Latest Posts by sumactic - Page 3

Something to watch for, which I learned from stage magic but which is extremely relevant to detecting scams as well:

The magician or scammer will *tell you* how he is going to prove his honesty.

The magician rifles through the deck until you say "stop", then he says, "Are you sure? I'll keep going if you want." and asks "Now, you agree that you could have stopped anywhere you wanted, so there's absolutely no way I could know which card you got" and because it's a magic show and you aren't paying close attention you didn't notice he didn't deal a card from where you stopped, he dealt the bottom card of the deck.

The magician doesn't ask you, "What would it take for you to believe this" because you might say, "I'd need you to use a sealed deck" or "I'd have to personally shuffle the deck" or some other proof that would make the trick impossible.

Magicians say "You agree that if I did *this*, it would mean *that*, right?" and you say yes, and it feels like you are the one who got to verify things, but of course the magician is lying and the proof is nothing of the kind.

Scammers do the same thing. A really concrete example is phone scammers pretending to be working for the government will say, "Look, I see you're skeptical if I'm who I say I am, I'm going to hang up and call back, and you'll see on the caller ID it says, 'FBI' and that tells you that I'm really working for the government."

Now, caller ID can be spoofed pretty easily, so it doesn't prove anything at all.

But it *feels* to you like you demanded proof and the scammer was willing to give you the proof.

But you didn't tell the scammer what out would take to prove it to you, the scammer told you what the proof would be.

This is actually like a really basic thing to look for if you want to start decoding magic tricks and scams.

diving for shells

thinkin

"At the start of the 21st century, it was predicted that continuing carbon emissions would warm the planet by about 4 degrees C by the year 2100. This would be catastrophic [...], but preventing this future seemed impossible. Almost every human activity produced carbon dioxide, mostly because our energy was overwhelmingly supplied by burning fossil fuels [...] to generate electricity, produce heat, and move ourselves around. But the Earth was we knew it was at stake, so people all around the world got to work. This video is about what they did and what a difference they've made."

This was published in February 2025 and I highly recommend giving it a watch. Just since the start of the century, global climate mobilization has already brought the estimated warming from 4 degrees C to 2.7 degrees, and if countries stick to their current legally binding pledges and targets that will likely go down to 2.1 degrees. Each tenth of a degree means a significant, tangible increase in the ecosystem health and overall well being that humanity will experience in the future.

Yes, we need to continue to do this and more, but that is an insane amount of worldwide progress from something that was considered a fringe, "tree-hugger" issue not all that long ago. The public opinion around climate change and the action that is being taken today would've sounded beyond impossible only a decade or two ago and the momentum behind climate action has and continues to build exponentially.

We are making progress. If anyone tells you "no one cares and we aren't doing anything to stop it" they are either lying or misinformed.

Commenting fanfiction is the easiest thing in the world once you start doing it. 

boys go to jupiter

what is an RSS feed and why does AO3 have them?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and the word syndication here is referring to broadcasting or transferring or otherwise sharing information. I first encountered it as a way to aggregate all of the news sites and blogs I wanted to read that were scattered all over the internet.

You might already be familiar with tumblr blogs that start with ao3feed - these are automated blogs that create a new post every time a work is posted in the feed(s) that they track. You can follow those tumblr blogs and learn about new works that way. They've subscribed to the RSS feed so that you don't have to.

If you wish that you could get push notifications from AO3 on your phone instead? The RSS feed will allow you to do that. You just need to get an account with an RSS reader first. Here are a few that are free:

Feedly 

NewsBlur 

Inoreader 

They each have slightly different features, so depending on the search and filter options you want or how you like your information displayed, you might like one better than the others. All three work on the web, on iOS, and on Android.

Once you have a feed reader, tap on the RSS Feed button at the top of the tag results page that you want to get notifications for and open up the XML file. If it downloads instead, try opening in a new tab or just copying the link address. You'll want to grab a url that looks like this: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/9835/feed.atom (this is the url for Kirk/Spock, if you're curious)

That feed.atom ending on the url is what you're looking for. When you open your RSS reader and create a new feed, you can use that url to set it up.

Once it's set up, you'll be able to see everything currently available in that tab, listed out in your reader. Just like the ao3feed tumblr blogs, the reader will show you the title, author, summary and tags for each fic, and then it will provide you with a link to read the work on AO3.

It will also notify you every time a new work is posted to that tag. You can adjust your notifications to suit you.

Not every tag on AO3 has an RSS feed, but it's worth checking out if you've never tried it before.

Editing to add: the AO3 FAQ also talks about these feeds

I was thinking through what else I’m looking forward to this holiday season and I realized I haven’t mentioned it on here, just on discord, but— MY MOMS BEEN MAKING ME A REALLY COOL ART THING??

I think I’ve talked about it before, but my mom has been a quilter for most of my life and in the last few years started doing these really cool fabric collages, and it was my turn to request one so I asked for a phoenix cause I’m obsessed with this one art piece I did in art therapy ages ago

Anyway, my mom has been working on it and THIS was the last update I got???

I’m so excited for it?? Can’t wait to see where it’s at by the time I get there this weekend

end of season design for divorcesteal arch :3 start of season ref under the cut for comparison

Blossoming Trees (1882) by Childe Hassam

Everything you have worked towards goodbye divorcesteal season one. you meant more to me then i could ever explain. ill have to try in a later post. i love every one of you so much. thank you for having me.

more val!

Care for a drink?

It has now become fond ....

hey op i understand where youre coming from and your perspective is valuable. but like. could you validate me🥺🫶

Writing mcyt fanfic feels so silly because the names are on a spectrum from "normal human name" to "semi-plausible" to "Sausage"

my dad likes to call the stretches of time where you’re not creating “dreaming periods” and says that they’re meant to allow you to absorb all of the beauty, life, and inspiration from the things around you so that when you’re able to create again, you will have fanned your spark back into a flame. sometimes its hard to see those moments as anything but stagnation, but he always says that they’re natural and healthy and needed—things that should be embraced rather than feared.

theater panoptica

gk

Love from loss WIP 2024

So you remember those pockets I wove into this fabric couple months ago? Back then I was charmed by the idea that I could hide a small item in there - I could give this fabric a secret that is part of its structure and impossible to get out unless you break the fabric itself.

So I wrote this little poem, a gentle call out for being curious enough to break my beautiful hand woven linen fabric and messaged my lovely sculptor/jewel smith friend.

Yesterday we were finally able to realize my vision! These tiny bronze plaques are made to hide in the fabric - peeking through shiny enough that you see that there is something there to tease at your imagination but - impossible to get out or read without breaking it.

foliage study :-) there's an angel in the garden

She deserves all the pets

The cousin of "he would not say that:" he would not keep saying that. It was a one off funny line for one particular situation. Every memorable line does not need to become a running gag.

fein and couri as their main val characters

look at this wonderful gif of scallops getting scared and scattering like a flock pigeons