You. I like the way you think.

friendly reminder that the age of technology is coming to an end and a new age of blood magic and dark rituals will take its place

Oh my god???????

friendly reminder that the age of technology is coming to an end and a new age of blood magic and dark rituals will take its place

People in private bookclub discords... You literally have the opportunity to do something SO FUCKING FUNNY and heartwarming for your favorite authors.

Like could you IMAGINE how much joy you'd bring them if you ALL COMMENTED AT ONCE

Do you even realize how much that would BLOW THEIR FUCKING MINDS?!

america needs ranked-choice voting so we can end this same fucking discourse happening every four years like clockwork

The real problem with contemporary Captain Kirk parodies is that they're mostly parodying a specific pop-cultural distortion of the type where an accurate parody of the Kirk who actually appears in the Original Series would be much funnier. Like, come on – an old-school Manly Intellectual™, fashionably sensitive, always ready with a pithy aphorism, weirdly proficient with violence in spite of his professed distaste for it, forever ending up in sexually compromising positions with hot alien babes through absolutely no fault of his own and having to let them down easy because Duty Calls? You can get a lot more mileage out of making fun of that than any number of Zapp Brannigans.

Astronomy I-

The whole "the brain isn't fully mature until age 25" bit is actually a fairly impressive bit of psuedoscience for how incredibly stupid the way it misinterprets the data it's based on is.

Okay, so: there's a part of the human brain called the "prefrontal cortex" which is, among other things, responsible for executive function and impulse control. Like most parts of the brain, it undergoes active "rewiring" over time (i.e., pruning unused neural connections and establishing new ones), and in the case of the prefrontal cortex in particular, this rewiring sharply accelerates during puberty.

Because the pace of rewiring in the prefrontal cortex is linked to specific developmental milestones, it was hypothesised that it would slow down and eventually stop in adulthood. However, the process can't directly be observed; the only way to tell how much neural rewiring is taking place in a particular part of the brain is to compare multiple brain scans of the same individual performed over a period of time.

Thus, something called a "longitudinal study" was commissioned: the same individuals would undergo regular brain scans over a period of mayn years, beginning in early childhood, so that their prefrontal development could accurately be tracked.

The longitudinal study was originally planned to follow its subjects up to age 21. However, when the predicted cessation of prefrontal rewiring was not observed by age 21, additional funding was obtained, and the study period was extended to age 25. The predicted cessation of prefrontal development wasn't observed by age 25, either, at which point the study was terminated.

When the mainstream press got hold of these results, the conclusion that prefrontal rewiring continues at least until age 25 was reported as prefrontal development finishing at age 25. Critically, this is the exact opposite of what the study actually concluded. The study was unable to identify a stopping point for prefrontal development because no such stopping point was observed for any subject during the study period. The only significance of the age 25 is that no subjects were tracked beyond this age because the study ran out of funding!

It gets me when people try to argue against the neuroscience-proves-everybody-under-25-is-a-child talking point by claiming that it's merely an average, or that prefrontal development doesn't tell the whole story. Like, no, it's not an average – it's just bullshit. There's no evidence that the cited phenomenon exists at all. If there is an age where prefrontal rewiring levels off and stops (and it's not clear that there is), we don't know what age that is; we merely know that it must be older than 25.

the structure of columbo is so fascinating to me. it's a murder mystery but upside down. they start the show by depicting, in minute detail, exactly what the crime was, who did it, how, and why. and then for an hour and a half, you do not watch columbo solve the case. he did that already. often almost immediately. instead you watch him slowly, carefully, methodically tear down every single excuse, cover, and alibi the killer could possibly have until nothing is left but the truth. it's not about solving the mystery it's about watching this funny little man run circles around people who think they're better than him

we need to bring back inviting people over for cake and coffee. my grandma used to do that all the time and I think it's a lost art

I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…

Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?

This. So much this. As much as I like to joke about an anti-vampire agenda, I really unironically loathe this as a night owl.

Ok wait let her speak

I know adverbs are controversial, but "said softly" means something different than "whispered" and this is the hill I will die on.

Hi, Mass Effect Legendary Edition is on sale for SIX DOLLARS.

That's all three games, almost all the DLCs (rip, Pinnacle Station) including weapon and armor packs, for six goddamn dollars.

When a chronically ill or disabled person gets their lab tests back as “normal” or all clear, we aren’t sad because we WANT to be sick.

We’re sad because we *know* there’s something wrong with us, yet the scans still stay clear.

Before you kill the monster you gotta know its name.