So, 2027 draws closer... If you had to guess at a probability of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan during the next ten years... What would you guess? Doesn't it seem both fated and inconceivable?

yes, they can't possibly do it, nor can they possibly not do it, how to resolve dramatic tension like that? well, obviously by introducing some other unexpected complication,

Ok so Haumea, a dwarf planet beyond Pluto, spins so fast it gets elongated like this. This is just what it looks like. Something deeply unsettles me looking at it. Terrifying.

i'm a dark bodhisattva. i could escape samsara any time i wanted but i stick around to give ascetic monks heroin and blowjobs and also to kill anyone who gets close to nirvana

Steam power

Steam power

Steam power

Hamilton's rival go brrrrrrrrrrrr.

Society with an 8 day week and two moieties with opposing (strictly observed, think the sabbath but without a ban on buying, just working) market/rest days (I.e. 2 off for moeity A, two on for both, two off for moiety B, two on for both). Business partnership is considered similar enough to marriage that partering within a moiety is disapproved altho not forbidden the way marriage is. Similarly, running a business alone is technically possible but would be considered both strange and unprofessional, especially because you won't be available all the time the way a normal business would be. Trade between members of the same moiety are routine but inauspicious

kawaii? well *akshually* in native pronunciation, it's pronounced kavai'i

running through a field of goldenrod is significantly harder than you would expect

Problem: Maths (& Physics) have too many cases where a symbol is used, confusingly, to mean multiple different things, leading to ambiguity and headaches. Sensible solution: Use a key or just simply clarify the meaning in context, so v here is velocity, or v here is an arbitrary vector, or v here is specifically final velocity, or v here is the harmonic function for the complex part of a complex function f(z) for the purposes of the Cauchy-Riemann & Laplacian equations, or v here is the potential V(x) differentiated with respect to time (yes i have seen this once, it was disgusting). My solution: add new characters. invent new scripts. steal syllabaries, acquire abjads, and abduct alphabets until we have enough squiggly lines to give literally everything its own unique symbol. This will help nobody and ruin everything. I will not rest until I am doing theoretical physics with these bad boys:

[Image ID: The 120 base Sitelen Pona of Toki Pona. They are simple, black and white, cartoonish, almost child-like drawings that act as logographic characters for the base words of the conlang Toki Pona. Each one has its corresponding name/word in Latin script beneath. End ID] Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

The tradition that Satan invented poetry, mentioned by Shams-e Qays, is in part inspired by an ancient Arabian notion that personal “satans,” much like the “demons” of the ancient Greeks, were responsible for creative impulses. A far more important source of the complex personality of Satan in Islam is the Koranic story of Satan’s first disobedience. According to the Koran, after God molded man from clay and breathed life into him, He ordered the angels to bow before man, and one among the angels—Satan—refused and declared, “I am better than he; You created me from fire and You created him from earth.” And for this God expelled and cursed Satan. Satan, however, asked and was granted a respite from God’s judgment until the day of the Resurrection, and Satan said, “Then, by Your power I will surely lead them all astray, except for Your servants among them, those pure in heart.” Satan’s independence among the angels, God’s willingness to give him a respite, and Satan’s obedient acknowledgment that he was the instrument of God’s power suggested a more interesting Prince of Darkness than a mere “personification of evil,” however full-bloodedly evil this personification might seem in some Koranic passages. The Sufis gazed at the possibilities of this complex Satan with fascination and, especially in the Persian-speaking Eastern Islamic world, they developed an alternate Satan. This Satan was the ultimate monotheist, the angel whose worship of God was so single-hearted that he refused to bow to man because he would bow only to God, the “lover” whose love was so unreserved that he accepted a role of alienation from the Divine Beloved because of his loving obedience to the divine command. The morally rehabilitated Satan is, in fact, a kind of martyr. In the poetry of Attar, Satan explains his motives, his suffering, and his understanding of God’s secret purpose in casting him out:

Far off stood I, yet I cannot abide that for even a moment anyone else except me behold that Face …

Far off stood I, in a state of gloom from separation, because I do not have the radiance of that union’s intimacy.

Although I have been banished from His threshold, I do not turn my head a jot from His path.

From the moment I set my foot in the Beloved’s alley I have not looked in any direction but His;

Since I am now the intimate companion to the secret’s meaning, I shall not look—not even the slightest bit—at anyone else.

The Mantle of the Prophet, Roy Mottahedeh

A 50-kilogram anvil floats perfectly on the surface of mercury, because the density of the steel from which it is made is almost half the density of mercury.

"Oho! What a delightfully homoerotic lampooning of the Catholic mass!" [Face darkens] "Unfortunately, it inaccurately represents Catholic doctrine. I shall not be reblogging." [Hammers my meat with smugness]

Apparently there is cattle ranching in the Aleutian Islands (which are about the latitude of Ireland for comparison—it’s not a crazy idea). During the summer they eat grass; in the winter, storms wash tons of kelp onto the beaches and they eat kelp. Only sometimes those same storms wash cows *off* the beaches. Cows float pretty well, making them a prime source of food for the local orcas, who have learned that if they hang around these beaches sometimes they get hamburger for dinner.