Can We Find Paradise? (I Found Mine In You) - Submitted By Alliveirrr

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píxel art

Wahoo, another pixel arts!

tone tags are such an interesting phenomenon linguistically. bc they're of course intended to add clarity to text communication, in a way that's more explicit than nonverbal signals, but they're also more removed from the message than verbal signals are -- arguably more removed than nonverbal signals are too, bc they're so constructed.

and that distance gets in the way of efficacy, from my perspective -- like there's a reason we spontaneously developed emoticons extremely early on in the internet days (and eventually latched onto emojis so hard), and ~*~wAyS tO eVOkE tOnE~*~, and the ones that caught on are the iconic [in the linguistic sense, ie resembling the concepts they evoke] ones bc they can be guessed.

and i think there's also a reason that when speaking out loud we don't just say what we want to say and then add "genuine" or "not mean" at the end as if speaking it makes it so -- we use full sentences like "I'm really not trying to be mean here." that's the part that really interests me, the abstraction of concepts that have never been just about tone, have always needed carefully chosen words to be expressed at least sometimes. that's where i think tone tags are distinctly less effective than just writing out the sentence for someone to read as part of the message and not as an abstracted layer on top of the message. (whereas with stuff like /lh for lighthearted i kinda get it -- i still find a well-chosen emoticon or emoji does a much better job at making me read a message in a lighthearted tone, but i get the desire to be explicit.)

ik this reads like a critique even though i started out saying it was just interesting, and idk it's both. i think the desire to implement a completely explicit tone layer on top of messages is fascinating, and i think its failure states are also fascinating, and im not about to grump at people for using an imperfect tool bc they're all imperfect.

The current situation with climate change and how liberals talk about it is like if you had early stages of cancer, where it was still very much treatable, and instead of giving you any treatment all the doctors were talking to you about accepting death, and giving you pamphlets for the terminally ill, and explaining to your loved ones how to put everything in order for when you die. And when you said it was treatable everyone would either act like you were in denial, or explained to you how impractical any treatment was (chemo therapy, don't you know radiation is deadly). And when they talked about the future they'd talk about one where you were dead, despite the fact that it's still 100% treatable, and every day you don't get treatment it gets worse. And eventually when you tell them "fuck you I want to live" they act like you've broken some unspoken rule.

Hey All,

I've been away for some time, as we've been working really hard on something quite exciting:

let me present to you the world's first ever global ocean drainage basin map that shows all permanent and temporary water flows on the planet.

This is quite big news, as far as I know this has never been done before. There are hundreds of hours of work in it (with the data + manual work as well) and it's quite a relief that they are all finished now.

But what is an ocean drainage basin map, I hear most of you asking? A couple of years ago I tried to find a map that shows which ocean does each of the world's rivers end up in. I was a bit surprised to see there is no map like that, so I just decided I'll make it myself - as usual :) Well, after realizing all the technical difficulties, I wasn't so surprised any more that it didn't exist. So yeah, it was quite a challenge but I am very happy with the result.

In addition to the global map I've created a set of 43 maps for different countries, states and continents, four versions for each: maps with white and black background, and a version for both with coloured oceans (aka polygons). Here's the global map with polygons:

I know from experience that maps can be great conversation starters, and I aim to make maps that are visually striking and can effectively deliver a message. With these ocean drainage basin maps the most important part was to make them easily understandable, so after you have seen one, the others all become effortless to interpret as well. Let me know how I did, I really appreciate any and all kinds of feedback.

Here are a few more from the set, I hope you too learn something new from them. I certainly did, and I am a geographer.

The greatest surprise with Europe is that its biggest river is all grey, as the Volga flows into the Caspian sea, therefore its basin counts as endorheic.

An endorheic basin is one which never reaches the ocean, mostly because it dries out in desert areas or ends up in lakes with no outflow. The biggest endorheic basin is the Caspian’s, but the area of the Great Basin in the US is also a good example of endorheic basins.

I love how the green of the Atlantic Ocean tangles together in the middle.

No, the dividing line is not at Cape Town, unfortunately.

I know these two colours weren’t the best choice for colourblind people and I sincerely apologize for that. I’ve been planning to make colourblind-friendly versions of my maps for ages now – still not sure when I get there, but I want you to know that it’s just moved up on my todo-list. A lot further up.

Minnesota is quite crazy with all that blue, right? Some other US states that are equally mind-blowing: North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming. You can check them all out here.

Yes, most of the Peruvian waters drain into the Atlantic Ocean. Here are the maps of Peru, if you want to take a closer look.

Asia is amazingly colourful with lots of endorheic basins in the middle areas: deserts, the Himalayas and the Caspian sea are to blame. Also note how the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra are divided.

I mentioned earlier that I also made white versions of all maps. Here’s Australia with its vast deserts. If you're wondering about the weird lines in the middle: that’s the Simpson desert with its famous parallel sand dunes.

North America with white background and colourful oceans looks pretty neat, I think.

Finally, I made the drainage basin maps of the individual oceans: The Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Pacific. The Arctic is my favourite one.

I really hope you like my new maps, and that they will become as popular as my river basin maps. Those have already helped dozens of environmental NGOs to illustrate their important messages all around the world. It would be nice if these maps too could find their purpose.

If you use Duolingo, maybe don't anymore? The company is moving to be "AI-first" and is using AI to generate their content. Meaning, AI is now generating your language lessons.

They announced that they were going to use AI for this a while back but now they're annoucing that they're getting rid of the contractors reviewing the AI generated content. So, very soon Duolingo is just going to be AI generated slop that might not even be correct.

For alternatives, I'd recommend checking with your local library. For instance, mine offers Rosetta Stone for free if you have a library card.

you know what fuck it, I love you historical spelling. I love you weird fossilised preservations of obsolete alphabets, grasping for something that exists now like mist, like liquid, its true pronunciation lost to time but not quite forgotten, not yet. a ghost remains, a friendly one, comfortable in this old house. I love you repurposed letters for phonemes that neither the old language nor the variety they were borrowed into has any need for anymore. I love you sensible vowel pairings that have grown - improbably - centuries later, into unwieldy diphthongs, quietly thriving in an ever-shifting environment like weeds nestled cosily beneath the shade of grander plants that have long since turned to mulch. I love the word 'diphthong' (the little thicket of consonants in the middle of it, sprouting up from nowhere to trouble tongue and penmanship alike). I love how Phoenician fingerprints remain in a Norman revision of an Anglo-Saxon reworking of a Roman borrowing of a Greek repurposing, all these shapes and signs moulded again and again like clay, like mud, spun like flax to carry all those lovely glides and nasals and obstruents which come and go and come and go over time as the sounds mutate and grow apart, and the people grow and age and die, leaving behind nothing except (sometimes) a page. a poem. a piece of themselves, their voice, rendered in imperfect beautiful scratchings whose contours match the ceaseless flow of time, heavy with all that history and somehow also light with the sheer urgency of being written. look at it, isn't it wonderful? this moment in time that holds within it yet other moments? other echoes calling down through the centuries? this is how we spoke, this is what we sounded like, once. this is how we thought our ancestors would have said it. I love the inconvenience. English is so hard to learn. the spelling is so illogical. so cumbersome. it's frustrating. it makes no sense. it's inconvenient. yes and yes and yes, and yet you too are inconvenient, you too are inchoate and too much and you fail to resolve into a neat and comprehensible order. but look at you. how lovely you are. I treasure you. why should the words you speak be any less lovely.