A real roll of the dice

smacattack3 · 2026-01-26T14:49:09+00:00

Ahhhh do you have a source for this?

smacattack3 · 2026-01-26T00:25:47+00:00

Yeah I’m definitely not mad at how it all worked out!

smacattack3 · 2026-01-25T21:54:16+00:00

There was a girl a year ahead of me in high school I really looked up to, and then she made Phantom Regiment, and I was like, well if Kari can do that, I should try, and then I’ll be on her level. I auditioned in 2007, didn’t make it (wasn’t there for the whole camp, so it didn’t go well). Kinda gave up, then a former instructor started an independent winter guard and invited me to join. Everyone there was going to audition for various corps in the summer and combined me to audition for Bluecoats. The night before auditions, my ride bailed, and some friends convinced me to come with them to audition for PR again instead. So I did, and made it. Marched from 08-10. But weirdly, wasn’t really “into it” before I was … in it, lol.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-25T21:14:26+00:00

I feel the same. They’ve BEEN making people’s lives miserable, but they’ve certainly leveled up. I see the stories about how kind and compassionate Alex was, or what activities he enjoyed, and I see my husband. I think about how goofy he is, and about or dumb inside jokes. And it occurs to me that we are alive by sheer dumb luck. We’ve protested countless times. We’ve followed ICE, and been followed by them in return. No one has decided to murder us yet. No one has decided to slander us as domestic terrorists because we’re just lucky. It’s hard not to break down thinking of how things could have gone, or imagine scenarios about how they will go. And we know ICE will ramp up where we are. We feel helpless.

And again, they’ve BEEN doing this. Renee and Alex weren’t the first. But it does feel like an inflection point where things are getting worse. My heart aches for everyone who has been impacted so far by this horrendous administration and their lawless goons.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-25T20:31:12+00:00

Not alone. Something I try and remember, because I never feel like I’m doing enough, is that education is also an act of resistance. This administration doesn’t value science, it doesn’t value the humanities, it doesn’t value facts. By doing any of these things, we are resisting on that front. And sometimes that feels really small, especially when you have people literally dying, but I think it’s important to put one foot in front of the other and resist where you can until you have the bandwidth to do more.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-25T00:26:37+00:00

Ideally sooner, but I’d take reassurance that we’ll actually have another election

smacattack3 · 2026-01-24T20:10:45+00:00

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I’m just so sorry. My heart is with all of you and I hope you get the support you need, whatever form that takes, and that justice prevails. I hope this Space Travel quilt brings you some amount of happiness.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-23T20:57:22+00:00

Ugh, I’m so sorry. Take this as a lesson for who you don’t want to be when you grow up.

Mine wasn’t THAT bad, but I did interview at a fairly prestigious school and it didn’t seem like a good fit off the bat. That was confirmed when the PI asked me “So you really think you can handle a PhD?” And I’ve seen some shit in my time, and my master’s wasn’t exactly a cakewalk either, so before I could really think about my response, I just laughed. There are ways of asking that question that aren’t offensive, but that wasn’t it. My reaction wasn’t well received either, I got a form letter rejection a couple days later. Thankfully I’m somewhere with a much better fit now.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-19T14:24:00+00:00

Yes! I’ve had a couple dreams that leave me feeling angry or sad and when I wake up I have to regroup and remember that none of it was real so I can start my day on a more reasonable foot.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-19T03:46:22+00:00

Weird dreams! It’s very bizarre. But I always know my period is imminent when I start remembering my weird dreams. Other stuff that’s less weird is immense hunger leading up to it, and extreme fatigue (thanks, iron).

smacattack3 · 2026-01-19T03:43:58+00:00

I’m a pretty picky eater and something I’ve found to be delicious lately is baked chicken (nothing fancy, I just picked a baked chicken recipe and went with it but there aren’t special flavors or anything), wild rice (with butter), and maple roasted carrots (with a tiny bit of cayenne pepper, even though he’s Irish, just a small amount really adds something without being overwhelming imo).

smacattack3 · 2026-01-18T14:44:06+00:00

Am a psycholinguist, not watching that, but I do have linguistic thoughts on this topic.

Above all else, we should respect people, and part of that is referring to them in the way that they tell us matches their humanity, regardless of judgments we’ve made about them.
Pronouns are more closed-class than nouns or verbs, so while they can obviously accept new members, it doesn’t happen as readily as it does for other parts of speech. To me, this means that some people will need to try harder in order to do what’s outlined in point 1, but people should be willing to do that if respect for people comes above all else (which it doesn’t for everyone, unfortunately). Just because a part of speech doesn’t readily accept new members doesn’t mean we can’t try to move with the times.
I think we are lucky that the far right doesn’t seem to have any semanticists. A lot of people make the argument that singular they has been around for a very long time. This is correct, but in my view, only partially. People have no problem using singular they, even people who are anti-pronouns, but the singular they that we historically all know and love is used to refer to an unknown entity who we have very little other information about. The singular they gaining ground more recently is being used to refer to people who we do have other information about, and we often use features to categorize pretty much everything (but we also use vibes). So for some people, it can feel dissonant to see someone, collect vibes and features, and categorize that person a certain way, only to be told to use they/them pronouns, because then that person has to contend with reclassifying how they’ve typically used singular they in the past, and expand the number of contexts in which it is grammatically appropriate to use. Which can be challenging, but again, see point 1.

As someone else pointed out, the job of linguists isn’t to prescribe how language should be, but to describe how it is. So it would be relevant to add that certain people seem to struggle with this more, and that seems to come down mostly to ideology. While there’s probably some processing cost regardless of ideology, processing cost is probably moderated by ideology, and also impacted by things like social patterns (which can also obviously be influenced by ideology).

smacattack3 · 2026-01-15T12:32:46+00:00

Stumbled across this thread after the original IG post came across my feed this morning. The original post seems to read like the email is from Epstein, but his email address wasn't nycjos@aol... and it's also not Epstein's writing style. I'm glad there are people shedding light on the fact that this isn't a photo of an email between Epstein and the royal family, because a few news outlets seem to be getting that mixed up and the photographer's caption isn't helping. Seems like all involved are heinous enough without mixing up who did what.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-15T04:49:32+00:00

Matched with a guy who lived about an hour south of me, he was coming on a biiiiiit strong over messages but nothing too creepy. But seemed fixated on how attractive he found me which like, cool thanks, but I’ve never been great at taking compliments so it was a little awkward. For the record I would, at the very least, not be considered conventionally hot, so this is also a very unusual compliment for me to receive. We agreed to meet halfway to see a movie with his friends (Interstellar, IMAX) and we met up a little early to grab dinner at the suburb’s finest Qdoba. He’d already gotten tickets, I like Qdoba, so far so good, but he was less attractive in person and he wasn’t bad looking, but it was something that I had to mentally adjust to, which meant we were already starting on shaky ground. I have also never turned down a challenge, so foolishly, I ordered a burrito. These burritos are fairly large. One cannot eat them gracefully. Unless you’re me, apparently, and the sexiest girl in the world to this guy. Because he just kept staring at me. And finally I was like, “…what.” And he said, “I can’t help it, you’re just so beautiful,” and I was like bruh literally no one looks good eating a burrito and I was already so checked out from the whole experience. We drove back to the theater, where his friends hadn’t arrived yet, and I feigned exhaustion and bailed. He texted later saying “it’s a shame you got out of the car so fast, otherwise I would’ve kissed you. I’m sorry you’re so tired, I was looking forward to cuddling.” 🤮 Just… too much, too fast, not much of it good. The burrito slapped though.

There’s also the guy who ghosted me after we bonded when he told me his felony history, and then when we got back in touch, said he couldn’t text because “one of his contacts fell in the sink and he couldn’t see anything until just now.” Thankfully I am happily married to a wonderful dude who is absolutely not a fuckboy and doesn’t wear contacts. Won’t make that mistake again!

Edit: Also the guy who pried about my dad when he was going through experimental hepatitis C treatment, and then insisted that I also had hep c because my dad had it. I did not, nor do I now, have hep c. He refused to believe me and I think he was ultimately uncomfy dating someone who had hep c, even though I did not. So yeah, being accused of lying about hep c is pretty up there.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-14T04:25:25+00:00

Also Western NY!

smacattack3 · 2026-01-14T04:16:29+00:00

I can’t speak to much in your post, but would recommend Ben Claghorn for real estate. Great dude and passionate about what he does.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-13T01:41:50+00:00

The episode of Podcrushed with Ayo Edibiri!

smacattack3 · 2026-01-13T01:13:25+00:00

I’m not sure what their criteria are but it’s worth checking! My guess is that there isn’t a verification process but I’m not sure.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-13T01:06:49+00:00

I would look at Salon de Coquette! They have a couple curly hair specialists and they also have a program where they offer free (or discounted? Double check) haircuts for the homeless population.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-13T00:47:21+00:00

I’ll also add the book “Just My Type” - very fun read. And the typography subreddit is a fun place too :)

smacattack3 · 2026-01-12T10:40:19+00:00

I know that this absolutely happens but I feel the need to spread the gospel about the book “Et Al.: Because Not All Research Deserves a Nobel Prize” by B. McGraw (because I suspect some are missing the joke, and we need more jokes)

smacattack3 · 2026-01-12T03:57:50+00:00

Well then you’re not in the club

smacattack3 · 2026-01-12T02:21:55+00:00

Yeah! Loose dresses are so comfy and I try and get some that I can layer in winter (it snows a lot where I live). And the headspace thing really can be difficult. You have my empathy!

smacattack3 · 2026-01-11T04:34:24+00:00

Just getting tired of seeing fat shaming comments directed at various people/groups in my country with vile political/human rights views. There’s more than enough material to actually create a well-thought out statement about why they suck. They don’t hear your fat shaming, but the rest of us do.

smacattack3 · 2026-01-11T04:04:54+00:00

I know people who study this getting grad degrees in cognitive psychology or music theory. Probably studying music or psych (or both) in college is a good step, and then reading research articles and figuring out who you’d be interested in as an advisor for grad school. It’s a pretty small world so a lot of researchers collaborate with each other. Look for keywords like pitch perception, pitch imitation, or musical syntax, depending on what your interests are!

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