Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

swanjolras:

eshusplayground:

1. A gentile vampire turns a promising Torah scholar into a vampire. Is the scholar still permitted to study Torah? Are they still under the yoke of the mitzvot? How does vampirism impact observant Jewish practice? Are they still Jewish, or are they apostates? Would it be permissible for the scholar to turn other people into vampires to cure them of terminal illnesses?
   
2. To what degree are Jewish werewolves morally responsible for their actions while under the influence of the full moon? What must they do if they eat treyf in their wolf form?
   
3. If, for some reason, we must leave earth for another inhabitable planet on the other side of the galaxy, what do we do about holidays and observing Shabbat? Would we go by earth time or local time? What if this planet has no moon or more than one moon? How would we face Jerusalem to pray?
   
4. Can aliens convert to Judaism? If so, does it only apply to humanoid aliens like the greys, or would reptilian aliens and ilithids be able to convert too?
   
5. Can sentient machines like the Terminator convert to Judaism? What about Agents from The Matrix?
   
6. Speaking of The Matrix, are we still obligated to obey the mitzvot even if we are literally brains in jars or living in a simulated reality created by computer programs? What happens if we’re freed and whatever basis for our Jewish identity we had is no longer present or certain. Are we still Jews? Do we still have a covenant?
   

speaking with my minimal scholarly experience but also opening this up for all jews to contribute:

1. i don’t see any reason why such a promising torah scholar shouldn’t be allowed to continue to study torah, but practicing judaism would be difficult: blood of all animals is probably treyf, and blood of humans is definitely treyf, so a jewish vampire would have to break mitzvot on a nearly constant basis to survive. however under pikuach nefesh i feel like were the vampire literally about to die, they could consume human or animal blood. therefore a jewish vampire would have to live in a state of starvation at all times, which would probably have a fascinating impact on his torah study.

2. a shoteh is not held responsible for their actions by human or divine courts. maimonides defines a shoteh as any mentally unstable person - for our purposes, a jewish werewolf in wolf form can probably be seen as under the influence of mental instability, and is not responsible for their actions under the law.

3. this is fascinating because when we face jerusalem in america, we face east - even though, physically speaking, jerusalem is somewhere under us, on the other side of the globe. for this reason i’m inclined to avoid the obvious answer, “face earth”. perhaps it would be possible to face, in general, the stars? going by “earth time” seems logistically impossible, since earth has 24 separate times. i think this will be a separate issue for every planet.

4. we are already a reptilian alien race, this question is moot.

5. if robots cannot convert to judaism i am quitting. more seriously: this seems like a good place for the analogy of the four children: the simple robot asks, “what is all this”, i.e., judaism, and you download information about it into his database; the wicked robot asks, “what does all this mean to you,” i.e., humans, and you reply, “we are doing a human thing; if you were a human, you would not be part of it, either”; the wise robot asks, “can you please explain the laws and customs of judaism to me, fellow sentients” and you do so and allow him to convert if he wishes it; and the robot who does not know enough to ask a question does not pass the turing test, so the point is moot.

6. oh yeah, we’d totally still be jews! it’s like finding out for sure there’s no god - maybe it’s gonna stop some people from practicing judaism, but not most of us.

smoke-stungeyes:

Do you ever wonder how much you exist in other people’s lives? I’m always curious if people think of me when a certain song comes on, or when they pass through a certain town. I wonder how many stories I’ve been a part of that I may have forgotten. I wonder if I still I exist in the minds of people that I don’t speak to anymore. I wonder how many times a day I pass through someone’s head.

corkboardofcuriosities:

shazampanic:

if you sneeze in a jaeger does your partner sneeze with you since you’re linked? does the whole jaeger sneeze along too or is it programmed not to? have jaeger pilots ever sneezed and accidentally ended up activating one of their weapons? 

this is what keeps me up at night 

c-maj:

“biological sex is a social construct” doesn’t mean “chromosomes, anatomy, hormones, and genitalia don’t exist”. it means “these exist, but assigning roles, labels, and expectations to certain combinations of these characteristics is a social construct, and an unnecessary and pointless (actually harmful) one at that”.

propitlikeithot:

beecups:

Why isn’t using sign language more common in society? like??? Not even just communicating within deaf communities but for everybody to use with anybody?

I feel like this should be standard learning material for those working in loud workplaces or with machinery, or maybe idk for talking underwater or when someone else can’t hear you at a concert. Or what about when somebody is having a panic attack and can’t talk, or just isn’t all that comfortable with voicing their feelings?

Why isn’t nonverbal communication more integrated into our society? Cause it should be.

I’m down

gothiccharmschool:

terrachu:

Okay, THIS is a brilliant question. 

jessicajungcanliterallybuyme:

Planet 55 Cancri e is basically a giant diamond. like the planet is a diamond. and it would be worth $26.9 nonillion

Planet Gliese 436 b is an ice planet that is constantly on fire do to its close proximity to its parent star. the ice doesn’t melt bc the planet’s gravity is so strong it physically prevents the ice from melting

Planet HD 189733b rains sideways glass…. constantly

Planet J1407-B has planetary rings that are 200x the size of saturn. if saturn’s ring were as big as J1407-B’s we’d be able to see them with our naked eye from earth AND they would dominate our sky and look larger than a full moon

Planet Wasp-12b rotates so close to its parent star that its slowly being consumed by the it

Planet Gliese 581c is one of the candidates for a planet that can support life however it orbits a tiny dwarf star and is tidally locked so one side is constantly subject to immense sunlight while the other is constantly in darkness. there’s a small area of the planet however, that is just the right temp to support life. u just can’t step out of said area. the skies are red and the plants would have be a black color instead of a green bc they would use infrared light for photosynthesis. (a message was actually sent to the planet in 2008 in hopes that there’s life on the planet but the message wont reach the planet until 2029).

Planet GJ 1214b is a water planet nicknamed “water world” is has no land at all and the water is so deep it goes down miles all the way to the planet’s core.

Planet Wasp-17b is the largest planet discovered thus far. its so large its existence contradicts our understanding of how planets are formed. and it has a retrograde orbit, so it orbits in the opposite direction of its parent star.

Planet HD 188753 has 3 suns you should have triple shadows and there would be almost daily eclipses. and no matter which direction u face on the planet u would always see a sunset

Planet HD106906b is the loneliest planet discovered thus far. its known as “super jupiter” bc its 11x bigger than jupiter. it orbits its parent star at a distance of 60 billion miles (which is v strange) hence why its the loneliest planet.

Planet Tres 2b is the darkest planet known. it reflects less than 1% of light (it reflects less light than coal and black acrylic paint). the tiny part of the planet that does reflect light is red making the planet glow a dim red.

just-shower-thoughts:

A pun is like an inside joke for an entire language.

im-lost-but-not-gone:

iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid:

i’m still so blown away by the spot on characterization of deadpool in the movie

the fact that the first time we see him not as deadpool, he’s working a free job for a teenage girl and putting the fear of god into her stalker

the fact that he doesn’t hurt kids, not even older ones, and “aw, he’s not a bad kid, weas”

him being ready to stand up for vanessa when some guy disrespects her and immediately going heart-eyes when she stands up for herself instead

and then not caring one bit that she’s a prostitute/stripper and it never being a problem when they’re in a serious long-lasting relationship

occasionally losing his temper (”AARRGH RIGHT UP MAIN STREET—three—two—stupid! worth it.” and then of course when vanessa gets kidnapped)

him totally not underestimating tiny negasonic, letting her take on angel dust because he knows she can hold her own, and then the immediate split second decision to grab her and pull her into cover when the guns start going off because he knows she’s strong as shit but not bulletproof

his bonding with blind al oh my fucking god and their disabled-person-to-disabled-person banter (”love is blind” “no, al, you’re blind”)

idk man this character just means a lot to me and so many people are being introduced to him solely through this movie, and i was so worried that they’d get a different character than what we get from the comics but they didn’t and i’m so happy about this

#Deadpool

meghalovania:

To my ladies of color.
To my fat ladies.
To my disabled ladies.
To my trans ladies.
To my lesbian, bisexual, and ace ladies.
To my mentally ill ladies.
To my Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist ladies.
To my scientific and political ladies.
To my ladies in poverty.
To my ladies in uniform.
To my single ladies.
To my mothers.
To my sisters.
To my girlfriends.
To my wives.
To my daughters.

To my women, of all shapes, sizes and colors, celebrate yourselves and all your great accomplishments. It is because of you that we thrive. Never let yourself think you are less than you are. Thank you for paving the way forward for those who follow in your proud footsteps.

Happy International Women’s Day.

notonyourbarricade:

It was a huge disappointment as a child to fall in love with the stars and then find out how much math it requires to get anywhere near them. 

reynardreblogs:

aspiringdoctors:

coffeeforcollege:

madamebadger:

A story that may have relevance for others, or then again, maybe not:

When I was in college, about ten or so years ago, I was a history major. I wanted to learn to dance, so I joined a swing dance club on campus. To my surprise, this club had about twice as many men as women (in high school, the last time I’d tried dancing, the ratio had gone the other way–lots of girls, and boys only that you could drag by their ears).

But apparently, there had been some kind of word spread specifically to the STEM guys that dance was a way that they could meet girls.

So anyway. I joined the swing dance club, and met a few guys. And at one point, when socializing with the guys outside of dance class, one of them asked me what my research was on. (I had already established that I was an honors history student doing a thesis, just as he had established that he was an honors… I’m not sure if he was CS or Math, but it was one of those.)

So I gave him the thumbnail sketch of my research. Now, to be clear, an honors senior thesis, while nothing like what a graduate student would do, was still fairly in-depth. I had to translate primary sources from the original late-Classical Latin. (My professor said, basically, that while there were plenty of translations of my source material, that I’d only be able to comfortably trust them if I had at least made a stab at a translation of my own. And he was right.) And there was so much secondary material, often contradictory, that I had been carefully sorting through.

But I was able to sift it into a three-sentence summary of my senior thesis work, you know, as one does.

So I gave him that summary, and then asked–since he was also an undergraduate senior doing an honors thesis–what his research was on.

“Oh,” he said, “you wouldn’t understand it.”

Reader, I went home in a frothing rage. Because I had thought we were playing one game–a game of ‘let’s talk about what we’re passionate about!’– and he had been playing another game, which was, one-upsmanship. I had done my best to give a basically understandable brief of my research–and he had used that against me. As if my research, my painstaking translation, my digging through archives and ILLs of esoteric works, my reading of ten thousand articles in Speculum (yes, the pre-eminent medievalist journal in North America is called Speculum, I’m sorry, it’s hilarious/sad but also true), and then my effort to sum it up for him, was nothing. Because his research into some kind of algorithm or other was just too complex for my tiny brain to conceive of. Because I just couldn’t possibly understand his work.

Now, the important note here is that the person I went home to was my senior year roommate. She was a graduate student–normally undergrads and graduate students couldn’t be roommates, but we’d been friends for years, and the tenured faculty-in-residence used his powers for good and permitted us to be roommates that year. Anyway. My senior year roommate was basically… in retrospect I think possibly an avatar of Athena. She was six feet tall, blonde, attractive in a muscular athletic way, a rock climber and racquetball player, sweet but sharp, extremely socially awkward, exceptionally kind even when it cost her to be kind, and an incredibly brilliant computer science major who spent most of her time working on extremely complicated mathematical algorithms. (Yes, I was a little in love with her, why do you ask? But she was as straight as a length of rope, and is now happily married, and so am I, so it worked out.)

(Still, yes, she is my mental image of Athena, to this day.)

Anyway, I came home in a frothing rage to my roommate, the Athena avatar. And I said, “He made me feel like such an idiot, that I could sum up my research to him but his research was just too smart for stupid little me.”

And she shut her book, and smiled at me, with her dark eyes and her high cheekbones and her bright hair, and said, “If he can’t explain his research to you, then he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.”

Now I hesitated, because I’d be in college long enough to have sort of bought into the ridiculous idea that if you couldn’t dazzle them with your brilliance, you should baffle them with your bullshit. But she said, “Look, I’ve been doing work on computer science algorithms that have significantly complicated mathematical underpinnings. What do I do?”

And I said, “Genetic algorithms–that is, self-optimizing algorithms–for prioritization, specifically for scheduling.”

“Right,” she said. “You couldn’t code them because you’re not a computer scientist or a mathematician. But you can understand what I do. If someone can’t explain it like that, it isn’t a problem with you as a person. It’s a problem with them. They either don’t understand it as well as they think they do–or they want to make you feel inferior. And neither is a positive thing.”

So. There.

If you are looking into something and have a question, and someone treats you like an idiot for not understanding right away… here is what I have to say: maybe it isn’t you who is the idiot.

ATTN: ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS EVERYWHERE PLS READ

HEED ATHENA AVATAR’S WORDS BBCAKES EVERYWHERE.

As an academic working in academia: this this this. Never buy into the elitist bullcrap of ‘oh, you wouldn’t understand.’ And never perpetuate that crap yourself, either out of pretension or even simple laziness. If you can’t explain it to a ten-year-old, go back and hit the books again cause you’re not there yet.

thelepidopteragirl:

necrobiologist:

By the way, a cautionary tale

If you find a bunch of bones that are A: untouched and B: supernaturally clean, there is definitely a reason for both of those things. Sometimes that reason is ants. Sometimes those ants are fire ants. Sometimes those fire ants have made a nest over the entire three meter area around those bones

Sounds like someone had an adventure with fire ants

factsinallcaps:

demontadark:

factsinallcaps:

PRESIDENT JOHN QUINCY ADAMS HAD A PET ALLIGATOR HE KEPT IN THE WHITE HOUSE. IT WAS GIVEN TO HIM AS A GIFT BY MARIE-JOSEPH PAUL YVES ROCH GILBERT DU MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE, AKA THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE

i refuse to fact check this because i dont want to be disappointed

YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED ANYWAY, JQA IS LIKE A FUN FACT GOLD MINE

libraryadvocates:

Originally posted by gameraboy

Time to take action, Tumblr! Millions in library funding is in Congress’ crosshairs this week. Help us secure library funding and ask your Representative and Senators to support IAL and LSTA.

Please take a few minutes to email, call or Tweet at your Members of Congress and encourage them to sign the LSTA and IAL funding letters (there are talking points and background information located at our action center, so all you have to do is fill in the form and click send!).

gettysburgaddress:

inoue-takehiko:

evilscum:

deenoverdami:

I want you all to know that an Arab Muslim from Tunis proposed the Theory of Evolution near 600 years before Charles Darwin even took his first breath. Don’t let them erase you.

his name is Ibn Khaldun

Also, it was not the apple falling from a tree that made Issac Newton “discover” gravity. He was reading the books of Ibn Al Haytham, an Arab Muslim from Iraq, who pioneered the scientific method, discovered gravity and wrote about the laws governing the movement of bodies (now known as Newtons three laws of motion) some 600 years before Newton existed. Without him, modern science as we know it wouldn’t exist. Read on him. His achievements are far greater than what I’ve just mentioned here.

#no offense but arabs literally invented chemistry and algebra and we came up with the concept of the camera #the cataract operation that’s still practiced today was invented by an Arab #we created alchemy and the wright brothers used abbas ibn firnas’ findings and writings to build on to create a plane #I could go on and on and on #pls don’t erase our scientific history

calamity-cain:

death-list-five:

fight-0ff-yourdem0ns:

pongoplease:

Like seriously I wish we had a more comprehensive sex education program in the U.S. You know how many guys I know who had no idea an unaroused vagina is only 2-3 inches deep? Or that the cervix raises up when aroused to accommodate dick? Or that if a girl is “tight” that generally means she’s not turned on and you’re shitty in bed? Or that the cervix has an entire cycle it goes through throughout the month where is changes hardness, placement in the vagina, wetness? Like, when you’re ovulating your cervix gets soft and raises high up into the vagina and your hormones get you really horny. It’s like natures way of moving the furniture around and fluffing the pillow for dick because it wants to get pregnant. And before menstruation, it gets really hard and low in the vagina. It’s basically inactivating it’s Facebook and saying “I just need some alone time for a few days”

Ladies and gentlemen, take a moment to learn about vaginas. Men, take an interest into your woman’s menstrual cycle!

U.S. Needs better sex Ed because I’m a 23 year old woman and didn’t even know all of this

Hi I had no idea about the cervical cycle.

God bless this post pls share it far & wide

healxryellow:

thatadhdfeel:

That ADHD feel when you have about 20 tabs open in your internet browser at one time because you can’t focus on anything, but keep finding cool things to read. 

and you know you’ll forget about it if you close the tab so you really cant close any tabs

johnnapaige:

trvp-trvsh:

meredithmeri:

You can’t love someone’s mental illness away.

A little louder for those exhausting themselves every day

!!!!!!!!