Are they doing this on purpose? Am I being pranked?? How many different misspellings can they come up with???
Office Problems, pt. III
These signs showed up in every bathroom in the building a little while ago. Who the heck has been standing on the toilets??
Filed under Microblogging
Proud
My daughter: “Hey dad, want to hear a joke? It’s a pun.”
Me, responding to my love language: “Absolutely!”
Her: “What do you call a T-Rex that’s also a sword?”
Me: “I don’t know, what?”
Her: “A dino-sword.”
Me:
Filed under Microblogging
Worst. Flowchart. Ever.
Can’t afford a nice birthday party for my daughter –> feel bad about being poor –> ask friends to help out –> feel bad for asking favors –> no one responds –> feel bad for being alone –> but then they do –> feel bad for feeling alone before –> …
Filed under Microblogging
Mis-App
Speaking of people who should be Super Soakered, who on Earth decided it was ever acceptable to have an app with text elements that can’t be selected?
(I’m looking at you, Instagram! I know you’re not the only offender, but you’re defenitely the worst.)
Filed under Microblogging
Happy Smallpox Eradication Day!
Content note: gore (image of child with smallpox)
Forty-six years ago today, smallpox was declared officially eradicated worldwide. Although several other diseases such as Guinea worm are getting close, smallpox remains one of only two diseases we’ve eradicated, and the only one affecting humans. Fatality rates are estimated to have been around 30% throughout most of our history; in the last 100 years of its existence alone it killed roughly half a billion people, and the survivors often suffered from permanent scarring, disfigurement, and blindness.
Ironically, it’s much more difficult to make an infectious disease seem like an inhuman monster than it is to demonize an actual human being. Our social brains are wired to associate words like “evil” with creepy grins and mustache-twirling, not complex bundles of chemicals that barely even count as “alive.” But make no mistake: the true face of Evil doesn’t have a mustache to twirl, and it doesn’t have pointy fangs or glowing red eyes, either. It looks like this:
Continue readingFiled under Essays
Why Am I Like This, pt. XII
Me: “Welp, I’ve been staring at my computer screen doing literally nothing all day and now it’s after 6. Guess I better call it. I’ll just text my spouse and let them know I’m leaving…and I should look at the function I was working on so I’ll remember where I left off…”
My brain, smashing through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man: “ALL RIIIIIGHT I’M READY, LET’S LOCK THE F*CK IN”
Filed under Microblogging
I’ve Lost Hope. Has Anybody Seen It?
Last night I was rereading an old essay of mine about capitalism (or rather, what I considered to be capitalism at the time). I may or may not write a post later about my thoughts.
(I’d like to do a “review” of one of my older posts at some point–just to see what I’ve learned, which of my beliefs and opinions have changed, how I’ve grown, and so on–but I don’t know if it will be that post.)
I concluded the post with this:
Unfortunately, there’s nothing to prevent someone from […] trading freely to encourage innovation and growth when it suits them, and stealing the best of the profits when it doesn’t. Honest capitalism is the fairest and most effective kind, but that doesn’t mean that only honest people can be capitalists.
If this were the whole story, the future might look pretty bleak: without an advantage that only the honest could use, the thieves would continue to take what they pleased without regard for others’ welfare, and with the science and resources of capitalist practice lifting the restrictions of old, the world would eventually either be destroyed or subjugated utterly. However, there is some hope on at least two different fronts. I’ll elaborate on these next time in part two.
Well, here we are in the future, and gosh, it seems pretty darned bleak! And it does seem like the people (and systems) controlling the economy are going to either destroy the world or enslave its population. I never did write part two, but I’d really like to now–the current timeline makes me want to share those hopes more than ever.
…If only I could remember what those hopes were??
Is All “Déjà Vu” Déjà Vu Déjà Vu?
If you don’t know, déjà vu is the feeling of “remembering” an event that just happened for the first time, sort of like it’s a scene from a movie you’ve seen before. (If you already knew that, enjoy the irony of hearing it explained again!)
I’ve heard about many people experiencing déjà vu at some point in their lives, and I’ve experienced it multiple times myself, but there’s a detail I haven’t heard others talk about. For those of you who’ve had it, I’m curious: is your feeling of déjà vu itself in the imagined memory? That is, when feeling “I remember this happening before,” do you also think “and I remember remembering that this has happened before?” Is your déjà vu a recursive feeling of “this has happened many times before,” or does the feeling stop at “this has happened once before?”
Because for me, it is absolutely recursive. Every time.
Filed under Essays
In Search of Secrets 