I hate making my bed and stopped attempting the full set of useless linens sometime in 2002.
PLEASE SELL SHEET SETS THAT ARE THE PILLOWCASES AND A FITTED SHEET.
love,
the person who just had the depressing realisation that pillowcases + fitted sheet + top sheet is cheaper than buying them all individually
When I’m superduper organized I buy the same sheet set twice and make a comforter cover out of the two useless top sheets, but that’s superduper and thus rare.
I definitely had a “senpai noticed me” moment when eirenical tagged me in this. Thank you!
AW. ^_^ You have no idea how I blushed and squeaked when I read that. ^__^ I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO CAUSE THIS REACTION IN SOMEONE. 😀 In fact, I think I short-circuited something when I read that. XD
“He was a Royalist, fanatical and severe. He did not love his grandfather much, as the latter’s gayety and cynicism repelled him, and his feelings towards his father were gloomy.
He was, on the whole, a cold and ardent, noble, generous, proud, religious, enthusiastic lad; dignified to harshness, pure to shyness.”
Honestly I wonder how many aces with sex drives actually thought they were bi/pan before discovering the term asexual?
I wonder how many aces thought, “huh, sex sounds alright, and I get turned on while thinking about sex no matter the gender of the person, so that must mean I’m bi/pan.”
Because for me, that’s exactly how it was – before I learned what sexual attraction actually was, that having sexual desire for somebody who WASN’T engaged in a sexual act was actually a thing, I thought I was bi simply because sex with any gender was appealing. It was the stimulation, not the person.
Same thing for aromantics interested in life partnerships/QP relationships, who thought that wanting that intimacy with somebody and not caring what gender they were.
That kind of journey of self discovery is just as important as feeling broken before discovering the terms asexuality and aromanticism; don’t let anybody invalidate you because of your past identities, or for having a sex drive/want for a intimate relationship. You’re beautiful and valid and so important!
i was about to joke about how my political stance is “end lawnmower culture” but then it occurred to me that i actually Am against lawns as suburban status symbols and wastes of land that Could be used to sustain native flora & fauna and grow food for people, but no, instead they are these huge useless swaths of land that need Constant maintenance, the process of which is not only destructive, but Incredibly Loud
You know that actually is the purpose of a lawn? They started as a trend of the French monarchy – the ones revolutionaries beheaded for being self indulgent assholes.
It exists purely as a status symbol that says, “I have land but I don’t have to use it for anything productive. I can invest time, money and resources in maintaining an entirely useless crop on land I’m not farming just because it looks pretty.”
Lawns offend me.
Why have that stunted golf course in front of your suburban house if you can’t even water it? Get one of these instead.
Unite Against the Lawn
Pro tiny house, anti grass lawn. Prioritize practicality.
This is actually really interesting because back in the 1950s and 60s in Australia when we started getting large waves of Southern European migrants one thing the Italians and others would often so is buy a little suburban home, then tear out the ornamental flower beds and lawn and useless trees and plant fruits, vegetables, grapes and even olives. It was considered completely scandalous by their Anglo-Saxon neighbours because lawn was considered an aspirational thing and the ideal was to go from not needing a kitchen garden and having an ornamental garden to show how well you were doing.
A lot of places make it illegal to not have a lawn in the U.S.
The first thing I want to say is that I agree with this wholeheartedly. Lawns are generally wasteful and the only really good use for one that I’ve ever heard is to have a place that your dogs and/or your kids can have some space to run around, play, and be dogs/kids.
My father has always had food gardens at his house. He grows tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs like mint, basil, and scallions, zucchini, and strawberries. He also had grape vines for a while. Instead of dedicated flower beds, we have dedicated fruit and vegetable beds. We could probably supply tomatoes to half the block and still have more than enough for our own use.
And it’s wonderful to have all that fresh produce available and it’s a HELL of a lot cheaper than buying it all in a store. The fruits and veggies that come from our garden are SO GOOD and so fresh. And the herbs that we grow are so much more flavorful than the dried stuff you get at the store. This coming summer I’m planning to use some of my own yard to plant things that my father doesn’t plant, like eggplant and some of the other squashes.
But here’s the one thing I have to recognize: it’s hard work. And not everyone has the time or energy for it. My father’s food beds take up maybe a grand total of 10% of the lawn, if that. He used to have twice as many beds planted and taking care of it
took a decent portion of his free time in the spring/summer/fall. He’s
cut back now that he’s older, and it STILL takes a decent amount of time
every day just to harvest what’s grown. So, yes, I wholeheartedly support the idea of maintaining part or all (if it’s legal) of your land as food-growing land, but I can also understand why one might not. If you plant as much of your lawn as, for example, that second picture for which I have SUCH ENVY, I can easily see it taking a good portion of the day to take care of it. So, all I’m saying is that not everyone can devote that kind of time.
If you do, though? You should totally do the thing. *nodnod*
(And I am TOTALLY hanging on to that second picture as a dream of what to do with my own lawn someday. *_*)
Whenever someone tries to claim that evolution is a lie, I send them a picture of platybelodon.
1. It’s an excellent example of transitional evolution.
2. It’s a mess who would intentionally do this and why
3. It makes them piss themselves a little.
“Evolution is just a theory-”
I busted out laughing in the middle of Christmas dinner. This is the best post of 2015 that I’ve seen.
Not to be rude, but evolution is just a theory, albeit a probable one.
You can’t prove it, the only thing you can do is disprove it, which is what good scientists are supposed to do, try to disprove their theory.
Ah, but that’s the thing; A scientific theory IS a proven fact, and evolution is a very good example of an undeniably true one!
I’ve been meaning to write a post about what the meaning of a scientific theory is, and this seems like a good opportunity.
In science we have theories, and we have laws. It’s a very common misconception that a scientific theory is a an unproven hypothesis. This is understandable, but leads to a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. A scientific theory isn’t the same as what we commonly refer to as a ‘theory’. Here’s a definition:
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation. x
Compare this to the definition of a scientific law:
A scientific law is a statement based on repeated experimental observations that describes some aspects of the universe. A scientific law always applies under the same conditions, and implies that there is a causal relationship involving its elements. x
This means, basically, that a law summarizes observations about some sort of natural phenomena (usually mathematically). A good example is Newton’s law of gravity!
Newton’s Law of Gravity explains through mathematics how different bodies react to each other because of this force we call gravity, both on earth and in space, but it doesn’t explain why it happens or even what gravity actually is. No explanation, therefor a law!
Then we have theories, which not only document phenomena, but give explainations as to why these phenomena happen and what they are. A scientific theory requires more testable evidence than a law, and usually encompasses multiple laws and explains them more thoroughly. For example, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Newton’s law of gravity was testable, but it was only after Einstein proposed the theory of relativity that we started to understand what gravity actually is and how it functions. Einstein was able to give us explainations mathematically for why the laws of physics work as they do. Explanations for how it worked, therefor a theory!
(It’s also important to remember that a scientific theory and a scientific law are two very different things, and one can never become the other. A theory will always be a theory, and a law will always be a law.)
One of my favorite examples of this is the laws of Mendelian inheritance.
Long before we knew what genetics were, farmers were breeding for favorable traits. They didn’t know where they came from or how they were passed from one organism to the next, but they knew that if they bred a large dog with another large dog, they’d get large puppies, and they knew that if they bred only their best produce that their plants would produce better produce in the future.
Gregor Johann Mendel started conducting experiments by hybridizing pea plants, and was able to prove that this consistently happened. By doing this he created three separate laws that all fall under the Laws of Inheritance; The Law of Segregation, the Law of Independent Assortment, and the Law of Dominance. It gets a little complicated here and I’m not an expert on DNA, but I’ll try to summarize.
The Law of Segregation states that all organisms contain two alleles for each trait, and that those separate during meiosis so each gamete only contains one of them. That means that offspring receives a pair of alleles from its parents for each trait, resulting in one allele for each trait from each parent. For example, a calico cat and a tabby may breed and produce 4 tabby kittens, but all of those kittens will also carry the genetic information of a calico.
The Law of Independent Assortment states that alleles for these traits are passed independently of one another during gamete formation. For example, if the calico is a manx and the tabby is a scottish fold, the kittens can inherit a short tail without inheriting their calico parents coloring. They can also look entirely like one parent despite carrying the genetic information of both. Each trait is passed independently of all other traits.
The Law of Dominance states that recessive alleles will be masked by dominant alleles. For example, blue eyes in cats is a recessive trait. Therefor even if the scottish fold has blue eyes (is a carrier and affected), the dominant trait eyes of the manx will determine the color of the kittens eyes, and we’ll only have a slim chance of producing affected, blue eyed kittens if the manx also carries the recessive blue eyed gene, and those genes line up. (If I’ve made any mistakes here, I’d appreciate someone with more knowledge on genetics letting me know)
But you’ll notice he didn’t show how or why this happened, he was just able to observe it and prove that it did. It wasn’t until the Chromosome Theory of Inheritance was discovered that we could explain why. This was the theory that explained that chromosomes are what carry genetic material and pass these traits from one generation to the next.
It’s a fundamental, unifying theory of genetics that shapes how we conduct our science today. This theory is the basis of genetic engineering, which has had a huge impact on modern science. Just for example, the manufacturing of drugs (insulin and vaccines!), gene therapy, the genetic engineering of lab animals, and, most famously, agriculture. AKA, GMOs.
This leads into another requirement of a theory; Being supported by numerous other fields of science. Genetics is one of the sciences that hugely supports the Theory of Evolution. This is how we’ve been able to sequence DNA and discover how closely all life on earth is related, and how the DNA of humans and chimps is nearly identical.
x And this isn’t the only field of science that supports the validity of the Theory of Evolution.
We have radioisotope dating! Isotopes make up all matter on earth, and by measuring the decay of radioactive isotopes, we can date rock layers. We can do this because we know the rate of radioactive decay. This is how we know that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. We’ve used this to date fossils and prove that transitional forms came between connected species, and that humans and modern animals didn’t live alongside dinosaurs.
We have paleontology! The fossil record shows extremely detailed evidence of evolution occurring. Evolution is so accurate in its predictions that there’s never been a single fossil found in a place that it shouldn’t be. For example, the transitional fossils between dinosaurs and modern birds is found right in the middle, exactly where we’d expect it to be. So is the ancestor of platybelodon, and its relatives as they became our modern elephants! We’re able to predict so accurately where fossils should be located that we’ve been able to pick sites to excavate based entirely on that, then find the fossils we expected! Predictive power is a huge part of a proven scientific theory.
We have molecular biology! Which proves that gene sequences among extremely different organisms are still related. The basic structure of all DNA on the planet is in the form of the double helix, and while we predictably have nearly all the same DNA as our primate cousins, over half of our DNA is also identical to banana plants!
Then we have embryology! When we compare embryos, not only are most animals nearly indistinguishable from each other, but we see holdover traits from our previous ancestors. The most compelling examples are the fact that human fetuses, and all other mammals, have gill slits as embryos. In mammals these develop into the eustachian tubes and the ear canal, while they continue to develop into gills in fish. Humans also have tails and yolk sacs as embryos! (Also look up lanugo in fetuses, very interesting and shared among other mammals)
Then there’s biochemistry! The basic chemistry that occurs in the cells of all life on earth is extremely similar, and shows that all modern organisms had a common ancestor. For example, all animals have enzymes and hormones. Trypsin is just one that’s found in everything from humans to sea sponges.
Then biogeography! The fact that groups of organisms that are related are all found near one another is more evidence for the validity of evolution. If life didn’t evolve, there’d be no reason for certain life to only exist on certain continents, or for species to be distributed in a pattern that reflects their genetic relationships with one another.
Modern observations are extremely helpful as well! This is why we now see antibiotic resistant strains of viruses, elephants becoming less likely to have tusks because of poaching, and the peppered moth becoming darker to better camouflage itself during the industrial revolution.
There are others, but I’ll end with comparative anatomy, which is one of the coolest, imo. (I’m probably biased because I collect bones lol)
When you compare the skeletal structures of vertebrates, we have extremely similar structures regardless of how wildly different our environments and behaviors are. The skeletal structure of a fin is hardly the best way for a fin to be designed, but because whales evolved from terrestrial mammals, they adapted using what they had. (we can also show the full evolution of cetaceans through the fossil record, which is very cool if you want to look it up.)
This is true in non-mammals as well. An excellent example is the laryngeal nerve! In fish, the nerve makes a direct line from the brain down to the larynx, which is practical and to be expected. In animals that developed longer necks, however, we see that the nerve is trapped under the aortic arch!
The nerve had to evolve with us as we evolved from our aquatic ancestors, so our laryngeal nerve is forced to not go from our brain to our larynx, but rather to take a detour into our chest and around the aortic arch before doubling back!
This is amazing in giraffes, where the nerve is nearly 15 feet long because it was forced to grow as the giraffe’s neck did, and now takes a detour down the entirety of the giraffe’s neck and around the heart before returning the the larynx, which was its destination.
x There are mountains more evidence, but it’d take a lifetime to cover it all.
So you’ve got the way a theory works a little backwards; A theory only remains a theory when it can’t be disproven, and therefor is proven accurate. For a theory to be a theory, it has to be proven true. This is why we teach other theories, for example:
Plate tectonics theory: Plate tectonics is the theory that the outer rigid layer of the earth (the lithosphere) is divided into a couple of dozen “plates” that move around across the earth’s surface relative to each other, like slabs of ice on a lake.
Cell theory: In biology, cell theory is a scientific theory which describes the properties of cells. These cells are the basic unit of structure in all organisms and also the basic unit of reproduction. and
Atomic theory: In chemistry and physics, atomic theory is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which states that matter is composed of discrete units called atoms.
In your tags you state that evolution is a theory, and therefor can’t be taught as fact. I’m sure you don’t believe that we shouldn’t teach about the existence of atoms and the function of cells because they’re ‘only theory’, so I hope this makes clearer why that notion is flawed. We accept all of these as true because we know factually that they are.
The reason that evolution is given such intense scrutiny is because it disproves the notion that humans are a separate, superior entity to all other life on earth. This is a blow to some egos and contradicts some people’s religious beliefs. The discovery that Earth wasn’t the center of our solar system, much less the universe, was met with the same sort of scrutiny for the same reasons. The ever building proof that we’re only a tiny flicker of what has been and will be in the universe inspires strong reactions in people, for good or bad. Personally, I find it endlessly interesting!
Also, to clarify, attempting continually to disprove a theory wouldn’t necessarily be good science. When you have a theory like plate tectonics, trying to disprove it at this point really isn’t a good use of your time. We know how it works, we’ve seen it working, we can predict how it’ll work, we can prove this is how mountains formed and earthquakes happen and continents drift. Being critical and making sure things line up properly is good science, but trying to continuously disprove something we know to be fact is a waste of energy and resources.
Evolutionary theory is the basis of everything from vaccines and Glofish to agriculture, modern medicine and decoding DNA. It’s so ingrained in everything that we do, that it’s vital for people to understand how it works.
If it were proven false tomorrow, it’d take a lot of other fields of science down with it. But most of us are understandably doubtful that it’ll happen, because it’s been undergoing this same intense scrutiny since Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. That’s an awfully long time and a lot of scientific advances for there to have never been a single, solitary piece of evidence that disproved it.
To stay on theme, let’s end with a platybelodon family reunion.
Trying to create a logical, step by step outline with character motivation based on an existing draft is damn near impossible.
Plan ahead, kids
I’m facing this struggle right now. I’ve basically decided to throw the whole draft out and rewrite, with the draft as a reference/bible.
It’s hard, but I don’t regret it. I’m learning loads. Outlining helps me sleep at night.
I’m finding that I like outlining, because I think it helps me avoid major structural errors, and the enforcement of connecting the scenes via character action and consequence helps keep the pacing going.
I used to think that outlining the book meant killing the surprise, but there’s still room for the story to move and change once you get in there. I like knowing off the bat that all the scenes I have planned out work – they’re dramatic, serve a purpose in the story, and are interesting.
I can’t figure out why outlining doesn’t work for me. I love making lists, and I work better when I have a to-do list. Editing involves less teeth-gnashing for me than drafting because I finish a scene and move onto the next one. I also write/think in episodes, so I will have snippets of future scenes written and then will be guiding my story towards that event as I go. It gives me something to look forward to incorporating into the novel draft. You would think that outlining would provide me with a little list of things to look forward to in the same way. And yet, every time I sit down to outline, all I get is a vague list of bullet points that gets thrown out about halfway into the draft. Maybe it’s a lack of discipline? Maybe I haven’t found the right outline format yet?
How do you approach your narrative structure? do you use any of the formal structures you find writing craft bloggers talking about online?
There are a lot of them. I tend to divide the story in a weird way. but I always figure out my major points, usually with Inciting incident, climax, midpoint as the first things I figure out. I HAVE TO KNOW what the midpoint is. I have to know what my big twist and or change in the middle of the story is.
I never, never, NEVER outline by taking out a blank sheet of paper and then going like this:
1. Dean is running late for an audition
i. Dean hears a little girl crying ii. Dean helps her find her mother and is now late for the audition iii. Dean can audition because the whole thing is running late
I would die of fucking boredom and despair if I tried that.
What I do is i get together some index cards.
Real index cards. I could use the corkboard on scrivener but I find that the actual cards in my hands are better because of one thing that I will describe below. on each card, I write a sentence like:
Michael offers Dean huge sum to leave Cas; Dean rips the cheque into bits.
And then the next one could be:
Dean brings Castiel home to his place in Burnaby and is ashamed of it.
So far nothing connects those two cards. so I will have to connect them. But for right now I’m just coming up with simple scene ideas. I can write some of them in order, but I write whatever comes to mind, one sentence per card. each card is a beat. It might be a whole scene, but it’s probably less than a whole scene, and that’s okay, that’s fine for now.
I arrange the cards in what I think is the correct order, but I don’t *write* them in order. I usually just write whatever’s in my head. and then I read the cards in the order I think they go in, but once I get about say 40 cards for a novel, I shuffle them, and read them out of order. (i’ll end up with at least twice that, though.) The point isn’t to rearrange them in order, but to see if I can CONNECT the scenes to each other even if they don’t happen one after another in sequence.
so let’s say that i have an anonymous note in one of my scenes, and in scrambled order the anonymous note card is next to my hero meeting a friendly person who supports them after a failure.
WHAT IF THAT FRIENDLY PERSON WROTE THE NOTE?
yeah I know you wanted the antagonist to write the note. BUT WHAT IF? is that cooler? is it more interesting? do you have to do another GMC table all of a sudden? Or what if the friendly person saw the antagonist write the note, and wants to use their harassment of the hero to further their own plans?
this is why ONE SENTENCE PER CARD even though that sentence may not sum up a scene, but only a beat in the scene. so now you have room to note connections, motives, foreshadowing, symbols, epiphanies, etc. you can use the front of the card and the back.
I shuffled the cards for Project Blackwing a few times and wound up with a few surprises that way.
once I feel like I need to read the cards again, i put them in order (which might have changed because of the shuffle game) and I reserve the index cards that don’t fit (they might later, or they could be discards)
Now I read the cards in order, and say, “and because of this,” or “So therefore” and read the next card. Does it follow? no? That’s a hole. a card needs to be rewritten, or a new card needs to be filled in, or there’s another card for your discard pile. once I can read the scene cards and feel like I have no gaps, THEN i can write my linear outline or even a synopsis based on what I have scribbled onto my index cards.
And that looks like this:
Scene 1 – Dean is running late for an audition in downtown Seattle when he hears a little girl crying. torn between making the audition on time and helping a child, he turns back and finds the girl’s mother in a nearby Starbucks. He’s going to be late, but he continues upstairs anyway and manages to audition for a lead role, doing his best.
Scene 2 – Castiel can’t believe the hot guy from Starbucks who saved the day is auditioning in front of him. He chooses Dean, not wanting to even look at the other applicants. He calls Dean’s cell phone.
Scene 3 – a telephone number with a Seattle area code calls. Dean’s on international roaming and the charges are outrageous. He decides to take the call and it’s Castiel, asking him to come upstairs to discuss a contract. Triumphant, Dean returns to the office.
That’s a lot longer than the 1. i. outline but it’s a lot more detailed, so it’ll help you remember what happens next.
i’ll try it!
Reference.
I am so amazed by people who have the ability to outline. I can’t do it. I’ve outlined three fics and then felt like I’d already written the fic and that’s where it stayed. An unpublished outline.
You guys have way more skills than me.
“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there’s going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.” ― George R.R. Martin
If George RRRRRR Martin gardens his way to a blockbusting series, so can you.
eirenical17 