tests are like zodiac signs for nerds. There’s no real scientific basis, there’s no utility for it, the different factors correlate with each other, and half of the people who take it will get a different result in five weeks.
It made sense to you for the same reasons people believe in psychics, – it asks questions to create a generalized skeleton, and you fill in the rest so that it sounds accurate. The three tests all turned up INFP because that is how you’re feeling today. Generally people will test consistently the same day they take the test, it’s looking over a longer time-scale that that the consistency drops off. If people find it a useful way of viewing themselves, I guess more power to them, but there are better ways to do it imo.
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Like I said, they’re systematized horoscopes, but they’re thought-provoking. I’ve never claimed they were anything more than that.
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I really dislike some of its dichotomies, especially the Thinking/Feeling one. Most of what I read seems to basically say that thinking involves using logic and planning and stuff to make most of your decisions, and feeling involves focusing on people and how they’ll be affected, but… those aren’t opposites or mutually exclusive or anything like that. I’m not fond of the sensing/intuition dichotomy, either, because I tend to think about the stuff Intuitive people are supposed to think about and get N on pretty much every test I take, but I also think about everything in a concrete, 5-senses way because that comes most naturally to me.
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“Those aren’t opposites or mutually exclusive” – yes! Thank you for articulating all that so well, it was my impression too!
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My friend invited me to see Godzilla on opening night, but it turns out they can’t go. I’ll still try to see it sometime soon. I liked Pacific Rim and the trailer has some really cool shots so I think it has potential!
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Thoughts upon performing Schubert’s Mass no. 6 in E-flat Major, performance 1/5, in a professional part time non-union orchestra
Ever wondered what musicians are thinking while they’re playing? Wonder no more.
Before starting:
-I really hope my fly is zipped but I don’t want to check (every single time I go onstage…)
Kyrie:
-Oh, that was a together opening.
-Choir sounds good, lots of enunciation
-Am I too loud?
-Bow’s bouncing nicely, at least
-Oh ****, A-flat
Gloria:
-This opening is so scary
-Come on, self, hit the fast notes
-Oh ****, A-flat
-This part feels so dumb softly, just look energetic, I guess
-Okay, fugue, count
-Oh **** that was not the right rhythm
-And now I came in wrong
-Pull it together, self
-41 measure rest, time to relax
-Have we always been doing that bowing?
Credo:
-This is so cool, it sounds like Gilbert and Sullivan
-Can’t tell if [cute orchestra member] is looking at me or looking at the conductor
-I wonder if anyone’s going out tonight
-Oh ****, A-flat
-I mean, I’m kind of tired but I told him yesterday I would today…
-Down, up up down up up
et incarnatus est:
-Favorite part!
-Tenor duets are kind of sexy
-It’s so prettyyyyy
-Wow the soprano sounds fantastic tonight
-Yay got the A-flat!
-My hand hurts
-I wonder how much longer this is
et resurrexit:
-I should have paid more attention in music history when they taught us the movements of the mass
-My back hurts
-This is really boring
-I hope the audience isn’t bored
-At least it’s faster than in rehearsal
-Whoa, what the **** just happened?
-Why didn’t anyone come in?
-Oh my god is he not going to be able to restart it?
-Thank god I’m not playing here, this is so unprofessional
-This is so embarrassing I hope he figures it out for tomorrow
-Okay I think we’re safe
Sanctus:
-Okay this has to be getting near the end, right?
-My hand hurts
-My back hurts
-Why do I keep forgetting about the A-flat?
-I think he was hitting on me, but I can’t really tell… Whatever, maybe he’ll come talk to me after
-Wonder if roommate is ever going to start moving out
Benedictus:
-Oh good. Only one more. Or two more.
-Too many flats.
-Soloists sound good.
-These bowings make no sense
-If I suck in my abs my back hurts less
-but then I can’t breath
-I really want a drink maybe I should go out even though I’m tired
Agnus Dei:
-Last movement!!!! [glance shared with stand partner]
-Wow, that opening was actually together for the first time
-Is that really how it goes?
-Okay, dona nobis, hard bit coming up, but I practiced it before the concert started so I should nail it
-****, missed it
-but got the stuff after it, I’ll take it
Done!
-Did they like it? I can’t tell. Turn out, smile, don’t make eye contact
-Ugh the way he’s acknowledging people is awkward
-Okay keep smiling
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Haha I so enjoyed reading this! Also I love Schubert’s E flat mass.
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Well, we’ve got four more tries to get it right..
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If only the public knew……
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I’m wondering if MuseBlog need more symbols. I’m all for keeping things simple, but it does seem that the squid has too many meanings for one icon.
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Re: Cerulean above, not a specific post, just in general.
You seem to be saying that we’re only ever allowed to express supportive opinions of each other, and never disagree with each other, and I think that blind acceptance is not a Muserly way to behave – but far more importantly, not a healthy way for a community to behave. I wouldn’t feel safe somewhere I wasn’t allowed to express negative opinions, and while I don’t think anyone should be bullied, I think we’ve gone too far to the other extreme.
Additionally, I think that specifically anonymous forms of disagreement such as (sometimes) squidding should be allowed. I know I’ve faced a lot of backlash in the past for calling out behaviors I saw as destructive to our community norms/to society at large. So squidding is, right now at least, the only way to express a negative opinion of something without investing significant emotional energy in your defense.
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I think that makes a lot of sense. It bothered me to see squids being used as disliked, but your points are reasonable, and I don’t think it’ll bother me in the future. I think part of the reason I didn’t want people doing it, though, is that it can be confusing. There are times when either sympathy or disapproval is a plausible reaction, and I tend to just assume sympathy, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been wrong. I hadn’t taken what you’ve pointed out now into consideration, though.
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Dodecahedron,
I don’t think CP said she objects to all criticism — just to vague, unexplained expressions of disapproval by anonymous lurkers. That’s what “shadow-scowling” means, isn’t it? The context was that a series of comments by Piggy attracted unusual numbers of squids for reasons that weren’t readily apparent. Piggy later said the squids were nothing to worry about, but they were confusing, and I can see how someone might have interpreted them as a chorus of boos (I wondered about that myself at first). As I read it, CP wasn’t talking about disagreement per se — just about what she perceived as anonymous catcalls.
Of course, if that wasn’t what was happening in this case, then no harm was done. But the basic principles of clarity, openness, and responsibility are thoroughly MuseBloggerly, I’d say.
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(On the flip side, so are the principles of quirkiness and not-being-sure-what’s-going-on.)
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I don’t have time for a long reply now, but:
I feel that it’s very, very difficult on MuseBlog as it is today to express an opinion that disagrees with another MBer without being attacked and forced to repeatedly defend yourself over days to weeks. Even if the squids were anonymous boos, I think that’s a valid way of responding to our current environment, because not everyone has the time and energy to open themselves up to repeated attacks on tone (which, I’d like to remind everyone, has nothing to do with the validity of whatever is being discussed).
For example, imagine I had posted this:
“I don’t think repeatedly posting ‘PIGGY IS THE GREATEST’ contributes anything positive to our community. At best, it’s an immature joke at the expense of the people who don’t think he’s that great, and at worst it’s an abuse of power and a disturbing portent of things to come if he continues as a moderator. I expect better of us.”
People would have attacked me about it for ruining their harmless fun, for implying that Piggy is not, in fact, the greatest, for pretty much every aspect of those three sentences. I didn’t post something like that because I don’t have the time to individually respond, and I was worried the attacks would have verged on the personal (“you’re not the greatest, either, you know, get off your high horse,”) which would be seen as okay since I “started” it.
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In all openness, these “vague, unexplained expressions of disapproval by anonymous lurkers” are one of the factors that have caused me to post less often on MuseBlog the past couple years. I’m well aware that I’m, let’s say, less than beloved by a certain faction of MBers, and my social anxiety/paranoia tells me that the seemingly irrelevant squids I get are a kind of condescending sneer from these folks. Kind of an, “Aww, here, have a cookie.” Rationally I know that there is a wide range of reasons, positive and negative, why I might receive unexplained squids, but I can’t help but assume the negative. Despite my calm, never-bothered appearance, even little things like that (which may well just be my imagination) really sting me. I’ve been wanting to bring this up for a few years but the opportunity never really came around, so I’ve just been standing in the corner of the room and trying not to draw attention to myself, so to speak. (Piggy is really far less wise and mature and put-together than he pretends. More of a Piglet, really. Oh d-d-d-dear.)
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I definitely agree that a vague constant squidding sans regard to content would make me uneasy too. However, I can understand why people would squid all the posts that said “Piggy is the greatest.” If you were actually editing them, that would not be an appropriate use of mod powers and it was hard to tell if you had posted those phrases or not. I know that the possibility of someone unnecessarily editing others posts made me uneasy too. However, there wasn’t necessarily a guideline for how to act when suddenly given mod powers.
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I didn’t edit any posts. People were just joking around, and I thought that seemed evident enough that I didn’t need to defend myself.
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I’m glad you didn’t. I didn’t really think you did, but the possibility made me uncomfortable.
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Seriously, who is this mystery squidder?
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Oh , so now you’re coming after me, I see how it is…
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To me it was very obviously a joke by the commenters themselves, but everyone brings a different perspective to the table. Still, I don’t quite understand that, if there were doubts, why didn’t someone just ask? I’ve learned the hard way that it’s better to ask than to stew. If you aren’t comfortable saying something on the blog, then you can contact the GAPAs, as some of you have done from time to time. I am not singling out any individual, or even thinking solely of this incident — I’m speaking very broadly right now — but it troubles me that someone would be uncomfortable to the extent that resorting to anonymous, cryptic methods seemed like the only viable means of expressing enself. It saddens me to think someone would feel that unsafe here.
From my perspective one thing that has long stood out about MuseBloggers is their ability to disagree with each other constructively, without resorting to personal attacks. Yes, there have been occasional lapses. These are humans we’re talking about, after all; imperfection comes with the territory. Even so, I sensed that very, very few of those disagreements were ever intended as an assault on another MBer. In most cases, those comments resulted from the unthinking emotions of the moment or a failure of communications skills on the part of the writer or a misunderstanding on the part of the reader. The vast majority of likely exceptions that I can think of occurred back in the days of heavy traffic.
Elsewhere in my travels I see frequent instances in which simple disagreement is taken for an attack. Indeed, the difference is occasionally hard to discern in a brief post. But — as we perhaps haven’t said enough lately — we’re all Musers here. At base, that means we all wish each other well. Keeping a spirit of good will in the forefront of our minds can go a long way toward understanding each other better. As a bonus, it will also go a long way to preventing our own hurt feelings. Not many parts of the world allow us this luxury. Take full advantage of it.
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I really like your second paragraph here, especially. I love that this place gives me the freedom to constructively disagree. Even if people do lapse, in the end, we truly seem to keep each other’s best interest at heart. I know I have a higher tolerance for talking through things with people I disagree with, something that I’ve occasionally used when a fellow MBer and I disagree on something, whether that be political, MB-related, or whatnot. I’ve tried to have a political conversation with a friend of a friend that I disagreed with and had to stop as soon as he said something so foul that it occasionally rings in my mind. It was a slur, and he didn’t even seem to notice that it would be at all offensive. I had initially started the conversation to try to bring more understanding on another subject, but had to stop when he said what he did. That would not happen here. We’re all Musers here and even when we vehemently disagree and may have slipped up on our politeness level, we still retain a level of civility and respect that I find very admirable.
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Now I want to squid that post (sympathy), but that would seem to compound the problem… As a member of the faction of MBers you’re more than beloved by (and far too young to remember all the stuff that went down), I can’t really influence the squid-ing, but I appreciate your posts
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Shhhh no Piggy is smart and perfect
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“No Piggy is smart and perfect.” Exactly.
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Oh man, I’m sorry if I made you feel that way–In accordance with my post in the original 37 comment thread, squids can mean anything. I was under the impression that Piggy = squid was just a “thing” that arose over time. To me it’s a “Oh, hey, look, it’s Piggy, hi, Piggy!” squid. Because squids go to Piggy as part of some tradition.
I don’t think any highly squidded posts of Piggy’s are meant as disagreement.
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Dodecahedron, firstly, thank you for taking the time to write that post. I now have some understanding of why anonymous squidding can be desirable, which I did not before.
Also, thank you, Robert, for writing up your understanding of my irritation–your conclusions are dead-on.
I am going to explain a few more reasons anonymous squidding still gets my goat by inhibiting free dialogue among MBers:
–In addition to what Bibliophile so nicely said about confusion caused, squidding is entirely atonal. A disapproving squid can mean anything from “this irks me a bit” to “thou art the scum of the earth”.
–And it’s entirely nonverbal. I still don’t know why, exactly, the piggy-is-the-greatest conversation was met negatively. A single sentence–“I wish you wouldn’t joke about potential misuse of power”, or some such–would have made us aware of the grievance (which then would mean that we could actually address it in the future! As it is, we just know we ruffled feathers.)
–Without disrespect to Dodecahedron, the citation of backlash avoidance is a reason for my distaste for the practice. Squidding like this means that people can issue a backlash to someone else while shielding themselves from the same. That isn’t something I want to engage in or advocate.
–A squid is static. You say something, you get a squid, and it almost always ends right there. The squid hovers. Frowning. Not speaking. You cannot escape it. It cannot depart. Conversely, a comment lets us move around. Like in this case! I said something, Dodecahedron said something, I’ve got new things to think about, I can and am replying, maybe others will have something new to think about. Free discourse.
So, when I say that disapproving squidding displays some unMuserly behavior, I mean that I think it can and does cause confusion and frustration, and inhibit conversation and growth, which I think are effects unworthy of anyone here. Having read Dodecahedron’s post, I now understand that these effects are not the only possibility. But I think they’re currently being used more heavily and less thoughtfully than reflects well and supports MB’s health.
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This comment isn’t really directed at anyone in particular, it’s more of an assorted collection of thoughts. I thought I ought to say at least a little bit about it, though. Full confession: it was really me, I started the whole thing in 37.1.1.1, and I’m sorry if people found the joke offensive or inappropriate, but I didn’t think anyone would actually believe Piggy was deliberately misusing admin powers. As I saw it, the humour lay in the contrast, because it was so ridiculous a notion to me that Piggy might actually go around editing people’s posts with impunity. To me, at least, he has never seemed like a Frank Underwood-esque power-hungry character. Maybe I’m being naïve or overestimating the goodwill of MBers, but I both doubt that and hope it is not the case.
Personally, it had never even crossed my mind that squids might mean disapproval. Though I can’t speak for everyone who might have squidded some of 36’s replies, based on what squids have traditionally meant here, I would be surprised if people had been trying to express their anonymous disapproval at the supposed abuse of power. Do correct me if I’m wrong. But if anyone had found it an immature joke, I would really have welcomed seeing a post saying so, rather than vague but intentioned squidding (as the meaning of a squid is so nebulous..) I’m always open to character growth. I wouldn’t have thought anyone was attacking me personally.
Piggy’s posts have mysteriously attracted squids for quite a while, and I don’t think that’s because people particularly disapprove of the things he says (rather the contrary in many cases), and I think the squidding above was just a continuation of that long-running quirk of MB.
That’s not to say Piggy isn’t allowed to feel anxious or bothered by it. But I’d like to think that MB is the kind of place where people can express their opinions openly and honestly. So now that Piggy has made his view of things clear in 48.2.3, perhaps we might all be understanding enough of his feelings and allow the let’s-randomly-squid-Piggy trend to die down. Piggy, I’m sorry that you have felt stung by this. I’m sure none of us ever intended to be condescending or cause any hurt by squidding your posts. Thanks for letting us know.
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I agree with Sel here, though I never really figured the Piggy-squiding for approval. ((If it was a positive thing for all these years (aside from sympathy), I owe you… a few. Can we talk about installment plans?))
Shall we try to give things a fresh start? I get that Piggy is bothered, but I also hear Dodeca about creating a climate to be able to disagree constructively. I thought Sel’s joke was funny for the same reasons she did, but I get that we don’t all have the same impression of everyone.
Still… I’ve been on the blog for almost six years now, and the whole Piggy conflict predates me. In that timespan, he’s shown himself to be a honest and kind fellow blogger. Obviously, people don’t have to like each-other or even agree with each-other, but there seems to be a polarization on both sides that disturbs me. I agree with Dodeca a lot, though sometimes (such as now) I see things differently: I agree with my hubby of many years on many topics but strongly disagree on others (abortion,…).
I think most of us have changed somewhat in the past half-dozen years and perhaps we can change our assessment of each-other as well, or at least make peace with our differences. I know I was horrible at 13; I hope I’ve gotten less so (or at least become horrid in different ways). It seems unfair to give so much weight to what someone might’ve said/done five years ago, unless posts about random day-to-day activities have become so offensive.
Concerning Dodeca’s very valid point about backlash: yes, it’s true and we need to work on that as a community. Personally, I’ll try to keep this in mind while responding to posts. I can’t remember attacking anyone in the past (except for a few years ago, and I’ll put that apology in a new post): if I have, please correct me. Though, to be fair, I can’t imagine any other MBers attacking you personally along the lines of “Well you’re not the greatest either”.
It’s good that attention is finally drawn to this problem. However, I think that if we all at least try to keep our opinions polite and our criticisms more objective, we can avoid the squids and the backlash. At any rate, we can’t know until we try- yes, it’s the internet, but it’s also MB.
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I think squids have meant a variety of things, including disapproval, for a long time now (I’d say the main meanings are sympathy, disapproval, and the poster is a giant space squid), and based on conversations I’ve had, I think in a lot of cases Piggy’s assessment is spot on. Personally, although I didn’t participate in the squid-travaganza I found Piggy’s post about mod and the replies extremely gauche. I think though, in general, although disapproving squids take history into account, they tend to live in the moment to some extent and attach themselves most to two broad categories of post:
a. posts that are confrontational, express disagreement, etc. I think this goes along with what dodecahedron was saying about dissent being stifled a lot of the time – and I’ve certainly gotten my fair share of this type of post, since I tend to be more comfortable with arguments than many here
b. posts that attempt to put the poster on a pedestal. Often these are officious, superior, or moralizing in tone. I think one of the more important tenets of MB is that we’re all equals here – and, going back to the scotsman discussion upthread and fireh’s comment on another thread, I don’t think anyone is more or less “muserly” than anyone else – really all it takes is showing up and participating and having an open mind. Judging from the types of posts that get squidded, other people agree with me on this.
So, essentially disapproval squids are serving as a kind of social check. Whether this is effective or good is a different discussion.
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Oh no no no that is not what I meant in that post at all, I was making a joke… -.-
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I’m not really using it in the context of how you brought it up this time, I’m using it in reference to its original context as an example of the type of thinking that seems to happen any time someone new comes on or someone does something another person dislikes.
vague, much? basically: every time someone disagrees with or dislikes something or someone, it is “unmuserly,” which really is kind of meaningless
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On the subject of squidding, what was its original connotation when it was first introduced? It seems that some of you think squidding has been used to mean disapproval, and I’m sure you’re not wrong and this has been the case; I must have missed seeing their use in this way, probably as I was fairly inactive for a couple of months.
If squids should now be taken to mean either sympathy or disapproval, I’d say that does allow for quite some confusion.
And like I said above, I didn’t realise the constant inexplicable squidding of Piggy’s posts stemmed from anything resembling disapproval; I thought it was just something random that had become a recurring, good-natured joke. As bookgirl says in 50.1, the whole Piggy conflict predates me, to the extent that I wasn’t really aware there was such a thing. Again, maybe I’ve just been naïve.
Maybe there shouldn’t be a button you can click that means ‘Disapprove’. Voldynet doesn’t have a Dislike button, after all. I think if someone severely disagrees with a post, either in content or tone, it’s far more constructive to reply in a thoughtful way to it, rather than anonymously and/or lazily clicking one button. I’m not saying everyone should be obligated to reply to everything that they disagree with. But I think if we take squids to mean disapproval, any one squid would leave room for a heck of a lot of wondering at what exactly had given rise to disapproval.
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As the person responsible for upsetting the apple cart by trying to broaden the population of blog moderators, I apologize to the blog. I fumbled the implementation badly. It didn’t seem like a crazy idea at the time. But seeing how ready even veteran MBers are to suggest — and presumably believe — that others here would abuse that power has made me realize that the blog isn’t ready for it. Maybe when you’re 30…
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I didn’t think Piggy had edited the comments. I just knew that it would be possible. I don’t think veteran mods is a bad idea, just that it ought to have some more structure around it before implementation.
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I agree 100%. That’s why I posted my original comment–it seemed so strange, so out of the blue, that I wasn’t sure it was even intentional. I could’ve emailed the GAPAs about it but I wanted to keep things in the open so that everyone knew what was going on.
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I think also the ability of mods to see email addresses is something to take into consideration.
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I think one can always find something positive to take from any situation (or at least most), and I think it’s good that this has brought to our attention the issue of openness on the ‘Blog.
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Alright, so what I’ve gathered from all this squidding-meaning-different-things discussion is that there’s confusion. That seems to be the root of it, at least to my eyes.
Maybe this can be fixed by being more simple. We could make it so that squids mean only sympathy, and if someone wants to further express their sympathy, it can be done in a reply to the original post. If someone wants to disagree, they can also reply to the original post. That way the disagreement is constructive and allows the people involved to talk it out.
I, at the top of this thread asked what squids mean (and why did I get squids for that?). The answers I received were that they meant sympathy, and I thought, “Great! Now I know,” and it was as simple as that. Now with all the multiple meanings, I’m worried that someone will disapprove of my posts and anonymously squid me, leaving me feeling even more suspicious and doubting of myself than I already do (Ha, who am I kidding. I’m sure someone’s already disapproved of me by now.).
Anyway, yeah, I don’t think squids should have multiple meanings. That just confuses and could mislead everyone.
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I think you can say all day long that “squids only mean sympathy!” but it won’t really change how people use them. (also generally any post that references squids tends to get squids as a sort of yay squids thing, so don’t take it personally) I think part of the problem is we’re used to, in other cultural contexts, the setup in which if there’s two buttons, one means like and one means dislike. And, even if the squids only mean sympathy, sympathy when none is called for can be very annoying. Personally I feel like if we feel it necessary the best way to get away from squids being complex would be to add a third “I feel like clicking something” button to break up associations to the like/dislike dichotomy.
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True. Or it could be so that squids are only used as a yay squids thing and sympathy and/or disapproval or anything else could be shown in replies… Oh, I don’t know. I think simply changing the way squids are used would help a lot. They don’t have to be like the general like/dislike buttons, right?
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For the squid buttons, a bit of historical context might be helpful:
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=10354#comment-432959
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A bit more:
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=8659#comment-403878
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Interestingly, Lizzie was one of the blog’s first recipients of squids, back when small but fierce was bestowing them as general-purpose presents:
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=7940#comment-385694
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Ohhhhhhhh wow. That… was a long time ago and I had forgotten I posted that. I think that’s summer after freshman year? wow. I don’t think I even have that recording any more (although my parents probably do somewhere)
Everyone: I posted more recent playing on the music thread. I sound a lot better now!
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ugh I’ll never be even close to being as good as that
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I am curious about when it became a thing that squids could mean disapproval. Perhaps I’ve just been oblivious but the revelation that some people were inferring they meant “I disapprove of this post/this poster” was actually a bit of a surprise to me..
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I’m not aware that it is “a thing.” Apparently some people think it should be.
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It is a thing, whether people think it should be or not. Scrolling through this conversation tells me Cerulean Pyros, Lizzie, bookgirl_me, Dodecahedron, and myself, at least, have all realized this. Even though squids are generally said to be meant for sympathy, there is nothing inherent in the squid button that ties it to that meaning; and so, when a comment receives a squid when there is nothing that calls for sympathy, what does it mean? In some cases, unfortunately–at least, I think it’s unfortunate–, it’s meant as a sign of disapproval.
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Perhaps it’s not a ‘thing’, but their use above seems to have been sufficiently ambiguous for even you to wonder if they were intended as a ‘chorus of boos’.
In essence I think some clarity about what people think squids either do mean, or should mean, would be useful.
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In my experience squid are kindly creatures, I don’t think they’re capable of holding a grudge. Whenever I’ve given them in a disapproving manner (as above) it’s been in a roll-of-the-eyes kind of way. We’re all Musers here!
I love our pies and squids, especially when compared to likes or upvotes. I think Cerulean Pyros began to hit on something really interesting in post 49, and maybe there’s critical theory written about other forms of it (“likes”, especially), as online “non-verbal” cues they’re very complex. Even in their simplest meanings (pies as celebratory, squids as sympathetic), the implementation is unclear. Are celebration and sympathy mutually exclusive? Pie or squid as a choice suggests as much. And then there’s a group dynamic, when 10 pies becomes pink. psychologically, the difference between 9 and 10 pies is much different than that between 4 and 5. Squidding inhibits pink, making it a vote “against.” Reading them as text is more difficult than it first appears because their grammar is arbitrary, but still meaningful.
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Same here! I’ve never thought of squids as disapproval, only something along the lines of sympathy, *hugs*, or “thinking of you” (or SQUIDS YAY, of course). Squidding Piggy (which, honestly, I’d forgotten about) was always just a friendly “Hi Piggy!” thing. I hold Piggy in very high esteem and figure that any conflict related to him was a long-ago thing that doesn’t matter anymore.
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I won’t say I missed being kept up by the sound of pouring rain on the roof directly over my room, but it is part of being home…
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Museblog has become complicated and confusing for me in the past few days, with the disagreements and misunderstandings over the squid buttons.
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That’s okay, we can talk about something else. How’s the weather where you are?
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Just cold enough for a sweater, but too warm to stay inside.
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Is it okay outside with a sweater on?
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Oh, yeah. But after a while it gets too warm, so I need to take it off for a while. Then it gets cold so I need one again.
Good ol’ unpredictable Wisconsin weather.
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I agree. But if we remove the squids it will be harder to send feelings of sympathy, and if we add a separate “disagree” button it might encourage MBers to be anonymously mean to each other without constructive arguments. What’s to be done.
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Maybe for the sake of simplicity squids should go back to meaning sympathy. But I don’t think we should add any kind of disagree/dislike button, I agree with what you say about that. If someone has a problem with a certain post, I think it’s much more helpful if en replies in a constructive way. So we can all learn and grow.
As we’ve seen, vague button-clicking that may or may not mean anonymous disapproval has been highly confusing. To borrow Lizzie’s useful term, do we really need squids to act as a ‘social check’?
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If only there was a way for the squid button-ing to be un-anonymous….
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I’m reluctant to modify the blog’s basic software too much, because the changes (1) always take three times as long as I expect them to and (2) get wiped out whenever I upgrade the software and need to be keyed in again from scratch.
Besides, I like the pies and squids. They’re quirky, they’re rooted in MuseBlog history, and they differentiate us from the rest of the Internet. Those are all good things, in my opinion.
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I absolutely concur. However, I think that any unfair targeting of Piggy (or anyone else) through any misuse of the squid button is a problem–and it does seem to be something that is happening. I think it’s a reasonable enough request that if anything anyone does causes confusion (and possible hurt feelings), it should be stopped. And really, as long as people are willing to abide by common courtesy like this (which hopefully they will; as this is MuseBlog), I guess there’s really nothing else to be done.
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I’m not sure that would make things that much better, to be honest.
Suppose you could see a list of ‘Bloggers who potentially disapproved of your post – so what? That doesn’t tell you anything other than some people disagreed with you; it doesn’t tell you why. If others had found something in the post to be inappropriate or immature you wouldn’t know to do differently next time.
Anyway, it doesn’t solve the multiple/ambiguous meaning problem – maybe some of those names might have disapproved but then again maybe some of those names sympathised, and still others maybe just would have felt like giving you a random squid.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that perceptions are always easy to change, but I think it would be a more constructive solution for everyone if MBers, myself definitely included, could make the effort to go about pointing out anything disapproval-worthy in a more mature and thoughtful way. That would help us all learn.
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Regarding ambiguity, I think most of the time it’s pretty clear. I mean, in Piggy’s example, people simply squidded his posts–including the ones that were quite obviously not a cause for sympathy or constructive criticism–for no reason whatsoever. Perhaps just having some fun, but still certainly a cause for confusion, I think you’d agree.
All that being said, I completely agree with your post. Encouraging constructive criticism, not anonymous and mysterious disagreement, I think is something that we should all strive for.
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So….despite being super super lazy, i’m not sure i will ever use the “autoclean” feature of an oven again.
Nothing like switching it on because for the past month or two the oven has been pretty much unusable due to your roommate ahving spilled something in a thin layer over the bottom of it, making it stink and frequently set off the smoke alarm when used, only to turn around from washing dishes 30 minutes into the autoclean cycle, to see giant flames on the bottom of the oven inside, leaping halfway up the height of it.
needless to say I panicked, switched the oven off, decided knowing where the nearest fire extinguisher was in case of them spreading or not going out was a very good idea (turns out, we don’t have one in our apartment–the one in the stairwell shared between 4 apartments including mine, is the nearest one; it’s located in a locked box in the stairwell. I ahd been hoping maybe I was just unobservant and there was acutally one I didnt’ know about inside our apartment.), and then texted my mother to inquire if it is normal for your oven to catch on fire when running the self cleaning cycle…..She agreed with my assessment of turning it off and not running the cycle.
I’m just glad my oven at my apartment is electric, rather than gas like we ahve at home, or I would have really really freaked, because giant flames and a gas oven? That just sounds like a recipe for disaster. At least an electric oven is probably less likely to explode when fire is raging inside it.
But yeah. Not fun. Guess I will be cleaning oven the old fashioned way, since roommate obviously is not going to do anything about her own damn mess. a;flkjdlkghdal;fjkl;ahd
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Ugh, sorry about that situation.
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A quick google search suggests that it was probably caused by some kind of grease or oil in the food gunk at the bottom…apparently some oils can ignite at temperatures as low as 550 degrees. In any case, letting it burn out inside the oven was probably the best thing to do in the situation (because of the limited supply of oxygen).
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Yup. That’s why I didn’t even try to open it, because I figured starving the fire was the best option after depriving it of its heat source (turning the oven off). Turns out I wouldn’t have even been able to open it even if I had tried, because once the oven had cooled down, I tried to unlock it and it wouldn’t let me….Apparently despite being a manual lock, the oven is still “smart” enough to make it impossible to unlock over a certain temperature (although the oven was around/below a normal cooking temperature by this point).
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I’m home! I’ve spent the past two days essentially doing nothing, which is awesome and a much-needed relief. I did see my brother as Conrad Birdie in Bye Bye Birdie and watch Saving Mr. Banks with my family. And we’re seeing Wicked tonight! So it’s a weekend of excellent entertainment and relaxation, which I am very happy about.
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Awesome! Wicked is a great musical!
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I haven’t commented at all on the whole “squidding Piggy” fiasco (that could be a band name. Squidding Piggy.) but wasn’t there something years back at the advent of the squid button where Piggy garnered unprovoked squids on his posts for no apparent reason? The squidders stopped after a while, but I do remember this happening before.
I mean, we’ve never really used squids for disapproval unless someone was taking a poll and said “pie for agree, squid for disagree” and then it was just a way of polling. I think we did that a couple of times.
And that’s all I’ve got to say on the matter. *ollies outie*
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I just had to kill a centipede. I don’t feel any sense of triumph that I got rid of such a pest, just sad that it’s dead now. It was either kill it or let another of its kind bite me for the sixth time, but still.
Rest in peace, creepy crawly demon thing. I’m sorry I had to poison you. *shuffles away in a daze because she breathed too much Pine-Sol*
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Ugh, sorry about that, both the bites and the killing.
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I have a pension fund – with money! that I didn’t put in and that wasn’t deducted out of my paycheck – now through the union (AFM). This strikes me as immensely cool, even though hopefully I won’t have to use it for a long time..
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I finished reading “Under a Lucky Star” today after having read some short excerpts from it in “Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs” since childhood. Really interesting to hear Roy Chapman Andrews describe his expeditions and adventures in his own words.
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There’s been a meme going around else-internet of the ten most crucial movies to you. I’d be interested to see your responses. I’m still working on mine, but I’ll post it once I’ve got it.
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Anyone find it weird that I have a crush on someone old enough to be my father?
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Someone you know personally, or a celebrity?
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A celebrity.
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I’m pretty sure that’s 100% normal, judging by the the people I know else-Internet.
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Unless you seriously believe yourself to be desperately in love with him, I’d say you’re fine, and probably not the only one out there! Out of curiosity, who is it?
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Someone named Kirk Hammet. (I believe I’ve spelled it correctly.) He’s a musician.
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I’d say that’s not that weird. I mean, unless like Sel said, that you “seriously believe yourself to be desperately in love with him.” But if we’re talking celeb crush like “woah that dude is super attractive and talented” and maybe entertained a few daydreams, that’s not all that weird I don’t think.
I mean, depending on how you’d define a celeb crush, I’ve had some on men who are technically old enough or almost old enough to be my father (since that only means they have to be 20 years older than me, so early 40s would do it). Like John Barrowman is almost old enough he could technically be my father, and I certainly wouldn’t turn down snogging him. Or David Tennant. And Leonard Nimoy could be considered a celeb crush of mine, again depending on how you define it. None of those ones in the same way that Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and William Moseley (Peter Pevensie from Narnia movies) were celeb crushes–those were definitely more in line with the crushes I had on guys I actually knew, in terms of attraction and whatnot. Far beyond the “wow that guys hot/talented and I want to read/watch/listen to everything he’s ever done”.
Sorry. Rambly weird post that probably delves way too far into Luna’s celeb crush psyche, but we all knew I was a bit weird.
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That’s actually pretty normal. I don’t personally pay attention to celebrities but the 30s-40s age range seems to be popular for garnering the attention of young girls.
That actually sounds really pretentious and condescending of me so I’d like to clarify that I am a teenage girl and spent much of my thirteenth year of life obsessing over David Tennant, so I’m not trying to judge or anything. 
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On a whim, I just decided to look in web archives at the old Muse Fan Page. And now I’m feeling quite nostalgic…..
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That will do it.
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Sometimes I feel like we should make a collection of “MuseBlog’s Greatest Hits” with links to moments people consider the funniest, awesomest, most heartwarming, etc., as voted on my MBers. Maybe as a tenth anniversary thing.
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I think that would be great, but–could we do entire threads? Because whenever I look at the Recent Comments Game thread, I end up reading the entire thing. It happens a lot with Warm Fuzzies, too, although not every time.
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We could do both greatest threads and greatest posts.
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Earlier today Oregon’ ban on same-sex marriage was declared unconstitutional.
I am proud to be an Oregonian right now.
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yeeee I posted elsewhere so might as well get around to posting here too
life in general I guess:
I am done with finals and classes! unless something has gone Very Wrong and no one’s told me about it yet. I’m glad not to be in the midst of all the work of the last 3 weeks (I barely made it out as is) but I am still pretty sure I’m not ready to be done with college 
+ otherwise general emotional slump these last 5 months when all my housemates are happy to be done/leaving has been leaving me pretty drained
I have hopefully a Thing for summer but it is dependent on hearing back from the visa office which is taking a worryingly long amount of time and I’m getting pretty freaked out about it. constant low-level panic at all times, rises to major panic at irregular intervals. mostly because I can’t buy tickets until it goes through and now I’m worried about getting things mailed back to me correctly since my address is changing and I only have 5 days between when I graduate and when I’m supposed to leave and hhhHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh panic mode again ok whoops enough on that subject
good things: I am a winner of the Young Botanists of America award, I got another scholarshippy thing from school, I spent all day today at an amusement park
side effects: I am a painful tomato because I forgot to bring sunscreen to the amusement park
more side effects: I am supposed to graduate/commence/whatever in a WEEK and I sincerely hope I am not still a tomato by then, and also that it is not warm out, which would get in the way of me possibly graduating dressed as a dragon
other: I have watched 426 episodes of pokemon now (not all this year, but 2/3 of that this semester) and just want to assure everyone I am still consuming alarming quantities of cranberry juice
idk I am sure there is more goin on I meant to talk about but good enough. spent almost all weekend lying in bed whoops.
Also I keep meaning to do a Long Post on the squidding & related material from earlier in this thread, since I do have feelings about it, but didn’t earlier for Reasons and have since been too emotionally drained to write it all out. but maybe saying that I mean to will kick me into actually doing it sometime soon, we’ll see.
OH right the other thing is, I am almost done with my second animorphs reread in the last 3 years, someone please hold me these are not children’s books oh god has anyone else here read them all
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Just hang on, and life will usually straighten itself out. Apart from the wonky bits, but there are always wonky bits.
I wonder if you’d get into trouble for graduating dressed as a dragon? it would be rather magnificent.
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It’s funny, I was just thinking about Animorphs this morning– yeah, there is some serious stuff in there– that whole bit where Tobias wants to smash into a window because he thinks it will make him human, and then in Megamorphs with the comet and the Mercora and the nuclear weapon…
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Oh my god yes poor Tobias D: D: my DARLING CHILD. What gets me is how FAST these books get dark, it’s like halfway through the first, not some build across a dozen or so. It gets intense and then stays there x_x
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Yeah, when you think back on it, you realize that it was… not suicide exactly, but I guess the same sort of mindset. Of course that was lost on me when I was eight.
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I just read that one last night – thanks, Jade <3 – and to me it clearly came across as suicidal
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I by no means read anywhere near all the Animorph books, I don’t think–and the ones I did read (which was probably quite a few), I didn’t read in any particular order. I do remember enjoying them, but about the only thing I remember about them now is that if you stayed in animal form too long you’d get stuck that way (and one kid was stuck that way that I remember), and then a scene in which someone is crawling through an ant tunnel in ant form and gets bit by an ant, and then when she morphs back human later and is showering there’s an ant attached to her midsection and I remember that being freaky and gross lol.
But the darkness of the books I think was lost on me as a child, or else I’ve forgotten the darkness/seriousness.
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I read the Animorphs in the fifth grade and thoroughly enjoyed them. I never read the whole series though on account of it being really long and my mom was really strict so my default assumption if I did anything without explicitly asking her permission first was that she wouldn’t let me even if I did ask so I hid the books from her because I thought she wouldn’t let me read them and I could only get my hands on the books from the fifth grade classroom.
Anyway from what I remember it was a really cool concept, holy heck.
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Indeed, I remember trying to “acquire” people’s cats and dogs (of course, I never touched the blue cube, but it was worth a try) as a kid. And I still type telepathic dialogue with pointed brackets in my stories as a shout-out to the series.
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Oh, and between Animorphs and Sailor Moon, I spent an inordinate amount of time paranoid that strangers were/were controlled by evil aliens. That I remember very well.
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if you ever feel like reading them now (which I highly suggest–they’re short, maybe an hour and a half each to read. Perfect for when you have an early evening or an afternoon with nothing specific to do for a couple hours), they’ve all been digitized and put online. Very convenient!
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Oh wow, this is such a nostalgia trip!! Thanks for recommending! I’m halfway through the first book right now. I remember reading and re-reading this book.
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Animorphs introduced me to so many concept as a kid that I didn’t even understand. That series was dark.
Pretty awesome, though.
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Jadestone I just gotta say I love your posts.
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Yes. My first impulse was to scroll down because it was so long, but then I went NO IT’s JADESTONE, so I read the whole thing, and I certainly don’t regret it.
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CPM & Biblio– *buzzes pleasantly*
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Holy cake, that guy in the jungle place at the end of “Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock’s Eye” was Malinowski?!? I’ll file that under “things I had absolutely no way of realizing when I was ten”…
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I managed to get two part-time internships this summer, both of which I’m really excited about. I’ll post more specifics about them on the World Domination thread later, but I’m preoccupied about clothing now. See, one of them is in a really business-y environment, for which none of my normal outfits, even the nice ones, are really appropriate. My parents have offered to buy me my first set of nice business clothes. I’m really grateful and I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about building that up piece by piece. The thing is, nice clothes are so expensive. I never like spending much money on material things for myself, even though I know my family can afford it. I’m feeling even more guilty now because I’ve paid a lot more attention this year to the privilege that I have, and I can’t help thinking of my low-income classmates not having the same opportunities I do. It doesn’t seem right that I could easily (if I wanted to) spend more on summer work clothes than I’ll earn in stipends.
What can I do about this? (Other than establishing a scholarship someday for low-income students’ internship clothes, which I could see actually being really helpful but would be way off in the future if ever.) I don’t want to just bemoan my privilege and guiltiness and then not do a thing.
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Does your mother have any old suits in your size? I was lucky that mine did when I did my DC internships– they did look a little 80s, but not enough that anyone cared.
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I would take your parents up on a couple new things that will be staples for years. You’ll get a lot of use out of them and they’ll be worth the investment. You could supplement with things from thrift stores (thrift stores and consignment stores have some great stuff) or, like KaiYves says, take things from your parents closet. I’d go consignment/thrift shopping first to get an idea of what kind of basics you might need.
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In the immediate, donate to Dress for Success.
In the grand, destroy capitalism.
Never capitulate to systems of complacency.
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Here’s what I’ve decided to do:
I did go shopping and got a few new staples. I’m planning to look at a thrift store to see if I can supplement that there, especially for things like nice tops that aren’t as specific as suit pieces.
I’m donating more than half of the clothes I left here while I was at college. (And I’ll continue to cut down over the summer.)
I’ll make a donation to Dress for Success in my dad’s name for Father’s Day.
It’s a start, at least. Thank you all for your suggestions!
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Being able to edit comments on one’s own thread is pretty awe-inspiring.
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I do hope nobody minds, but, I am kind of using Museblog as a sort of a spellchecker. Since, I’m… well… a writer, and the program I use to write in doesn’t have a spellchecker installed. (Professional of me, right, guys?) And the ‘blog was the only nearest source for spellcheck. So… if you see a member on really late at night, it’s only me.
(You know what I just discovered? According to spellcheck itself, ‘spellcheck’ isn’t a word!)
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Glad that we could be of use… But the spellcheck function isn’t specific to MuseBlog! Your web browser is doing it for you. If you need an alternative writing processor, I’d suggest google drive. It’s really easy to get (for free) if you have a gmail account, and since it’s in browser it’ll spellcheck for you.
Not that I think any of us mind your unique use of the site, but pasting all that text in here seems a bit tedious!
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If I’m uncertain of the word I’m spelling, I’m just respelling it in the comment box, and seeing if spellcheck refuses it or not. Not very tedious at all. It’s quite fun, really.
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Posting live from day one of my first ever anime convention. I’m here with my friend and we’ve seen so many cool people and cosplays. It’s been pretty cool.
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Have fun!
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I’m near afraid to go to the park tomorrow, in case a pop machine begins attacking.
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Is there a reason you’re worried about that specifically, or is it one of those fears where you don’t even know where it came from, but you still can’t get rid of it?
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Heh. It was a Stephen King reference. To his movie Maximum Overdrive.
Remember last night, when the Earth kinda passed through the asteroid belt, so there were apparently more comets outside than there had been for a few years?
In the movie, the Earth did the same thing, and all of the machines started to be able to run themselves. (Trucks were going down the road without drivers, electric appliances were going haywire for seemingly no reason, etc.)
And in one part of the movie, someone put a dollar in a pop machine and the machine started spitting out bottles like it was a cannon.
My post was a bit of a joke/reference to Maximum Overdrive.
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It was actually a cloud of cometary debris, if the Earth went through the asteroid belt, that would mean it had been knocked out of orbit, and we’d have bigger problems than evil machines… The Earth passed through a cloud of debris left by Comet 209P/LINEAR, and the bits of debris entering our atmosphere created a meteor shower (or at least they did everywhere it wasn’t pouring rain, like here.)
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Aha. I was informed wrong, then.
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A pop machine as in a machine that dispenses soft drinks?
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Yes.
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Did they create that space image by getting red, green, and blue pics and putting them together??? Because if so the picture doesn’t have real colors on it.
That’s the way they do colors on deep-space photos. I think they did.
For example why it isn’t correct: A picture of Jupiter (shown in some recent Muse magazine) gets all weird colorful when using this method. I therefore think that this picture may not be 100% colored correctly.
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Wow, you know your stuff, many astronomical photographs do indeed combine red, green, and blue filters. This photo is of matter that doesn’t emit visible light, so there must be some assignment of false colors, too– that’s why astrophotography is both an art and a science.
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Thanks
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You’re welcome, it’s nice to see a bright new face who knows so much about astrophotography!
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GAPAs, would it be possible to make the R&P and R&R threads more visible/accessible? Having to use the searchbar or scoll down the homepage quite a distance is a bit annoying.
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I don’t think so.
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Didn’t those originally become private because the blog was going to become searchable? Or did people want them to become private regardless? I know people were concerned about outsiders seeing what they’d posted there; it wasn’t an arbitrary decision or a software error.
Anyway, if you have an account, you can view recent comments in the Comments page, including those from those threads. I find that a lot easier and have started just going there without even visiting the homepage first.
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Yes, I believe many people (myself included) kind of wanted them to become private, regardless of whether the ‘blog was to become searchable, which is why they are a bit more tedious to find, even when logged in.
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They are hard to find now: I was thinking a permalink on the sidebar only visible to those logged in Would be useful: however, it’s probably a lot easier just to go to the “Categories” drop down arrow, choose “Life”, and scroll down a bit. That’s what I do if I can’t find it.
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Anime convention update: that was so much fun. I cosplayed Vriska from Homestuck and my friend was Terezi, so we were the scourge sisters, and soooooo many people complimented my metal arm. People asked for my picture, and instead of being cool and posing I just grinned like an idiot. It was amazing. I also bought some prints. One has a watercolor painted galaxy, another has a really detailed ink drawing of a dragon, and the third is a Fullmetal Alchemist poster.
There were actually religious protesters around the convention center, which was interesting. They were a bit Westboro-style, but I think people told jem off pretty well: some guy came up to me and said he had given a speech. I wish I could have seen it.
There were some people from Studio Trigger there, which is the place responsible for Kill la Kill. I didn’t go to their panels because it was crowded and I never could get into KLK, but wow. Also there was a voice actor from Madoka Magica.
I saw all sorts of cosplays there! There were so many cool people.
Then my friend and I went to a Homestuck photoshoot, and at that point my horns got snagged on a tree and my whole wig came off, so I wasn’t exactly in full cosplay for that. But I still did some of the pairings shoots, and fought over some fruit gushers with a John, and I let a Terezi lick my ear.
Then after the Aradia/Sollux photoshoot, with all the Aradia/Sollux cosplayers, one couple stayed up there and the Sollux got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend who was cosplaying Aradia. And she said yes and made it canon. That was pretty cool to witness.
You wouldn’t believe how many Attack on Titan cosplays there were!! Wow! I do wish that working 3DMG would be invented though, preferably before I get to old to operate it. Can you imagine it!
I had to leave at 5, which was good because sadly my costume was falling apart by then, but all in all it was a really good experience and I definitely want to keep cosplaying in the future.
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That sounds great, I’d love to be able to go to a convention again.
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Wow. The ‘blog is moving at a crazy fast pace, today. Been a long time since not checking comments for 24-48 hours does more than bump the last comment I read back to page 2–and today, alone, in less than 24 hours, I had 4 pages of backlogged comments to read. I just figured, oh, it’s a holiday weekend, many of y’all are out for the summer (some of you have even graduated from college and are now bona fide adults [I’m terrified of being an adult]) and you’re all posting tons on the ‘blog……
Imagine my surprise when reading back through the comments, I discovered that, in fact, 75% of the comments were by one person–a neophyte! Welcome to the ‘blog, Ethan! And welcome to you, as well, Kira. I think the two of you are the first ‘phytes we’ve had in a while, although my time perception is pretty skewed. You are definitely one of the most prolific ‘phytes we’ve had in awhile, Ethan!!
You may find that the ‘blog moves a lot slower paced than you are accustomed or perhaps anticipate. For instance, it’s not uncommon for a comment to be posted, and it be hours to days before anyone responds, because many of us lead very very busy lives, and don’t have the opportunity to post on here as much as we would perhaps like. The ‘blog’s pace has slowed down quite a bit the last couple years, and many of us don’t even visit the site daily. So lack of response ≠lack of interest/people ignoring you, just as a heads up!
You should tell us a bit about yourselves. What are your interests, what do you like to do, etc. I know you seemed to have knowledge/interest in computer programming, typography, astronomy, and HPBs, Ethan. What about you, Kira?
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By the way–I meant to say congratulations to all of you Musers who have graduated and gone on to enter the terrifying world of adulthood. And congrats as well to those of you who graduated high school and are getting ready to start college in the fall–I know there’s at least a couple of you. 
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78- Heh, I missed that crazy fast energy! MuseBlog has been getting like an old folks’ home. *waves cane*
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Voted for the second time today! To be honest, I was very disappointed in the selection of candidates, but it’s a matter of principle to go anyway. Somehow I’m always slightly ill on election days…
Anyhow, I passed my exam on friday (wooo!). It was rather frightening for a bit: I’d expected a straight up two-hour written exam, but instead we had a one hour written section plus one hour verbal. I ended up with a B and managed not to cough on anyone, collapse or throw up on anyone (ran out of flu meds- ah what standards can be lowered to). Then I messed around with legos with my little brother, who was over for dinner- he’s three now, and it’s crazy how much bigger and more talkative he’s gotten. And stubborn, but that’s not exactly much of a surprise.
Saturday was kinda rough- I wanted to quit the flu meds and caffeine cold turkey (I try to avoid unnecessary medication when I can, but I have a full class schedule and I really didn’t have time to be sick), but somehow that plus the weird weather (mid-summer heat, thunderstorms) and getting up at 8 a.m. to sit in a stuffy computer lab just ended up giving me a headache. So back to flu meds.
I still managed to attend the first half of my dance class though- I’m not sure if I’ll be cast in the zombie movie, but I’m proud of myself that I managed to go and pull it together for the first 90 minutes. But ahrg my homework for this week was so frustrating- barely managed to get anything done. But I’ve gotten most of them done (albeit sloppily) so that I can focus on studying for my next test tomorrow in Probability&Statistics. The teacher last year had heavy Slovakian accent that made it sound like Probability&Sadistics, which seems more appropriate now than ever.
Eh. I’m actually pretty happy with everything right now, with my only worry being about my best math-friend. We’ve been sort of remote the whole week, entirely my fault- sick, contagious and rather fuzzy-headed except for brief periods of renewed flu-med moments of clarity, which I needed to study. And the whole headaches and no-time-to-be-sick thing making me grumpy. But I hope to be almost well tomorrow, and I have an entire long weekend coming to study so I can fit in some free time to try and patch things up.
Also, for anyone who starts to take aspirin/c type flu meds- taper off. Going from five a day to nil- very bad. But I went from four (friday) to two yesterday so I think I’ll be done fairly soon.
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I hope you feel better soon!
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I think I’ve officially graduated! We’ve still got to go back to school to take our exams, sadly. But we had our Leavers’ Ceremony yesterday morning, followed by a ball at the Savoy which was incredibly fun!
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Congrats!
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Happy Towel Day, o ye hoopy froods!
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I know where mine is!
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This morning I have my “Keep Your Ocean Blue” beach towel around my shoulders and Journey of the Sorcerer playing in another tab.
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Happy Towel Day!
I went to prom last night. The music was terrible. The dancing was worse. Someone spilled vodka on my head. But I actually had quite a good time! Probably because I got to wear a ridiculous dress, which is always fun.
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The mere fact that someone managed to get vodka into your prom suggests it was a lot more interesting than mine.
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What I Did Today: An Essay in the Form of a Chronologically Arranged List
05:30 – Wake up
05:40 – Go downstairs quietly to read
06:00 – Go upstairs and get dressed
06:05 – Sneak back downstairs, go out to my car
06:07 – Drive to doughnut place to buy doughnuts for self and family
06:25 – Return home, eat a long john and read the funnies
06:35 – Greet groggy mother and get scolded for not having made coffee yet
06:36 – Make coffee
06:45 – Drink coffee and make conversation
07:15 – Check internets
07:50 – Take shower
08:25 – Eat another doughnut
09:15 – Leave for church
11:45 – Return from church
11:50 – Change into casual clothes
11:55 – Eat lunch
12:10 – Check internets
12:41 – Receive email from vocations director of Carmelite monastery inviting me to discernment retreat
12:42 – Reread email, attempt to slow pounding heart
12:43 – Reread email, attempt to slow pounding heart
12:44 – Look for cheapest plane tickets
12:52 – Purchase “cheapest” plane tickets
12:55 – Go downstairs and show mom email from monastery
12:56 – Wait
12:57 – Wait
12:58 – Argue with mom
13:03 – Return upstairs to email vocations director my flight details
13:20 – Argue with mom
13:25 – Text friend about email
13:30 – Argue with mom
15:20 – Argue with mom
15:30 – Help mom make taco dip
16:15 – Leave for family pizza party
21:00 – Return from pizza party
21:10 – Check internets
Now I’m hungry. Three small pieces of pizza was insufficient, I think, especially after being bombarded by excited young cousins for several hours straight. (My three-year-old cousin Leo is so cute, though! I haven’t seen him for like six months but somehow he remembered my name, and we had a great time playing foosball. He looks exactly like I did when I was little, except that he’s enormous for his age.) Also, if one were curious as to my emotional state in re email, they ought to picture being madly in love, but moreso, and replace the attractive human with a way of life. The analogy is more apt than might be imagined.
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Wow, congratulations!
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Congratulations, Piggy!! That is awesome and I am so happy for you.
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I have officially finished and released my first album! It’s a video game soundtrack, actually. I’ll be the first to admit that it is a bit rough, but it exists, and that’s something. Plus, it’ll be used in a video game. How cool is that?
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Ooh, cool! What kind of video game?
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It’s a fairly simple indie platformer that my high school’s game dev club made. I knew some people in the club, so I asked if I could help by writing a soundtrack. The premise revolves around two characters which are trapped in a computer, so all the levels are like different parts of a computer that you have to play through to escape.
As far as I know, the game is the first to feature doge as an enemy.
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Nice! Sounds like fun, and a good start for you.
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I’ve been moving into a new apartment and finally unpacked my bookshelf and got all my books put away: http://i.imgur.com/RYLOnFc.jpg?
isn’t it prettyyyyyy
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Nice!
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It’s just so ORDERED. Like I’m not.
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What’s the secret to finding the motivation to study for long periods of time?
Five days left and an entire history course still to learn, I’m never getting that A*.
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Buckle down, drop everything, and force yourself to do the first (or shortest) reading. If you’re in the mood after that, go on to another and maybe another, but promise yourself a break after three, maybe to get a meal or take a walk. After the break, come back and repeat.
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Thanks, this is helpful! Actually, shortly after posting that I had a shower and that snapped me out of my funk, so hopefully this afternoon’s productivity will continue. It’s all good now.
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Has anyone seen The Normal Heart? I watched it last night and I cried hard.
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Band concert was fun. Brass section nearly passed out by the end. It was pretty hardcore for a concert band.
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Are there any named bunny-fighting units with three-syllable names? I kind of want to do a “Ballad of the Green Berets” parody.
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Three syllables with the last one stressed — that narrows it down a bit. How about “the Underground”?
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The Ballad of the Underground
Masters of sea, land, and sky
Fearless folks who let darts fly
William’s hordes quake at the sound
Of the dauntless pride of the Underground!
Never wav’ring from the quest
We know them as Koko’s best*
All of those pink would confound
Now rise again, as the Underground!
Fight to save our Musish land
Fight the bun**, dart guns in hand
In darkest days, when the foe surround
They know not fear, they’re the Underground!
Never wav’ring from the quest
We know them as Koko’s best
All of those pink would confound
Now rise again, as the Underground!
Back at home, three wunglings wait
Their BEACON lad has met his fate
He died for those by pink oppressed
His friends now read his last request
Take up my sword, and join my quest
Stand true and proud, with Koko’s best
Show the bun though they may pound
We rise again, in the Underground!
* “Koko” here refers to both Kokopelli, the exalted Muse, and also to Kokonino County.
** An abbreviation of “bunny” that coincidentally closely mirrors WWI British references to Germans as “the Hun”.
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It brings tears to my eyes.
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So remember how I wrote about auditioning as an extra for a zombie film? Well, I got a text today that they rewrote the script and ended up needing a lot less zombies and I didn’t make the cut…
But apparently the rewrite created a new small speaking role, and they want me and another girl from casting to read for it! And the auditions aren’t till August, so I have some time to practice. I have zero acting experience, but I also had zero dance experience so hey why not. (Not to mention that they’re only having the two of us read, so my chances really aren’t that bad)
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Cool, talk about a silver lining! Good luck with the audition, I really hope you get it!
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Good luck! Go for it!
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Woah. That is super cool that they want you to audition for that role. Best of luck!!
If you get it, you’ll have to let us know the movie so we can get our hands on it and watch.
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AHHHHHH YESS. YOU WILL GET THE ROLE AND THEN YOU WILL BE FAMOUS AND IN ALL THE MOVIES AND MAKE A LOT OF MONEY AND THEN YOU CAN BUY AN ISLAND AND INVITE ALL OF US TO LIVE ON IT WITH YOU–
I mean, good luck with the audition Mother dear!!
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I say! Good luck. old girl.
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Hey, good luck!
I hope you get the part!
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Wow I had an amazing birthday yesterday, and a bunch of people sent me nice messages and drew me things, and i received one special piece of fanfiction that I will cherish forever, and also one expensive piece of music software, and I’m really happy.
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Yay! I’m glad you had a stellar birthday! Please accept my belated pies – not even stale yet, don’t worry.
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Happy belated birthday!
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Happy (belated) birthday, AL!
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guys guys guys I was failing two classes at the beginning of the semester and now I might legitimately get a weighted 4.0
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Congratulations! You must have worked hard to turn that around.
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And, by the way, muselover, happy birthday!
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I’m pretty sure it’s unnatural and just downright odd when you read a Wikia page about your favorite “celebrity” and feel as though someone is watching you, making you shrink the page down until only you can read what you’re reading. Side effects included, feeling very warm and turning bright red, sweating like a man (if you happen to not be a man, like myself), and breathing irregularly.
If this has happened to you; please, please, please let me know, so I know I’m not alone!
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The worst is when you watch interviews online and are too embarrassed to even look at them so you have to scroll down and stare at the comments section.
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I always have to scroll down and only look at the subtitles in the “Hitler Finds Out…” parodies when I get linked to them because I really don’t want to watch Hitler, even if it is just an actor.
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So many books, so little time…
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Okay. So this is a total long shot, and many of you are far too young to even have a chance of knowing, most likely, but…..
I’m trying to track down a computer game I remember playing as a little kid, but can’t find any mention of anywhere on the internet. If I remember correctly, it came packaged with several other demo games on a floppy disc ((yes, floppy disc)) compatible with the Macintosh IIsi which was the first ever computer we had when I was a child ((actually, I don’t remember ever not having a computer, I was less than 3 when we got it)). Ancient computer, didn’t even have internet capabilities ((*gasp*)). It would have been early 1990s.
So anyway. The game was a white screen, with about half a dozen to a dozen little black lines across the screen that started with a small number of holes in the lines. The lines wrapped around the screen and moved, so the position of the hole moved. The goal was to take your character from the bottom row to the top of the screen and hit his head on the top and you’d advance to the next level. Everytime you jumped, a new hole would open up in a line somewhere. If you fell through a hole on the bottom line, you died. As levels got harder, speed increased and “evil toys” (random objects that if they touched you it killed you) would start to appear on lines as well and you’d ahve to avoid them.
If I remember correctly, the game was called Hazardous. But I have yet to manage to turn up anything that even remotely resembles it on any permutation of google search I or my sister have tried. It’s like it doesn’t even exist in passing. and while I realize finding a version that would be the same and compatible with my current laptop is far fetched, I’d at least like to track down a mention of the game. Does anyone by any chance remember this? GAPAs? I know you were at least alive back then, lol, unlike some of the other ‘bloggers.
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I remember the Mac IIsi — a sweet machine! People said the letters stood for “simply irresistible.” The game doesn’t ring any bells, though.
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OMGosh yes, it was definitely a great computer. We still have ours stashed away at home somewhere, but if I recall correctly, the last time my sister and I tried to turn it on (probably about 9 years ago or so) to retrieve some documents, we couldn’t get the monitor to display anything but a black screen. So I have no idea if it still works….
But I have so many fond memories linked with that computer, most of htem related to games we had installed on it. So many fun (and sometimes even educational) games. Like Number Munchers. And Word Munchers (not as fun as Number Munchers, iirc). And Spell it Plus (where you’re a frog running and jumping over hurdles and eating words that are spelled correctly for points, and if you eat the wrong word you knock over hte hurdle and don’t get a gold medal). And some game with a rabbit (I think?) who was a reporter or something and went around asking Who/what/where/why/when questions of people. It was educational in some way.
And my sister had Carmen Sandiego on it. Which I never cared for much because I was never any good at solving the cases so it frustrated me. And she had Oregon Trail which she absolutely loved and I couldn’t stand, because she would name all the characters after immediate family and/or pets, and I would get irrationally upset when mom/dad/me/her were injured or died, because it somehow seemed ominous even though I knew it was a game and had no bearing on real life. And she had an electronic piano keyboard with a computer program that the parents got her when we were little. Miracle piano? And she *loved* that. She’s always been a hardcore music person. And I actually learned to play piano on that keyboard (not with the game, although I played it occasionally, just the keyboard), because it wasn’t until several years I think of us girls having piano lessons that the parents bought a baby grand.
and Mario Teaches Typing. That was a flamablamablous game. Although I was not that great at it, but mom was super awesome fast at it, and us girls would just sit there and stare in awe as mom would type those sentences about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (?) and race her way through the castle at top speed.
And I had a game where you would connect the dots, and then the pictures would develop animation (like if you connected the dots of a train, a train would form and then move it’s way off the screen on railroad tracks).
And OMG happy memories. I love love loved that computer and all it’s games.
And I typed all my science fair projects on it as a kid. And my sister once accidentally printed out 100 sheets of a fullsize drawing of an ear of corn, somehow, and the printer was churning out sheet after sheet of a full size black and white ear of corn and she and I were panicking and couldn’t figure out how to cancel it (and I don’t think pulling the paper off the printer occurred to us), and I think Dad ended up intervening and getting really mad at us, lol.
And it has a little microphone you could talk into and record stuff. And you could record start up messages/shut down messages. Or maybe you could only record shut down messages, and choose pre recorded ones for start up? But my sister and I, when we were a little older, had set it so that it played like some twilight zone thing when it was started up and it would say something like “you are now entering the twilight zone”, and then we recorded this totally awesome shut down message, but all I remember is it took so many attempts because we were laughing hysterically and it was so much fun, and the beginning of our shut down message was along the lines of “You are now exiting the twilight zone. All your files will be deleted…..” And there was more, I’m sure of it. We were very proud of ourselves and it was hilarious.
And a game where you could be a little fish in an ocean, and you had to find food to stay alive. And not get eaten by sharks. Or die of starvation.
*happiness*
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My brother found out the other day that a whole bunch of Humongous Entertainment games are available on Steam – Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish, and Putt-Putt. Those (along with the Backyard Sports games, Reader Rabbit, and various other games of that type) were our childhood. Now I know what I’m getting him for his birthday if he doesn’t get there first!
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True, I was alive. But I don’t remember that game. I can see why you’d like to find it, though.
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