thenerdyindividual:

creoparametric:

creoparametric:

creoparametric:

experiment goal: to determine whether smarties are an effective tea sweetener

hypothesis: smarties will sweeten the tea, but also introduce unwelcome flavor profiles due to their flavoring

procedure: procured one cup (≈12 fl oz) of Barry’s Tea Gold Blend black tea, hot. added 2/3 of a single roll of smarties candy (10 candies). wait for candies to dissolve, then stir well. tea will be sampled after stirring concludes.

addendum: control group was used. control sample consisted of one cup of the same type of tea, sweetened with white sugar. results will depend on the relative tastes of the control and smarties tea

results: smarties tea was significantly more bitter and less sweet than sugar tea. additionally, the smarties failed to dissolve in the expected manner, and when stirred, ended up breaking down into particulates that refused to dissolve. 

conclusions: because of the chemical/structural makeup of smarties, they do not function well as an ad hoc tea sweetener because of their reluctance to break down. it may be the case that crushed smarties would work better, but this experiment was intended to study how normal, uncrushed smarties would work as a sweetener

athenadark:

thisdiscontentedwinter:

---

I think they believe their own bullshit, even if that means putting their hands in their ears and going “la la la” so they don’t hear any other opinion. This is what they’ve built their identities around–they can’t back out now. They have to double down. 

 did you ever hear of the Comstock laws in America

lemme summarise, a shopkeeper called Anthony Comstock realised women were sending letters addressed to other women and he did not like it, they were also sending off to magazines for things and he did not like it, and they were buying novels and he did not like it

so he lobbied his congressman and created such a stink and with women’s suffrage a thing, and women creating “groups” to deal with social issues [including prohibitions, women wanted drinking to excess banned because they believed it exacerbated the problems of domestic violence….] and so the politicians went you know what we can kill two birds with one stone, one get rid of this pesky mail man [Comstock was obsessed] and two shut down these awful women and get them back to important things like supporting their husbands and embroidery

but those organised women were primarily married to the men who made policy in America at the time and they had a cunning plan

they started selling all manner of things through the mail, no sooner did the law ban one thing than another popped up, including birth control [the Comstock laws are directly responsible for planned parenthood], sexual eduation leaflets with pictures, douches, cocaine [as women’s powders] scandalous pictures [adverts for lingerie], abortion medication, advice on how to source an abortion, even in some cases sex toys 

they would check census records and send scandalous but legal material to women they’d never met so they could target people like Comstock with going through their mail

by 1873 almost all women in America had their mail opened to search for salacious materials

it wasn’t until 1965 that the last of the Comstock laws was stricken from the books although most courts agreed by as early as 1919 that they were insane, capricious and unconstitutional and when challenged in supreme court always overturned

one man’s obsession with the fact women were getting mail is responsible for a lot of the problem America has with birth control and planned parenthood

but you know what the kicker is, i learned about comstock in college, and i thought you know what, i’m glad asshats like that don’t exist any more

boy was i wrong

i despise sanctimonious morality, i have nothing against good people doing good things, but have you ever noticed it’s always thou shalt not, not i can do this

brunhiddensmusings:

jeneelestrange:

incorrectdiscworldquotes:

tilthat:

TIL of the “Tiffany Problem”. Tiffany is a medieval name—short for Theophania—from the 12th century. Authors can’t use it in historical or fantasy fiction, however, because the name looks too modern. This is an example of how reality is sometimes too unrealistic.

via reddit.com

“Authors can’t use it in fantasy fiction, eh? We’ll see about that…”

–Terry Pratchett, probably

Try to implement anything but a conservative’s sixth grade education level of medieval or Victorian times and you will butt into this. all. the. time. 

There was a literaly fad in the 1890′s for nipple rings for all genders(and NO, it was NOT under the mistaken belief that it would help breastfeeding–there’s LOTS of doctors’ writing at the time telling people to STOP and that they thought it would ruin the breast’s ability to breastfeed well, etc). It was straight up because the Victorians were freaks, okay
Imagine trying to make a Victorian character with nipple rings. IMAGINE THE ACCUSATIONS OF GROSS HISTORICAL INACCURACY

people just really, REALLY have entrenched ideas of what people in the past were like

tell them the vikings were clean, had a complex democratic legal system, respected women, had freeform rap battles, and had child support payments? theyd call you a liar

tell them that chopsticks became popular in china during the bronze age because street food vendors were all the rage and they wanted to have disposable eating utensils? theyll say youre making that up

tell them native americans had a trade network stretching from canada to peru and built sacred mounds bigger then the pyramids of giza? you are some SJW twisting facts

ancient egypt had circular saws, debt cards, and eye surgery? are you high?

our misconception of medieval peasants being illiterate and living in poverty in one room mud huts being their own creation as part of a century long tax aversion scam? you stole that from the game of thrones reject bin

iron age india had stone telescopes, air conditioning, and the number 0 along with all ‘arabic’ numbers including algebra and calculus? i understand some of those words.

romans had accurate maps detailing vacation travel times along with a star rating for hotels along the way, fast food restaurants, swiss army knives, black soldiers in brittany, traded with china, and that soldiers wrote thank-you notes when their parents sent them underwear in the mail? but they thought the earth was flat!

ancient bronze age mesopotamia had pedantic complaints sent to merchants about crappy goods, comedic performances, and transgender/nobinary representation? what are you smoking?

ettadunham:

me: this whole concept of ~soulmates~ is so damaging, you can be happy with so many people throughout your life and sometimes the best you can do in a failed relationship is to let it go, that person isn’t THE ONE, no one is, everything in the media about romance is so fucked up on so many levels–

fic: *soulmate au*

me: