Earlier Today I Was Inventing A Conspiracy Theory That The Whole “Parents Are Useless” Trope In

So I was looking up a certain kind of cellular automata on Wikipedia out of curiosity, and then I ended up seeing a link for something called “billiard ball computers”.

So basically it’s a theoretical construction to show nature has results that can be reversible or something. You do have to let the billiards be frictionless, though. So it’s not like you could implement this in real lif-

Um…

This guy???

Wait,, just look at the pictures they have though. The captions refer to crab groups as “swarm balls”, which is a very endearing term IMO.

Unfortunately, these gates take up a lot of space, so to do big computations you’d need lots of crabs and several hundred feet of cardboard.

A bunch of my friends all moved into a big group house called Valinor. I’m not capable of living together with that many other people, but they were kind enough to let me have a small semidetached unit on the same property, which clearly has to be called Tol Eressea.

Even though I got the name kind of by coincidence, I’m happy with it. The theme of the Silmarillion is the conflict between serviam and non serviam. The Vanyar say serviam, and win eons of unbroken bliss by the sides of the gods - plus never appearing in the books again. The Noldor say non serviam, and get the short end of every stick in every wood on Middle-Earth - but are also objectively awesome and everyone’s favorite characters.

The Teleri of Tol Eressea don’t do either. They agree to follow the divine plan, then get distracted by various interesting rocks and pretty trees along the way and show up late for the boat to Paradise. When the gods schedule an extra boat trip just for them, they end up permanently settling on the boat, anchored just off the coast of Paradise - so they can say they technically accepted the offer to redeem them and take them to Heaven, but don’t actually have to live there. They support the divine plan, but they’re just really really not joiners. This is a perverse sort of religion and also one that I 100% identify with.

Tol Eressea is called the Lonely Isle, but I suspect it is “lonely” only in the way Andrew Marvell described Adam before the creation of Eve:

Such was that happy Garden state When Man there walked without a mate After a place so pure and sweet What other help could yet be meet? But ‘twas beyond a mortal’s share To wander solitary there. Two Paradises 'twere in one To be in Paradise alone.

Not all of the Teleri go to Tol Eressea. Elwe stays in Middle-Earth out of love. Cirdan stays out of duty. Others stay to pursue random distractions or their own weird #aesthetic. This is not a people given to spectacular sins of pride the way the Feanorians are. This is a people who accept Law, who love Order, who are willing to contribute and sacrifice as much to its upkeep as anyone else, to defend their comrades and their principles even to the death - but whose concept of Law and Order is basically the gods as a night-watchman state who let them do their own thing. And the gods accept. I know there are some earthly religions who would say this is not an available option - but in Arda, at least, the gods are pretty chill.

The Teleri end up being liminal - less the Sea-Elves than the Shore-Elves or Strand-Elves (see also: “Grey-Elves”). The West represents Paradise and Oblivion, the East represents the sublunary world in all its suffering - so the Teleri live on the eastern fringe of the West, the western fringe of the East, and most of all on the island in the middle.

They are also called the Falmari, or “Singers”. Poe wrote in “Israfel” that the angels sing more sweetly than mortals because their lives in Pardise are so much better than ours down below. Modern sympathies would side with the tortured artist, reverse Poe’s prediction and say that mortals would sing more sweetly - or at least more interestingly - because of the twists and turns of life. Tolkien puts his Falmari somewhere in between. He gives them the master Palantir - allowing them to see everything that goes on in the world of Men - but also gives them Calacirya, the gap in the mountains that allows glimpses of the very center of Paradise. The Singers live in full view both of the glories of Israfel and the horrors of Poe, and they don’t turn away from either. Their music is an attempt at a synthesis - just like the Music of the Ainur before them.

Because of their liminal status, the Teleri end up as conduits. They’re the ones who bring warnings from Valinor to the Numenoreans. They’re the ones who ferry returning exiles back across the Sea. And most important, when the world needed to send a message to the Valar, it was through the work of the Teleri Cirdan (who if you read closely is basically the most competent and impressive figure in the entire history of Middle-Earth), that Earendil was able to invoke the Valar, and the power of Melkor was broken forever.

(thus it is written: “a Teller is someone who calls down celestial energies”. Also, “a Singer is someone who tries to be good”.)

There’s something in all of this that resonates with me. I don’t believe in God, but I like Him. If He exists, I want to be on His side. And I’m surrounded by amazing people, with pseudo-divine plans of their own, and I want to be on their sides too. But I also know I’m not a joiner. I’m not a Vala, involved in the creation of the new world; nor a Vanya, wise and noble enough to utterly subordinate his will to the cause. But I would like to think I can at least be a Teleri - vaguely on the side of Good, working to defend it; not necessarily great at doing it strategically, but pursuing ends closely-enough allied to it that sometimes I’m in the right place at the right time to accomplish something that matters. And even though I am definitely the sort of person to get distracted by an interesting rock when I am supposed to be seeking the Utmost West - to think that overall by a special grace maybe this will serve some purpose for the gods and they will accept the bargain. I’d like to think that I’m in the right sort of liminal position to communicate what needs to be communicated, to those who know less than me - and occasionally to my betters - and that this can have some useful role before the end. So I will accept the name of Tol Eressea and I will build the Lonely Isle.

…except everyone else is already calling my semi-detached unit “the Scottage”, and I have to admit that’s also pretty clever.

Miss this dear soul so much

𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘻𝘺 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘻! (𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝟸𝟶𝘵𝘩, 𝟷𝟿𝟽𝟼)❤️🎂

Pictures of the UNESCO World Heritage site of ancient Palmyra taken following the recapture of the city by Syrian troops backed by Russian forces on March 27, 2016 show the damage made by ISIS during its 10-month occupation. In 2015 the archaeologist, Khaled al-Asaad, who had looked after the ruins for 40 years and refused to reveal the location of archaeological treasures of the city was also murdered by ISIS.

Photos taken on March 31, 2016 by Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images

honestly I wish I could dedicate myself to being a giant fucking inconvenience as much as the phantom of the opera did

A GUIDE FOR YOUNG LADIES ENTERING THE SERVICE OF THE FAIRIES, by Rosamund Hodge

I.

This is the lie they will use to break you: no one else has ever loved this way before.

II.

Choose wisely which court you serve. Light or Dark, Summer or Winter, Seelie or Unseelie: they have many names, but the pith of the choice is this: a poisoned flower or a knife in the dark?

(The difference is less and more than you might think.)

Of course, this is only if you go to them for the granting of a wish: to save your father, sister, lover, dearest friend. If you go to get someone back from them, or—most foolish of all—because you fell in love with one of them, you will have no choice at all. You must go to the ones that chose you.

III.

Be kind to the creature that guards your door. Do not mock its broken, bleeding face.

It will never help you in return. But I assure you, someday you will be glad to know that you were kind to something once.

IV.

Do not be surprised how many other mortal girls are there within the halls. The world is full of wishing and of wanting, and the fairies love to play with human hearts.

You will meet all kinds: the terrified ones, who used all their courage just getting there. The hopeful ones, who think that love or cleverness is enough to get them home. The angry ones, who see only one way out. The cold ones, who are already half-fairy.

I would tell you, Do not try to make friends with any of them, but you will anyway.

V.

Sooner or later (if you serve well, if you do not open the forbidden door and let the monster eat you), they will tell you about the game.

Summer battles Winter, Light battles Dark. This is the law of the world. And on the chessboard of the fairies, White battles Black.

In the glory of this battle, the pieces that are brave and strong may win their heart’s desire.

VI.

You already have forgotten how the mortal sun felt upon your face. You already know the bargain that brought you here was a lie.

If you came to save your sick mother, you fear she is dead already. If you came to free your captive sister, your fear she will be sent to Hell for the next tithe. If you came for love of an elf-knight, you are broken with wanting him, and yet he does not seem to know you.

Say yes.

Keep reading

Happy Apollo Day!

People aren’t the only ones with vivid imaginations

If you’re an adult, do the stuff you couldn’t as a kid.

Like, me and my sister went to a museum, and they had an extra exhibit of butterflies. But it cost £3. So we sighed, walked past, then stopped. We each had £3. We could see the butterflies. And we did it was great. We followed it up with an ice-cream as well because Mum and Dad weren’t there to say no.

I was driving back from a work trip with 2 other people in their early 20s, and we drove past a MacDonalds. One of the others went “Aww man, I’d love a McFlurry.” And the guy driving pulled in to the drive through. It was wild. But it was great.

I went to a park over the weekend and I was thinking “Man, I’d love to hire one of those bikes and cycle round the park.” It took me a few minutes to go “Wait, I can hire one of those bikes!”

I guess what I’m saying is, those impulsive things you wanted to do as a kid - see the dinosaur exhibit, play in the fountains with the other kids, lie in the shade for 2 hours - you can do when you’re an adult. You have to deal with a whole lot of other bull, but at least you can indulge your inner 8 year-old.

Just imagine the Avengers going to Ikea, and Thor is the only one who can pronounce the name of anything.