Fun Fact: The Plural Form Of Octopus Is Actually Octopodes (oct-op-o-tees) Since Octopus Isn’t An English

tumblrfolk, we are so much more skilled than we think

one thing I want to say today relates to my current job. (As you guys know, I’ve left off working in science labs to work an office job in sci comm. My role is kind of … nebulous and involves a lot of “oh, Elodie can help you with that, she does weird stuff. Train Elodie on that.”)

Because it’s an office job, the mentality is for everyone to present their workflows as incredibly difficult and skilled, requiring a lot of training and experience to do properly. Which is fair enough! These skills are difficult!

“Elodie, today we are going to train you to use… A HIGHLY COMPLICATED AND DIFFICULT WEBSITE INTERFACE. You will need to take a lot of notes and pay careful attention, because it is extremely advanced. ARE YOU READY”

“… This is Wordpress.” “…No it isn’t! it says something different at the top. And it’s very complicated, it’s not something you can just know already.” “Nah son, don’t worry, it’s Wordpress. I mean, God knows I don’t blog much, but I can manage me a bit of Wordpress, it’s cool.”

“No. You can’t. Don’t worry, it’s very difficult. Now sit still and be trained on how to upload a photo to Wordpress.”

“All right.”

—-

“Elodie, do you think that you can MANAGE SOCIAL MEDIA? It is INCREDIBLY HARD and may involve THE HASHTAGS”

“… I think I’ll manage.”

—-

“Elodie, can you put a HYPERLINK in a thing? Think about it before you answer.”

“Is it like a BBCode kind of thing, with the boxy bracket things, or do you want it in HTML, with like angley bracket things?”

“It is a button that you press that says HYPERLINK.”

“I can do this thing for you.”

—-

“Elodie, can you write a punchy summary that will make people want to click on a special link that says “read more” to read all of the text?“

“Probably?”

—-

“Elodie, this is how to use TAGS on CONTENT. TAGS on CONTENT are important because - because of THINGS. Things that are too arcane and mysterious for anyone below the level of Manager to know.”

“Cool, I can tag stuff for you.”

—-

“Elodie, this is obviously a ridiculous question, but can you edit videos?”

“Not very well, and only if you want to make it look like there is sexual tension between characters from different forms of visual media, or perhaps to make a trailer for a fanfiction? Which is not necessarily a good use of my time and I’m not sure why I felt it was so cool to do to begin with…”

“What?”

“Actually, upon further reflection: no. No. Nope. I can’t edit videos. They’re completely beyond me. Not in my wheelhouse. Hate videos. Hate them. No innate skill whatsoever.”

“That’s what we thought”

—-

“Elodie?! You can use PHOTOSHOP?!”

“Yeah, I mean, I usually just use Pixlr. It’s free, it’s online, it’s powerful, you don’t have to download anything…”

“but you are not a GRAPHIC DESIGNER!!” “Er… no.”

“Next you’ll be telling us you can MAKE AN ANIMATED PICTURE.”

“I mean, I haven’t really done a lot of it since Livejournal, and they weren’t that good anyway, but yeah… I can do you reaction images.”

“THAT IS WITCHCRAFT”

“Yes. Definitely.”

—-

What I’m trying to say is: a lot of people talk a lot of crap about what we Millenials do on the Internet, because there is NO CAPITALISTIC VALUE in the screwing around we do with our friends. “Ughh why are you ALWAYS on the computer?” our parents whined.

“How did you make the text go all slanty like that?” our bosses wonder.

We have decades of experience in Photoshop. We know how to communicate; we can make people across the planet care about our problems. We know how to edit media to make two characters look like they’re having the sexual tensions. We can make people read our posts, follow us, share our content. We run and manage our own websites - and make them pretty. We moderate conversations, enforce commenting policies, manage compromises, lead battles, encourage peace, defend ourselves from attack, inspire others, and foster incredible levels of communication.

We produce our art. We advertise our art. We engage with others through our art. We accept constructive criticism and dismiss destructive trolling of our art. We improve our art. Our art gets better.

We narrate our stories.

All by ourselves. Our pretty blog backgrounds, custom-edited themes, tasteful graphics, punchy content, clever gifs, our snappy putdowns and smart-ass text posts, even our familiarity with fonts and composition - all of these skills we’ve casually accumulated for fun/approval are MINDBLOWING LEVELS OF COMPETENCE IN THE WORKFORCE.

When these skills are sold to you - when they’re packaged and marketed, and when you pay to consume them and have the Elders rate you on them - they are incredibly valuable. They are Media and Communications degrees. They are marketing internships. They are leadership workshops. They are graphics design modules. They are web design courses. They are programming courses. We are good at this shit; we have it nailed down.

You can’t put “fandom” or “blogging” on your CV, but you deserve to. You should get this credit. You should claim this power and authority.

Claim these skills. They are valuable. They are important.

Everything you have ever done is a part of your powerful makings.

Things Programmers Shout #454

“A different error message! Finally some progress!” // submitted by @falterfire

The O(1) solution to any problem is to stop trying

“How’s that essay going?”

hobbies masterpost!

a really excellent way to reduce anxiety is to pick up a new hobby. find something you’re interested in, learn it, then use it as a healthy and productive way to cope.

learn to play guitar

learn how to make interactive stories with the free program Twine

learn how to make pixel art

learn another language

learn how to build a ship in a bottle

learn how to develop your own film

learn how to embroider

learn how to make chiptunes (8-bit music)

learn how to make origami (the art of paper folding)

learn how to make tumblr themes

learn how to make jewelry 

learn how to make candy

learn how to make terrariums

learn how to make your own perfume

learn how to make your own tea

learn how to build birdhouses

learn how to read tarot cards

learn how to make zines

learn how to code

learn how to whittle (wood carving)

learn how to make candles

learn how to make clay figurines

learn how to knit scarves

learn how to become an amateur astronomer

learn some yoyo tricks

learn how to start a collection

learn how to start body building

learn how to edit wikipedia articles

learn how to decorate iphone cases

learn how to do freelance writing

learn how to make your own cards and

learn how to make your own envelopes

learn how to play the ukulele 

learn how to make gifs

learn how to play chess

learn how to juggle

learn how to guerrilla garden

learn how to chart your family history

learn how to keep chickens

learn how to do yoga

learn how to do magic tricks

learn how to raise and breed butterflies

learn how to play dungeons & dragons

learn how to skateboard

learn how to do parkour

learn how to surf

learn how to arrange flowers

learn how to make stuffed animals

The thing about programming is that it teaches you that you can flip-flop between feeling like a genius and an idiot considerably faster than you ever expected.

(via fyeahcode)

Consider going into a classroom and looking around, and you’re the only man there. Even if you’re totally ok with that (heck, you expected it), you notice. You feel all the women in the room notice you and see that a lot of them are glancing over at you or making comments about your presence. Ok, you knew that might happen. A woman next to you says, “Hey, cool, a guy in a CS class, good for you.” When it comes time to form a study group, half the women in the class don’t want to work with you because they assume men aren’t as good at CS. The other half jockey to work with you, some for the novelty (“Hey, I’m in a group with the guy, ”) and half because they want to ask you out. When you go to apply for an internship, a lot of companies seem really interested in you, but you’re not sure if it’s because they like your resume or just because you’re a guy in CS and they want to look open and forward thinking by having lots of male interns coding. You meet up with a group of female interns and one makes a slightly sexual joke. Everyone freezes and looks at you - are you one of those guys in CS that is serious and can’t take a joke, or will you be one of the girls? At your job after you graduate, it’s naturally not ok for a woman to say outright that she’s prejudiced against male coders… But maybe your boss gives you slightly different work, or it takes longer for you to get a promotion because they need more proof that you are good - you don’t get the benefit of the doubt the way the girls do. When you express a strong opinion about a tough problem, the women write it off as you being sensitive and emotional - men often are, you know. When discussing your career ambitions, your coworkers often ask you how children play into that - I mean, you’re probably looking for a wife and plan to have kids since you’re in your late 20s. Everyone knows it’s a safe bet that kids are going to derail your career at least temporarily, if not permanently. You frequently police how often you mention family at all for fear people will assume you’re expecting a kid soon… … Does this begin to explain it, at all? Even when a company is open to women working in all areas and no one is a dick, there is still a lot of pervasive bias that affects how women are treated and perceived. Why would you notice? It doesn’t affect you.

Electrostaticrain (Reddit)

“We are assuming here that the user is competent. In reality this is always false. Users are very dumb and will do weird things.”

Intro to Computer Programming Professor (via mathprofessorquotes)

The thing about computer programming is that it’s a complete pain in the ass when you’re trying to figure out the problem, yet when you finally solve it, when you finally have that aha moment, the feeling of accomplishment is unlike anything you’ve felt when you’ve accomplished something. You think holy shit, I can make technology work, and that feeling is totally worth the long stretch of hours or even days when computer programming feels like a pain in the ass.

Book of the week: Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho

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